It's time! We're back! And with what is possibly our longest chapter yet, thank goodness. A million thank you's to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, alerted, PMed, or been patient enough to stick around for chapter 14 (or any combination of the above). We're writing for you!

If you'll recall, when we left Duncan, he'd failed in locating Ezekiel and then become the focus of Bridgette's nonsensical crab analogy. And now, we learn his fate…

Rule 14: Never count your marshmallows (before the campfire)

"Okay!" Camera-Crony called, trying to appear confident but failing miserably in the face of eighteen rowdy teenagers, gathered (in something that, if you tilted your head and squinted, could have maybe resembled a circle) around him beside the pool. "This is your elimination day poolside, and, uh, because I don't actually know all of you, Mr. McLean wanted me to start the roll for him, so… uh, Ezekiel?" Unfortunately, he couldn't hear anything through the cacophonous chatter that surrounded him. "Ezekiel? Are you here? Ezekiel!"

"Aww, man," DJ sighed, Geoff and Duncan at his side (the latter of whom had arrived just minutes earlier, seen everyone in their swim attire, and removed his unbearably uncomfortable shirt accordingly), all three watching the Intern struggle to find the homeschooled cow feed Duncan had been unsuccessful in locating. "I feel bad for him, man."

Duncan rolled his eyes, asking flatly, "Ezekiel or the idiot with the clipboard?"

Geoff and DJ cast him surprised looks.

"Dude, what did happen to Zeke?" the party boy asked, his eyes wide. "I haven't seen him since he told me and Katie about how you and Heather…" He waved his hands around dramatically to substitute for words he wasn't sure were in his vocabulary. "…Back on the island, and…uh…oh."

He trailed off at the flat stare Duncan was giving him, exchanging an Ah-hah! type look with DJ (and secretly being proud of himself for having picked up on a hint in less than fifteen minutes). "You, uh, didn't kill him, did you?" Geoff hedged, adjusting his cowboy hat nervously. "I mean, I thought you liked our man Zed!"

Duncan shook his head, looking up at his friends crossly. "Don't worry about it," he grumbled, returning his focus to Camera-Crony, who had just barely stumbled over a completely uninterested Noah and was now on his tip-toes trying to locate Justin—whose absence would have been obvious if he'd been missing from the rest of Playa's beautiful scenery.

"God, this is going to take forever," the delinquent groaned in observation. It then occurred to him to ask, "What are we even doing here right now?" He'd stumbled blindly out into the crowd after his failed search for Homeschool. He didn't actually know why there was a crowd in the first place.

"You heard him, bro," DJ said, nudging Duncan's bare shoulder (because that's about where his elbow fell comfortably, tall as DJ was) with a hopeful expression. "We're at the day's poolside!"

"Yeah, but why now?" Duncan asked, hiking a brow. "Aren't these stupid things supposed to be at night?"

"Not on elimination day, man," Geoff explained, pulling his hat down over his eyes to block out the sun—for himself and for Duncan. (His hat was just that big.) "Chris does them early on challenge days so he can get to the challenges, and so we can meet the Boat of Losers all chillaxed when it gets here later tonight." He paused, thought that over, and amended, "Well, actually… We're never that chillaxed when the boat gets here anyway, so it's pretty lame that we're doing this..."

Duncan gave both of his friends an irritated glance, his upper lip just itching to curl into a snarl. "No one met me when I got here," he reminded them coolly, narrowing his eyes. "I just got Chef and his freaking alter-ego mountain monster."

DJ rubbed the back of his neck while Geoff looked away uncomfortably. "Yeah, well…" DJ began, searching for an excuse. "We didn't know it was gonna be you coming! We were waiting for the boat, but it was gettin' really, really, really late, and everyone was pretty much…going to bed, you know, and it's kinda scary waiting out there on that old, creaky dock in the dark by yourself…"

"Try getting punked by Hatchet and McLean," Duncan countered, though it came out as more of a growl. "Then talk to me."

He couldn't exactly say why he was so mad at the two guys at his side—he was just in a straight-up terrible mood since the roof incident, and it seemed like the best way to get rid of his pent up frustration; after all, the only thing keeping him from doing to them what he would have done to Ezekiel was the fact that murder wasn't so great if it left you without decent people to talk with afterwards.

"God, why am I even here?" Duncan muttered, shoving away from Geoff and DJ without a backwards glance and heading straight for Camera-Crony.

"Hey!" he barked, punching the Intern hard in the shoulder. At the sight of Duncan's face, the older man let out a girly shriek and shrunk away from the delinquent. Snatching the clipboard in a single clean swipe, he informed him, "I'm taking things from here."

Ignoring the cameraman's halfhearted pleas for the return of his paperwork, Duncan shouted at the top of his lungs (since Chef had previously confiscated his mega-phone and had it sent back to Chris), "LISTEN UP!"

The campers around him silenced immediately, turning their heads in his direction for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. Duncan frankly didn't mind—according to his philosophy (which happened to be the Law of the Jungle), it was always better to lead than follow.

"Okay. I'm here to inform you that you're all freaking wusses!" he shouted bluntly. In one fluid motion, he grabbed the clipboard by both ends and snapped it in half against his knee, tearing the papers attached to it in the process.

One out of many, Tyler made an offended face, responding with nothing more than, "Dude!"

"This whole poolside thing we're doing right now is pointless," Duncan continued, turning around to address the other side of the circle and tossing the clipboard away. "Chris and Chef aren't even here!"

Duncan couldn't help but notice that Courtney, who'd been standing next to Bridgette and glaring at him venomously, widened her eyes as the truth of what Duncan had said dawned on her.

"How can you be sure?" Sadie wanted to know. A series of nods followed from the other campers, who each wanted to be absolutely positive that there was no danger of Chris (or, more importantly, Chef) ripping them to pieces before they made their exit.

"'Cause Princess and I saw him earlier today"—Duncan jerked a thumb in Courtney's direction, though he couldn't make out the expression on her face from the corner of his eye—"and he was already leaving!"

Courtney pursed her lips at the public use of her pet name, but she met the group's curious gazes by stepping into the circle closer to Duncan.

"It's true," she confirmed. "Duncan and I"—she sneered slightly as the name passed her lips—"had to collect Chris's laundry before, and he was well on his way off the island. And if you really think about it," she continued, more for the sake of overshadowing Duncan than because she actually wanted to help her peers, "have we really ever seen Chris or Chef around the resort on challenge days? At all?"

A wave of voices rose up at the question, everyone checking with everyone else, trying to figure out if what Courtney said was correct. A second or so later, receiving the same answer—"no"—regardless of who was asked, everyone settled back down, looking to Duncan and Courtney for either an excuse to disperse (from Courtney) or a reason to rebel (from Duncan).

Leshawna was the first to break the tentative silence with her signature sass. "You mean I cleaned out all those nasty, hair-clogged drains for no one?" she yelled in indignation.

Duncan nodded, trying to force Courtney back out of the circle without drawing too much attention to their struggle. Courtney wasn't being helpful, though, opting instead to glower and shove him back just as forcefully, if not more so. And straight towards the deep end of the pool, no less. (Good thing almost all of them were dressed in sort of, semi-swimming clothes.)

"YOU'RE KIDDING ME!" Eva roared, storming past Duncan and Courtney's undercover struggle and grabbing a terrified Camera-Crony by the shirt collar. "You mean to tell me I spent a whole day with that"—she pointed to a startled Cody, who now sported both a crooked nose from the hockey game and a second injury (a bruised jaw) from something unknown—"for nothing? I can't even—!"

"Well, you know what they all always say, don't you, Eva?" Izzy cut in cheerily, flouncing over to the rock-hard girl with the rock-hard grip on Camera-Crony's shirt.

Eva's expression morphed into a glare and darted to the redhead, not changing as she flipped through her limited knowledge of clichés. The crowd gathered around was forced to assume she'd come up short when she didn't answer (granted, they were coming up short too), choosing instead to watch Izzy with an expression that said, in no uncertain terms, 'I am not amused.'

"Well, do you, Eva? Evaaaaaa. Can you hear me?" Izzy waved her hands in front of Eva's eyes, which followed her every move. "Whoops! Guess no one's home!" Izzy shrugged, tapping her lips in thought. "I bet she went into shock. You know, that happened to me once. I'd just gotten word that the Russian Mafia had traced my location, and instead of hightailing it out of there like a wild jackalope—which is what I usually do—" she added with a pleasant (for Izzy) flip of her hair, "I just stood there frozen like—!"

"WHAT!"

"Huh?"

Eva clenched her teeth and repeated herself, while those who were either listening to Izzy's story with rapt attention (like Katie and Sadie) or miming all the different ways they could put themselves out of their misery (like Noah and Tyler) composed themselves after her startling outburst. "What do they say?"

"What does who say? You mean the Mafia?" Izzy pondered for a moment. "I mean, they're usually all 'My budem ubivat' vas, sumasshedshaya devushka!' But that really depends on—"

"Izzy," Courtney interrupted with a sigh, brushing past her (and a very confused Duncan) to plop down on the pool edge next to Harold, where she didn't fail to notice the nerd's obvious apprehension. "Eva was asking about that saying you referenced."

"What…?" The redhead screwed up her face for a moment, trying to think back to life before her story. "Ohhh, you mean the 'You know what they say' saying! Yeah…" She wracked her brain for 1.75 seconds. "I forgot."

"You forgot?" Eva cried, still riled up. "I was exercising self-control! I didn't snap your little neck!" She threw down Camera-Crony (who crawled behind DJ and huddled for protection), locked her eyes on Izzy (who promptly ran back to her place in the circle—giggling) and balled up her fists, preparing for a chase. "But you know what?" she spat. "I just changed my m—!"

It was at this moment that an ear-piercing scream cut through the air—a sound similar to an enraged banshee tickling a laughing dolphin with a squeaky toy.

The sound left the entire resort in surprise (or, more appropriately, shock), silent except for the high-pitched echo left bouncing off the walls and the smallest whimper from where Camera-Crony cowered behind Deej, hating that he needed money for college so badly.

After several seconds of silence (and just as many perplexed glances), Leshawna took a step toward the center of the group, hands on her hips, and, glaring almost as fiercely as Courtney was at the Mohawked boy in front of her, exclaimed, "Hell, Duncan. What did you do now?"

The accused held up his hands in a sign of innocence, smirking hugely all the while (because her accusation was really quite flattering). "Hey, as much as I'd love to take the credit for every time a girl screams—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Courtney shoved herself off the pool deck (and away from a hyperventilating Harold), darted back over to where Duncan was standing, and brought her foot down on the toe of his left Converse, pleased with the satisfying crunch of bones that followed.

Ignoring the boy's pained reaction as he hopped and clutched his foot, the CIT turned back to the lightly snickering crowd and gave them all the reason they needed to disappear. "Well, what are you waiting for?" she yelled. "You can go now! Shoo!"

The crowd instantly split in different directions to resume whatever they'd been doing before the unnecessary poolside, thoroughly ignoring the objections that came from the newly upright Camera-Crony in the form of, "Uh, g-guys? I really, really need you to stay. Like, Mr. McLean, he, uh, he seriously wanted some footage from today and…"

Duncan had just managed to gingerly put his foot back down when he shot the man a stony glare. (This promptly shut him up.) He didn't make a move to leave, however, so Duncan held up a fist, convincing the petrified man to flee the scene. Urgently, and as fast as was Internly possible.

Meanwhile, Courtney had returned to her distant pool chair with the intention of dragging it back to where it belonged, and then going back up to her room to change out of her dry swimsuit and kill some time before the Dock of Shame. "Oh, Bridgette!" she called, trying to get the blonde's attention. Unfortunately, she was too far away to hear (and also too preoccupied making kissy faces at Geoff—they'd missed out on a whole half-day of making out, after all.) "Brid—!"

Cutting herself off with a sigh, Courtney grabbed her friend's blue hoodie from under the other chair. "Might as well be talking to her surfboard…" she muttered, turning around.

But Duncan was there to stop her in her tracks. "Hey, Princess. I have a question for you," he announced, tone smug. His bad mood had partially improved thanks to the fear he'd put on the cameraman's face, so he'd decided to take a chance at repairing his love/hate relationship with a certain CIT (namely, making it less 'hate' and more 'love'.)

Courtney fixed him with a glare, though it was reflex more than anything. She was in a rotten mood (she really wasn't a hundred percent positive as to why she felt so upset—because she didn't care that everyone now knew about the Heather thing!), and it just seemed like the right thing to do. "No, you don't," she snapped, not in the mood for questions from a crab.

"How would you know?" Duncan shot back, already noting that the conversation wasn't headed in a great direction. It usually took at least three sentences before things turned sour. Oh, well.

Courtney maneuvered around him, folding Bridgette's hoodie into a lovely, square package of sweatshirt as she walked. "Because," Courtney said smartly, "you never have a simple question. Whatever you have to say right now is either insulting, perverted, or any combination thereof leading to some other sort of rudeness, and right now, I just want to reunite Bridgette with her accursed hoodie before she trips down a flight of stairs or something."

She shot him another look over her shoulder purely for emphasis and said pointedly, "I know you, Duncan. You don't have a question."

Duncan snickered at the harsh (albeit true) personification of Courtney's best friend and, with the hints of a smirk still dancing on his face, said, "You must not know me very well, then, 'cause I was just going to ask if you ever found Ezekiel." He rocked back on his heels, pleased to have given Courtney something she wasn't expecting.

Courtney felt her eye twitch—a nervous tick she hadn't even realized she possessed until she'd started dealing with you-know-who. Spinning on her heel, she strode straight back towards Duncan.

"Okay, one," she started, shaking out the hoodie and tossing it over one of her shoulders (noting absentmindedly that Duncan had his own shirt draped the same way), "I know you plenty well. And two, no. I didn't find him." More softly, she added, "I was sort of hoping you had…"

Duncan took a moment to mentally curse Ezekiel for being so good at impromptu hide-and-seek, but he was actually more interested in pursuing item number one. Kicking a stray rock off the grass and onto the concrete a few meters away, he inquired, "Don't you think 'plenty well' is a bit of an exaggeration, sweetie?"

Again with those stupid, inapplicable pet names. It made Courtney's blood boil. "No," she contradicted, standing her ground both verbally and physically, her arms now free to plant on her hips. "I think 'plenty well' is just about right."

Duncan raised an eyebrow, sensing a challenge. "And would you be willing to testthat theory?"

Courtney let out a huge huff of an exhale. No—the very last thing she wanted was to get into something ridiculously pointless with Duncan at that time, especially after all that had happened earlier the same day (all of it related to him!), but turning down his challenge obviously wasn't an option if she wanted to preserve any remaining shreds of her dignity.

"Whatever, troll," she grunted. "Fine. Make it quick before I lose Bridgette and the only decent conversation I get in all of Muskoka. What do you have in mind?"

Duncan chuckled, congratulating himself on just how absolutely frigging clever he was. "Not much. Just have one teeny, itty-bitty question for you," he stated, taking a few steps closer to his target.

"Fine, Duncan!" she said again, growing exponentially more annoyed but not backing down a centimeter. "What?"

Duncan looked her straight in the eye and asked, "Did you know that I wear contacts?"

Now, this caught Courtney off-guard. She'd expected a question about Duncan's family history or his escapades back home (all of which she could answer thanks to information provided by Bridgette, who'd gotten it from Geoff, who'd gotten it from Duncan himself). She actually hadn't known that Duncan wore contacts—though that totally explained the intense blue of his eyes (it sort of depressed her to discover they were fake)—but for her pride's sake, she figured it was best to lie. It wasn't like he could tap into her brain and see how long she'd had the information, after all.

Shaking off her surprise as quickly as she could, she scoffed. "Of course I knew that." Courtney eyed him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world while simultaneously trying to sneak a peek at his eyes, searching for the clear, circular outline of a contact. "I'm not completely oblivious."

"Y'know what? I think you're lying, Sweetheart," Duncan said, smirking as he leaned closer to her and offered an even better view of his gorgeously fake eyes.

"Well," she retorted, refusing to back away, "I'm not lying, so you'd better look past that hunch you're getting."

He ignored her. "Do you want to know why I think you're lying?" he asked smoothly.

That, Courtney thought, was a legitimately difficult question. Did she really want to know? Did she even want to bother? Did she care?

"…Why?" she asked at last. Apparently, the answer was 'yes'.

"Because." Duncan backed away a few steps, keeping his eyes locked with Courtney's all the while. It was as if he was trying to build suspense, like their conversation was a soap opera about to cut to commercial. But finally, after what seemed like ages in Courtney-time, he leaned down to her level and whispered slowly, "I don't wear contacts."

Then, just a little bit louder, he boasted, "You can't know something that's not true!" happily driving his point home.

Courtney froze, blinking slowly. There were only a few words running through her mind at that point, most of them composed of four letters and none of them respectable (unless you were a gangster and/or rapper. In that case, they were quite respectable.) This was turning into an annoying pattern: Duncan would set her a trap, and she'd walk into it wholeheartedly, without a second glance, giving her arch nemesis just one more reason to inflate his damn ego. It killed her.

She broke out of her self-imposed mental criticism to Duncan's voice continuing playfully as he pulled his face back, "It's really too bad you're a compulsive liar, honey. First the weight thing, and now this?" He winked at her for no reason at all. "I don't know if I can ever trust you again."

In all honesty, the second mention of the "weight thing" (she weighed 53 kilos, dammit!) was what pushed Courtney past embarrassed silence and into embarrassed verbal tirade.

"You know what, Duncan?" she shouted. "Fine! You want me to admit it? Yeah, so I didn't know whether or not you wore any damn contacts! I can be more mature than you" —her hands balled into fists instead of smacking him—"and admit that! But what do you know about me, huh?" she demanded. "What's my favorite color? What's my dog's name? What's the slogan I used when running for student government?"

The delinquent under fire had already popped his mouth open with a smart answer when, without pause, Courtney changed her mind, immediately waving him off. "You know what? Don't answer that. Just go run off with Geoff and DJ and do whatever it is you three do all day. I've got better things to do, like getting this"—she pulled the blue outer garment off her shoulder and shook it at him—"back to Bridgette."

Having said her piece, Courtney spun on her heel to go locate her friend. Looking down at the hoodie in her hands as she walked, however, reminded Courtney of the conversation the two had had earlier, and glancing back over her shoulder at Duncan—his confident smirk still present—she couldn't help but grin a bit impishly as she pictured an anthropomorphic crab in his place.

Suddenly, Courtney realized that although she didn't exactly like (or understand) the haphazard crustacean analogy, there was at least one part that was okay with her. After all: there was nothing she'd have liked better than to step on her crab's face.

Repeatedly, and with extreme force.

"All right, that's a total of twenty-four dollars and fifteen cents, three pretzel rods, two and a…half pairs of socks, and a chicken salad sandwich wagered on Owen," Noah was saying, flipping through the dollar bills like a seasoned card dealer and forming stacks with the goods.

Cody had put down the socks. Gwen was beautiful and talented and all-around amazing, and Heather was a Class A schemer who put Dracula to shame, so the sad truth that Owen was coming home was practically a no-brainer. He, however, might have let a little wishful thinking cloud his judgment; a Gwen versus Heather catfight in the finale would make the rest of his year…

"Coooo-deeee!" Beth called, hopping up and down to try and see the boy she was calling for. "Can you sth-ee anything yet?"

Breaking out of his thoughts, he shouted, "Nope, nothing yet!" down to Beth from where he sat, high up on a dock-side palm tree with a pair of binoculars in his hands.

That was his usual place come elimination day. It gave him a good view of the Boat of Losers—whenever it decided to come—at which time he'd alert the others and let them know who was on the way. And, until that happened, Palmy offered up the much more interesting Birdseye view of all his fellow ex-contestants.

"So after having to spend, like, the whole night sleeping in the NUDE because of the wicked awful heat, I woke up in the morning at about 5am Pacific Standard Time to the sound of this woman SCREAMING!" Izzy was saying, leaping to her feet as she recounting a tale to Tyler, Justin, and Harold (though certain aspects of her story had Cody—and most of the other males within hearing distance, he noted—paying very close attention despite themselves.)

"Man, I hope it's Gwen. Wait, no I don't! But I do. But I can't!" Trent whined, pulling Cody's attention to yet another argument he was stuck in with himself, pacing up and down the dock as he clutched at his precious guitar like it was the last solid thing in the world to keep him alive.

Chuckling slightly to himself (Trent was so bad at playing it cool when it came to Gwen. Cody was so much more suave), he had to admit, the scene was not unfamiliar. In fact, it already had occurred, more or less, nineteen times over—thirteen of which he had seen—seeing as it was what happened on any night the Boat of Losers was expected to show.

On this particular evening, however, the gathered campers were especially tense (it wasn't just Trent), and for good reason. After all: the new addition to Playa indirectly determined the final two who were left on Wawanakwa, giving those two 50/50 odds at the impressive hundred grand that had, regretfully, eluded every single person now inhabiting Playa De Losers.

Delicately rubbing his bruised jaw, Cody turned his attention away from Trent; watching the guy break down on the dock felt almost like an invasion of privacy. Instead, he returned to Izzy, who aired her private moments as if they were nothing more than the evening news (which, if he thought about it, they probably had been at one point or another…)

"She was being besieged by this monster crocodile!" Izzy explained animatedly, miming wrestling against a huge set of jaws. "Like, four whole meters long and weighing at least the same as a South American Rhinoceros! And this lady was totally yelling her lungs out, so I leapt out of my tent and pounced on it!"

Her audience watched in shock as Izzy jumped up on one of the wooden posts supporting the deck, maintaining perfect balance and grinning maniacally the entire time. "We wrestled in that bayou for a good 35 minutes before some spoilsport called animal control," she continued from where she balanced, not far from Cody's palm tree. "'Course, the RCMP were still on my case from that heist with the toothpicks and the stuffed orangutan, so I couldn't be caught!"

"Hey!" Katie piped up suddenly, nudging the BFF who sat beside her on the far end of the dock from Izzy. "Has anyone else noticed the impossible amount of turns it takes to get here from the island? Because I thought it was super weird..."

The question had been directed at the group in general, but that didn't impede Sadie when it came to providing an equally perky response. "OMG! I totally noticed that too! And how Chef seems to pass the same patch of seaweed like three times?"

"I know, right?" Lindsay added, passing by the two on her way to buffet and then tilting her head in confusion when there was neither staff nor food in sight at 10:30 pm.

Shaking his head at the blonde's confusion, Cody, up in his palm tree-post in order to better (and, more importantly, sooner) spot the coming boat, alternated between looking through his binoculars and glancing down at whatever happened to catch his eye or ears. Eva, for example, caught both, varying between shaking the base of his palm tree violently and threatening him for reasons he still didn't comprehend.

Swallowing down the lump in his throat and grabbing onto one of Palmy's large leaves a bit more tightly, Cody gingerly pulled the magnifying device back up to his eyes, scanning the vast expanse of ocean for the recognizable glow of the Boat of Loser's cabin. Then, he sighed.

Nothing. Sometimes he wished he hadn't been appointed as the look-out. It got sort of lonely up there, and it was a little hard to bet from three or four meters in the air, though he'd miraculously managed it. (Not without dropping coins, food, or laundry on people's heads on several occasions, however.) But then again, if he weren't the look-out, he wouldn't have received the attention that came when he, looking through the binoculars once more, shouted excitedly, "Hold the phones, people! I think I see lights!"

"What do you mean, you think you see lights, Cody?" Leshawna yelled back up at him, folding her arms irately. "You either see them or you don't!"

Cody opened his mouth to respond but was distracted as Izzy, humming the Mission: Impossible theme, hopped from wooden post to wooden post, pretending she was on a secret mission. "Man oh man, when I heard those sirens, I bolted out of there faster than a gazelle on speed! And just when they thought they had me… I JUMPED into the bayou and hid under the water and held by breath for, like, fifteen minutes or something so they couldn't find me! Like this!" she shouted.

And just like that, Izzy did a back flip from her post and dove straight into the water behind her. Even those not engaged in her particular discussion paused to regard this even-more-bizarre-than-usual occurrence; Cody counted at least eleven heads perk up before resuming their own conversations.

After about a minute and no Izzy, Harold dared a peek over the edge of the dock. "Did she really just…?"

"Yup," Justin replied with a sigh, already leaving to join another conversation. He, like Cody, had quickly learned that it was better to just take Izzy at face value. Plus, any more intense thinking would form worry lines on any perfect model forehead, and those were sounattractive. Or so Justin said.

"Is it weird that I kinda really want a video of that?" Tyler asked, a happily dazed look on his face as he imagined Izzy's story taking place, live, in color, and with vivid detail—especially the alligator wresting part. "And that I want to put it on repeat for the rest of my life?"

Cody was about to shout down words of agreement (Gwen was hot, but Izzy had that whole insanity thing going for her) when a toque found its way into his peripheral vision.

Ezekiel, who'd been hiding in the bushes nearby (still on the prey list for Duncan and Courtney), had been listening in and was desperately trying to plug his nosebleed when he heard Tyler's question. "Is it weird?" he asked, confused, as Noah, unaware of anything that had just occurred, returned to his calls of, "Gwen, anybody? Gwen? No? Okay, Heather. Who thinks she got booted?"

Lindsay raised her hand.

"And wants to do something about it," he elaborated dryly.

The hand went back down.

"Hey!" Cody hollered, glancing back out into the black and interrupting the many budding conversations below. "I definitely see lights!"

Bridgette, after sparing a quick glance in Cody's direction, joined the separate conversation between Katie and Sadie, adding, "Seriously, I totally agree: there's no way that trip should take so long. I've never had to wait that long even for a wave—on flat days! I'm sure Hatchet's killing sea turtles with all the extra gas they're putting into that thing…"

Noah, self-appointed bookmaker and, consequently, handler of all bets for the evening, noted to no one in particular, "If you ask me—not that anyone around here does—the man should've had his boating license forcefully removed years ago."

"Amen," Duncan deadpanned from where he slouched against another palm tree, leisurely picking at his nails with his switchblade.

Cody himself couldn't comment. His removal from the island (and the ocean floor. Thanks a lot, Beth) had been a bit out of the norm, seeing as he'd been in a full body cast. And on the ocean floor.

"Really, you shouldn't be so cruel, Noah," Katie chastised, standing up and making her way over to him to toss a quarter (on Gwen) onto his betting table. "Chef might've just gotten lost on his way here."

Flipping Katie's quarter onto the largest stack of goods, Noah pulled his eyes up to meet hers. When they did, Cody (from his excellent vantage point) saw that the expression on his face was nothing short of incredulous, an eyebrow hiked high. "After having already made the trip nineteen times?"

"Can you make anyone out yet, Cody?" Courtney asked impatiently, interrupting his observation of the Katie/Noah conversation by marching over to the base of his tree—ignoring Eva's steely glare and opting instead to give Cody her own.

Cody threw the binoculars back up to his face, trying to look productive so as not to face the wrath of Courtney. "Not yet," he replied with a sigh, "but it's heading our way for sure!" This seemed to satisfy the brunette, who marched away and straight over to Duncan, striking up an argument over whatever was bothering her at that moment in time.

"Well," Sadie said, prancing over to where Katie and Noah stood arguing (well, Noah sat), "he usually drives us here in the dark, you know. He might be nearsighted."

Katie's face lit up with comprehension. "Come to think of it," she mused, tapping a finger to her lips, "that would totally explain how some of the stuff that gets in our food ends up there..." She shuddered at the thought.

"Guys, guys! It's coming into view now!" Cody announced, waving his arms around to get their attention.

Noah snorted, ignoring Cody as he had ignored Izzy. "Are you serious, Katherine?" he asked as he casually resumed his bookkeeping, his condescending tone growing so extreme that it drew even Duncan and Courtney's attention away from their thriving argument. "That man may be many things, including a sadist and co-conspirator to all our potential murders, but he's most assuredly not—"

Duncan was about to put an end to Noah's lordliness with a quick trip to the ocean floor to join McCrazyPants—Cody could tell by the look on his face—but before he'd even taken a step in the boy's direction, Katie reached down to the bookworm she was suddenly towering over and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

Pulling him straight up out of his chair so they stood nose to nose, a deathly cool and overall foreign glare on her face, Katie spoke in a completely even voice. "Do. Not. EVER. Call me. Katherine," she commanded. "Capiche?"

Body frozen and expression stunned, Noah coughed out a, "Yes, ma'am," just a tad bit on the frightened side. As were the other campers who'd been paying attention to the conversation, if their shocked stares and gaping mouths indicated anything.

And just like that, Katie was the BFFL everyone knew and was annoyed by once more. "Fantastic!" she chirped happily, dropping Noah back onto the dock in exchange for becoming exceedingly perky once more. Noah, still in shock, could only blink his eyes disbelievingly at her and Sadie as the two walked back over to where they'd been sitting prior to the conversation.

"Cody, my man!" Geoff yelled up through the palm branches, oblivious to what had just occurred and startling the un-oblivious boy in the tree. "You're killin' us down here with the suspense, dude!"

Trent, breaking out of his own little world of intense panic and falling to his knees, screamed, "WHO IS IT? I NEED TO KNOW WHO IT IS!" his hands (and guitar) outstretched to Cody as if begging would make the bucktoothed boy's eyesight sharper.

If only, if only.

"I can almost see it now…" Cody narrated quickly, squinting through the lenses. "It's just about to—"

Several aggravated shouts of "CODY!" erupted from the campers.

And in answer, he called, like a television announcer: "IT'S GWEN!"

If happiness could be quantified on a scale, said scale would have slid to zero, migrated to Antarctica, committed suicide, and then plummeted into the ice cold ocean.

From Leshawna came a grunt and a curse, followed by, "No!"

From Duncan, a blank and cold (yet somehow sad) stare of disbelief out to the boat. "No way."

Lindsay pouted, whimpering, "Oh, noes…" while DJ murmured, "Aw, man," hanging his head and giving Geoff a consolatory clap on the back.

Eva began taking out her frustration out on the palm tree, forcing Cody—who wasn't sure of how he felt about his pseudo-girl joining him on Loser Island instead of winning 100 grand and asking him to join her on Star Island—to grab hold of Palmy for dear life. "No! No no no no NO!"

Jumping up from his knees and clasping his hands together as he left his guitar on the ground, Trent turned his head to the dark sky and said a silent thanks along with a huge cry of, "YES!" Noting the stares he was getting, he lowered his head, amending, "I mean, no!" A second later, head back to the sky: "But, YES!"

Courtney merely pursed her lips, still trying to decide if this was for the very best or for the much, much worse.

Apparently hoping to move things along, Noah resituated himself in his bookmaker's chair (his behind had a few splinters from the part of the dock Katie had dropped him on) and shoved Heather and Owen's piles together. He waved all the campers over for dividing out the goods, muttering to himself, "Karma's a bitch." (He'd lost five dollars for betting on Owen.)

It was at this point of the night that the campers always split into two groups: those who stayed to greet the new arrival and those who… didn't, either because they didn't like said new arrival, were tired and wanted to go to bed, or a combination of both (i.e. being antisocial). And while a bed sounded nice to Cody, the promise of Gwen kept him where he was. Those who belonged to the second group quickly collected their cut from Noah (if they were receiving a cut at all) and turned towards the main building, suddenly craving their pillows.

Duncan, a staying member of the first group, turned back to the ocean, analyzing the faint light in the distance that he assumed to be the boat. He was taken by slight déjà vu of his own homecoming; squinting into the distance at a blurry light, not exactly sure what would happen when the boat docked. It felt all too familiar. "This bites, man," he grumbled.

"I can't believe it either," Bridgette agreed, kicking off her sandals and sitting so her feet dipped into the water as she waited for her friend to arrive. "I mean, I really, really, really thought it would b—"

"NO!"Cody screeched from his perch suddenly, slamming the binoculars back up against his face.

"Geez," Noah said with a roll of his eyes, meandering over to where the stragglers were waiting. "Delayed reaction time mu—?"

"IT'S HEATHER!"he shouted at the top of his lungs, spastically gesturing at the members of Group Two like a madman to get the heck back over to the dock and see for themselves.

"WHAT?"

The word exploded out from each and every ex-camper in the same instant, all nineteen of them (minus Cody, Ezekiel, and Izzy) charging to the water's edge, struggling and shoving at each other in order to get the best possible view.

"How do you confu-sth Gwen and Heather?" Beth desperately wanted to know as she accidentally elbowed Courtney, who gave her a vicious shove back into the crowd, where she was nearly trampled.

His eyes still glued to the image in his binoculars, Cody acknowledged this incredibly valid question with a brief shrug of his shoulders. "Looks like she did something with her hair… But it is definitely her! She's screaming at Chef, throwing a huge tantrum! And now she's…" Actually, Cody didn't really know what she was doing, so he let the sentence hang. Whatever it was, she looked thoroughly pissed off. And that was exactly how he remembered her.

"Wait a minute," Justin said out of the blue, putting all the pieces together. "Heather's on the boat… So that means…"

It was at that moment that Izzy burst forth from the underneath the dock, breaking the surface of the gentle waves and spraying everyone with water. She pulled herself onto the wooden surface, hair plastered to her face and clothes dripping seawater, but despite it all, she wore a grin that actually stretched from ear to ear.

"Gwen and Owen are the final two!"

At the realization, a chorus of cheers broke out immediately amid the previously struggling campers, as well as a variety of happy dances. Couples embraced, and friends high-fived. Because even though the campers all had their differences (some more drastic than others), there was one thing they could all agree on:

Heather would not, should not, and could not win. And, if Cody's eyes were not deceiving him (and he was pretty dang sure they weren't), she hadn't!

"Woohoo!" Geoff whooped, performing his standard fist-pump with one hand while he dipped Bridgette with the other, planting a deep kiss on her lips that turned her insides into jellyfish goo.

Courtney was actually glad her best friend and most of the others were occupied, as that meant none of them were paying attention to her and the cheerful smirk she couldn't quite keep off her face.

Izzy began cabbage-patching, much to the chagrin of all the campers getting wet because of it. "Go Owen! Go baby! Uh huh! Yeah, baby! Go baby!"

Lindsay stood off to the side of the chaos, trying to do some sort of very complicated (for Lindsay) math on her fingers. After some time, she gave up and asked dejectedly, "Okay, how did you guys figure that one out?"

Masked by the sounds of Katie and Sadie squealing in a gut-crushing hug, Ezekiel said, from his hiding spot in the bushes, "That's so fly, yeah! Though I'm n'oot quite sure what we're cheering foo'r, eh…"

"I knew it!" Trent exclaimed, jumping around like he'd just won the lottery. "I always knew she could do it! I love you, Gwen!" he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Do you hear me? I love you!"

Beside him, Harold pulled his fist to his side, nodding sagely while he hissed, "Yesssssssssss."

But last of all, and most menacing by far, Duncan cracked his knuckles, smirking darkly at the approaching boat. "Oh, Hell yes."

Gwen? Heather? Gwen? Heather! Now that you're sufficiently confused (or not), it's time for trouble.

And now, some ridiculously long-winded notes from your two co-authors, which were haphazardly assembled in the wee hours of the night:

From strayphoenix: And now, the moment you've all been waiting the entire summer for—The Arrival of Imminent Evil! Muahaha! If you guys thought this story was kicking ass BEFORE...

I hope you don't mind the extra long chapter in recompense for the extra long wait you, our so gracious fans, have had to endure this summer. We were both on pretty lengthy dry spells—not of material, grant you, but rather time to write/edit the material. So we made this chapter extra long and extra juicy/dramatic with sincere promises that you won't have to wait nearly as long for the next bits which I know you're all DYING to read.

In other news, Kudos to Rina for that awesome bit about Duncan's contacts! Anyone else ever wonder how he's dark haired with such blue eyes?

Also, just curious, did we actually manage to punk anyone with our Gwen/Heather swap? Most of you have obviously seen the show, so we thought it would be an unexpected twist to mistake Heather for Gwen from the Playa dock. We were kinda aiming for a 'WHAT? But-But-But-BUT IT SHOULD BE HEATHER?' reaction. Did we pull it off? Or were you guys too clever for us? :P

Remember those storms we predicted? We're batting up a Category 6 as we speak...

From Contemperina: So guys. It's been a while, huh. How've you been? Holding up okay? Enjoying summer? …Fabulous. Well, it would seem that last chapter, I was all gung-ho about getting you another chapter in just a couple week's time. And now, we've all just suffered through the longest time break between chapters this story has ever seen. Ironic, no? Funny how that kind of thing works…

But enough of that! As I sit here listening to shamelessly happy pop music, trying to differentiate between what merits mention in my author's note and what doesn't, the one thing that keeps popping into my mind is: I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY HOPE YOU LIKED THE CHAPTER! Pure and simple.

And now, because two paragraphs is NOT enough to make you all read (hahah. Oh, dear…) I feel the need to reiterate:

Heather's on her way! (Not Gwen.) I do hope we at least confused you a little bit with the whole Cody-in-a-tree (Palmy!) -with-weak-eyes thing. Poor kid mixed up Gwen and Heather. How do you do that? We gave him a section in his POV, however, because after watching TDWT (I'm being patient and not watching all the episodes early on YouTube this season! Episode about Jamaica, here I come…), I'm falling in love with that kid all over again.
But seriously. Did we give anyone a double take, or were you all, "Pshh, what they're doing is obvious. Of course Heather's coming and Cody's eyesight just sucks"? Genuine curiosity, here. :)

Also, I'd like to thank all of you who took a stab at decoding Bridgette's crab analogy. Nearly everyone was spot-on, and I got a kick out of reading and replying to all those reviews. It would seem that stray and I have a very smart audience! Either that, or you just think in the same crazy way I do when it comes to strange analogies.

Hurricane Heather is on her way. Get excited, and take cover.

Thanks for reading! Please review (: