╔═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╗
— DAY SIX —
season one, episode four, part one

❝...𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐣𝐨𝐤𝐞.❞

─── • ───

TONI SHALIFOE

The room was quiet, except for the sound of her uneven breathing. Toni Shalifoe stared at the ceiling, disoriented by the sudden quiet after the exhilaration of their rescue, and, to her horror, an unwelcome pressure built behind her eyes. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, trying to keep the tears at bay. Memories of her old foster homes, of strange bedrooms and new faces flashed in her mind, along with the usual dread, and a terrible, overwhelming loneliness.

Toni was tired of being untethered, tired of being kept from the one person she wished to see. She gritted her teeth, willing herself to remain calm during her interrogation later in the day. Still, in the pit of her stomach, she stoked the fires of anger, forcing herself to think of her mother, of broken promises. This was her way of fighting back the tears, and it helped; it always did...

Not long after, she was escorted from her room by a man she didn't recognize, and the agents were nowhere to be seen as Toni was instructed to walk to the end of hallway. Her breath was shallow, her eyes surveying. The common room was empty as she walked passed it, yet even the silence wasn't enough to dismiss how pleased Toni was to no longer be confined to the four walls of her dull room.

Her hands were hidden deep inside her pockets as she reached the end of the hallway at last, though her eyes were drawn beyond the closed door to her right. Instead, Toni's eyes marvelled at the sight of an rundown, old-school vending machine tucked into the corner, attracting her with a sense of nostalgia. There was a diffuse sensation of warmth in her chest as she took a step closer to it.

With a smile, Toni noticed how the machine was packed with Hot Cheetos and Takis, Big Red gum and some fruit punch Little Hugs. Her eyes lingered on the purple bag, lips watering, before she picked up the Takis and opened them to inhale the spicy artificial cheese flavoring. She popped one into her mouth and sat down in front of the vending machine, relishing in the simplicity of such a deprived luxury.

Her moment of bliss didn't last much longer, however, as Faber and Agent Young had finally ventured outside of the closed door to greet her. Toni finished off the bag of Takis before she walked into the interrogation room, not offering so much as a one-worded response to the agent's words of greeting. Taking this as a sign as to not pity her as they did the others, Faber and Agent Young found themselves wasting no time in starting their questioning, eventually pulling out a photograph of the black box which Toni and the girls recovered from the wreckage on day three.

"This is the black box you're familiar with, correct?" Agent Young began, sliding the photograph across the table, placing it in Toni's line of vision. "Supposedly equipped with a GPS beacon."

Toni tried to bite back an amused smile, and Faber was quick to notice this peculiar reaction to the photograph.

"Why does seeing that make you smile?"

"I... I don't mean to, it's just..." Toni trailed off with a laugh, getting comfortable in the metal chair, trying to find a word for what they'd experienced. "That thing was such a cocktease."

Faber and Agent Young shared a confused glance.

"Uh..." Faber cleared his throat. "I'm wondering if you can expand on 'cocktease'?"

"Like, we were so hyped when we got it," Toni clarified herself, smiling at how naive her and the others were at the time. "We thought that rescue would show up right away, but three days go by and nothing. It just started to feel like a sick joke..."

─── • ───

The humid heat had started to become a problem on the island by day six, hanging thick in the air. Rainstorms left the skies overcast and muted, with clouds so dark that it was nearly impossible to believe that the sky was still a shade of blue underneath.

To make matters worse, the cave that Dot and Shelby had scouted turned out to be a bust. The temperature inside was definitely a concern at first, but ultimately it was the bats that served as the bone of contention; so much so that the group had only made it forty-eight hours before they were packing up and trekking back to the old location. Now, as it was, Blaire sat next to Leah on their self-assembled raft, watching as Martha frolicked around the sand in front of them, her ankle outwardly without a scrape.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Blaire fanned at herself, desperately trying to cool herself off. "But I actually miss the cold New York weather."

"The weather in this place is spastic," Leah looked up from her ex-lover's book, pleasantly surprised that her and Blaire had the chance to speak. "Like, how can it be this hot and this windy at the same time?"

"No fucking idea," Blaire let out a small giggle, digging her bare feet into the warm sand. "But, with the way Dot's been rationing the Diet Cokes, we'll blow through our stashes by the end of the week. Thirst is such a bitch, you know? Like, it's a slow fucking killer, for sure," she let on, her dark eyes watching Martha from afar while Leah's attention fell back to her book. Without realizing it, Blaire's gaze wandered back over to the Rilke girl, whose eyes were once again vacant.

"I can feel you staring," Leah spoke up, with a lighthearted edge to her tone as she turned back to meet Blaire's eyes. "What, something on my face?"

"No, you're good," Blaire fidgeted absentmindedly with the rings on her fingers. "And I wasn't staring, I just — you always have that dejected look in your eyes, and it's just something I've noticed, I guess."

"That's ironic, 'cause I could say the same thing about you," Leah considered the girl's words for a moment before chuckling softly. "I mean, not right now, but I've seen it."

Blaire felt herself reach for the locket around her neck, clinging to it for a sense of comfort before she drew a shaky breath.

"The will to live is a fickle fucking thing," she shrugged, drawing her legs to her chest, hugging them close to her. "Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. So I guess I'm just trying to figure out what that means. Sorry if that's, like, morbid or whatever..."

Leah closed her book and sighed, "You don't have anything to apologize for, Blaire," she admitted, and there was a sudden unspoken camaraderie that stirred between them. "I know what you mean."

"Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one," Blaire smiled softly. "Now, at least, we can be psychos together," she quipped, turning her attention back onto Martha, the girl still twirling jovially around the sand. "Was that a piqué turn I just saw?" the New Yorker asked, her voice laced with slight enthusiasm.

"Everyone on Dancing With The Stars always made it look so easy." Martha shook her head with a laugh, resting a hand at her hips. "The tribal dances we learn back home were never this complicated."

"It's not too bad, but you've gotta know how to do the proper footwork first." Blaire explained, giggling, before standing up from her spot on the raft. "Here, I'Il teach you," she dusted the sand from her hands.

"Okay, show me first what it's supposed to look like." Martha insisted, and Blaire took a step back, executing the skill perfectly by stepping directly on the pointe of her working foot, raising the other in the air. The turn was something she learned fairly early on, so she was certain that Martha would have no problem getting it.

"All right, ready?" Blaire raised her eyebrows, motioning for Martha to come and stand beside her. "So this is normally done in pointe shoes, but I think we'll be okay without them. The move begins with a step onto a straight leg, then just turn your body towards the supporting foot," she instructed, demonstrating slowly, as she explained the steps.

"Like this?" Martha attempted the turn on her own.

Blaire found herself smiling, not at how Martha did the piqué turn but how carefree she looked while doing it. In truth, it brought back memories of when she'd used to dance for the love it, not because she had something to prove to everyone but herself.

"BLAIRE! Daydreaming won't get you onto Broadway!"

"That's not good enough! You can do better, Blaire."

"DO IT AGAIN! We're not done here until I say we are!"

With a shake of her head, Blaire tried to rid Miss Diane's critiquing voice from her thoughts, keeping her focus on Martha, who kept turning in front of her.

"Close, but the toe of your retiré foot should be at the back of your knee," Blaire crossed her arms slackly over her abdomen, watching closely as the Native American took her correction and went for the trick once more. "There it is! Looks like Julianne Hough has some competition," she jested, hooking her thumbs through the belt loops of her shorts.

"Leah, watch this, it doesn't even hurt!" Martha called out to the other brunette, who had thrown herself back into the pages of her book. "I don't even feel it," she beamed after performing the turn again.

"Woah!" Leah released a soft laugh while glancing down at the girl's ankle. "Oh, you took your splint off."

"Yeah, I feel like a brand new woman." Martha shrugged, tossing down the stick she'd been toting around ever since they left the cave that morning. "I wonder if I'll actually say that and mean it one day."

"I kind of hope not." Leah cringed outwardly, her blue eyes squinted as the wind rolled in from the sea. "A brand new woman? They only say that in old shampoo commercials."

"Well, you get what I mean." Martha articulated, sitting down alongside Leah on the raft. "I want to be changed by something."

"What, you don't think being stranded on a deserted island will do the trick?" Blaire asked sarcastically, plopping down next to the Native American girl so she could pull her crop-top over her head, revealing one of Fatin's red bikini tops underneath in attempts to keep her cool. "I don't know, I think being a castaway is pretty life-changing. But hey, maybe that's just me," she laughed, nudging Martha and Leah on the arms before she stood again. "All right, I'm going for a swim. It's too fucking hot out here for a New Yorker. Don't miss me too much while I'm gone, though, yeah?"

"We'll try not to," Martha feigned a pout as she waved goodbye, and Blaire flashed a smile as she walked down the shoreline, her bare feet sinking into the wet sand with every step. Now, a few yards away from the campsite, she stumbled upon Fatin, Shelby and Nora, each of whom had the same idea she did.

"Mind if I join you?" Blaire asked, making her presence known, as she slipped into the water, her movements causing ripples as she moved closer to the other three. She felt herself breathe out a sigh of relief at the cold temperature of the ocean, and she walked out until the water reached just above her knees, below her shorts.

"You know, I'm going to to have rethink this whole 'sharing clothes' thing," Fatin gaped at the New Yorker as she drew closer. "Like bitch, I don't know whether to be turned on by how good you look in that bikini," she winked at Blaire teasingly. "Or pissed off because of how much better it looks on you."

(A/N: photo reference <33)

"Hello to you too, Jadmani," Blaire replied with a smirk, and she briefly noticed the way Shelby's eyes wandered across the faded tattoo on her ribcage out of the corner of her eye. With her eyebrows quirked towards the Texan, Shelby merely smiled shyly and turned back to Nora, who was floating on her back next to her; they were wearing their everyday clothes, with the sleeves and shorts rolled, while Fatin had dressed herself in a two-piece aqua bikini, looking almost as though it was a regular day at the beach.

"God, I miss my socials," Fatin splashed into the water, her lips pursed down, pulling Blaire's attention to her. "Like, I wish I could Instagram this right now," she gestured between the four of them. "I mean, what's the point of looking hot if you can't post about it?"

"Feels strange to say this, but I sort of don't miss my socials," Shelby admitted bashfully, her and Nora passing the soap dispenser from Fatin's carry-on between them.

"Oh, come on," Fatin groaned, rolling her eyes in disbelief at Shelby. "Blaire, back me up here. The fans, the haters, the memes, the thirst-traps! It's all happening somewhere, but... without us."

"I don't know, Fatin," Blaire replied with a shrug, pulling her hair into a messy bun, using the black elastic around her wrist. "Out of all the possible things we could be missing, social media is the one I'm least concerned about."

"Traitor," Fatin scoffed lightheartedly, and Shelby had to fight extra hard to fight a smile and keep her heart from jumping out of her throat as Blaire gave her a reassuring nod.

"You know what my daddy always said when he thought I was looking at my phone too much?" the blonde changed tact quickly, clearing her throat. "He said, 'You'll never spot a rainbow if you're looking down'."

"Uh," Nora interrupted, surprising the other three as she normally didn't speak unless she was sharing facts about survival she'd read in books. "Except that people are always posting rainbow pics on Instagram."

"You make an excellent point, Nora," Blaire chuckled as she cupped some water into her hands and washed some of the dirt from her face. "Besides," she added with a side-long glance at Shelby, "I'm pretty sure that's Charlie Chaplin, not your dad's Christian wisdom."

Shelby blushed from embarrassment, her lips twitching, and Blaire couldn't help but laugh quietly to herself. Behind them, Fatin had burst into a fit of laughter at Nora's comment, pleasantly welcoming the change of how outgoing the younger Reid twin was willing to be. Nora, unsure what to make of the attention, smiled awkwardly and started floating on the water again.

"Hey, can I get my soap?" Fatin asked of Shelby, who wretched her gaze away from Blaire long enough to hand the bottle over into the Pakistani-American girl's waiting, outstretched hand. "Time for a quick whore bath," she announced, swimming a little further away.

"Excuse me," Shelby raised her eyebrows at the comment, "what exactly is a whore bath?"

"Just the pits, tits, and slits," Nora elucidated awkwardly before submerging under the water once again, causing the other three to simultaneously burst into laughter, each of them noticing the signs that indicated that the Reid girl was slowly coming out of her shell.

"You're lowkey very edgy, aren't you?" Fatin asked of Nora in between chuckles, deciding that she actually liked spending time with the younger Reid twin when she wasn't being overprotective over her sister.

"Wait, why do I feel like I'm being ganged up on?" Shelby frowned at this, noticing the looks the other three gave her when she didn't understand the joke initially. "I thought we were a team," she feigned a look of upset towards Blaire, who felt her face soften. "I thought — WHAT THE HELL IS TOUCHING ME?"

Before Blaire could even realize what was going on, Shelby had let out a squeal and rushed into her arms, accidentally clashing their bodies together in a frightened embrace. Blaire's eyes widened, her body stumbling backwards a few steps, and she gulped once she regained her balance and noticed how close her and Shelby's faces were.

Now, with mere inches between them, the skin-on-skin contact created goosebumps along their arms, the coldness of the water attributing to the sensation. Shelby shivered against Blaire, though she made no effort to move from her arms, secretly admiring the way the New Yorker's arms had protectively wrapped around her.

Blaire cleared her throat, water droplets clinging to her face, as she willed herself to release the breath in her lungs. She was trembling at the mixture of coldness and shock from Shelby's outburst, her heart rate rising, before she plastered a smile on her face and finally took a step backwards once she realized the blonde had calmed down.

"Fuego," Nora announced as she held up a purple bag of Takis, pulling Blaire and Shelby's attention over to her and Fatin, whom we're both inspecting the area of the Texan's setback.

"Calm your tits, Mother Teresa," Fatin sent a glare towards Shelby, who bashfully tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Jesus fucking Christ, you scared the shit out of me — I thought a shark chomped your goddamn leg off or something!"

"Well damn, Texas," Blaire jested to lighten the mood, nudging the blonde on the shoulder. "You shot down a ten-point buck, but you're scared of a bag of chips?"

"Shut up," Shelby rolled her eyes playfully, biting at the inside of her cheek before pushing the New Yorker into the water behind her. Blaire resurfaced seconds later, slicking her wet hair back, only to see Shelby looking at her with an amused smile over her shoulder as she ran back to the shore, eager to tell the others of the treasure she'd found in the water.

─── • ───

The weather got worse as the day went on, and Blaire trekked back to the campsite, with Fatin and Nora trailing behind her, only to see the others standing around in anticipation, having been told the news by Shelby, who was still laughing over the stunt she'd pulled in the water with Blaire.

Regardless, their eyes lingered as Nora set the Takis on the sand, and the entire group made a circle and gawked at the bag as though they'd never seen something so beautiful; they'd been living off of small-packets of macadamia nuts for the last five days, so it was only natural to think of the Takis as a godsend.

"I need those in my mouth right now."

"Oh, Lord, it's like a miracle!"

"Those are so much better than Hot Cheetos."

"They're mine!"

Both Toni and Dot reached for the purple bag simultaneously, claiming the chips as their own.

"All right, I'm not trying to start shit, but I bought those at the airport," Dot defended herself, dropping her side of the bag as to not cause any problems. "I put them in my carry-on."

"No way," Toni rebutted, the flyaways from her ponytail swiping at the sides of her face as she shook her head. "I bought them at a mini-mart in Richwood, along with an orange fucking Gatorade like I always do."

"She did," Martha confirmed with a nod. "On our way to Fargo to catch our first plane."

"Bam!" Toni tossed an arm around her best friend's shoulders, smirking victoriously. "Where's your witness?"

"Hey, hey, hey," Shelby stepped between the two of them, intervening for the sake of putting an end to the argument. "How about we just take a step back and get a good, clear read of the situation?"

"The situation is that they're mine, and anybody who tries to take them is a colonizer," Toni enunciated rather straightforwardly, earning a muted laugh from both Blaire and Fatin.

"Okay, just listen up for a sec," Shelby pleaded, and due to the fact that they'd already done at least seven icebreakers, Blaire knew exactly where the conversation was headed. "We're all real sick of eating macadamia nuts, right? And here we have something that everybody wants with no surefire owner. So, I say that we look at these Takis as a grand prize and we play for them."

Leah groaned, "Can't we just eat them?"

"Yeah, seriously." Fatin seconded, her body now wrapped in a fluffy green coat while a pair of dark tinted sunglasses rested on the bridge of her nose. "She's gone full youth group counsellor on us."

Now, Blaire didn't particularly care much for the Takis. Sure, she liked them, but she didn't think they were worth fighting over. However, the New Yorker usually did care about a good, old-fashioned competition, and while she was naturally competitive, she didn't mind not winning as long as there was a target or goal in her mind at the end of the day.

"Play what?" Rachel questioned, willing to entertain Shelby's proposition for the same reason as Blaire.

"Three words," Shelby mused, smiling as the idea formed in her head. "Shelter. Building. Contest."

"No way!" Dot exclaimed cheerfully, and while no one else expressed it verbally, it was evident that some of the other girls were at odds with the idea.

"We'll split into two teams, right, and whoever builds the best, most durable one wins," Shelby proposed, giving the rundown of the rules of the competition.

"I'm out," Rachel deadpanned, her arms crossed loosely over her chest. "How many times do I have to say it? I'm not trying to make myself at home here. I want to leave."

"We won't survive without shelter, Rachel," Nora tried to convince her sister otherwise, "and the universe has a wicked sense of humour. Rescue will probably show up as soon as we're finished."

"'If you build it, they will come,'" Dot quoted with a laugh, despite the fact that no one seemed to realize she was quoting a line from a movie. "Come on. Field of Dreams. It's, like, a brilliant film."

"Fuck it," Rachel cursed after a moment. "I'll play."

"All right, then! Let's do this," Shelby proclaimed enthusiastically, snatching the bag of chips from Toni and pinning them to a tall stick for everyone to see.

─── • ───

"That's a lot of controversy over a bag of chips."

"They're not just chips, they're Takis," Toni said with a side-long glance of disbelief at Faber, a shy smile fighting to etch its way onto her lips. "If you've ever had them, you'd get the drama."

Faber pretended to think about this for a moment before looking to his partner, his eyebrows raised in confusion when Agent Young didn't look nearly as taken aback by the situation as he did.

"Have you had these things?"

"Of course," Agent Young nodded in favour of Toni's previous comment. "They're incredible."

"Right," Faber decided to take his word for it, turning back to Toni to continue with his investigation. "Then having to compete for them, that must have really gotten under your skin."

"I'm pretty used to that shit," Toni shrugged, leaning back into the uncomfortable metal chair. "Fighting for what's already ours is, like, a way of life where I'm from. Plus, you know, I wasn't gonna get bugged out about a competition. Because I knew my way around a game," she finished, a brave smirk pulling at her lips.

"So, let me get this straight, you had all decided to play for the chips, right?" Faber recounted the story, checking his notes after a nod of confirmation from Toni. "Then what happened? How'd you decide the teams?"

"I was made captain of one team, and Dot captain of the other," Toni told them, shrugging her shoulders. "But wait, do you... do you guys actually care about this dumb game?"

"The scope of our investigation is broad at this point, so we're eager for any and all accounts on your part," Agent Young elucidated, sharing a dubious look with his partner. "What you think of as irrelevant might give us some valuable insight."

"In other words, yes," Faber let out lighthearted laugh. "We do care about this 'dumb game.'"

Toni took a deep breath and nodded, trying to remember what she deemed relevant from the sixth day on the island. Even at the memories, she smiled a bit before she subconsciously reached for the thin, golden chain around her neck, revealing a small 'B' initial charm as she toyed with it between her fingers.

The only thing capable of calming the fire within her.

"I won the coin toss," Toni cleared her throat, her eyes avoiding those of the agents as the thoughts replayed in her head fondly. "So I chose with my heart..."

─── • ───

"Tails," Shelby announced, having caught the quarter they borrowed from Leah in her palm. "Toni chooses first."

Toni glanced between the seven remaining girls, each of whom now stood side-by-side in a line as they waited for their name to be called. Blaire thought that Martha was undoubtedly going to be Toni's first choice so she knew better than to get her hopes up, despite the fact that Toni's eyes lingered on her for a second too long, almost contemplating her decision.

"This is my middle school PE nightmare," Leah muttered under her breath from where she stood next to Nora and Blaire as they waited for Toni.

"I know, I wore a scoliosis brace from forth to seventh grade so, this isn't not triggering." Nora added in timorously, her dark and sun-baked curls framing her face.

"I remember your scoliosis brace," Blaire voiced in response to Nora, her dark eyes wrenching themselves away from Toni to focus on the younger Reid twin. "But if it makes you feel any better, that class was literally the worst. Like, literal fucking child abuse."

"You know, Shelby, I really hope we're on the same team," Blaire heard Martha's voice carry across the campsite, and her eyes immediately found Toni, who merely scoffed at the interaction. "It'd be so much fun, don't you think?"

Shelby beamed, "Oh, I'd love that! We can talk about, like, maybe you visiting me in Texas once we get out of this place —"

"Toni!" Dot yelled, and the conversations seemed to fade as the attention shifted back to picking the teams for the game. "You going to pick your team or what?"

"Right, sorry," Toni shook her head, trying to suppress the irritation brewing inside of her. "For my first pick, I choose, uh... Blaire," she let the words fall from her mouth, and Blaire shot a wide-eyed glance towards Martha, who was just as confused as she was, before walking over and standing next to Toni on the sand.

(A/N: we're switching things up a bit here... 👀)

Blaire and Toni shared an awkward glance, unspoken words etched in the eyes of one another; they were so caught up with wondering what the other was thinking that they almost hadn't realized Dot had changed tact and made her choice for her team.

"Well, we're gonna need the height, so Leah," she shrugged, and Leah simply hugged the brown camisole she'd been wearing to her body before walking over.

"Okay, so the last person chosen should get to pick next for their team." Shelby asserted, flashing a hopeful smile at Blaire, and like clockwork Toni's face was construing with blatant annoyance.

"Why?" the basketball player's eyebrows drew inward. "That literally makes no sense."

"Well, it'll just mix things up more that way," Shelby countered, not particularly willing to let her grand idea be shot down by Toni's sole disagreement.

"Whatever," Toni shook her head a bit before turning to Blaire, her eyes softening as she whispered, "Go on, then. You choose, I'll trust your judgement."

"Okay, then I, uh..." Blaire hesitated for a moment, and she felt Shelby's gaze lingering on her from a distance. "Then I pick Martha," she breathed aloud, earning a relieved smile from Toni as the Native American girl sashayed her way over to their team.

Blaire hadn't dared to risk a glance at Shelby, knowing the blonde was rightly upset that she hadn't been chosen. However, in the dancer's defence, she knew better than to put Toni and Shelby on the same team. Still, she couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty at the decision she'd been forced to make.

"If we want to win, then we should obviously go with Rachel," Leah decided nonchalantly, going with an obvious choice; it wasn't difficult to realize that Rachel would do whatever it took to win at something, even burn her family if she needed to.

"I pick Shelby," Martha smiled, and as soon as the Christian girl walked over towards her, Blaire knew that somehow this whole thing was bound to end in disaster. Toni risked another glance at the dancer, though it was not one she felt willing to reciprocate.

"I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm picking Fatin," Rachel made her choice, and Blaire found herself feeling bad for the blatant disregard of Nora from her own sister. "We can use the shit you've got in that watertight bag of yours, so squad up," she walked over to the Pakistani-American girl, who was too busy applying sunscreen to know what was actually happening, and slapped her lightly on the arm. "You're with us."

"Why? What?" Fatin lifted her head to meet Rachel's intense gaze, pushing her sunglasses up onto her forehead. "I don't even know what's going on."

"Shelter building competition." Dot epitomized vaguely, causing Fatin to laugh in sarcastic disbelief. "Now come on, we need you to make it look pretty."

"Join the fam, Nora," Shelby warmly extended her hand out for the younger twin, who smiled awkwardly.

"Is this a sympathy pick?" Nora asked teasingly as she made her way across the tepid sand, completing the two shelter building teams at last.

"Of course not."

"Probably."

Both Shelby and Toni spoke at the same time, and Blaire had to cover her mouth with her hand in an attempt to hide her laughter.

Now, with the teams divided, each of them took a different side of the island. There was an additional stipulation that Dot's team could have Marcus as their fifth team member, only if Toni started with the emergency axe they'd recovered from the fuselage. Besides that, the rest of the gameplay was rather straightforward, with each of the teams characterizing themselves with an item to show off their team unity.

While Dot's team used the blush pink visors from the swag bags and a swipe of black eyeshadow on both cheeks, Toni's team was trademarked by the use of bright pink lipstick; they'd smeared it on their faces in distinct patterns to mimic war paint. Blaire swiped at her cheeks with the lipstick, and once she was finished, she helped the other girls apply theirs.

"The amount of self-control it's taking me not to draw a penis on your face is insane," Blaire let out a soft giggle, rubbing the pad of her thumb across Fatin's MAC lipstick. "Hold still," she added before swiping her finger across Toni's cheekbone, both girls standing parallel to one another as the others braided their hair in preparation of the day ahead of them.

"You think you're funny, don't you?" Toni rolled her eyes, trying to suppress the wave of nervousness rushing inside her; the very few times she'd had skin-on-skin contact with Blaire had been hand-to-hand.

So, naturally, when Blaire cupped her cheek and brushed her finger across her skin, it made Toni physically gulp so loud that she'd prayed the dancer hadn't heard it. Blaire's hands were cold to the touch on Toni's sunkissed skin, and Toni was forced to clear her throat, overwhelmed by the new feeling of the New Yorker's palms against her skin, the feeling of the close proximity, now only mere inches between them.

"I think I'm adorable," Blaire corrected with a laugh, and Toni felt the warmth of her breath on her lips.

"Hey, so, uh..." Toni tried to change tact, ignoring the butterflies that were flying around her stomach. "So earlier, were you surprised that I picked you instead of Martha?"

"Maybe a little," Blaire shrugged, the corners of her mouth lifting into a smile. "But I know you only picked me because of everything that happened with Martha and Shelby, and that's okay. It's just a game, Toni," she assured, applying lipstick to the basketball player's other cheek, her features glazed with attentiveness.

"You think that's the only reason?" Toni dared herself to ask, and it was now Blaire's turn to clear her throat and retreat.

"That, or you somehow knew being a contractor was my side hustle back in New York," she nodded to cut through the tension, her tone clipped with blatant jest. "One or the other, for sure."

"And if I said it was neither?" Toni indulged facetiously.

"Then I'd think you were lying," Blaire replied jokingly, resting her hands on either side of Toni's face and turning her head slightly in order to ensure that both lines weren't drastically disproportionate. "All right, that should be good," she let her hands fall away from the girl's face and took a cautious step backwards. "Come on, we shouldn't keep the others waiting."

Toni scratched at the back of her neck anxiously, her expression unreadable, almost as though she was disappointed by the conversation coming to an end.

"Yeah, you're probably right," she cleared her throat, and her and Blaire shared one last glance before walking over to the others to discuss a game plan.

─── • ───

"The gameplay was simple: build a shelter and do it by sunset," Toni found herself explaining back in the interrogation room. "The axe would be shared, and all other materials were fair game. Not gonna lie, it was all really shaping up to be quite the Battle Royale. Warriors versus Visors. Texan versus Texan. New Yorker versus New Yorker. Twin versus twin..."

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It wasn't long after their haphazardly pregame that the two teams finally split and got to work on making their blueprints. As they'd discussed, they cut a fraction of the beach in half, which not only allowed the axe to still be communal, but also gave everyone their own respective spaces to plan and build.

"Okay, getting this first is fucking huge," Toni brandished the axe in her hands as she addressed her team. "Now we can get out there and get the best raw materials before they do."

"Wait, let's pump the brakes a sec," Shelby chimed in, essentially drawing out an annoyed laugh from the basketball player.

"No brakes," Toni shook her head in disbelief at the Texan. "We got the axe, so we gotta move now."

"Shouldn't we just take a quick five to talk about what we're actually building?" Shelby suggested further, her hands outstretched as though trying to prove a point.

"Marty B, you know what's up," Toni waved the blonde off again, signalling her best friend. "You know, we can just do it how we do, right? Like a framed hut, wigwam-style. We learned it at that heritage workshop."

"Those are super complicated, Toni," Martha stressed aloud, drawing an indirect eye-roll out from the basketball player, "which you might have known if you hadn't slept through that entire workshop."

"Listen, I'm not saying that we have to have it all figured out," Shelby looked between the group, and Blaire found herself staring at her feet as to not get involved. "But a few concrete plans couldn't hurt."

"Why do you always have to take the wheel?" Toni demanded of Shelby, her face riddled with inherent irritation. "Shouldn't you be letting Jesus do that? Like, what do you know about building shit anyway?"

"Hate to burst your bubble," Shelby flashed a tight-lipped smile in response, "but I have worked on, like, eleven different Habitat for Humanity projects."

"Okay, whatever, Blaire and I will just hit the woods on our own, then," Toni scoffed lightly, prompting Blaire to realize that despite her desire to not get involved, the universe had other plans for her. Still, as much as Blaire wanted to avoid conflict, she couldn't bring herself to side with Toni in this situation. "Not you, too," the basketball player groaned once Blaire had yet to move. "What the hell is wrong? Let's go!"

Blaire was baffled at the sudden harshness in her voice, her shoulders tensing. Before she had the chance to speak up, however, Shelby had stepped in front of her and challenged Toni in a head-to-head.

"What's wrong is that she doesn't want to go running off without the slightest idea what the endgame is," she ridiculed in Blaire's defence, unaware that Toni was rapidly approaching her breaking point at the thought of the people she was closest to on the island choosing someone else.

"What, you gonna let her speak for you now?" Toni rounded on the New Yorker before she could stop herself, her eyes demanding an answer, and Blaire found herself wondering if their fresh start had been a mere charade to the basketball player all along.

"Toni, wait, that's not —" Blaire tried to reason, but before she could go on a tirade, she was interrupted by the same girl who occupied her thoughts.

"I don't want to hear it," Blaire watched Toni's nostrils flare as she started towards the inland forest. "Make all the plans you want," she yelled over her shoulder, the axe swinging back-and-forth as she walked. "I'm just gonna go and do all of the work by myself!"

"Well, that could've gone better," Nora remarked shyly, watching as Toni stormed off towards the cliffs.

"Just let her go," Shelby sent an amiable pat to Blaire's shoulder as she made her way past the girl and over to Martha, who was speechless by her friend's sudden harshness. "It's not worth the headache," she added.

And yet, Blaire still kept her eyes dead set on the inland forest until Toni disappeared from her view. The regret in her stomach was giving her the worst kind of butterflies before she forced herself to look away and reality set in, hanging over her like a dark cloud.

Maybe she'd been wrong about Toni all along...

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author's note:
*this chapter was not proof read*

hope you enjoyed chapter seven! toni's one of my favourite characters in the series so this was a lot of fun to write :))

lmk what you thought! things will heat up a bit in the next chapter...

[insert begging for comments and votes]

until next time,

xo, selena

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