Truth or Dare

Returning, a Tent of Hate, New Faces and Remembering

                                                                                                                 Lydia

Returning to Backwood was more of a change then it had been in the previous year. In past years, I'd return wondering who my new tent mates would be. Though I'd had a spot secured in the Palace since my second week at Pinewood, the price of hanging with the older crowd was that they left and often times didn’t come back. Allie and the recruits we picked this week would face it next year after we don't come back, and their recruits would have to face it when Allie doesn’t come back. But this was the first week, maybe my only week, I wouldn’t have to face that question. Because I knew the names of the two girls who would be taking up the unoccupied bunks of the Palace. I'd picked them myself. I also knew which bunk would be left open, because Dani showed no intention of returning to the Palace and we had no intention of inviting her back. It was an unfortunate break, but a clean one.

"Do you see them yet?" Allie asked as she remade her bed in the corner across from me.

"No, stop being inpatient. The in between kids are eating lunch," Hayley said. This wasn’t her first time experiencing new people in the Palace, just her first time being one of the people who chose them.

"Oh no, why is Dani walking toward us?" Allie whispered.

"Hey," Dani walked up and leaned against the past pole of the tent. "Um, I came to return this. I don't think I'll be needing it." She threw me her purple bandana.

"Thanks, we are. We've got two new girls moving in today," I said.

"You know, it was a really stupid move dumping him on the island. He's not going to let up on you guys, even your new kids." Dani warned.

"Is that regret I hear in your voice?" Annie asked. "You starting to feel bad about dumping us so you can go hook up with a psychopath?"

"No. I'm warning you because I feel sorry for the two poor suckers who you're going to try to rope in next." Dani snapped. "Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything and just burned the damn bandana."

"Yeah, maybe you should have," Annie said.

"Both of you, stop it." I snapped.

"See, here's the great thing about moving to tent three, Lydia. I don't have to listen to you up on your soapbox anymore. In fact, I have the full freedom to tell you that you can go screw yourself and your stupid over protective boyfriend for all I care." Dani flipped her braids behind her back and sauntered off toward tent three, just to sit down next to Natalie.

"Do you believe there's literally a tent full of girls who don't like us, just living with each other and probably talking about how much they don't like us?" Hayley asked, looking over to tent three.

"Don't be so egotistical. I'm sure they don't just talk about how much they hate us," I shrugged, trying not to look toward where my boyfriends ex girlfriend, who I  was personally responsible for not letting her into the heads and the Palace, and my ex-trainee, who now was dating the boy who probably hated me and my friends most out of anyone in camp, sat on the front edge of their tent's platform. It was weird as hell, honestly. "Don't stare at them, it probably will fuel their hatred."

"Did you give the choices to Molly?" Allie asked, changing the subject back to new recruits.

"Yes, you watched me put the card in her hand. She should be here with them and their bandanas soon." I assured her.

"What should we do with Dani's bandana? We can't give it to one of them," Bore of watching for Molly and the girls, Hayley got up from where she was sitting and walked toward the back of the tent to sit near the rest of us. "I say we burn it."