Day One
Everyone had taken a bit of time to themselves after Dot managed to get Jeanette breathing and on her feet again. Toni and Martha had mostly sat themselves at the side of the group, talking in hushed whispers and promises of how they were going to get through this. Fatin was gradually coming out of her state of shock, while the twins were mostly silent with the occasional bicker between themselves. Jeanette and Leah had been talking between themselves with Shelby was wandering around the beach and collecting up any resources she could find.
Dot had taken it upon herself to attempt to wrap up Hunter's scraped knee. The girl had protested at first which the other Texan had suspected would happen since she was so against letting anyone touch her at all, but after a little coaxing from the girl who had roamed the same school hallways as her, Hunter allowed her to rip a little bit of her shirt and work on making sure that her bleeding knee was covered up and protected from infection.
Dot only knew what she had heard in rumours and conversations about the blonde cheerleader that sat in silence, almost shaking as Dot tried to slowly wrap her knee up. It was pretty obvious that human contact made the girl uncomfortable - something that intrigued Dot since she'd been pretty public with her displays of affection with her ex-boyfriend, Riley Black. She knew a lot more about Riley Black than she wished to know, and she was well aware that the school's star quarterback liked to get high more than her usual customer did.
She also knew all of the rumours that Hunter was likely to be demoted from head cheerleader any day soon since she had started to sit out their stunting routines, no longer wishing to be at the top of the pyramid and often freaking out the times that she did take part. There were lots of rumours about Hunter Boyd, and Dot wasn't sure that most of them fit the description of the girl that sat in front of her.
"It doesn't look that serious," Dot broke their silence, noticing the slight tense in Hunter's fingers against the sand as she looked at how close the other girl was sitting to her. Dot scooted back pretty quickly, trying to make her feel a little more comfortable in her presence. "I've wrapped it for now just to try and keep, like, sand and stuff out of it but it should heal up pretty quickly."
Hunter nodded, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to get her heart-rate to slow down. She opened her eyes again after a moment as the group all started to form in a loose circle on the rocks, noticing that Leah had been staring at her intently from across the circle. Hunter half her eye contact for a moment, a little unnerved before looking back down at her hands in anxiousness.
"Hey, does anyone have a phone?" Rachel yelled out, interrupting everyone's conversations as she rose to her feet to stand before them all. Hunter looked up breifly before looking back at her hands, fiddling with the leather bracelet that was strapped around her wrist. She didn't care about surviving on this island, she just wanted Hudson to be with her.
"Don't you think we would have said something if we did?" Toni asked sarcastically as she scowled across at the diver from where she was sitting between Martha and Hunter who subconciously had spaced herself a little away from the rest of them.
"I'm not even sure how many bars we'd get out here," Dot said, shooting down Rachel's idea. She had watched too many survival shows to get her hopes up about the chances of calling someone to save them.
"I'm just trying to think of lifelines, all right?" Rachel snapped, causing Hunter to look up and share a glance with Toni who was studying the blonde girl. Hunter held the glance, the same way she had done with Leah before once again returning to fiddling with her bracelet. "They're gonna find us, but we can't be stupid."
"We should make a big-ass help sign, like in that movie 28 Days Later," Dot partially joked, partially seriously suggested. Hunter was slightly aware of the film she was talking about as Hudson had been huge on his survival tv shows and movies too.
"What do you think happened to the flight attendant guy?" Martha interrupted, concern across her face as she thought about the man who had given them all chocolate cake just before their crash.
"We should be looking through suitcases, finding phones!" Rachel interrupted again, waving her hands about as she raised her voice. Hunter didn't bother to look up from her hands, knowing that while Rachel was trying to assert herself as a leader of the group, it wasn't going to work. She already knew from the environment on the plane that there were a lot of headstrong girls in this group and she was well aware that order taking wasn't something most of them were used to.
"Listen, y'all," Shelby started, causing a few of them to sigh in anticipation for whatever the deeply religious girl was about to say next. "It's the 21st century, okay? They will find us, but in the meantime we gotta keep track of our resources."
"Look Hunter, if we're gonna win this then we need to keep track of our resources!" Riley yelled across to the blonde, a wide grin on his face as he dived down into the water with a laugh. Hunter giggled as he reemerged centimetres away from her, grabbing her hips and pulling her towards him in a kiss.
"Lovebirds, do you mind? Some of us are playing here!" Her brother yelled out from a few metres away, splashing them with the water gun that rested in his hands. Hunter threw her head back and laughed as Riley lunged towards him playfully, throwing themselves backwards into the water with their friends all erupting into heavy laughter at the best friend's antics.
Hunter rolled her eyes at their playfulness before turning to some of the other girls and heading out of the water with them. Laughing at something one of the other cheerleaders had said, she smiled as she felt the warm sand move under her feet. She'd only been official with Riley for two weeks but everything in her life was finally starting to line up.
Allowing her friends to throw their arms around her shoulders as they all ran towards the barbecue that one of the other football players had been manning while they had been goofing off in the sea, Hunter knew that this was just the beginning of something huge for her.
"Hunter!"
The blonde jumped slightly as she snapped her head to look at where everyone else was staring at her, snapping her out of the memory that she had been reliving. Toni was staring at her with a slight scowl as she stood with her hand outstretched towards her.
"Are you coming with us or not?"
Hunter shrugged, confused about where she was supposed to be going. They were all aware she had spaced out but weren't sure what about. The girl stood to her own feet, ignoring the hand of help that Toni had reached out towards her and mumbled under her breath an affirmative that she was ready to go wherever it was that she had been nominated to go. She had been briefly aware that Dot had just found a phone in her pocket, but since Hunter didn't believe it was any use she didn't even consider getting her hopes up about it.
She tightened her laces before following after Shelby and Toni, unsure what they were even looking for. She guessed that the only reason she was willing to even go was because Shelby's presence somewhat made her feel slightly more at home since she was a familiar face - albeit knowing little about the girl other than her pageant hobby, cheating boyfriend and religious upbringing.
"Keep your ears peeled," she instructed the other two as they headed into an upward field of wheat. "You'll hear moving water before you see it."
Hunter muttered an okay before continuing on behind the duo. She was glad to now know what it was she was actually looking out for, but she was still a bit dazed from the reality of this all. She was just praying that she was going to wake up any moment in her bed, with Hudson blaring music from across the hall.
"How come you know all this?" Toni asked, casting a quick glance behind her to make sure that Hunter was actually following them.
"She hunts," Hunter mumbled, causing Toni to furrow her brow and look forward to where Shelby was speeding ahead of them both.
"This may surprise you, but I'm not some delicate indoor princess, okay? I go hunting with my dad all the time," Shelby confirmed, slightly surprised that Hunter knew that she was a member of the hunting community in their hometown. She knew that Hunter's dad occasionally would go hunting with her father, but she had never been there when he did and since the man himself wasn't religious it wasn't often her father and Mr Boyd would go on the same trips.
"So you do one hard-core thing?" Toni teased, purposely trying to get under her skin. "That doesn't mean you're not mostly an indoor princess. How many pillows do you have on your bed? Bet you've got one of those mega beds with, like, 50 pillows. Your maid, Lupe, she's gotta keep taking them off and putting them back on and it's making her want to off herself, am I right? You know I'm right."
"Yeah, well I've also shot down a ten-point buck, snapped his neck to finish the job and butchered him in the field all by myself. God built us to contain multitudes Toni. Now can you both turn around? Cause I have to pee," Shelby bragged as she placed her hands on Toni's shoulders to turn the girl around. "Plug your ears, or I'll have to sing."
Toni and Hunter both turned around as the other blonde began to pull her pants down. Hunter rolled her eyes at what Shelby had been saying before finally opening her mouth for the longest since they'd found themselves stranded on the island.
"Murdering a defenceless animal as a sport isn't hard-core, it's cruel," Hunter said, but Shelby didn't hear her words due to her singing that was drowning out the sound of her peeing. Toni shared a look with Hunter and smiled ever so slightly, glad that she wasn't dealing with two Shelby's. She didn't quite know what to make of the other blonde but she was very aware there was a lot to unpack with her and her behaviour.
_
"It didn't happen consciously, but I was finally starting to notice the others. Like Martha, how every creature meant something to her. Or Nora, how she always knew whenever you were looking at her and how her smile could mean a million different things. Or even Hunter, who was gentle but rough at the same time and had clearly built walls so high around herself that I wasn't sure we'd ever really find out anything about her. The veil of obsession was lifting. The world I had narrowed down to one was starting to repopulate."
_
After various arguments about religion and wealth, Hunter was sure that they were about to give up on finding water. She was now walking in front of Toni and Shelby who had been bickering back and forth, while Toni had just overtaken Shelby after complaining that her ponytail was making her feel sick.
"When you pray, God opens your senses," Shelby replied to Toni's latest strand of argument, causing the darker haired girl to turn around with anger written across her face.
"God's such a joke," Toni snapped, at her wits end with the blonde. "Don't you know he's just a brainwashing tool designed to enslave the masses?"
"Even if he were just a brainwashing tool, don't you ever think your brain could use a good... scrub?" Shelby poked back, a slight grin on her face as she watched Toni grow increasingly more annoyed with her. Hunter scowled from where she was walking in front of them, unimpressed with their childish taunts.
"Fuck off," Toni spat, turning around and encouraging Hunter to continue walking. The blonde took up the front again, trying to tune out Shelby's religious prayers before spinning around in shock as the blonde let out a yelp and went rolling down the hill beside them.
Toni sprinted down the hill after Shelby, apologies streaming frantically out of her lips as Shelby sat up with blood dripping down her face. Hunter felt her heart race as she watched the way Toni reached out to the blonde, the realisation of what she had done across her face as she quickly looked back up at where Hunter was frozen at the top of the incline.
"Shit, I swear, I didn't mean to..."
"HUNTER! LOOK AT ME," Riley shouted desperately, his hands placing themselves on either side of the blonde cheerleader's face as he tried to make the girl open her crying eyes to look at his own startling blue ones. Hunter was trying to pull herself away from him but he would't let go. "I'm so sorry baby, I didn't mean to..."
"Go ahead and go on back, both of you," Shelby said, snapping Hunter out of her memory. "I will too, but yous should get a head start. I'd really rather walk alone."
Toni walked back up the incline while Shelby placed another hand to her head, noticing how Hunter flinched away from the dark haired girl as she reached where she had been standing. Toni gulped slightly, the guilt overcoming her as she and Hunter began the walk back in complete silence.
___
After Shelby, Toni and Hunter returned just as Dot and Nora announced their discovery of Diet Coke and miniature alcohols, it was discovered that the phone was working again.
They all crowded around Rachel as she held the phone in her hands, once again forcing herself into the mantle of leader as she addressed the group of teenage girls.
"Listen, we have to be strategic. We only have one bar and almost zero battery left. Every second counts."
"May I just say, I am ready to make the call, okay?" Shelby interrupted with a grin on her face as she looked at the phone in Rachels' hands. Everyone turned to look at her, watching as she eyed it up. "My aunt is a 911 operator..."
"No," Rachel shut down instantly, with Dot nodding her head in agreement from beside the New Yorker. "911 is out, it doesn't work in every country and we don't even know where we are. So if we're closer to like, Japan, 911 is useless."
"Japan's emergency number is 119," Nora told them all, Hunter growing frustrated at the time they were wasting with this argument. She knew for a fact that Hudson would be waiting by the phone for her to call to tell him she was safe.
"Look, we only have to get in contact with one person," Rachel pointed out, looking between them all once again. "So I want you all to have someone in mind, make sure you know their number, and make sure they love you enough to be waiting by the phone right now."
Hunter watched as Rachel and Nora grappled over the phone, arguing about whether or not Rachel calling her diving coach was a good idea or not. She rubbed her face with her hand in annoyance as the phone call failed and the phone was passed over to Shelby.
As Shelby failed to get in touch with her parents, she frantically tried to dial the one number that both Dot and Hunter doubted would be waiting by the phone for her.
"Uh, let me real quick, try my boyfriend," Shelby said while both Dot and Hunter rolled their eyes and barked out their disagreements with the waste of a phone call.
"I wouldn't waste my time," Hunter snarked as Dot also spoke.
"Andrew's probably dick deep in Christa Findlay by now," Dot said at the same time, causing everyone to look between the three Texans in surprise at them all actually acknowledging that they came from the same school. It was clear that both Dot and Hunter knew something that Shelby didn't, and it made everyone feel uncomfortable.
Toni snatched the phone from Shelby as the blonde looked at Hunter and Dot in surprise, passing it to Martha only for them all to watch as the call failed to connect yet again. Fatin was next, then Hunter was aware that she was going to have the chance to phone her brother.
As the call failed for Fatin, Hunter accepted it with shaking hands as she started to input the number for Hudson. As she raised the phone to her ear, she and the others failed to notice that Jeanette had stumbled to the side and began to throw up dark blood.
"It's ringing!" Hunter announced with a small smile of hope on her face as she yelled across to the where the girls had all been arguing, waiting to hear Hudson's worried voice over the line. She suddenly felt a sense of dread as the ringing abruptly cut off, pulling the phone back and realising with horror that the device had ran out of battery. "It's fucking dead!"
"She's... she's dead!"
Leah's voice turned her blood cold, and suddenly the phone in her hand no longer felt heavy as it slipped on to the sand they all stood on. Everyone turned around to see the girl crouched beside the stationary form of Jeanette, surrounded by the blood that had splattered on to the sand.
"She's dead."
____
After they buried Jeanette - accompanied by a haunting rendition of 'Raise Your Glass' by P!nk that Leah and Nora had insisted the girl liked, the remaining 9 survivors found themselves sitting around a small fire that Dot had managed to get started.
"How's your stuff so dry?" Martha asked Fatin, who had been lucky in having her suitcase wash up to shore. Hunter had been informed that her suitcase also had washed up, but unlike Fatin, everything was drenched inside. Dot had demanded they keep it in the hopes that everything dried up if they were stuck there, but for now Fatin was the only one with dry clothes.
"My parents bought me this watertight $1,000 suitcase for this trip," she explained, her voice a little exasperated as Hunter studied how the girl seemed bitter about it. She knew there was a story there obviously. "They thought it would like, sweeten the deal. Fucktards."
Fatin's mouth dropped open as she realised that everyone else was shivering slightly, before diving into her suitcase and beginning to pass out various pairs of clothes she was willing to share without a second thought. She passed an oversized quarter zip to Hunter, who paused for a moment before noticing the familiar NFL football team logo across the breast. She accepted it with a small smile, well aware that it was Hudson's favourite team.
"So... would it be crazy if I suggested a little... icebreaker?" Shelby said after Fatin had finished passing out spare clothes to them all. Hunter smiled gently, looking around at how everyone else broke a slight smile too. "Never Have I Ever. Feels... right."
"All right," Toni spoke, tilting her head as she looked across the fire towards Shelby. "Only if you go first. None of those bullshit lightweight answers, give us the real."
Everyone looked between them before Shelby shrugged and nodded in acceptance of Toni's terms. "Fine," the blonde said, looking around the circle. "Never have I ever had vaginal penetrative intercourse."
Hunter raised the miniature to her mouth as she took a sip, watching as everyone minus Martha and Shelby did the same. She was kinda surprised about some of the others but it wasn't her place to voice her assumptions.
"So that's why your boyfriend's a cheat?" Toni poked at Shelby, with Dot and Hunter sharing uncomfortable glances with each other knowing that he was in fact a cheat.
"He's not a cheat!" Shelby protested, looking to see if Hunter was going to back her up since she was aware that the girl knew her boyfriend. When Hunter's lips remained sealed shut, Shelby had a sudden feeling of dread and doubt begin to fill her stomach.
"Glad I'm not the only one," Martha told Shelby with a small smile. "I would've felt so stupid."
"Get out of here," Shelby eased the girl, a small smile mirrored on her face. "It takes guts to save yourself, you know that?"
There was a slight silence for a moment before Dot decided it was her turn to give the question master role a shot. She looked around with a grin on her face before proposing the question.
"Never have I ever... had a threesome," she announced, causing everyone to smile slightly as they looked around to see who was going to drink. Hunter rolled her eyes with a small smirk as she watched herself and Fatin be the only ones to take a sip of their drink, laughs being exchanged between all the girls as they looked at the duo in amazement.
"With two guys, not two girls," Dot tried again, wanting to see where their limits both had been set. Fatin and Hunter shared a look again as both of them took a sip of their drinks.
Shelby raised her eyebrow in surprise at Hunter, surprised that the girl would have done that. She doubted Riley would have been up for it at all, which made her wonder if it was before she was ever with the quarterback.
"On my period," Dot asked again, wanting to see if either of the girls would drink. Hunter shook her head with a small smile while Fatin raised her drink as if she was about to take a sip.
"I mean, I'm not a freak," Fatin announced as she lowered the bottle before actually sipping, causing everyone to snort out a few laughs at her response. Hunter smiled as Rachel piped up with a question, genuinely not expecting the girl to have suggested one or taken part in the game at all.
"All right, I got one. Never have I ever thrown my own piss at someone," Rachel proposed, causing Martha, Hunter and Toni to all smile as they knew exactly who the question was aimed at.
"Drink up, Toni," Martha said after a moment, causing everyone to squeal or let out yells of laughter at the image, but yet no one was surprised at it being Toni who had done so. The girl had an obvious temper and nothing seemed to be off the cards for her.
"With pride, motherfuckers!" Toni cheered as she drank her drink, everyone still laughing slightly at her actions.
As the game gradually died, everyone started branching off into their own little groups for the end of the night. Martha, Toni, Shelby and Dot were all helping to clean up after their small bonfire while Hunter was also giving them a hand.
Just as Hunter went to grab a piece of wood from the fire remains that she thought would have been cool, Toni reached out and grabbed her wrist to stop her from grabbing the wood that the other girl could see was still embruing.
"Dude, that's still hot," Toni said, before scowling and getting slightly annoyed as Hunter snatched her hand back from Toni causing the girl to stumble. Dot, Martha and Shelby all rose as they watched the drama start to unfold with all of them knowing that Toni had a bad temper and Shelby and Dot knowing that Hunter had recently been irrational in the previous few weeks.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? I'm just trying to help you!" Toni exclaimed, getting fed up of how jumpy the girl seemed to be around them all. She had been fine with it previously but when she was just putting herself in danger she wasn't going to stand and take the behaviour without reason.
"I don't need your help! Don't fucking touch me," Hunter snarled back, holding her wrist as if Toni had burned the flesh when she touched it. Martha reached out and grabbed on to Toni's arm as the girl went to move towards Hunter in anger.
"She's just trying to help you, Hunt," Shelby said, causing Hunter's blood to boil even more at the nickname that was reserved for her brother only - not some girl she barely knew just because they were from the same school. "You clearly have something you need to get off your chest."
"You don't get to call me that," Hunter snapped at the blonde, Dot raising her hands in defence as Hunter went to turn on her before realising that the other Texan hadn't said anything to piss her off. "Just because I've known you for all for less than a day and I'm stuck on some shitty island doesn't mean we're going to braid each other's hair and play pretend families."
Toni went to snap after her as Hunter turned around and stormed off to where she had made a little bed out of a jacket Fatin had given her and her damp suitcase, but Martha held her back as she mumbled towards the blonde's retreating figure.
"Don't bother Toni, she's not worth it."
As they all lay there sleeping that night, Hunter couldn't help but think back to what the girls had said to her. She was broken, incredibly so, and the one person that knew how to fix her likely had no idea that she was stranded on some desert island in the middle of God knows where. She was so broken she couldn't even accept kindness from people who had no reason to not be nice to her.
Maybe Riley had been right, Hunter was just a waste of space.