Day Seven

Fatin

"You know, I really didn't expect you to say yes when I asked if you wanted to come with me," Fatin told her as she watched Hunter rip some more of the material that formed the long sleeves of the sweatshirt.

The blonde shrugged, having not said much since Fatin had suggested almost two hours prior that they should mark their path so that they wouldn't get lost in the forest. She was rather tired, having not slept at all all night due to her mind constantly comparing Toni's anger to Riley's and causing her to question everything.

"I guess I just didn't want to have to see Toni," Hunter admitted after a pause long enough that Fatin had began to think she wasn't going to get an answer from the Texan. It still amused the cellist how different her, Dot and Shelby's accents were from each other despite being from the same town - something she was quite intrigued by but not intrigued enough to ever actually ask about. "Her behaviour just kinda... freaked me out a bit."

Fatin nodded, telling from the way that Hunter trailed off that she had no intention of talking about her reasoning. She was going to make a comment teasing her about only caring about Toni but knew that Hunter wasn't in the mood to joke about or have a deep conversation.

"Do you think they'll be annoyed at us for taking the coke and leaving?" Hunter asked as Fatin ripped off a piece of her bloodied purple leggings, the Texan looking at the long gash on her friend's leg in surprise as she hadn't been around for Leah shoving Fatin in anger and cutting her. Fatin was quite glad she wasn't, cause she was tuned very well into how acts of violence seemed to cause Hunter to withdraw into herself.

"Oh, fuck yeah," Fatin laughed before turning around and seeing the guilt spread across Hunter's face. She sighed before smiling at the girl and encouraging her to walk deeper into the forest. "Besides, it doesn't really matter cause once we find water, they can't talk shit."

Hunter nodded, realising that Fatin had a point before continuing with their trek. She narrowly avoided a patch of quicksand, tugging Fatin back just before the girl stepped into it herself. The two of them might not have had the survival skills that Dot had, but they had each other and a willingness to do something good for once - and that was enough.

___

"How concerned are we that none of them are back yet?" Shelby asked as the girls all sat around the campfire that morning, all very aware that Fatin, Toni and Hunter had left the camp during the night and had not returned - or in Toni's case, just never came back to being with. "Cause personally, I'm at like a solid seven."

Martha looked at Shelby in slight annoyance as the blonde turned to look at her, wanting her to say something comforting about Toni being gone for so long since she knew her best. None of them really knew enough about Fatin to know if this was usual behaviour for her, and Shelby and Dot both knew that this was slightly out of character for the old Hunter but that she had been prone to a lot of erratic decisions in the weeks before getting on to the plane so they couldn't rule it out.

"If you're wondering if I'm worried about Toni, just don't okay? She's not my business anymore," Martha replied, trying to hide the fact that there was a tiny bit of her that was slightly concerned about Toni's whereabouts but knowing that the part of her that was more annoyed at her fucking up again was triumphing in her mind.

"Okay, well there's also Fatin," Shelby pointed out, knowing everyone was already annoyed at the girl.

"She stole two cans of our water supply, so pretty sure she doesn't deserve a place in our thoughts and prayers," Leah snarked, not in the mood to argue as to why they should be out looking for Fatin when she was annoyed at the girl still for not helping to build the shelter. 

"We don't technically know it was her," Shelby pointed out while everyone else disagreed and said it was her. "Look, it could have been Hunter too."

"Oh, it was certainly both of them," Leah said before holding up the bracelet she had found in Faitn's case. The girls were going through all the clothes in her and Hunter's suitcases, trying to find new things to wear or use that they hadn't had a chance to look at yet. Shelby noticed a familiar maroon jersey, grabbing it as she knew Hunter would want it as soon as she saw it. "Besides, this sums up how much Fatin cares about our welfare."

Everyone looked at the necklace that Leah was showing them, all smiling slightly as the words gleamed from the sunlight: zero fucks.

____

"Alex, you good?" Gretchen called out as she looked at the employee who seemed to have a deep-rooted hatred for his boss. He looked up from where he had been watching the computer screens, a slight scowl on his face as he took in the woman who was addressing him and gave her a curt nod. "But are you? I just thought as someone who has become very invested in the welfare of our participants, you'd be pretty concerned about our rogue girls."

"If I'm permitted to speak honestly, I don't know why we haven't sent someone in to find them."

"Well amongst other reasons, this is Fatin and Hunter we're talking about. Fatin is not some wilting flower, my friend. She is much steelier than you think. Hunter's a dark horse too, she's survived much worse."

___

"You know it's weird right? Like why would Fatin's shirt be all ragged and bloody?" Toni asked as she lead the group of girls into the trees, taking them to where she was when she had made the discovery of the bloodied fabric hooked on a tree branch.

"Well, maybe because Leah went apeshit on her too yesterday," Rachel snapped, causing everyone to look at Leah in slight distain. It seemed as if there was an anger going around that not only Toni had caught a case of.

"Okay, there was not that much blood and I did not tear her fucking pants," Leah snapped back, rolling her eyes as she refused to take any responsibility for the scenario they were finding themselves in.

"Yeah, well that's what got me worried," Toni told them all, causing everyone to start fearing the worst about the girl. They still weren't 100% sure if Fatin was with Hunter, but there was still a concern for the missing Texan too.

"You think something attacked her?"

"Don't Shelb," Martha interupted, bitterness in her voice as she glared at the back of Toni's head. "Don't let her work you up. This is probably just a  distraction to make us forget all the shit YOU pulled on us."

"Yeah, nah," Toni said, not rising to the bait as she was more concerned for her friends now, having ran until all the anger left her body during the night. "This isn't about me. This is where I found it, lying here."

"All right, if she had been mauled by an animal, there wouldn't just be a single scrap, okay?" Dot told them all, reasoning with them as everyone started to get a little more worked up. "There'd be like a fucking crime scene."

"Still, I don't see her voluntarily ripping her Givenchy," Shelby pointed out, causing everyone to nod in agreement before Nora's eyes narrowed on to something that the rest of them had all missed. The girl moved forward slightly, her fingers rubbing the ground as she pulled out a white piece of fabric, faint lettering running down the side of it.

"I don't know if she ripped it voluntarily, or if someone else has," Nora told them all, turning around and holding it up in plain sight for the others to see. Everyone instantly knew who it belonged to, a mix of relief and concern washing over them all as they took in the new information. Fatin was with Hunter, which was either a really good thing as it meant they were together, or it was a really bad thing if they had been fighting to the point of ripping each other's clothes.

"At least we know they're together - or at least were," Toni said before looking around at everyone else. "So what do we do?"

_____

"Leah spins until she's untethered. Toni angers, of course until she inevitably self-destructs. Fatin, when she's concerned or hurt, disappears! Hunter just zones out. Which is what we are witnessing right now, and why we are holding off on any intervention. Alex, could I bother you to go upstairs into the AV room and check the projector? I can't figure out why some of these images are so pixilated."

Gretchen walked to the screen, sitting down as she sighed deeply as ran a hand across her face. She felt Audrey approach her, sitting down at her flank as she too studied the screen.

"I read the dossiers," Audrey told her, knowing the woman had just lied to them all. "They're not following typical behaviour pattern."

"No," Gretchen admitted. "Hunter does not just zone out, and Fatin does not disappear when provoked."

____

"So, how did you end up here?" Fatin asked, pushing branches to the side and holding them so that they didn't hit Hunter as the blonde walked behind her. They'd been sharing small talk as they trekked further into the forest, but Fatin was now bored of that.

Hunter shrugged a little before realising that Fatin couldn't see her from behind the girl. She smiled slightly as she thought about Hunter before grimacing at the events that had lead to her ending up on that plane against her will.

"I got in some... trouble," Hunter said, rubbing the hair tie on her wrist as she answered the girl. "Me and Hudson, we thought we had it under control, that we had it all figured out. But our parents, who hate us by the way, found out and they decided the only way to handle the situation - handle me - was to send me here to get me out of their hair for a while and away from the chance to damage 'our family name'."

Fatin nodded, not knowing what the trouble Hunter had gotten into was but also knowing that their situations seemed similar with their parents both just shipping them off so that they didn't need to deal with anymore bad reputation in their family's name.

"Bitch same," Fatin said, causing Hunter to raise an eyebrow as she thanked Fatin for holding another branch for her to duck under. "Long story short, I caught my dad sending other woman dick pics, sent them to his entire contact list and my parents didn't take it lightly. Sent me here without warning and now I don't think they even want me to ever come home."

Hunter paused and looked at Fatin in surprise, aware that the girl could be a savage sometimes but she didn't expect her to have exposed her own father's nudes to get revenge for him cheating on her mother. Hunter was kind of impressed, knowing that it must have taken some amount of balls to do that.

Just before Fatin could say anything, Hunter slipped as she overtook the girl who was holding the branch for her. Fatin yelled out in surprise as Hunter skidded down a slight hill, groaning as she smacked her head slightly against one of the trees as she went down. The girl was barely aware of Fatin stumbling down after her as she looked in front of her in utter awe, while the other girl seemed to worried about Hunter to notice what the blonde had.

"Shit, you're bleeding," Fatin whispered, reaching out a hand to touch Hunter's head before pulling it back as she remembered the girl's adverse reactions in the past to people touching her. "Here."

Fatin ripped off another bit of her shirt, passing it to Hunter who accepted it without saying anything. She was still in shock at what Fatin was somehow not noticing.

"Fatin," Hunter whispered, the awe in her voice causing Fatin's heart to pause. "Look."

All the girls could do was let out surprised and relieved laughs as they noticed what they had literally stumbled across. Hunter smiled before hugging the girl, surprising both herself and Fatin before the cheerleader quickly pulled back and tried to act like it didn't happen. Fatin smiled behind her back, knowing that not only had they just overcame a major milestone in their friendship but that they had just finally found a source of fresh flowing water.

They'd found a fucking waterfall.

____

"FATIN! HUNTER!" 

"Hey-oooo!" Fatin exclaimed as she heard the girls shouting, having been starting to follow the trail of nail polish and fabric that her and Hunter had made throughout the night. She and Hunter had decided the girl would stay there, since her head was still slightly sore and so that Fatin would be able to find her when she brought everyone else back with her to the waterfall. "What's up? What the hell happened to you?"

She studied them all with a slight disgust, noticing how they were all covered head to toe in thick grey mud. She assumed it must've been the quicksand that Hunter had managed to avoid them both stepping into, but she didn't want to make any assumptions at all.

"Is that nail polish?" Shelby asked, slight anger in her tone as she looked at the bottle that Fatin had been using to mark trees, thinking that the girl they had spent all day hunting for had just been painting her nails while they were worrying.

"Is this what you've been doing? Painting your fucking gel tips?"

"We've been out of our skulls looking for you - and Hunter too."

"And all this time you've been treating yourself to a  goddamn mani-pedi?" Shelby finished as they all went in on her, fed up and annoyed that she seemingly hadn't even been doing anything useful with their time.

"Okay, are you done?" Fatin asked with a slight attitude, annoyed that they just assumed she would put them through unnecessary concern for her. She knew that they didn't really mean what they were saying and that they'd feel instantly bad as soon as they saw the waterfall, but it still annoyed her nevertheless. "Because we have something to show you."

"We?" Toni asked, not even attempting to hide the urgency in her voice. "Hunter is here too?"

"Obviously," Fatin replied as she painted an 'X' on the nearest tree, everyone suddenly more surprised as they watched the girl. She turned to look at Toni over her shoulder with a slight grin. "She's cut her head, of course, since she's the most accident prone person ever but she's here too. I wouldn't have just left her."

The girls all followed behind Fatin cautiously as she joyfully lead them back to the waterfall, her eyes latching on where Hunter had started to have a little swim in the water. She had been unable to wait for everyone else to get there, since it was so goddamn hot in the dry heat. They all gasped as they saw the waterfall, looking down at Hunter with huge grins as the girl waved at them.

Hunter's eyes met Toni, and her smile faltered for a second before Toni was distracted by everyone racing to get down to the waters edge and jump in the way that Hunter had. While Hunter had stripped down to her bikini that she had been wearing under her clothes, the rest barely wasted anytime changed and instead took the plunge fully clothed. This waterfall didn't just mean drinking water, but water for washing their clothes properly too. Besides, they were all pretty much disgusting from the quicksand anyway.

"Is this what you guys went looking for?" Leah asked once they were all in the water with the exception of Fatin who was sitting on the bank watching them all. "The water, I mean."

"I don't know," Fatin answered truthfully before smiling at Hunter as she remembered the hug they had shared hours before. "Yeah. No. I was just trying to find something useful. Hunter was just needing air."

"Good hustle, marking the path like you did!" Dot told the two, both of them grinning as they thought about their poor ripped up clothes.

"Yeah, that was all Fatin's idea," Hunter admitted, a grin on her face as she looked at the other girl. "Even if I did have to do the first rip of the Givenchy while she couldn't look."

"Shut up," Fatin teased before looking back at Dot. "What good would the water have done us if we couldn't find it again? And you're the fucking broken record about how easy it is to get lost."

Dot started clapping as Fatin watched Hunter start to consider getting out of the water and back into her dry clothes. She smiled at the girl, holding her hand out slightly as an offer incase she needed a hand onto the rocks.

"Yeah, and you know what?" Dot exclaimed as she yelled up at Fatin with a grin on her face. "I have never been prouder!"

Everyone seemed to pause as they all witnessed Hunter slip her hand into Fatin's allowing the girl to pull her up from the water and back on to dry land. There was a slight look between the rest of them as they noticed not only did the girl just let Fatin touch her - but they'd all just had what would be their first glance at the skin on her right hand side at the bottom of her torso. Hunter had made a point of not really undressing around them, and Toni knew now that it was because she obviously had been attempting to avoid questions.

Toni knew it was rude to stare, but she also couldn't take her eyes away from the marks.

"Hey, what happened to your side? Those are some pretty nasty looking burns?" Rachel asked, causing Leah to shoot her a glance at how unsubtle she was. Hunter froze as she tugged her shorts back on, completely forgetting that they might have seen the three small scars when she was getting out of the water.

"Oh, it's nothing, I just got hot wax spilt on me a few weeks ago when I was getting a bikini wax," Hunter stuttered, everyone nodding as they took in the lie that fell from her mouth.

Toni couldn't take her eyes off where she had seen the three, circular scars on Hunter's side because she had a sudden realisation - something that changed everything she thought she knew about the blonde. She'd seen scars like that enough in her life to know that they weren't caused by hot wax but rather by a cigarette being put out on your skin. And after everything she'd learned from their week on the island together, Toni had the sinking feeling she knew exactly why Hudson had beaten Riley to a pulp before they all wound up on that plane.

____

"Hey, you," Toni said as she sat down on the sand beside Hunter, trying not to notice how the girl stiffened slightly at the sound of the basketball players voice. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry, for the fighting yesterday."

Hunter nodded, leaning her head on her knees as she pulled them into her chest, wrapping her arms tightly around them. Toni's eyes subconsciously drifted back to her side where she had seen the cigarette burns prior, but she hadn't said anything to the girl - especially as they had just discovered that Jeanette's grave was completely empty with no body in sight.

"You should come into the shelter, I know it's a bit cramped but it's gonna get real cold out here now that the sun has gone down," Toni said, trying to get the girl to say anything to her, or even look at her. If her suspicions were right, she knew exactly why the girl wasn't looking at her or talking to her after her outburst from the night before.

Hunter refused to answer her, or even acknowledge that she had heard what Toni had just said. The raven haired girl felt a slight hint of anger but pushed it down, trying to find some... control before she ended up doing something she regretted.

"Look, I'm not like him okay?" Toni finally said, her voice gentle and quiet as she tried to ease the conversation. "I promise, I just got angry. I'm not like him, Hunter."

Hunter tensed up, all of her muscles locking in place as her brain began to panic. Toni couldn't have known about Riley. No-one knew about Riley except from Hudson - and it wasn't like he would have been able to tell the girl. No-one could know, or they'd just see her for what she truly was: broken.

"Excuse me?" Hunter asked, her voice sharp and low, a hidden warning in it that if Toni heard, she chose to ignore. "I don't know what you're on about."

"Riley," Toni spoke, causing Hunter to spring from where she was sitting, her chest heaving slightly as she realised that Toni knew the one secret she didn't want anyone to know. Toni raised her hands in front of her, palms facing Hunter to show that she meant no harm.

"Don't fucking come near me again," Hunter swore, her voice loud enough to have caught everyone else's attention from the entrance to their shelter. They all started to get ready to move in to break up a fight between the girls if they had to, but before Toni could even try to explain herself to Hunter, the blonde was off.

She turned on her heel and took off down the beach. the other survivors all watching as she tied her hair into a high ponytail with one swoop of her hand. Fatin went to rise to her feet to go after her, but Shelby and Dot both stopped any of them from chasing the girl as Toni walked back to the shelter.

"I don't know what you said to her, but good going," Shelby sarcastically told the basketball player who already felt bad enough as it was for obviously bringing traumatic memories back to her.

"She's done this before, at like cheer practice and games and stuff," Dot told them all, noticing how they all quirked an eyebrow at her knowing that. "What? I'm good at observing."

"Yeah, she'll come back," Martha said, everyone now looking at her in surprise. The girl shrugged before she lifted her hand, showing them the leather band that she had picked up. "She left her brother's band here, and she never has been without it since we got here."

"Martha's right, we can't go after her now - especially as there's no light. The best we can do is hope that she does a Toni and not a Fatin and comes back in the morning," Rachel said, everyone nodding.

They just had to hope they were right about Hunter. They just had to hope she cared too much to not come back.

____

"Okay, that's Fatin done with for now," Faber said as he shut the case file, checking his watch as he looked back at Agent Young who had just done the same. "Right on schedule. Let's get lunch, then have the next girl come in?"

Agent Young nodded as he pushed his chair in, lifting Fatin's case file from the desk in front of him as they both exited the room. Fatin had been a little more closed off than they expected, especially about Leah's concerns and paranoia, but they knew that they might have an even harder time trying to get the next girl to speak.

"Anything to note, off record?" Agent Young asked as they walked down the wall, passing one of the nurses that had been helping with the girls and their various issues - physical and psychological.

"Yeah," Faber replied, checking his notes before looking back at the man. "Nurses have said she's pretty defensive about the scar on her face, so its probably best not to stare."

As they passed another nurse, Agent Young held out a hand as him and Faber continued on their way to get lunch.

"Hey, can you make sure she's awake?" He asked as he passed her the file, the woman nodding as she looked at the number on the front and instantly knowing she had been given either a really easy job or a hard one - depending on what mood the girl was in.

Faber didn't want to admit it, but he had been looking forward to this one: it was finally time for Hunter Boyd's interrogation.