4: Who the Hell are Rio and Jose, Anyway?
Sierra bounced up and down on her bed, gnawing away at the end of a pencil like a gopher. She was clacking away at a lap top and was surrounded by pieces of printed paper, all of them bearing the faces of the two newest contestants.
So far, from research, Sierra had figured out that the newest raven haired girl, Rio, was a famous singer from Mexico. A few times, she'd seen pictures of her in magazines and heard her music on the radio, but other than that, Sierra hadn't really cared too much about her. She'd also seen Jose in a few magazines, too; he was a male model, like Justin, as well as a million other things that Sierra hadn't really kept tabs on.
Until now, anyway. Being officially immersed in Total Drama since World Tour, Sierra's popularity had skyrocketed. She was still the biggest number 1 fan, but it still shocked and elated her that she had her own...fan base. It felt like such a coveted holy grail to her! Every time she checked her e-mail now, she got a tiny thrill reading a message from somebody telling her that she was awesome or that they thought she and Cody were a cute couple.
Of course, she had her share of haters, too, but Sierra refused to pay them much mind. Obviously, they were just jealous or pompous stupidheads only flaming her to make themselves feel better.
There was a knock on her door and Sierra looked up suddenly, dropping her pencil. Another knock and she scrambled to her feet, rushed to the door, letting her papers fly around her feet.
"COMING!" she cried, hoping it was her 'Cody-kins' at the door.
When she pulled the door open, she was beaming from ear to ear, but her smile dropped as soon as she saw who was standing there...It was the last person she'd expect.
"I like your smile," Jose said with a chuckle. "It really accents your craziness..."
"Craziness..." Sierra huffed, crossing her arms. "I'm not crazy...Okay, maybe crazy about Cody, but that's just about it."
"You're really quite pretty," Jose continued, raising an eyebrow and shooting her a charming smile. "Does Cody appreciate that smile?"
Sierra's eyes widened. Right off the bat, she recognized the devious glint in Jose's green eyes. And she knew exactly what he was up to. So, apparently, being a giant jerkface was a trait that ran in the Burromuerto family tree? Sierra had already been manipulated by Alejandro, so Jose was going to be hard-pressed in trying to reciprocate Al's tactics.
"I'm very happy with Cody, thank you," she said, kind of baffled by Jose's low blow at her 'marriage' to Cody. "What about Rio?"
"Oh...she's just a show girl," Jose replied. "She knows how to act. Just like me."
"So, you're pretending to be in love with her?" Sierra couldn't help being shocked by this, considering how huge a secret romantic she was. And the fact that she'd already added a JoseXRio tab on her official web page...
"This comes off as a surprise to you?" Jose laughed. "We barely even know each other!"
"Why are you here? Telling me this?" Sierra balled her fists. "At least that slimeball Alejandro saved his confessions for the frigging confessional. Play the game right."
To her irritation, Jose yawned and leaned against the wall, looking at her with a bored expression. "We all know that Alejandro's the scum of the Earth. What else is new?"
"He's your brother!" Sierra protested.
"You can't lecture me on morals," he said snidely. "Just because he's my brother doesn't mean I have to like him."
"I know I wouldn't be able to live him, either," Sierra agreed, rolling her eyes. "He probably plans on going to college and taking classes in World Domination 101."
At that, Sierra was surprised when Jose burst into laughter, high and melodious. It was an admittedly pleasing sound, but nowhere near as sweet as the way Cody sometimes snorted when he laughed.
"That's clever!" Jose smiled. "I knew I was looking in the right neck of the woods for an alliance..."
"An alliance?" Sierra narrowed her eyes. "I don't know..."
"Just think about it, okay?" Jose smiled sweetly, lightly tapped her nose, then turned and started walking away while...whistling.
With a cringe, Sierra walked back into her room and stood there, tapping her chin.
An alliance with Jose and Rio would give her and Cody an edge over Al and Heather, since Jose obviously intimidated Al, even if it was just a little bit. But she also knew they were obviously going to backstab them somewhere along the line, so she and Cody would constantly have to have an eye on them.
Temporarily dropping the issue, Sierra opened her door and quietly stalked over towards the Cody's room. She opened the door and peered in: He was halfway off of the bed, rolled up in his sheets and blankets. In one arm he clutched his favorite stuffed emu and he had his thumb in his mouth.
Sierra suppressed a silent squeal. Oh Cody...you're so cute!
Silently, she crept into the room, pulling the door shut behind her and wandered over to the sleeping bag she'd set up beside Cody's bed. She settled into it and looked up at Cody with wide, shining eyes. Since she'd been up researching Jose and Rio since 5 o' clock that morning, she was missing out on a huge chunk of her special 'Cody time', as she called it.
Smiling, she reached up, touched Cody's cheek, and closed her eyes.
Geoff was hanging around in the kitchen, watching as Owen shoveled mouthful after mouthful of pancakes into his mouth. Next to Owen, Izzy was more playing with her food rather than eating it. The piranha from yesterday's challenge was clamped to her arm and every so often, she crooned to it softly and fed it a chunk of her pancakes.
At a spare interval in-between his ravenous eating, Owen looked over at Geoff.
"Where's Bridgette?" he asked, his mouth full.
"Still asleep," Geoff replied with a dreamy smile. "She looked so cute, I just couldn't wake her up-"
"That's so cutee!" a soprano, unfamiliar voice interrupted.
Geoff and Owen looked up; Rio stood at the edge of the table, carrying a tray and spinning a lock of her hair around her fingers. "Hello Geoff. Hello Owen," she said pleasantly, sitting down in front of them, uninvited. "Sorry to interrupt you."
"Hiya Rio!" Owen called pleasantly around a mouthful of food and Geoff could swear he saw Rio cringe inwardly for a brief moment.
"Oh, that's okay," Geoff replied, prodding his fork into his own pancakes. He was secretly glad that Chef wasn't the one cooking this time. The woman cooking this season didn't seem very fond of cooking inedible mush like Chef was. Owen was probably the only one out of the entire Total Drama cast that couldn't care less whether or not the food was edible; he'd eat a chunk of wood if it was placed in front of him!
"I don't mean to be nosy," Rio said, leaning towards him. "But I couldn't help noticing how close you and Bridgette are, yes?"
Geoff smiled a little. "Bridge and I met through Total Drama. We've been dating since season 1!"
Rio smiled back. "Oh, yes." She sighed heavily and looked away, poking at her pancakes.
Since he'd started dating Bridgette, Geoff was getting better at picking up signals from girls about their feelings. Now that he thought about it, Rio was kind of pretty. Nowhere near as pretty as Bridgette, of course, but definitely the type of girl that made a guy do a double take. Even Owen was looking up every so often from his pancakes to look at her.
Biting his lip, Geoff asked tentatively, "Is...something wrong?"
"Kind of..." There were tears glittering in her eyes now. "I don't want to be a bother, though...I shouldn't burden you with the troubles of my personal life..."
"It's okay," Geoff soothed, looking around. The Tierra Inn's cafeteria was practically empty. It was just his luck; there was nobody around who knew how to talk to girls. With a pang, he wished that Trent were there. Trent knew exactly what to say and do around girls.
"It's Jose!" Rio burst out, looking up with narrowed eyes. "He's not intimate at all. Romantic, yes, but that's just for publicity. I love him. A lot. But I don't think he feels the same way about me. I think he's been looking at other girls! I just caught him...flirting with another girl."
She sniffed and then started scrubbing at her eyes with the sleeve of the jean jacket she was wearing.
"He's cheating on me with that intern!" she sobbed. "That stupid intern in the smiley face shirt."
Hearing her, Geoff wrinkled his brow and reached out across the table to pat her wrist. He knew exactly what she was going through. For a brief minute, he found himself flashing back to seeing Bridgette being seduced by Alejandro on World Tour, how awful that'd been. His insides twisted, reminding him of his hatred for that slimy snake. He tried to be a cool guy that was on good terms with everybody, but Al and Heather were two people who could really get under his skin-
He came out of his reverie when he realized that Rio had intertwined her fingers through his and was squeezing his hand. She looked up at him with a sheepish smile as tears started falling from her eyes.
"What do I do, Geoff?" she asked, brushing at her tears again.
Quickly, Geoff pushed Alejandro out of his mind and took a deep breath. "If he really loves you, he'll come back and apologize. Be patient with him, okay dudette?"
He smiled as he remembered making up with Bridgette and felt like he'd given her the right advice.
"Thank you, Geoff," she murmured, squeezing his hand again.
For a minute too long, Rio held his hand and looked at him like a longing puppy. It was really starting to bother Geoff and he wrenched his hand away from her, pulled it under the table and then started looking at it as if it were a diseased animal. For some reason, he felt that something was extremely off. Something compelled him to look up.
And he caught a glimpse of Bridgette peering into the cafeteria before she scurried away.
Confused, he turned to look back at Rio, but she was gone. Poof! As if she'd just vanished completely into thin air.
Next to him, Owen was shaking his head and even Izzy was giving him a strangely pointed look. Even her pet piranha was looking at him weird.
"What?" he asked, getting even more confused.
They just continued to stare blankly at him.
Unnerved, Geoff stood up and walked across the cafeteria. Once he exited, he found Bridgette leaning against the bottom of the tall wooden staircase in the foyer of the inn. She had her legs pulled up under her chin, her arms wrapped around them. There were tears at the edges of her eyes now, too.
"Bridge?" Helplessly, Geoff reached out towards her.
In reply, she looked up at him, venom in her eyes. "I saw you looking at her!" she cried. "I knew you had the hots for her, but I didn't think you were going to cheat on me!"
"Bridge, let me explain-"
Biting her lip, Bridgette started shaking. Furrowing his brows, Geoff watched as she phased between sadness and anger, over and over again. Finally, she took a deep breath and swiped at her eyes, then she stood up and walked up to him, her fists clenched at her sides.
"Look me in the eyes and tell me the truth!" Bridgette demanded. "Were you just flirting with Rio...?"
"No," Geoff answered in a steady voice, looking directly into her eyes.
They both looked at each other for a long moment and Geoff felt a few prickles when he noticed the few flickers of doubt on Bridgette's face. The doubt eventually faded and she just stared at him, flexed her fingers. Her unwinding greatly eased Geoff's current stress. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed both of her arms and continued looking directly into her eyes.
"Rio told me that she thought her boyfriend Jose was cheating on her," Geoff explained. "I...I didn't really know what to do. She just started turning on the waterworks and-"
Bridgette's eyes widened. "Heather did something similar with Trent back in season 1!"
"I don't think Heather even knew Alejandro back then..." Geoff didn't see how Heather had anything to do with the current situation.
"Of course she didn't!" Bridgette cried out, exasperated. "I remember Gwen telling me about what happened with Trent. I even watched the episode of TDI with that in it one time. Heather did something similar to what Rio was just trying to do...I think Rio was flirting with you to try to break us up, Geoff!"
Bridgette's words struck a chord with Geoff. He remembered Heather's move on Trent and shuddered when he remembered his nasty argument with Bridgette when he'd accidentally blurted he thought Heather was the hottest girl on the show. After seeing Heather manipulate the game, then Justin, Courtney, and Alejandro, it made sense that Bridgette should be able to pick up on when somebody else was trying to. She's so smart and so hot! Geoff thought with a smile.
"Why are you smiling, Geoff?" Bridgette was frowning, eyes narrowed.
"You really are the complete package, Bridge," he said honestly. "Brains and beauty rolled into one."
Bridgette giggled and then looked away, blushing. She pretended to be bashful for a few seconds, then she launched herself at him and started kissing him. Heart pounding, Geoff moaned and they fell to the floor, going into a full-on make-out session.
At the top of the stairs, Rio peeked around the banister and snarled. Nobody could resist her charm, so how had that cowboy hat wearing loser resisted her?
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find Jose standing there. "Brilliant performance," he said, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.
"But...they didn't break up! And they're onto us now," Rio cried.
"Don't fret, my pet," Jose replied with a sugary smile. "It's best that they do know our true nature. Keeping them guessing too long makes things harder."
"For one thing, I'm not your pet," Rio growled. "Another thing...your plan really sucks so far! You're an idiot if you think we'll get anywhere when everybody else thinks we're just like Alejandro and Heather! They're already on to us, anyway. I'm taking over in making the plans, now."
Jose just chuckled. "Just put up with me for a little while longer," he said. "My plan is foolproof. I can easily get you the three million dollars if you just cooperate with-"
"I can make three million easily off of a concert tour," Rio said icily. "I really don't need you."
"Then what is your motive for being on this show?" Jose frowned at her.
"My motive, you ask?" Rio took on a theatrical tone of voice. "Since you were forced on me as my 'partner in crime', I guess I can tell you...What I want is the challenge. The drama. You can't tell anyone this, Jose, but I'm the reincarnation of Eris, the goddess of chaos! I love chaos. And up until now, I've only been able to express it through music. Now, I have the tools at hand to really see it in action!"
Jose pursed his lips. As she talked, Rio's eyes widened and she looked halfway insane. She was an insanely talented and beautiful young woman that could bring a weak man to his knees, but she was definitely not sane. More sane than Izzy, maybe, but still absolutely crazy. Clucking like a mother hen, Jose looked at her and smiled. "You're quite sadistic, aren't you?"
"I guess you could say that," Rio replied, playing with her hair. "Why?"
"I like it."
There was light, bouncy music playing. It definitely wasn't Mozart, but it was classical, one of the few genres of music LaShawna couldn't really stand. She needed a beat that she could groove to, not a beat that was bound to put her to sleep. And, to her utter frustration, it was the music that'd been playing all morning.
Gritting her teeth, LaShawna turned to stare at Harold, who was bobbing his head to it as he thumbed through a thick volume about physics. "Can we listen to something with an actual beat to it?" LaShawna complained.
Rolling his eyes, Harold turned off the stereo sitting next to his bed. "That was your favorite radio station," he protested.
"They don't play that kind of crap!" she said.
"Turn it back on for yourself and see," Harold replied, turning another page of his book. "That's the most popular music right now."
Frowning, LaShawna turned the stereo back on and her eyes almost popped out of her head when she realized that Harold was right. She waited for the current song to stop playing and then waited for the radio announcer to name off the song that had just played.
"...'Bounce' by Rio Rodriguez..."
Her eyes widened and she looked over at Harold. "Rio's...a famous musician?"
"She beat out the Total Drama Brothers last month for no.1 last month," Harold replied, a slight edge to his voice.
LaShawna frowned. There was something very wrong to her about classical music beating out hip-hop.
Uno...dos...
Alejandro silently counted off the number of push-ups in his head. Sweat was running down his face and neck, matting his hair. He'd already done an hour and a half of vigorous exercise, but he was nowhere near done for at least another hour. After being immobile for so long after his accident, he was even more determined to be more physically active than he'd ever been before. Even if that meant working out from as early as 3 in the morning until 8 or 9.
He took a deep breath and glared at the open window, at the pale blue sky outside.
Ever since he'd started working out, the scene from yesterday had been playing endlessly in his mind. Some part of him just couldn't stand the thought of losing her. The moment he'd realized that she was going to fall into that hole, he'd felt such a strong, irresistible urge to go rescue her. And that urge hadn't been driven by his desire to earn the three million. Snorting out a breath, he couldn't figure out what was happening to him.
Last night, he'd had a very vivid dream about Heather and that still kept blossoming in his head, an image he couldn't seem to shake. It played through his mind yet again and he grunted in anger, smacking the floor and then just collapsing onto his side in utter frustration. He gritted his teeth and pulled at the bull-shaped pendent around his neck, trying to remember that he was in a very strained alliance with her. There was no love between them at all. Just hate.
That was when the door to his room burst open and Heather walked in, carrying a plate with a bunch of pancakes stacked on it. Bewildered, he watched as she placed them on the bed and then sat down next to it. "You weren't in the cafeteria," she said simply.
Alejandro raised an eyebrow. They both knew that she didn't do stuff like this.
"Don't think too much about it," she barked, folding her arms. "I just thought...I owed you something for...saving me yesterday."
So she knew it was him? From the tone in her voice, he could tell she thought he'd only rescued her to stay in the game and he wasn't going to let her think it was anything different.
"You do owe me," he said, sitting up. "But I will tell you when I want the favor returned."
Heather scoffed. "Oh, puh-lease. I know how you get your favors repaid, Alejandro. And I'm not repaying it your way. I say, I've already paid it now."
She knew exactly how to get under his skin. It was bad enough that Jose was here, but he had to deal with her, too. This entire ordeal was going to be an uphill battle...
"You owe me for a lot more than just that..." he said bitterly, feeling his insides burning with anger and hatred.
"I owe you nothing," Heather replied snidely, turning up her nose.
That remark revved up Alejandro like a motorcycle. He leaped to his feet and stood over her, grabbing her arms in iron grips like a pair of manacles. Looking into her eyes, he glared heatedly and snorted, watching her cringe slightly as his hot breath hit her face.
"You owe me quite a bit," he said in a low, threatening tone of voice. "I came here with the intention of crushing you into the dirt. No mercy. You really don't realize how fragile our alliance is in this stupid game is, do you?" He leaned in closer towards her, tightening his grip; she glared back at him, letting out a long breath. "I hate you with such a burning intensity, Heather. If I had my way, you'd be at my feet...begging and kissing my shoes. You're such a worthless bag of dirt! I don't know what I ever saw in you."
Alejandro backed away a little, breathing hard. He released Heather and turned away, feeling satisfied for just letting the words out. The air was thick and heavy now and he could feel her glaring at him, her gaze boring into his back as a relentless laser beam. She grabbed his wrist and flung him around to face him and he could see the full extent of her fury in her eyes, the fire burning within her.
"I hate you so much, Alejandro!" she screamed.
"I hate you, too," he replied. "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you."
"I hate you. I HATE. YOU."
They kept yelling the three words at each other, trying to drown out the other's words. Every time he heard her say the words, Alejandro felt more fuel for his anger, but felt like a huge shard of glass was being stuck into his heart as well. The screaming match dragged on for three minutes before Heather collapsed onto his bed and rolled onto her side, breathing hard.
Silently, Alejandro watched her, as her chest heaved up and down. She closed her eyes and he could see little, glittering beads of tears on her eyelashes. When she realized that he was looking at her, she opened her eyes and glared heatedly at him. Then she sat up and furiously rubbed at her eyes, him watching her the entire time. He felt a pang of regret for saying what he had, but his pride barricaded him from just breaking down and apologizing.
Heather lowered her arm and looked up at him again. "We...It's only a little while longer that I have to put up with you..." she muttered.
"How about you just repay the favor right now and we call it even?" he suggested, clenching his fists.
"Just drop-"
Without thinking, he leaned in, grabbed her face and kissed her on the lips. It was brief and when he pulled away, she was looking at him with wide, unbelieving eyes. He reached up and touched her chin, trying to keep himself from kissing her again. The desire was unbelievably strong and what really confused him about it was that it was occurring at such an inappropriate time.
"That was just to shut me up," Heather said bitterly. "Don't do it again."
"Don't expect it to happen again," Alejandro replied.
Heather sighed heavily and reached up to touch his hand, pulling it away, firmly, but gently, away from her face. It startled him slightly and he backed away from her, busying himself with picking up the fork on the plate of pancakes.
"Thank you," he muttered.
"No problem," she replied.
Alejandro pretended to be staring at the food, but he watched her as she got up and walked back out the door. Then she slammed the door behind her and Alejandro looked all the way up, finding himself staring at the door.
He felt strangely hollow inside and he didn't know why.