Author's Note:

I can't believe I'm posting Chapter X already! I'm starting to get a bit overwhelmed by all the sub-plots I started, so feel free to let me know if this gets too disjointed and the back-and-forth is confusing, or if I forget to finish a side story. I'll do what I can to fix it!

x

Charlotte drummed her fingers on the table. She was seething.

"Lewis should like me." She hissed under her breath. The JuiceNet—as was usual—buzzed with activity, but Charlotte could only see the blonde head turned in utter concentration to Cleo's wildly gleeful gestures. They seemed absorbed with the topic of the full moon. Cleo kept chirping about "this time," in comparison to "last time," as if the full moon was something significant to look forward to. Whether it was a strange way of marking their anniversary, or simply Lewis's current scientific obsession, Charlotte didn't know and didn't want to.

She just wanted Lewis to stop caring so much about Cleo Sertori.

"Hey, gorgeous." Nate slipped into the seat beside Charlotte. He'd just been severely beat at billiards, which showed all over his sweaty face and clothes. Apparently, that didn't stop him from thinking he was still desirable.

"Ugh," Charlotte said, "Why are you sitting here? I thought you liked Cleo."

"I did... but have you gotten a look at those two, lately?" he nodded to Lewis and Cleo, who were laughing over their drinks. Cleo would point to something in the distance and steal a sip or two from Lewis's glass. Lewis would pretend not to notice, and then do the same to her. They were ridiculous; so happy, and shameless, and dismissive of any mockery towards their nauseating behaviour.

Charlotte wanted to strangle them.

Well, not both of them. Just Cleo, really.

"I am looking, and I..." she was about to completely lose it and show Nate just how close she was to snapping by flying off the handle. But a plan began forming in her mind.

"What if I told you there was a way to get Cleo back?" She had no idea if that was at all possible... except that she would do anything to get Lewis from her, and Nate could do as he pleased after that. The two lovebirds spent so much time on Mako. If they weren't whispering about it, they were making constant trips there and back. Although how they did so that often with only Lewis's boat as transportation, she couldn't imagine.

There had to be something about that island that kept them going back, and it wasn't the romance. Well, it could have been, but Rikki and Emma were in on it too. Charlotte determined that if she had to camp out and live there for a month to find out, she would.

"How?"

She'd almost forgotten she asked Nate if he wanted Cleo back, and it took her a moment to collect her thoughts to respond.

"Let me use your boat," she all but demanded.

"What for?"

"I need to test a few theories. I'll bring it back in good shape."

Nate leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. Charlotte cringed away from his breath. "Let me come with you," he said.

"No way."

"Then it looks like you're swimming to wherever you want to get to." He let out an exaggerated sigh. "Hope it's not too far. I hear there's been a lot of shark activity, recently..."

Charlotte glanced Lewis's way. He had just dotted Cleo's nose with whipped cream and was squinting adorably at her. "Fine," she growled. "Let's go."

"Now!?" he screeched, as she grabbed her bag and headed out.

"Yes. Now."

-x-

Nate grumbled the whole way to Mako. He grumbled when Charlotte told him to stay in the boat. And he grumbled again, when he followed her and realised that stumbling through Mako Island's excessive foliage, and climbing up and down slippery, rocky inclines required more work than sitting in the boat.

"I told you to stay behind!" she hissed.

"Why? What's so important that you don't want me to see?"

"I don't know, yet! I just... I need to find out."

He grumbled again, but had no choice except to continue on.

It took them ages to get anywhere, being that they stopped so often for Nate to catch his breath, or take a bite from one of many cereal bars stashed in his shorts. It was already growing dark by the time Charlotte felt she'd surveyed a good portion of the island.

She was also hot, and miserable, and being eaten alive by the largest insects she'd ever encountered when Nate had the nerve to insist that her stamina was simply not up to par with his.

"Shut up!" she screeched, "You are the most annoying, big-mouthed, useless excuse of a person I have ever met!"

"Useless? What's useless is this trip! What are you looking for, anyway? We're supposed to be breaking Cleo and Lewis up, not killing ourselves on some stupid island. The only thing here is a nest full of bugs, and a dozen slippery..."

Charlotte blinked her surprise as Nate disappeared. His wrong-footed turn had caused him to fall through a crevice and down a slope into... she didn't know what.

"Nate!" Less concerned for him, and more concerned about what people would think if it was discovered he had died while questing with her on Mako Island, Charlotte carefully ran to the edge and tried to peer down the slope. "Are you alive?"

"Yeah, I'm alive!" he shouted up at her, "No thanks to you! And I think I found what you're looking for!"

"What?"

"Get down here."

"Not a chance. You think I'm stupid?"

"You are if you don't get down here. You gotta see this!"

Charlotte weighed her options. If he was tricking her... well, he seemed to be all right, so at least she wouldn't be injured from it. And she was getting tired of wandering around the island with nothing to show. If she did get suckered into one of Nate's stupid pranks, she could always take off and leave him there.

She exhaled sharply and slipped into the crevice.

It was a tight squeeze, but she made it through to the end without too much injury to her hips. When she stood up, Nate was gawking at the sight of a shining pool.

It looked like they were in a storybook. The volcanic walls shimmered with blue light, and the waves lapped gently at the sides of the shore. It was odd that there should be so much movement in a pool, but nothing about the place they stood in seemed ordinary.

One thing was for sure; there was no way of going back up the impossible incline they'd fallen down from, and there was no visible escape from the circular cavern.

"Great," Charlotte said. "You're an idiot. How do we get out of here now?"

"I dunno." He was still mesmerised by the pool. "I just thought this looked... important."

"It's an inactive volcano, Nate! And now we're both stuck down here!" The moon hung directly over the opening above them, and though she couldn't explain why, Charlotte was uneasy with the feelings the reflection of the moonlight in the pool gave her. It made her feel like her will wasn't her own... and she was always in control.

"Maybe there's a way to swim under..." Nate suggested.

"Find out."

"Whoa! Excuse me, Queen of Everything! Why do I have to be the one to..." he didn't finish his sentence, being frightened by the look on her face. Muttering under his breath, he slipped off his shoes and his shirt, paused to wiggle his eyebrows at Charlotte who huffed in disgust, and then jumped in.

Bubbles erupted all around him as he rose to the surface.

"Ah! What is this?" he shouted, while Charlotte cried, "What's happening?!"

"As if I would know! What if this kills me?!"

"It won't kill you! I don't think..."

She watched as the water churned around him, taking particular interest in the way his legs were dissolving... the moment she realised what was happening, she dove in, clothing and all.

"What are you doing?" he cried when she came up from under water.

She wasn't looking at him when she answered, but straight ahead, as if picturing something other than the wet walls of rock before her.

"Whatever it takes."

Ending Notes: This turn of events was entirely my Beta's idea, (Kitty Pimms) and I think it's a wonderful one that will open up a lot of possibilities for Lewis and Zane to save the day. Every story needs an antagonist, and I really didn't want it to be water. Because water is our friend. :)