Day Twenty-Five

"So, take it we're all still ignoring the elephant in the room?" Fatin asked Dot when she woke up on the morning of their twenty-seventh day on the island. Dot nodded, continuing to use the axe to chop up some of the branches for the fire that Toni and Shelby had gone to find.

"I mean, depends which elephant you're talking about," Dot replied, wiping sweat off her brow before turning around to look at Fatin and at Shelby, who had joined them at the edge of the water. "But I assume you mean all of them."

Shelby smiled grimly as she looked back to camp, noticing the two figures sitting alone beside the campfire. She didn't need to be a fly on the wall - or log, was maybe the better term in this scenario - to know that there was not a word of discussion between the duo. It had been like that for two days now and it appeared today wasn't going to be any different.

"Rachel's silence, I get it," Fatin replied, looking glum as she turned back to look at the other two. "She lost her twin, the one person in the world who understood her more than anyone - we saw how co-dependent they were so it makes sense she's hurting this much."

"We're all hurting," Shelby mused but Fatin interupted her point of view.

"Yeah we are, but we didn't lose our literal platonic other half. Think about Hudson and Hunter, you know them both from school, think about how they'd react if the other died - like, we're talking having your entire life ripped apart to an unthinkable level. We don't know that pain, and we probably never will."

The three girls thought over what Fatin had said before the girl finally continued the point she was trying to make. 

"I don't understand what's happened with Hunter," Fatin admitted, almost sounding ashamed of herself for admitting it outloud. She wanted to help her friend but she had no idea where to even start. "She won't even let anyone else near her - not even Toni. I don't even think she's slept. She's also not letting Dot near her to change that stupid bandage on her leg either."

It was true. Ever since Hunter had came to her senses properly after they had used CPR on her, she had refused to let them touch her. They'd assumed she'd at least let her girlfriend comfort her but that only seemed to put Hunter more on edge. She tensed up whenever all of the girls even came within a metre of her - all of them minus one: Rachel.

Hunter had sustained a pretty nasty gash on her leg - maybe from the shark, maybe from rocks... they weren't sure. She wouldn't speak to them and she wouldn't let them near it to get a proper look.

Shelby had noted that Toni had been brushing it off and telling them all that Hunter was fine and that this was just shock. But it had been two days, and it seemed to have no sign of changing. Martha had even mentioned when Toni and Leah were out collecting branches that she was worried the girl was going to go comatose or something. She was barely eating, barely drinking and even though she was letting Rachel near her, it meant almost nothing since they didn't even acknowledge each others presence. 

"It's like she's almost mirroring Rachel," Shelby admitted as she sat down on the sand, letting the water brush over her toes. "Maybe she feels like, guilty. She was out in the water with them too remember. Whatever it is, something is wrong, I agree."

"Well, good luck trying to tell Toni that," Dot muttered, having had an argument with the basketball player the night before as they watched Hunter shiver next to the fire but refuse to lay down with the rest of the girls. "She won't hear it."

"I don't think it's her who needs to hear anything," Fatin muttered, looking over to Hunter for a second as an idea began to form in her head. Shelby looked up at the tone of Fatin's voice from where the girl was standing and instantly knew that this was about to be a disaster.

"Fatin..."

"Where's Toni?" Fatin asked, looking around before looking back at the two other girls. "Is she out with Martha?"

"Yeah, they left not too long ago so won't be back for a while," Dot replied without a second thought before she slowly put the axe down and turned to look at Fatin with a warning in her eyes. "Fatin, don't!"

Shelby sprung to her feet as Dot began to move after Fatin who had taken off towards Hunter. Dot grabbed Fatin's arm tightly, spinning her around and almost snarling in her face.

"Look at me Fatin!" Dot snapped, causing the cello player to spin around and look at her. "I know this tough love approach you have works for Leah, and all her issues, but it won't work for Hunter. We've done this before - it'll just make her shy away more."

Fatin went to argue back but after looking at Shelby's face she knew that Dot was right. Going up and yelling at Hunter wasn't going to make anything any better for anyone - and would probably just make a lot of things worse for them all. 

"Guys, look," Shelby murmured lowly, as if she was worried speaking any louder would spook an animal. Fatin and Dot turned around at the urgency in her voice and noticed that for a second, Rachel had moved and extended her palm towards Hunter. The blonde girl almost seemed to blink at the girl for a moment before extending her own palm towards Rachel. Rachel turned her palm and dropped a few almonds into it, before going back to staring at the fire without saying anything.

"That's... strange," Fatin replied, witnessing the interaction with an eyebrow raised. 

"It's a start," Dot replied, noting that it was the first interaction either of them seemed to have had with anyone let alone each other. "It's a start."

_______

Day Twenty-Six

"Hey Hunt, what's going on in that little cheerleader brain of yours?"

"You don't want to know," Hunter muttered back, her hands threading through the sand at her sides as she stared at her shoelaces. She didn't need to look up to know the others had ceased their activites in surprise at her finally reacting to anything they said to her, but she ignored it nevertheless.

They had started to discuss leaving the beach and moving in-land the previous night, not thinking about the effect that the decision had on both Rachel and Hunter. Rachel didn't want to move from the beach, she wanted to be there incase Nora walked out. Hunter wanted to be as far away from the beach as possible. She didn't want a reminder of how she had failed Nora and Rachel.

"Why don't you take a walk with me and we can talk about it?"

There was a heavy pause in the camp as Hunter nodded, standing up and brushing the sand off her dry knees. She looked around at the camp for a second, before her eyes settled on a black, blue and yellow sweater. She went to reach for it, before almost drawing back on herself and instead wrapping her arms around her torso.

Fatin and Toni both reached for the sweater almost out of instict. Fatin nodded at Toni and withdrew her hand as the dark haired girl held up the sweater for Hunter to take.

"You can have it, Hunts. You don't need to ask. Never," Toni murmured, her breathing almost pausing for a second as Hunter reached out and took the sweater from her hand. It was the first time Hunter had properly acknowledged her since almost drowning (other than flinching any time Toni had gotten close to her).

Leah stood at the side of the group as she waited for Hunter to join her. She was pretty surprised that Hunter had agreed to even go a walk with her, and it seemed the rest of the camp was too. Toni almost went to go after them as they started to walk away, worried that Leah's mental state was going to make things worse for Hunter but Martha held her back.

Had it been anyone else holding her back, Toni would have just shrugged them off. She couldn't do that to Martha though - the bond between them was so sacred and she would do anything to keep it intact. 

Hunter and Leah walked into the trees with a comfortable silence between them. Hunter wasn't sure why she agreed to go with Leah, but she knew that there was comfort in knowing that she wasn't the only one struggling on the island. Sure, everyone was finding it hard but Fatin, Toni, Martha, Shelby and Dot seemed to be holding themselves together pretty well at the moment when compared to herself, Rachel and Leah. Defintely better than Nora was doing.

"She trapped me in a pit," Leah spoke after a moment, her voice deflated and defeated. "Right here. I swear, there was a pit and I swear I caught her talking to someone."

Hunter had heard Leah's theories. It was Leah's theories that had caused Nora to be startled on the beach. It was Leah's theories that had given her a punch in the jaw, it was Leah's theories that had given her her own doubts before she watched a shark bite Rachel's arm off, it was Leah's theories that had driven them apart before it all went wrong. It was Leah's theories that had caused her to watch the girl slowly drive herself insane.

Hunter looked down at the ground, before swallowing a lump in her throat as she saw the pain and tears in Leah's eyes. The girl hadn't asked her to go for a walk to talk about why Hunter wasn't doing well but she had asked her for a walk in the hopes that at least one of the girls would believe her.

"Leah, I love you but I think its best you stop thinking about this," Hunter murmured gently. "Nora is gone now. Whatever she did or didn't do, that's gone with her."

Leah was going to argue back, but Hunter moved forward and wrapped her friend in a cautious hug. She wrapped her arms gently back around the girl, unsure why she had suddenly decided to touch her after having seemingly reverted back to her old ways.

Hunter didn't know what to say to Leah - because she noticed the dirt. She wrapped her in a hug and shot down her theories because she noticed the dirt. She noticed the dirt that they stood on and the dirt that surrounded them. She noticed the way Leah's hands had ripped through the dirt in desperation to find something that proved she wasn't lying. She noticed the dirt that lay where the supposed pit was. Hunter noticed the dirt.

And the dirt was different where they stood. 

_____

Day Twenty-Eight

"Take a run with me?"

Toni looked up as a shadow cast over her, squinting slightly as Hunter stood in front of the sun that had been hitting her skin. The girl looked to Martha, who she had been talking to, for approval before standing up and smiling at Hunter.

There had been an unspoken agreement amongst the five girls that were handling the past week better than the three that hadn't. If either Rachel, Leah or Hunter asked for anything reasonable, they would drop everything for them. If it meant that the three girls got better, it was what they would do.

Toni barely had time to tighten her ponytail before Hunter turned on her heel and began her jog towards the tree line. The girl had been doing the route twice a day before the shark attack, and they'd been surprised to see her pick it up again the morning prior, especially since it seemed that she was still in a significant amount of pain and discomfort from the wound on her leg that wasn't appearing to get much better. Fatin had accompanied her yesterday (although after returning informed them all that it would NOT be happening again), and Toni had secretly been jealous as she watched Hunter interact with her friend.

It had seemed like Hunter had been interacting with everyone but herself. She didn't really understand why but she knew that she must have seen something when she thought she was going to drown, and Toni had a gut feeling it had something to do with Riley Black. It wasn't something she had voiced outloud to the others in fear of Hunter overhearing, but she was an impatient person and not knowing what was going through her girlfriends head was killing her.

"Hey! Can we slow down for a second, not all of us are in as good shape as you," Toni shouted about ten minutes into their run. The girl was used to running as training for basketball, but Hunter was a professional at speed and endurance compared to Toni. Hunter slowed to a halt, turning around and watching as Toni used her hand to lean against a tree and catch her breath.

Hunter had avoided spending time looking at Toni since day twenty three. She was constantly worried that the other girl would look at her in disgust and disappointment for not being able to save Nora. She could handle it from everyone - anyone - else, but not from Toni. So she had been distancing herself from her but the dark haired girl was making it harder and harder for her to do. Her arms almost locked in on the bruises on Toni's arm that she hadn't noticed before, taking a cautious step towards the girl without looking away from them.

Toni followed her eyeline, looking at the hand shaped bruise around her forearm that Hunter was looking at with deep worry. She almost moved her hand to cover it, but felt Hunter's fingers interlock with her own and pull it back so that she could study it. Her spare hand lightly ran over the bruises on Toni's arm as she swallowed a lump in her throat.

"Did I..."

"God, no!" Toni interupted, realising that Hunter thought she had done it to Toni when she had been in and out of conciousness after almost drowning. "Fatin and Shelby were holding me back so tightly from diving in after you that it bruised... but they didn't mean it! It's nothing."

And finally, Hunter snapped.

"It's not nothing, Toni!" She yelled, turning away from the girl as she kicked at a branch on the ground. Toni raised an eyebrow, not having seen Hunter react that way before. "You got hurt because of ME! Rachel is hurting because of ME! Because I couldn't save Nora! She watched her fucking twin drown because I couldn't just hold on to Rachel without freezing up at the sight of that much blood!"

"Hunter..."

"Because all I could fucking see when I looked at the blood coating Rachel was Riley fucking Black and I froze and now Nora is dead because of me!"

There was a silence between them for a moment as Hunter heaved and Toni stood with wide eyes, not having expected that to be the reason Hunter had been avoiding them all. It wasn't becuase she was scared about almost dying or the shark, it was because she had been blaming herself for Nora dying, for Rachel losing an arm and a twin, and becuase the others were greiving.

Just as Toni went to say something, Hunter crouched down and to the side, heaving up the contents of her stomach. It wasn't much since she had barely been eating since they lost Nora, but Toni was at her side in an instant, holding back her hair and rubbing her back. 

"I've got you, it's okay," Toni murmured in her ear, continuing to rub Hunter's back even after the throwing up stopped. "I've got you, and its okay Hunts. I've got you now."

Hunter leaned back against Toni's chest, finally allowing the tears she had been holding back to fall against her cheeks. She turned in her girlfriend's arms, tucking her head into Toni as the girl gently rocked them back and forth on the forest floor.

"I've got you, and I'm not letting you go."

______

Leah and Hunter stood side by side as they looked at the monitors hanging up in front of them. Leah turned to look at Hunter with wide eyes, pointing frantically at the screen after hearing what the girl had just said outloud.

"Wait, Hudson as in YOUR BROTHER?"

"Yes Leah!" Hunter snapped back, not meaning to be rude but feeling an overwhelming sense of dread filling her body as she moved closer to the screen. Her mind wandered back to Hudson beating up Riley back in Texas but instead she was watching the same scene play out on what looked like an abandonded island much like the one they had been trapped on. 

"And that boy he's beating up..."

"That's Riley," Hunter spat out, although Leah noticed the way her voice wavered at the end. "Fucking hell, that's Hudson and Riley."

They both paused as they continued to take in all the action they were witnessing on the screens in front of them.

"Wait... if this is what we think it is..." Leah began but Hunter cut her off as her eyes grew wide and she turned to look at the girl that she had doubted for so long.

"We aren't the only ones here," Hunter finished, spinning back around to look at the screen with tears in her eyes. "You were right, Leah. You were fucking right about that place."