A/N Enjoy! This is a shorter chapter since Duncan doesn't do too much in this challenge, but as promised, the plot picks up very quickly starting next chapter, which I will post on Friday.

Chapter Two

At breakfast the next morning, I tried to get Gwen to open up, but she still seemed off.

"Gwen, what's up? Is something wrong?" I asked her while I ate a delicious plate of bacon and eggs. I had no intention of ever spending the night in that run down cabin.

"I'm just worried about Lightning on Boney Island," she mumbled into her bowl of cereal.

"What? That guy? I'm sure he's fine," I answered, looking at her in confusion. Was that really why she was so worried?

"Forget that," Jo scoffed. "I say we eliminate him next," she bit into a pile of steak.

"We can throw the next challenge and vote him off?" Scott suggested.

"No way," Jo shook her head. "We're not going to lose on purpose. That's unsportsmanlike."

I had to suppress a smile. Since when did any of these guys care about sportsmanship? It's called the villains team for a reason! Scott started to drone on about his tragic life back on the farm, and it was depressing to listen to, but thankfully Jo shut him down. I didn't need to start feeling bad for anyone. The entire time, Gwen stared off with a faraway look in her eye, and by the time I finally caught her attention, we had to leave for the next challenge.

I spoke to her again as we stood on the beach, Chris explaining the instructions for what we had to do.

"This could be fun, yeah? Maybe we can go swimming later?" I offered.

"Shh, I'm trying to listen to Chris."

"Since when do you care about what Chris has to say?" I wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Since I'm trying to win the challenge," she shrugged me off. Fine. If she wanted to be like that, then so be it.

We each took a shovel and tried to figure out a plan, but it quickly devolved into fighting. Lightning claimed he needed two shovels, then Heather and Jo started to argue over who should lead the digging effort.

"Come on, guys," Gwen put her hands over her ears, "do we really have to fight over this? Why can't we just get along?"

I got sick of their bickering and grabbed a shovel, figuring that if Gwen was going to ignore me, I could at least try to win the stupid challenge. I glanced over at Courtney to see if she was making any progress. They had the common sense to split up into groups and dig. I didn't want to distract her, so I just watched from afar. Cameron tossed Mike a fedora, which he put on and began to rapidly search for clues. Right… the hat triggers one of his personalities. The Australian one. One of the villains mentioned it at some point.

Come to think of it, what did I even know about Mal, assuming he was Mike? He was in juvie, but nobody knew why. He got into a lot of fights, and judging from his reputation, he probably won most of them, even though he was pretty scrawny. He left before I did, but nobody figured that out either. He didn't talk too much. I had no idea how he ended up on this show, but at least he seemed to be doing better. Maybe he turned his life around. He could be a good guy now. No way was I going to bring it up to him unless he mentioned it first. He probably didn't want anyone to know.

I was shaken from my thoughts when I saw Alejandro walk up to Gwen and whisper something in her ear, causing her to blush. That bastard. If there was anyone on this team I didn't trust, it was that guy.

"Duncan," a voice whispered to me. It was Scott, another guy who I definitely didn't trust. "Watch this," he gave me a mischievous smile. He looked around to make sure no one was watching and stepped over onto the other team's sand. He started digging and hit a piece of the statue. Scott tossed it over to our side using his shovel and stepped towards me.

"Pretty good, right?" He winked. Unfortunately, he failed to notice that Australian Mike, who I later learned was named Manitoba, was hot on his trail. Manitoba stepped onto our side of the sand, and for a moment I thought he was going to start throwing punches, but instead he narrowed his eyes at Scott. Without breaking eye contact, he took the shovel and brought it down into the sand, recovering his team's stolen piece. He took it in his arms.

"Crikey, it appears we've got a real bludger over here! Stay on your own side, yeah?"

Scott took his shovel out of Manitoba's hands.

"Are you accusing me of something?"

He dug the shovel back into the sand only to activate a trap. A swarm of bees flew out of the ground, diving toward Scott. I jumped backwards to avoid the mob of insects. I wasn't scared of course, but just… cautious. Yeah, that's it. As Scott turned to run from the bees, he swung his shovel around, bashing Manitoba's head and immediately knocking him out.

"Is he alright?" I asked as we watched Manitoba lay in the sand.

"Wha…" he mumbled and struggled to his feet.

"Let's get out of here," Scott whispered as he stepped back in the other direction. I had to agree. "I'm sure he'll be fine." I wasn't so sure about that, but Mike wasn't on my team, so I followed Scott to the other side of the beach.

"Yeah, great work with that one, Scott," I clapped his back as we resumed digging.

"Whatever," he muttered into the sand.

After a few more minutes, Lightning announced that we had all of our pieces. We assembled to begin building our statue, but it didn't take long to realize that we were missing something.

"I don't understand. What's it supposed to be?" Jo questioned. It was just a regular tower.

"Lightning," Heather asked cautiously, "how many pieces did you say we had?"

"Seven pieces," he announced triumphantly while crossing his arms.

"Then why are there only six?" She was trying to hold herself together.

"What do you mean?"

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6!" She pointed to each individual piece. "Where is the seventh fucking piece?" She hissed at him.

"Well, it appears I miscounted," he smiled sheepishly.

"Big surprise!" Jo threw up her hands in annoyance.

"We have to keep digging," Gwen encouraged everyone to Lightning's annoyance. We grabbed our shovels, but Zoey managed to find the last piece, winning the challenge for the Heroes.

"I'm trying again with Courtney," Gwen whispered to me.

"Why do you care what she thinks?" I asked her, but she was already gone. I couldn't hear her, but I could see Gwen hit a bag of trash directly towards Courtney, who looked pissed.

"Really villainous, Gwen!" Chris chouted, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Why did you do that?" I asked Gwen, who looked devastated.

"I didn't mean to…" she whispered. For a moment, it looked like she had tears in her eyes. "This whole thing is such a mess."

"What whole thing? What's a mess?" I questioned, but Chris cut me off.

"Vultures, to the voting booth! I'll see you all at the elimination ceremony," he smiled.

It was no surprise that Lightning went home that night.

While Jo and Lightning were arguing at the flush of shame, I looked back at the Heroes. Mike and Zoey were talking about something, so I guess he recovered from his head injury. I smiled at Courtney to show that I was happy to still be in the competition with her, but she snubbed me.

"Why does Courtney keep ignoring me?" I whispered to Gwen.

"You can be such a jerk sometimes," Gwen shook her head.

"What? Me?"

"Nevermind."

Great, now both of them were upset with me. What did I do?

Gwen wouldn't talk to me after the elimination ceremony, so I just went to the guy's cabin and called it an early night. Maybe she would talk to me in the morning.