Day Twenty-Three
"Hey," Hunter breathed as she sat down beside Toni, tucking her legs against her chest as their shoulders brushed against each other. Toni tilted her head to look at her, a smile naturally falling on her lips as she admired the Boyd twin.
"Hey you," Toni softly replied, nudging her shoulder a little with her own and feeling a little sense of pride in her stomach when Hunter cracked a small smile - the first one that Toni had seen on her since they had started collecting the lychees. Toni knew something had changed in Hunter since that morning, and she was terrified that she had done something to push her away.
They sat there a moment in silence, before Hunter eventually leaned slightly and allowed her head to fall on to Toni's shoulder as the two stared across the bounds of endless ocean. Hunter knew she needed to tell Toni what was on her mind, but she was so afraid to do so even though she already knew Toni was nothing like Riley had been.
"What's going on in that pretty little head of yours, huh?" Toni eventually asked, trying to hide how her hands were tugging at the dirt on either side of her, a stress reliever as she worried for what Hunter was going to say to her.
"You're not going to change on me now, are you?" Hunter asked and as she noticed Toni's face contort as she went to try and reassure her, she continued speaking to explain what she meant. "I know I said I'd stop letting him plague everything but it's just when I first... you know... had sex with Riley, that's when everything started to change and I'm just panicking I guess and then when I asked if you about things after the island I don't know I just panicked you wouldn't want to keep this going."
Toni turned to look at her fully then, scooting her body around in a small quarter circle as she turned so that their knees were now pressed together and her hand was resting on Hunter's face as she sat crossed legged in front of her.
"Hey," Toni breathed as she gave the blonde a moment to allow herself to just relax against Toni's palm on her cheek. "Hunter, I'm all in. I'm all in on this island and I'll be all in when we get off this island, regardless of whether we're in Texas or the Rez or in LA with Fatin and Dot - I'm always going to be all in for you for as long as you need and want me to be."
Hunter nodded at this, sniffling a little as she leaned forward and allowed Toni to wrap her arms around her girlfriend, stroking her blonde hair for a moment as they both looked out across the water and down to the shore, noticing how Fatin was now sitting beside Shelby. Hunter was distracted for a brief moment, noticing how Shelby and Fatin both looked up at her and Toni for a second.
"Do you feel bad for Shelby?" Hunter asked gently, trying not to make it obvious that she was looking at the other blonde Texan. Toni nodded against her shoulder, pulling back from their embrace with a quick glance downwards at the girl.
"Yeah, but I think we've helped her a bit," Toni admitted, noticing how Shelby had risen to her feet and was walking up the hill towards them now. Toni nudged Hunter as the other blonde also clocked on to the fact that Shelby was approaching them both.
They both smiled at her as she hovered beside them for a minute, almost as if she was hyping herself up to take a seat on the grass next to the duo. They were all very aware that once they had this conversation, there wasn't any going back from it.
"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Shelby eventually asked the two of them as they all sat on the grass, the silence between them growing until she broke it. Hunter smiled gently at Shelby as she reached over and lightly patted the girl on the arm.
"It wasn't our story to tell," Toni replied, casually and as if it was the most simple thing in the world. To Hunter and Toni who understood the pain of people not seeing you for you, it maybe was. Regardless of what Shelby had said or done to them prior to her freaking out and kissing Toni days prior, they knew it was a secret that they'd hold on to for as long as Shelby needed them to. "Besides, you saved my life."
"That you did," Hunter added, a smile to the girl as she had heard all about the pill scenario even if she had barely been conscious enough to see it herself. "Besides, you've got us and we aren't gonna let anyone say shit about you based on who you like."
"What if it all blows up? What if I just end up making someone miserable and hurt them? I've hurt people before, very badly," Shelby exclaimed, obviously more worried now about the consequences of her liking girls rather than the fact she might actually like girls. It was something that the girl had started to come to terms with since kissing Toni and finding out about Hunter and Toni, but it was so scary for her.
"Well what if our plane crashes, and what if we nosedive into the ocean and what if we, you know, end up stranded and what if we wind up lost and starving?" Toni said before Hunter pitched in.
"And what if we end up getting sand worms stuck to our bodies or getting shat on by bats or getting dehydrated?"
"All of that already happened," Toni continued, nodding ferociously at Hunter's addition of events. Shelby looked down for a second as she smiled a little at their words, pointing out that they had been through so much and survived. "The worst has already fucking happened."
Shelby smiled at them both before seeming almost like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders, looking at Hunter for a second and grinning a little as she remembered the last time the two girls had had a conversation that had been a heart to heart like that.
"Do you remember what you said to me, back in the west wing toilets when you walked in and I was crying?" Shelby asked, Toni looking up in interest as Hunter nodded with a small smile on her face.
"Eh, I'm pretty sure I asked you to move out of my way?" Hunter saying in confusion before realising what she was talking about. "Oh, wait hahahaha, you mean after that. Yeah, I told you to wipe away your tears before I had to do it and that would involve a lot more touching than either of us wanted."
"What the fuck?" Toni blurted out as the three girls burst into laughter, squinting at her girlfriend in amusement. "How did you think that was going to help anything?"
"Anyway," Shelby interrupted as they continued to laugh. "What I'm trying to say is that we've came a long way since then. I just don't want us to go back to that when we get back there."
Hunter shook her head, reaching out and grasping on to Shelby's hand with a suddenly more serious look on her face.
"Regardless of what happens when we get back to that town, I've always got your back."
"Damn right," Toni cheered, the trio all laughing as they smiled at each other.
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"I don't wait to be afraid. I don't want to be afraid to be in love or to love who I want... freely, fully, without reservation. I wanna find my people whoever they are. I want to find my strength. I want to make a life where we're not always doing and trying and fighting. I want a life where we can just be."
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Hunter was playing Uno with Dot and Fatin when she first latched her eyes on to Leah - instantly rising to her feet in confusion and panic at the state that the girl seemed to be in. Nora had told them that Leah wanted time alone and while Hunter had thought that was weird for Leah, she had just brushed it off.
But the girl in question was limping angrily towards Nora, her clothes ripped and blood coating her neck. Hunter instantly started to move towards Leah, planning on intercepting her before she could do whatever chaotic thing she was planning in her head.
"NORA!"
At her primal yell, everyone turned to look at her too as she staggered through the sand towards the girl. Nora flinched as she noticed how angry Leah looked, springing to her feet and moving backwards as Leah advanced.
"What the fuck is happening?" Fatin asked, wanting to grab on to Hunter and not let her go to Leah incase she would get hurt again, but the blonde was already out of her grasp.
"DON'T FUCKING MOVE!" Leah yelled out, her steps only getting more and more wild as she got nearer to the girl. Hunter reached Leah before she was able to get to Nora, trying to get the girl to calm down and stop from advancing on her.
Leah - despite her rage at Nora - seemed very insistent on not hurting Hunter again and didn't try to smack her away or push her to the side, but rather tried to repeatedly get around the girl to get closer to Nora. Just as she managed to slide out of Hunter's grasp, Martha's voice rang out across the entire shore - catching the attention of everyone including Toni and Shelby who had just finished talking about Toni's experience with being gay while Hunter had gone to play Uno.
"SHARK!"
They all spun around to look at the water, seeing the shark fin gliding through the water towards Rachel who was floating just low enough so that her ears couldn't pick up their screams of her name.
Nora took off like a whippet towards the water, screaming out her sister's name as she disappeared from their eye sight, having likely been dragged down by the shark. All of the girls took off after her, Hunter right on the tail of Nora thanks to her early years of athletics training before cheer, not pausing at the water line like the rest of the girls and heading straight after Nora into the water and towards where the growing pool of red was forming where Rachel had last been scene.
Toni screamed out Hunter's face, going to rush forward but being held back by Fatin and Shelby, knowing that none of them were good enough swimmers to try and defend themselves against a shark.
"HUNTER!" Toni's voice echoed across the beach, her eyes widening in fear as everyone else's voices echoed the blonde's name too. "HUNTER!!"
They could do nothing but watch as Nora, Rachel and the blonde Boyd twin all disappeared under the water and out of sight.
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"Hunter, GET UP!"
Hunter startled awake with a jolt, her eyes adjusting in the darkness to see Leah shaking her and peering over her, the blaring of alarms alerting her to the opportunity that the two girls had found themselves presented with.
"Come on, we need to go NOW!" Leah yelled, while also trying to keep her voice quiet to avoid anyone from realising that the two girls were about to escape from their holding rooms - well, technically Leah already had.
Hunter wasted no time in throwing her sweater on and ramming her feet into the uncomfortable slip on shoes that she had been given, grabbing on to Leah's hand as the girl peered out of the door and looked both ways before darting down the corridor so quickly that Hunter was sure her old athletics coach would have been impressed.
They took off down the concrete corridors, opening and closing random doors as they went, squeezing through a tight tunnel to try and find some form of escape from the prison like place they had found themselves in.
Hunter was glad she wasn't claustrophobic due to the tightness of the corridor and the lights going out, but she swore that the second her and Leah started to see torch lights from the end of the tunnel that she was about to get a heart attack.
Leah grabbed her as they rounded the corner, the taller girl having latched her hand on to the door of a room and tugging them both inside. Hunter stumbled a little as they entered the room but allowed Leah to clamp her hand over her mouth as the two girls stood pressed to the door, listening for any signs of movement.
As footsteps ran past the room they were in, both of them heaved a sigh of relief as Hunter turned to look at Leah in the bare darkness.
"Turn the light on," Hunter whispered, the Rilke girl nodding and fumbling for any light switch before they both jumped in surprise as she managed to turn the light on. They both furrowed their eyebrows as they noticed it was a long room with nothing over than a desk and a bunch of screens at the end, the girls glancing at each other for a moment before darting forward towards the table.
Leah's hand reached straight for the files on the table, sifting through them as she picked up a manila folder with a scowl on her face. It was as if all her fears and paranoias had been confirmed in an instant, reading the words that were stuck on across the top of the folder.
CONTROL GROUP: THE TWILIGHT OF ADAM
And right there beside it was the Dawn of Eve stamp, its signature logo that had been stuck in her mind since seeing all of the stupid pamphlets and merchandise that they had been given on the plane. Control group. Holy fuck, Leah thought, this WAS an experiment.
She turned to show Hunter the files, pausing as she noticed how the girl had active tears streaming down her face and a hand covering her mouth as she watched the boys on the screens. Leah had briefly glanced at them for long enough to realise they were stranded on an island like they had been - and they were being constantly filmed and monitored just like she had started to suspect about the girls.
"What the fuck?" Leah asked, her eyes narrowing as she tried to calm down her overreacting heart beat. "Are those boys on an island?"
One of the cameras zoomed in on two blonde boys, standing next to each other as they squared off against the other. The taller boy pushed the other one to the ground as the camera re-adjusted, the slightly smaller one trying to cover his face from being smashed up as the rest of the boys tried to pry them apart from each other.
"Leah..." Hunter breathed out, Leah looking at the screen in confusion before she noticed that the boy that was throwing punches had a rather similar band clasped around his wrist that she could see on Hunter's wrist. Her heart sank as she noticed the tears that were pooling from Hunter's eyes, a conclusion springing into her mind.
"Is that Hudson?" Leah asked, her voice breaking as she looked at Hunter's reaction. The blonde nodded but she looked utterly petrified, as if she had seen a ghost. Leah knew that she would have been going through a lot seeing her twin supposedly in the same situation they had been in over the past few months, but there was something else about the way that Hunter was looking at the screen that sent a chill down her spine. "The one beating that boy up, that's Hudson?"
"That's Hudson," Hunter breathed before turning to look at Leah with nothing but fear in her eyes as the camera angle swapped so that the face of the boy he was beating up could be seen so much easier. "But that's... oh fuck."
Leah reached out and steadied her friend as she fell to her knees, in nothing that Leah knew how to describe other than utter horror and despair. She pulled Hunter tight to her chest, allowing the girl to lean against her as frantic sobs started to rack her body.
"That boy he's beating up... Leah," Hunter breathed out, her eyes closing for a second before she opened them once more as she looked at the screen. "That's him. That's Riley Black."
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HUNTER BOYD will return in THE WILDS: SEASON 2.