Current Day
"I want to see Hunter," Leah demanded, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked at Dr Faber. The man stared back at her, cold and hard. He knew that Leah would be concerned about their friend since the duo had discovered that her twin brother was on the boys island, but he also knew that letting them see each other again would be detrimental to their operation.
Gretchen and himself had pre-discussed what would happen if one of the girls had learnt the truth, but having two of the girls roaming the halls was a bigger risk than they were willing to take. Besides, Leah was much harder to contain than the blonde cheerleader sitting down the hallway.
"She's unavailable at the moment," Dr Faber informed her, his eyes not leaving Leah's for a second. "What you... convinced her to do, what you made her learn... it really hasn't helped her mentally."
Leah blinked, fully aware that the man was trying to gaslight her into thinking that she had done something wrong - when it was in fact them who had staged an entire plane crash and numerous traumatic incidents, seemingly not just once but twice. She went to open her mouth but he cut her off and continued speaking.
"She won't let anyone near her. You're irrational need to drag other people down with you has caused Hunter to regress to an almost worse version of how she was before you and your friends stepped on to that plane," Dr Faber told her, picturing an hour before where he and three other nurses had restrained the girl as they tried to make sure she was eating her food.
Since their discovery the night before, Hunter had been refusing to take any food or water from them. She was paranoid about everything now, and Kirin's reaction to her mentioning her brother had caused the girl to enter an extreme state of distress.
"Is Hudson here? At least let him see her!" Leah snapped, her eyes narrowed into slits as she thought briefly about Rachel and Nora's bond that was forever severed now - not just because of her death. Leah knew that it would break Rachel again to find out that the Californian girl had been right about her sister all along: she had been involved in all of this and it had killed her.
Dr Faber paused, letting out a breath Leah hadn't realised the man was holding.
"Hudson..." Dr Faber murmured, his eyes looking away from Leah as she sensed that he was feeling some sort of guilt about what he was about to say next. "Hudson didn't make it off the island."
Leah slammed her hands on the desk, fed up of the man's constant beating around the bush attitude. She was furious, and she was getting riled up again. She just wanted answers.
"What is that supposed to mean? You just forgot to get him and left him running about the trees?"
"Hudson is dead."
The room was silent for the first time since Faber brought the brunette into it. All that could be heard were the shaky breaths that fell from her lips.
"What?"
"We're telling Hunter today, now that she knows he was on an island like yours," the man replied, the emotion now gone from his voice. "So yes, Leah, you've caused her irrevisible pain by convincing her to join you on your tyrade to find 'the truth' about this. She could have continued with the hope of seeing her brother until you forced us to tell her about his fate. You caused this."
Leah knew that they would have said anything in that moment to make her feel bad: but that didn't excuse the fact that it was working.
In that moment, Leah wondered if her need to find the truth had really been worth it.
_____
Day 34
As her blood warmed, he drew her closer and deepened, deepened the kiss a whisper at a time until everything blurred. She went pliant, and the sigh she made was surrender.
"Steamy, right?"
"Like a fresh pile of shit."
Hunter snorted as she hummed a little as Fatin ran her hands through the roots of her hair, causing her to close her eyes as she fought off the nap that she felt coming. She knew that if she went back to sleep she'd be unlikely to sleep through the night again - something that she was finding incredibly difficult at that moment in time. It didn't really matter that much as she knew that when night came she would insist on taking the nightshift of watching Leah to make sure she didn't overdose again.
"I mean, an entire book about hornball wedding planners in some snobby f*ck' town called Green-wich, Connecticut," Dot replied, not as amused with the book as the other two were.
"Grennich," Fatin and Hunter both corrected at the same time. Fatin sat up slightly, nudging Hunter and moving her gently so that she was sitting in between the girl's legs. Hunter nodded in agreement to the movement, knowing what Fatin was silently asking her for permission to do.
"And that's not the only one," Fatin continued, her fingers moving swiftly as they began to braid one side of Hunter's hair. "Apparently, there's four in the series."
"Four of these turds? I can't even get one sequel of District , and the world gets four of these shit cakes!"
"Why don't you just give it a few more pages?"
"Yeah Dot, maybe it'll hook you. Just imagine it's you and Mateo..." Hunter joked, noticing the blush that crossed Dot's cheeks instantly at her words.
"It's a hot little romp." Fatin concluded, chuckling at Hunter joining in with the attempt to get Dot to read the smutty book.
"People actually enjoy this activity, holding open a big stack of paper and just moving their eyes back and forth and back and forth?" Dot joked before looking behind Fatin and Hunter and seeing the other girl moving about the camp. "Toni, help me out. Fatin is trying to convince me that I might actually enjoy reading this skid mark of a romance book."
Toni let her eyes brush over Fatin and Hunter for a moment, glad to see that her healing girlfriend was allowing the others to touch her again. She was worried that she wouldn't let them as she hadn't been previously since the shark attack but she seemed to be making leaps and bounds every day. She couldn't help but think about Fatin's words from earlier that day, allowing the slight doubt to settle in her stomach about how little time she had spent with Hunter since the shark attack. The bandages on her leg had been swapped for new ones - and by new ones, it was an old shirt that had belonged to Nora that Rachel had volunteered since they'd ran out from having to rebandage not just Hunter's leg but Rachel's arm stump too.
"Oh, hell yeah. I love that one," Toni replied, causing all three girls to look at her in absolute shock, disbelief and amusement.
"Get the f*ck out," Dot replied without hesitation.
"I'm not, like, a Martha-level superfan. That's, like, super straight and white," Toni added, smiling a little as Hunter snorted at that comment. "But I don't know, I kind of like all the wedding shit."
Even Hunter was a little surprised about that. They hadn't really ever spoke about what would happen if - when - they got off the island, especially what their hopes and dreams for the future were. The blonde girl smiled a little, wondering if they didn't have that different a dream for their future after all.
"You kind of like the what?"
"The wedding-planning stuff. Gets me thinking what I want for mine, you know? A big-ass buttercream cake, flowers all over the place, a fancy f*ck' dinner. Wait, what's it called when it's not a buffet? Plated, a plated dinner. I want all that shit!"
Fatin threw her head back and cheered at Toni's outburst, Hunter leaning back against her best friend as she laughed loudly too. One look at Dot had even sent Toni into fits of laughter, as they weren't sure they'd ever seen her look so distastefully confused.
"This is incredible," Fatin sighed, an amused grin falling on her face as she looked at the girl sitting in front of them.
"I am so turned on right now," Hunter muttered under her breath, causing Toni's head to instantly snap towards her. She playfully smiled at Hunter who smirked a little, causing Dot and Fatin to groan at the awkwardness the duo had just created in the quartet's conversation.
"Who are you?" Dot asked, looking around at the trio in confusion. "Who are any of you? Why am I a stranger in a strange land?"
"Uh-oh. I know what's wrong with you. Your dependents walked off, the shelter is put in place, and for the first time ever, Dorothy has nothing to do," Fatin informed the others, looking at her friend with a grin on her face as she psychoanalysed her.
"I know what that means," Hunter continued, picking up on the teasing in Fatin's voice and running with it. "You see, our Dottie finds that a problem because she sucks at leisure."
Dot scowled, slapping Fatin on the arm and almost going to do the same to Hunter before catching herself. There was a slight hum in the air between the teens as they all caught on to the gesture but everyone chose to ignore it, especially Hunter.
"She's fine at leisure!" Dot growled, scrambling to her feet and beginning to walk away from the group.
"Uh huh," Fatin smirked, looking at her friend in delight as she got the confirmation that she had managed to get a rise out of the Texan. "Where you going?"
"To do leisure."
Toni, Fatin and Hunter shared looks with each other as Dot stormed off. They managed to hold their straight face for less than ten seconds before all three erupted into howls and barks of amusement, hearing Dot yell at them from the distance that she could still hear them. They paused for a second before erupting into harder laughter.
Hunter wasn't sure how long they were really going to be on the island, but it was getting a little easier with the knowledge that she wasn't doing this alone. Not anymore.
_____
Current Day
"Was this necessary?"
Gretchen didn't turn her head to acknowledge the man as he entered the room, knowing that he had been having his doubts about everything almost since day one. She knew that a betrayal from him was likely, and she knew that he needed to be kept closely to ensure she could see it coming.
"Young, I can assure you everything we are doing is going to change the future," Gretchen replied. She looked at Dr Faber, her eyes watching his every move like a hawk through the one-way mirror. He had his arm raised, hovering over Hunter's arm as the man attempted to communicate with the girl.
"He's letting her touch her?" Young replied, moving to stand beside Gretchen in surprise. Hunter Boyd hadn't let any of them touch her - not willingly. Dr Faber had never gotten closer than a metre to her before she would shut herself off.
Gretchen shrugged, her lips musing as she watched the scene in front of her. She wasn't sure she was pleased with this development. As much as she wanted the girls to grow and heal from the trauma that had caused them to be selected for the trial as it showed the progress she was trying to prove, she wasn't entirely sure that Hunter finding out her twin brother was dead was the healing that the experiment was relying on.
"All Hunter can think about is that her brother died," Gretchen reminded the man. "I don't think she's likely even aware Dr Faber is in the room with her. She's been sedated all day and I highly doubt she's even aware of her own name at this point in time."
On the other side of the glass, they were right. Hunter was barely aware that Dr Faber was in the room with her. The sedation had worn off long ago however, and it wasn't the sadness from the grief she was feeling that was beginning to cloud her mind and making her cut off from her current state, but rather a firing anger.
Hunter Boyd was angry.
Hunter Boyd was angry, because her brother was dead. She was angry because she wasn't sure if her and Toni were broken up or not. She was angry because Leah left her alone to find out from another boy about her brother. She was angry.
Hunter Boyd was angry, because it was as if her entire life had suddenly ceased to matter.
She wasn't religious but Hunter knew she would be cursing whatever external force existed for the rest of her life for taking her brother away from this earth, when it should have been her.
_____
Day 34
"Did you mean it? What you said earlier... did you mean it?" Toni asked Hunter, approaching the girl from where she sat overlooking the beach from the grassy cliffs. Everyone else was back at the camp minus Leah and Rachel who were still spending time bonding, and Toni had excused herself for a moment to check on her girlfriend.
"Hmm?" Hunter hummed, tucking her head against her own arm as she lifted her eyes to look at Toni. The basketball player slowly slid to the ground beside her, letting her legs dangle over the edge of the grassy cliff. Hunter had hers pulled to her chest, having been staring out the ocean lost in her thoughts.
"That my marriage dreams turned you on?"
Hunter snorted at that, not having expected that to come out of Toni's mouth at all. She noticed how the basketball player's eyes trailed down the bandage on her leg, noticing that it had the familiar stain of red in the same area.
"Yeah," Hunter admitted, shrugging a little as she looked back across the endless sea. "It was just unexpected. I don't think I've seen you talking about something so mundane in a while."
She paused before turning to look at Toni with furrowed eyebrows.
"Why?"
Toni rubbed her neck sheepishly at that point. She wasn't shy, but Hunter had brought out a new side in her she'd never truly known existed.
"I wasn't starting to think..." Toni trailed off, before noticing that Hunter's gaze wasn't wavering until she got her answer. "Starting to think that you didn't... you couldn't see us like that anymore."
The silence in the air was heavy this time. The blissful atmosphere faded in seconds, a pang of hurt crossing Hunter's face for a second. Toni immediately wished she hadn't said anything, realising that she had upset Hunter already.
"What?" Hunter murmured lowly, her voice breaking a little.
"I didn't mean it like that - I meant..." Toni rushed out before turning her entire body to face Hunter. "Ever since, you know, you've barely wanted to be around me, let alone kiss or..."
"I do." Hunter interrupted, letting out a deep sigh as she broke eye contact with Toni. She blushed a little, her fingers fiddling with nerves she didn't know she had. "I do still want to... with you, I do. I just, I didn't think you'd look at me the same."
"Hunter, I love you," Toni reminded her, unwavering passion in her voice. "I'll never not love you. Regardless of what we go through, I'll always look at you exactly how I've always looked at you - like the most important thing that matters. Because you are, Hunter - you are the most important thing that matters to me right now, right here in this moment. I love you for you, Hunter Boyd."
Hunter smiled, turning to look at Toni and slowly reaching her hand out to place it against the side of her cheek. She leaned forward, placing her forehead against Toni's for a minute and just allowing herself to remain there in her space.
"I love you," Hunter replied without hesitation. Even with her eyes closed, she knew that Toni was smiling at her. "So much, that it hurts."
"Speaking of hurts," Toni said, ruining the moment. "Your leg - how is it?"
Hunter shrugged, a look in her eyes that Toni hadn't seen in a while. A small twitch of her lips told the basketball player that Hunter wasn't wanting to focus on her shark attack.
"It'll survive," Hunter murmured lowly, noticing Leah and Rachel leaving the beach below and heading into the trees. She turned to look at Toni, a smile smoothly spreading across her mouth. "I can bare it."
Toni didn't get a chance to ask what she would need to bare the pain for. Hunter sat up, resting on her knees as she grabbed at Hudson's jersey that was covering her upper body and pulling it over her head in one full sweep.
Although she was her girlfriend, Toni almost felt like she should avert her eyes at Hunter's bare form kneeling in front of her. It had been so long since they had been intimate with each other, and Toni couldn't help but want to make sure she was sure.
"Hunter... you don't have to do this because I asked-"
"Toni?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you want me to put my shirt back on? Cause I certainly don't."
Toni gulped for a second, looking back at Hunter finally and seeing the confirmation look that her girlfriend was giving her. Hunter held her hand out, inviting Toni to come closer to her almost naked girlfriend.
"It's getting cold, Toni. I think I need you to help warm me up."