Authors Notes: Hello everyone! I know A LOT of people have been waiting for this chapter. But first, here are a few comments from Kenju for you all:

"Well here it is, at long last for the first time in ELEVEN MONTHS we'll be seeing things from Gwen's perspective. That's right, the third and final main character is now up for her turn to bat, and boy is it going to be a big one. This chapter is actually the first chapter of a nine 'episode/chapter' mini arc designed to introduce and establish Gwen to our faithful readers. What happened since we last saw her? How did she end up as she is now? Well, you'll have to read to find out. Things aren't going to be obvious at first here, even less so than with Cody and Heather, but by the end of this arc things should be pretty clear, with more and more details coming with each passing chapter after that.

"Now, we do wish to make it clear right here and right now that this chapter is going to be pretty dark, and you'll be seeing a side of some characters that you haven't before. Please make sure you read the closing AN before you go writing angry reviews or sending angry PM's to us.

"Lastly before we get under way, another round of applause to both CMR Rosa and qMargot for yet another commission drawing, this time of Diane (the secretary of Heather's father mentioned in chapter 4)."

In addition to those words, I have a few of my own to add. I'm sorry that it took us this long to get to Gwen. To be perfectly honest, the reason is because of the initial difficulty that we both had with her. You see, while Cody and Heather have developed considerably since Total Drama…Gwen has gone in a different direction. Please keep that in mind, because for quite a while, Gwen is not going to be very likable or pleasant. Reasons for why this is will be hinted at in the chapters to come and mostly likely directly stated later on, but I felt the need to say this in advance.

And I hadn't noticed that the last chapter just barely crossed the 200,000-word threshold. Well…it did! Lol

Also, remember how we've been saying that there was a point when the TRUE plot of this story would start? Well guess what…THAT TIME HAS FINALLY COME!

And with that, here is the fifteenth chapter of Unbreakable Red Silken Thread: Chance: Born on a Monday: Part 1

October 27th 2014 (10:30 AM)

There were many things that Gwen hated, but mornings were close to the top of her list. Morning meant waking up, waking up meant facing a new day, a new day that would inevitably be filled with disappointments, annoyances, and all around drain her until she was able to return to her sanctuary.

That had been the case for as long as she could remember, but it was a million times worse now. After all, with morning now came hangovers, just another incentive to stay in bed and not even bother getting up. The lingering fog of intoxication and general unwillingness to face another day helped keep her eyes closed and otherwise motionless.

Simply being awake at the level she was now her head throbbed like it was stuck in a vice, spurring the tiniest bit of motion on her part, to sink beneath the covers and try to hide from the light filtering through her eyelids. Each beam of morning light making her already throbbing head feel just a little more like it was a ceramic jar somebody had taken a hammer to. She tried to will them away, she tried to find an angle she could roll to, but nothing worked, nothing helped, the hammers of light wouldn't cease their barrage on her brain. The brightness of what she assumed to be the amber morning sun was burning through her closed eyelids as though they weren't even there.

She hated it.

As the last lingering traces of her dream faded like sand blown in a breeze, the Goth was determined to hold onto the twilight kingdom and mounted her last line of defense by turning over to her other side. She just wanted to shut out everything and everyone, her subconscious longing to not have to deal with anything or anyone any more at this point, to simply remain blissfully asleep and ignorant of the world around her.

Despite her best efforts, and somewhat managing to shield her eyes from the light of day, Gwen could feel herself being pulled towards it. All of her resistance amounted to nothing; there was no point in it. She was too aware, her mind too awake to return to the murky depths at this point.

With her eyes still closed, Gwen could feel her head fogging up, her headache becoming worse as one by one her brain cells began to wake. Even though she knew there was no point in resisting, she still tried to fall back asleep as best she could.

Yet something was stopping her, even more bothersome than her headache, something was wrong and her some part of her brain was trying to tell her what but couldn't make sense of anything. At first she couldn't pinpoint anything wrong, after all her bed was soft, her covers welcoming, and her pillow rather comfortable. With her brain just barely starting to rouse, she finally realized what the issue was.

She was cold.

Blindly, with heavy eyelids still closed tight she reached out with one of her hands, scuttling it along the soft surface of the bed like a crab. Out of habit, she searched for a source of warmth, her arm moving around as far as it could, searching for the source she had become most familiar with over the past three years.

Duncan.

She mumbled his name, or at least a series of gurgling gabbles of infliction that was meant to be his name. Though as she did she noticed her mouth felt stale and sour, with the distinct aftertaste of puke also filling her sense of taste. Her pitiful mewling cry went unanswered all the same.

'…Uh…? That's odd? Where…where…is he? He's…always such a…heavy sleeper. And…he's never up…before me…' Gwen thought to herself, struggling to form thoughts as complex as fragmented sentences. Surprise and worry bubbled to the surface of her mind. 'I-I…I'm sure it's nothing. He probably just got up…to take a piss…or something.'

As Gwen's mind became more and more alert, it continued picking up more unusual details. Things that seemed out of place and didn't make sense for what had become a rather familiar location since classes had started.

For one thing, the scent of leather was very strong. Second, the sheets she was currently tangled within were clean, smelling like laundry detergent instead of sweat and lacking the faint waft of Duncan's aftershave and BO (along with the occasional stain of dried cum) that defined their shared bed. Thirdly, her pillow was soft, much softer than she remembered it being.

Those differences were enough to spur Gwen's aching body into quasi-action, rolling herself onto her back to get a better sense of what was wrong. As she felt the full weight of her breasts settling against her chest, the Goth stretched out and discovered yet another 'off detail' about their bed.

Her foot hit something.

'Eh, it must have been the footboard?'

The discomfort from her foot's collision was the straw that broke the camel's back.

'Wait a second…our bed doesn't have a footboard!? Where the fuck am I!?'

Gwen's teal blood-shot eyes jolted opened and frantically looked around, but before she could take note of her surroundings she paid the price for her actions. Immediately a sudden wave of nausea overpowered her stomach and her headache increased ten-fold, reaching migraine levels between breaths. Her considerable hangover strongly disagreeing with the bright lights overhead. She then did about the only thing she could given her circumstances, groan while shutting her eyes and uttering a few choice curses that were so soft they might as well have been silent.

"Are you going to throw up again?" A voice asked, one that Gwen remembered from somewhere, but couldn't place in her brain fogged state..

The Goth's only answer was a groan, followed by weak muttering proclamation of "I-I-I'll be…fine. I-" With that, Gwen froze, only now realizing that she was talking to a stranger, and combined with the growing suspicion that she wasn't in her own bed she stopped breathing.

Her need to know who it was that spoke overpowering her fear of facing the light; the Goth slowly opened her right eye. As the pupil and cornea were flooded by color, she could only make out a dark outline, a slender shadowy silhouette that even when devoid of most human features seemed vaguely familiar.

"Seriously, are you going to puke again?" the silhouette asked cautiously. Slightly more awake than before, Gwen was able to pick out more details. She could tell that the voice was feminine, one that despite seeming familiar, was very out-of-place in her room.

Even with the slight aura of familiarity the voice carried Gwen was not happy, at all. Like many a victim of a morning hangover she was pissed off from the get-go. "W-w-wh…who the fuck are you, and what the fuck are you doing in my room?"

"This isn't your room."

Those four tiny words forced Gwen's mind into a higher state of panic fueled awareness. Finally fully opening both eyes (before quickly squinting as the flood of light was too much) it took her a few minutes to adjust to the unblocked brilliance of the lit room, then begin looking around to figure out where exactly she was.

She quickly deduced that this was in fact not her and Duncan's room, it couldn't be.

For one thing, it was much cleaner, but as she looked around many more unfamiliar details jumped out at her. The 'bed' she was lying on was in fact a sleeper sofa, large and made of fine leather it was a far cry from the campus issued two-seater they had. Also to her left was what appeared to be a very expensive recliner she knew they didn't own. Directly in front of her was a large flat-screen TV, which she recognized to be a Smart TV (something else the campus did not offer) with an entertainment center underneath it that housed a DVD player, several gaming systems, and dozens of DVDs and video games along its shelves.

A faint glinting of metal out of the corner of her eye pulled her attention away from the 'command center of entertainment' to something else that she knew wasn't standard dorm issue. It was a decoration hanging on the wall, two crossed weapons at eye level if one were standing. She knew the first one was a samurai sword, but she couldn't identify the second one despite it looking somewhat recognizable. It was a long curved blade with two spiked protrusions at each end. The most unusual thing however was the three handholds along the back that made up the 'handles'. If she had to describe it to someone, after 'sharp' and 'pointy' the only other word she could have thought to use would be 'alien'.

Once she was finished with her examination of the room, she turned to face the one thing she'd been trying to ignore the existence of, namely the rooms only other occupant. The voice had been feminine, but she wasn't going to say its owner was in fact female until she saw them, she'd made that mistake once before. She (and it was indeed a she) was a petite Asian woman wearing a blank expression, which for some reason seemed oddly…fitting. At the same time, it wasn't exactly comforting to the Goth.

Panicked, Gwen tried to get to her feet, but as one foot clumsily reached the floor her body betrayed her. Her muscles, weakened from a night of alcohol and no restraint burned from the effort of just moving, and her limbs were too weak to support her, feeling like they were filled with drying concrete and broken glass.

The short Asian woman cursed under her breath and rushed to the falling Goth's side. As she attempted to help her sit up the stranger was trying to calm her down. "Careful there," she said, "you shouldn't move too fast, or much at all if you can help it. You really did a number on yourself last night."

Gwen pushed the stranger away and tried to get up a second time, but like the first time she fell back to the bed and groaned in pain as the mysterious stranger did not move to help her. Her headache pounding and her stomach felt like it was turned inside out, coupled with an overall sense of weakness she was like a turtle flipped on its shell.

In her panic, Gwen did what she had been doing for years whenever she was being overwhelmed, she called for Duncan. Before she could shout the second syllable of his name she instantly regretted the action. Her throat burned like a dragon's and her boyfriend's name was reduced to ashes on her tongue. The dryness of her mouth was scorching and made each breathe feel like swallowing molten embers. If that wasn't enough, the sound of her own voice made her headache even worse.

"Duncan isn't here, and before you ask, no, I don't know where he is either."

Waking up little by little, with the voice feeling more recognizable by the second, Gwen calmed down slightly and asked with her soften voice, "W-where…am I? What happened?" Her mind was still groping to find its bearings, still gripped between fear and panic, but some vague sense was telling her that even though she was in danger, it wasn't an immediate danger.

"I'll tell you, but you have to take it slow, you don't want to make yourself start dry heaving."

Now in a very foul mood, Gwen barked, ignoring the pain as she spoke, "Where am I and what the fuck is going on!?"

"Wow, you're even less of a morning person now then you use to be, I honestly didn't think that was even possible," the Woman muttered before sighing, "Fine."

There was a brief pause before the woman's soft voice filled the air around Gwen's hammering head again. "I would say that I'm surprised you don't remember anything at all, but then again considering how hammered you are I shouldn't be. Allow me to reintroduce myself; about a month ago, we crossed paths in the dorm lobby downstairs, to be more precise I stepped in and helped you out when Duncan was slapping you like a rented mule. Ring any bells?"

Once again, Gwen was frozen in place. Had that really happened? She tried to conjure up some memories to either confirm or reject what she had just heard but she couldn't. The fog from her hangover was still too strong. It took all of her contraction to pierce the misty clogged feeling in her alcohol addled skull, but with her full attention on it patterns were starting to form and the crackling calamity in her cranium gradually telescoped down. Even as her head spun, flickering images started to play themselves out like an old zoetrope.

She remembered her fight with Duncan, what he'd said when she told him no, the horrible things she had said to him, the back of his hand hitting her because she deserved it. Someone coming out of nowhere and macing him. That same stranger helping her up, kicking Duncan, and then dragging her away.

Her skull zoetrope spun and spun as the memories clattered and her migraine bit down with a vengeance. She felt dizzy, fear and dread congealing in her stomach like tar-flavored gelatin. Amid the spinning and moving mental images, one word flickered out from the haze, a name.

Gwen's lips barely moved, croaking out with a weak whisper, "H-Heather?"

The now identified mystery girl smirked and nodded her head.

As the haze weakened a little more, Gwen added, "W-wh-what…happened?"

Instead of an answer, the Queen Bee offered the Goth a glass of water. "Gwen, I'm no stranger to hangovers, trust me, I know how to deal with them." Heather then brought her other hand next to the one holding the glass. Though her eyes were still straining a little, Gwen could see what was in the other hand, three small pills. Two of them she recognized as aspirin, conveniently labeled as such. The third Gwen recognized was a B-complex. "Swallow the aspirin and leave the B-complex under your tongue to dissolve," Heather instructed, "Believe me, it works."

Rather than accepting the offering, as tempting as it was, Gwen pushed Heather away. Her shove was weak as her arms still felt like they were loaded with weights, but it was enough to move the Queen Bee a pace or two away from her. It wasn't as far as Gwen would have liked, but it would do for the time being.

"I-I…demand an explanation, Heather!" she roared, or at least she attempted to roar. "Why am I here? Where is here? And what the fuck is going on!?"

With her small smirk from before shifting to a placid and emotionless wall, Heather set the pills aside. "Very well then, let's take it from the top. From what I can gather you and Duncan went to a party and got drunk off your asses. You had more liquor than you could hold and on your way back threw up in Duncan's car. When you got back to the dorm parking lot, your boyfriend nobly reacted by punching your clock, knocking you out cold and leaving you on the front lawn in the middle of a thunderstorm. You'd probably still be there or dead from choking on your own vomit if Dawn hadn't found you. She brought you here to my dorm, where she, Cody and myself made sure you didn't die and cleaned you up a little. I do believe that accounts for everything unless you had any questions?"

Gwen froze up yet again, not remembering any of this, but at the same time panicking because of how flippant Heather was being.

"What the hell happened to you, Gwen?" Heather asked, her voice clinical but carrying an undercurrent she couldn't place. "Why are you with someone that knocks you out cold just for puking in their car?"

"S-shut up!" Gwen shouted angrily at her. "You don't know or understand anything!"

"Obviously I don't," Heather fired back, her voice just as reserved and detached as Gwen's, "since I can't fathom why anyone would put up with an asshole who slaps them around like a merry-go-round and treats them like the shit on the bottom of his shoes."

"Shut up, whore!" the enraged Goth shouted again as she started to lift herself up. "Just mind your own damn business and keep this to yourself!"

But before Gwen could fully rise to her feet, Heather's hand touched her shoulder and forced her back onto her ass. The Goth's body, still weakened from the extreme hangover, offered no resistance, which made her even angrier. She knew that she could kick Heather's ass in a heartbeat, and she wanted to, she wanted to very much, but she couldn't compel her arms or legs to do it. Because of that, Heather stood there, towering over her like she had on Total Drama. Gwen hated that; she much preferred the idea of being able to put Heather in her proper place for once.

"Sorry," Heather said in an ambiguous tone, "but that's not really an option anymore."

Again, Gwen tried to push Heather away, but unlike the first time she remained rooted and it was Gwen who was forced back. "Believe me when I say this, I wanted to keep our little run in a secret." The Queen Bee explained as she pressed down on Gwen's shoulder with a surprisingly firm grip. "But sadly for the both us, Dawn screwed the pooch on that hope. Because of her, Cody not only knows that you're here, but also about your relationship with Duncan." She continued, using air quotes at the word 'relationship'.

Feeling her blood freezing in her veins, Gwen put more effort into standing up with the full intent of fleeing as fast as her legs could carry her. She got managed to get to her feet and grabbed Heather by the shoulders to push her out of the way. Sadly for the Goth, the Queen Bee was faster and stronger than she remembered. Raising her arms between them she broke Gwen's grip then shoved her back onto the bed in one swift fluid motion. Even though the Goth was larger and heavier than her, she wasn't exactly at the top of her game between her hangover and lack of sleep. The springs groaned in protest almost as loudly as Gwen herself.

"I'm legitimately curious, why do you put up with him treating you like that? Is it some kind of weird fetish?" Heather asked, her voice shifting from indifferent and causal to inquisitive and mocking. "Can you get off if without someone treating you like shit?" At hearing that Gwen tried to get up again only for Heather to knock her back once more, with one hand this time, "okay, do I have to start treating you the same way he does to get you to sit still, shut up, and listen?"

"Shut up and mind your own damn-"

"NO, you shut up!" Heather shouted, cutting the irate Goth off. Gwen sat still; dazed from the sudden explosive outburst. One second Heather was cold and clinical, the next she was violent and fiery. Like Duncan, there were no tells or warning signs. No gritted teeth, no deep breathes, no facial tics. It just came about of nowhere, intense and grand, without any build-up. It reminded Gwen of a volcano, dormant then one day erupting out of nowhere as a massive column of fire and sulfur blasting into the sky.

"You think this is about you? Well it's not; you dim battered fuck-toy! I honestly don't give a damn about you, and I could care less about you throwing your life away with some piece of shit gutter trash like Duncan!" The Queen Bee thundered before pausing, closing her glaring grey eyes, and taking in a few deep, calming breaths. "Unfortunately," she said, with a calmer though no less displeased tone, "Cody does care. And now that he knows you're here, and the hole you've dug yourself into, by default I have to give a damn about your pathetic ass."

Even amid the glowing fury of her one time rival, Gwen bristled at Heather's words. "Hey, it's not your life! Not your problem! Not your business!" The Goth shouted back defiantly.

"You made it my life! You made it my problem! You made it my goddamn business!" Heather roared, easily overpowering the irate Goth's outburst.

There was a thick silence strangling the air after that, though within it Gwen felt an emotion even stronger than her anger growing, confusion. The Queen Bee seemed to realize this, as her eyes narrowed and she spoke in her coldest tone yet.

"Let me explain this to you in small words so you can understand what's going on." She paused for a moment, either to think of how to explain it or to let the insult fester. "If you end up dead in a ditch with a needle in your arm and globs of cum on your tits and face, that's your choice, I'd be perfectly fine with that. But Cody, despite you treating him like crap when you weren't abusing him or ignoring him, still thinks of you are as a friend. He cares about you, likely more than Duncan or yourself. Because of that, if anything happened to you, he would be very upset. And since I don't want him upset, I've no choice but to do something."

Angered by Heather's words, Gwen went to get up, forcing her legs out from the sheets for the first time. When she did, she noticed her pale white legs on full display for the first time since waking up. Forgetting about Heather for the briefest of moments and looking down further, she noticed her clothes, or lack thereof aside from her lace purple panties and a jersey she *knew* she hadn't worn last night. Acting on reflex, Gwen withdrew her legs like a turtle would into its shell with an alarmed yelp, knowing full well what Duncan would do if anyone but him saw her like that. Once the moment of fear vanished, anger took its place. "Where are my clothes!? And why am I wearing some stupid fucking jersey?!"

By this point, the haze of her hangover was gone. Her body still ached but it wasn't anywhere near crippling. More importantly, her mind was closer to its normal level of awareness. Now awake and alert, she didn't even allow Heather the chance to answer before glaring harshly as her mind was already connecting some dots. Those connected dots only made her even angrier than before. "What the fuck did you do to me while I was passed out!?" she asked bitterly. "I heard the rumors about you Heather, but I didn't think anything of them before. Now I'm not so sure," she added, the snapping nature of her voice only increasing.

Heather simply raised an eyebrow in response.

"Yeah-yeah…that's right, I-I remember now," Gwen said, slowly piecing it all together. "The whole campus talks about you, they call you the university slut!" She explained, adding particular spiteful relish to the word 'slut'. "From what I've heard, you've slept with half the girls and almost all of the guys on campus already!" Then the Goth's glare grew even more intense. "Is that why you took me in your dorm? So you could fuck me while I was passed out since you didn't have a chance when I was awake?" Her eyes then widened with a mixture of anger and fear. "Of my God, that's exactly what you did, isn't it!? What did you do!? Help yourself to my tits? Eat me out? Make me finger your STD filled cunt!? You really are the whore everyone says you are! Your nothing but a-!"

"Most of your clothes are in the hamper basket, in our bathroom between the shower and toilet," Heather calmly replied as though Gwen hadn't just been standing there calling her every name in the book. "Your pants were soaked from lying out on the front lawn while it was raining, same story for your socks."

Surprised by that unexpected answer, Gwen was brought up short.

"Your shirt was also soaking wet, both from rain and your own vomit, your bra was just soaked with vomit," Heather continued without missing a beat, "you threw up on yourself a few times after puking in Duncan's car, and on Dawn while she carried you up here, and you actually got Cody pretty good too, just missed the bowl he was holding in front of you by a few feet." Heather then paused to let her words sink in. "Then you threw up a few more times through the night." The Queen Bee pointed to a nearby empty pot. "We ran out of bowls and that is the last pot I had left, if you threw up much more I was going to have to start using trash bags."

The Goth stared at her one time archenemy with a confused gaze more fitting for a dog or a goldfish. Everything she was seeing flew in the face of everything she knew of Heather. Back on Total Drama, she had always been so confrontational, even the mildest of insults or slights would result in a shouting match, quickly followed by either a fight or her storming off. And Gwen increasingly wanted one of those two options to happen the longer this was going on. She knew she could overpower Heather, but ideally she just wanted to leave and forget that this ever happened, ignoring it like her bad hangover nightmare. But Heather wasn't reacting the way she always had before, meaning her only option right now was to just walk away which would have been a serious blow to her pride.

More than that however the Goth was flat out confused as to why Heather would go through all that for her in the first place. She couldn't conceive of any reason why she would do all this. The desire to figure out what was going on was mainly rooted in the hope of using it to get herself out of here. Her current plan, half-formed as it had been, was to simply tick Heather off enough so she would just kick her out and leave her alone.

The Goth's thoughts were interrupted when Heather cleared her throat. "As for the rumors you heard, they're overblown; the same as any other rumor." The Queen Bee seemed to wait until Gwen was looking directly at her before continuing with, "I'm not a slut, though if Cody asks I'll put on a little show and act like one for him when it's just the two of us. He is the only guy I've had sex with for the last two years, and I've only slept with three girls since arriving here, not half the campus," she explained causally and candidly while picking at one of her manicured nails.

That casualness and candidness had left the Goth thoroughly flabbergasted, almost as much as how Heather was keeping her temper in check. Both of these facts, though quite shocking in and of themselves, were dwarfed by her admitting that she had in fact slept with three girls from the campus.

After what felt like forever, Gwen found her mouth working again as she blurted, "Wait, so you mean you really are a lesbian!?"

Heather scoffed before correcting her, "Bisexual, not lesbian. I like cock and cooch." Gwen stared at her in silence. "Did you have any other questions about my sexuality or my sex life?"

For over a minute, there was only silence as Gwen's mind was still trying to process everything that was happening.

Noticing that Gwen had gone silent, Heather took the opportunity to speak. "Very well then, since you don't have any more questions we can get straight to the point. There are going to be some very big changes in your life since you decided to involve Cody and myself in it."

That snapped Gwen out of her thoughts, and filled her with renewed fury. "I don't want, or need your help!" she growled between clenched teeth.

"Too bad," Heather coolly informed, before continuing, "you brought this on yourself."

"Why the fuck do you keep saying that when you're the one sticking your nose where it doesn't belong!?" Gwen snapped.

"I'm sticking my nose where I need to so Cody doesn't go and get himself killed trying to play the White Knight for your ungrateful ass by fighting that piece of shit mongoloid with face piercings you call a boyfriend!" Heather snapped back.

Gwen was about to retort but the unspoken words simply died. Seamlessly, Heather's entire demeanor had changed, and the room itself had changed. She was still the same person as before, she looked the same, her breathing hadn't even changed, but something 'felt' different. For every second that passed Heather seemed less and less human and more and more…something else, her anger festering around her almost as a tangible force. Without even blinking her eyes had changed, shifting from off to the side to staring right at her like twin pits of gray hellfire. The only movement, the only visible change Gwen could see was her scowl, which grew to the point she was almost expecting to see a pair of fangs.

Aside from Duncan at his worst, nothing had ever scared Gwen as much as Heather was right now. The feeling was intense, something she had never before experienced, an all encompassing feeling that she was somewhere she wasn't suppose to be.

What felt like eons passed between Heather cutting off her unformed rebuttal before she spoke. "Do you have any idea what kind of hell you put us through last night? Put me through last night?"

Too frightened to do anything, Gwen sat passively offering no answers.

The Queen Bee snapped, leaving no room for Gwen to run. "I had to physically restrain Cody to keep him from running off and picking a fight with Duncan, because I knew that even if he did kick Duncan's drunken ass, that roided-up insignificant speck of feculent scum would just come back sobered up and put him in a fully body cast. And that would only have been the start of his problems, because then he'd feel like shit because he'd think he'd failed you. Once that happened, he would start on his pity depression cycle all over again, just like on World Tour after you lost the bullshit tiebreaker with the fucking koalas."

Even amid the frigid fury that was barreling down on her like a raging storm, Gwen attempted to speak. Seeing this, Heather let loose another freezing cold gust. "I had to stay up the entire fucking night because of you, two solid days without an hours' sleep because I was up the entire fucking night holding bowls and pots under your disgusting, puke bubbling lips while you vomited like a fucking garden hose," Heather paused only half a beat before driving the fangs in deep. "Cody tried to do that, but he was so exhausted and overwhelmed that he fell asleep after half a fucking hour. Does that sound like an enjoyable night to you, Gwen?"

The livid Queen Bee paused, and after taking a few deep breaths she switched into an even colder tone. "I've had all night, and all morning to think about this," she then switched again, this time from cold indifference to a withering glare. "Here's how this is going to go down. First, you are going to take a long shower, you still reek of cheap booze. Then, once your presence stops assaulting my nose, I'm going to accompany you to the dorm you're sharing with Duncan. Then we are going to pack up all of the shit that you need, every single book, electronic device, piece of clothing, or whatever other crap you own and/or need. When that is done, we are going to bring it back here, where it, and you, will be staying until the end of this class year. From here on out you can officially consider yourself on lock down."

Gwen simply sat there looking as if Heather had slapped her in the face with a salmon. The situation was simply so surreal that she struggled to believe that it was really happening. Heather, her archenemy, the person she hated more than anyone else (the top slot of a disturbingly large list), was ordering her to get her stuff and move in with her and the guy who'd likely been jerking off to her bra since Total Drama Island!?

The absurdity of that notion rendered her stunned for what felt like a ten-second eternity. But then, another notion replaced it. Whether Heather was serious or not, the fact that she had the gall to demand it caused a flaming fury to erupt in the now fully awakened Goth. Once again, Gwen found herself royally pissed off. And unlike the previous times, she was going to act on it!

"I'm not doing a damn thing for you!" Gwen shouted, having enough of Heather's B.S. "You're the one who needs to do something! And that's stay the hell out of my fucking life!"

Then, the Goth stood up to leave. While her legs wobbled a bit under her body's weight, it was worth it to tower over Heather. She had memories of Heather being a looming force on Total Drama, but now, she barely came up to her nose. Even barefoot, she reigned over her hated rival. 'I could probably pick her up and throw her skinny ass like a lawn dart,' she thought to herself before lowering her face slowly until it was less than an inch from Heather's. Smirking arrogantly at proving just how little Heather intimidated her, and with her warm wet breath assaulting the Queen Bee's face with the acrid smell of alcohol Gwen added, "Just who the hell do you think you are? My mother? Sorry to say but she kicked me out a year ago, and you're a rather poor, and pathetically flat chested, substitute. I'm amazed you even got Cody's attention with those pudding cups you call breasts."

Heather reacted calmly and coolly as ever.

SMACK!

Before Gwen even knew what had happened a powerful stinging sensation explode across her cheek. Some small object had slammed into her, and she could have sworn she had felt five parts to whatever it was that had hit her. Whatever it was, it had hit with enough force to knock her off balance. Her legs still lacked their usual strength and stability due to the lingering hangover, and as a result Gwen fell over back onto the bed like a tree flat on her ass.

As the springs of the bed creaked in complaint to the sudden addition of weight, Gwen looked upward while rubbing her cheek to see Heather standing with an arm outstretched and a hand flat against the pocket of air where Gwen had just been standing.

By the time that Gwen pieced together the fact that Heather had bitch-slapped her, she found herself pulled up painfully by her arm at the wrist then forced back against the wall behind her. She hadn't even had time to take a breath before feeling a sudden pressure driving itself against her throat.

In her panic, Gwen's eyes, with their teal bowls singed on the ends by reddening veins, looked around with lightning speed to figure out what had happened. She soon had her answer as looking her dead in the eye were two narrow slits. It was Heather, shoving her against the wall with one arm across her throat. In the time it took her to realize this, the Goth felt something clamp down on her mouth as it moved her head downwards. She quickly deduced that it was Heather's free hand, holding her jaw painfully tight so that she was forced to look directly at her.

The taller and more filled Goth attempted to shake the smaller and lighter Queen Bee off, but try as she might she couldn't. Once again, her hangover seemed to have given Heather all the assistance she needed to handle her without significant difficulty or effort.

Gwen was forced to look directly at Heather's face, which was still void of anger, irritation, or any emotion at all. "At what point did I say you had any say in this?" she asked, the coldness of her tone making the Goth's blood freeze. Not waiting for an answer, she continued. "I thought I was perfectly clear before, but I guess I wasn't. Apparently I need to explain this in even simpler terms for you to understand."

Silence hung thickly as Gwen once again found herself assaulted by that same feeling from before, the almost 'voice' that was ringing inside her mind and body warning her she didn't belong here, that she needed to run away from this place.

"You fucked up, Gwen. You fucked up royally," Heather said, spelling out for her. "I have spent the last three years building Cody up. The last three fucking years helping him get over you and move on with his life. Three years of helping him grow a spine so he wouldn't be life's little whipping bitch anymore. I Will. NOT. Allow you to undo all of my work. I have worked too long, and too hard, and dealt with too much crap already from everyone and everything else to just sit here idly by and watch my success crumble. After finally getting him over himself because of his parents, our school, and even ME…I will NOT let you just walk into our life and fuck up everything I have done," Heather growled between clenched teeth.

By this point, the coldness had left Heather's voice, replaced with volcanic hatred and rage. The raw fear filling her lungs choking her as much as Heather's surprisingly strong arm had far surpassed anything she had witnessed before. Gwen found herself staring face-to-face with wrath itself.

The terror's stranglehold on her black chocker covered throat then became the lesser of the two, but only because Heather leaned her bodyweight into her arm. Gwen was now starting to feel actual pain at this point, her windpipe slightly collapsed as the muscle and bone of the arm pressed harder. "Unlike you," Heather hissed, seeming to slowly add more pressure as she continued, "I actually have a good relationship. I'm with someone who loves me, and who I love just as much. He treats me like a goddamn queen instead of a Queen Bee. For the first time in my entire fucking life, I'm happy. The minute you threatened that, you gave up any rights you had."

Straining to merely breathe as Heather's grip along her windpipe didn't lessen even a little, Gwen croaked out with considerable difficulty, "W-wh-why…a-are y-y-you…?"

Heather, who seemed to understand what her victim meant by her unfinished question, looked at her deadpan before leaning closer to her face, so close that the slightest of movements would have set their lips onto the others. Their breath, one calm and unfazed, the other panicked and labored, broke against each others' face. It was only within such close proximity that Heather spoke.

"I already told you, it's for Cody, not for you. You can't even begin to understand the hold you still have on him, how much you mean to him. He's never told me, but it's painfully obvious he still thinks about you. In the two years we've been together, every time your name comes up it knocks him down a few pegs and forces me to work my ass off to pull him back up. He's even muttered your name at night in his sleep a few times." Heather pushed down even harder on Gwen's throat as she revealed that last piece of information. Right when Gwen's face was starting to turn faintly blue in the cheeks, she loosened her arm slightly before adding, "As satisfying as it would be to keep choking you, I'm going to release you. When I do we will work out the exact conditions of your living here like civilized human beings, even though I no longer believe you fit into that category."

With that, and a final last hard push against her throat, Heather released Gwen just as she said. For over a solid minute the Goth simply rubbed her throat and took in massive gulps of air. The fear she had previous felt replaced by equally powerful anger. "You…*gasp*…you can't *pant* make me do *gasp* shit, Heather!" Gwen roared, though the effect was somewhat diminished by her hoarse voice.

"Think again," Heather replied simply before reaching into her pocket and pulling out her Smartphone. Once again, Gwen stared at Heather in confusion, though this time her gaze revealed more worry, fearing that whatever this was wasn't going to be good for her. Heather's darkly jolly grin didn't improve Gwen's fears any. "While I might not obsess over it like Cody, I do agree that modern technology is a wonderful thing. Things that were impossible just ten years ago are so commonplace that they aren't given a second thought now. Before, I would have needed a video camera and to have been there myself to get what this can from here in much higher quality." With that, she shoved the phone right into Gwen's face, "Tell me what do you think?"

Determined to know what was that Heather deemed so valuable, Gwen squinted her eyes to focus on the dimly lit video footage that started playing. As she did, more and more her feelings of fear and dread turned out to be justified. Playing in a short thirty second loop it showed Duncan's car pulling up, them getting out, what appeared to be a argument followed by a short fight that ended with Duncan knocking her out cold.

Stopping the video after its third loop, Heather moved the phone out of Gwen's face, replacing it with her own face. Once it was in view, the Queen Bee leveled the increasingly terrified Goth with a glare so powerful that it made Gwen feel like she was dying under the weight of its intense malice.

"You have two choices Gwen. Either you can do what I tell you to and everything stays quiet…or this juicy bit of evidence just might end up being brought to the attention of the police, which will result in your sorry ass excuse of a boyfriend thrown into prison. What's it going to be?"

"Give me that fucking phone!" The Goth shouted as she lunged for the device. But, once again crippled by the hangover holding her like a straight jacket she was too slow. Heather easily moved the device that terrified Gwen like a gun firmly out of reach. "Give it to me! You know what, Heather? I've always known you were a fucking bitch!"

"Fair enough," Heather said, unfazed by the insult. Her face then shifted into a powerful smirk of victory. "But while I might be a bitch, you are now my bitch."

Words failed to convey the raw horror that crawled through Gwen at that moment. Outside of Duncan at horniest, never in her life had she been this fucked.

"And as my bitch, you will do exactly what I say if you don't want any more problems."

"W-where did you get that!?" Gwen demanded.

With her predatory smirk of victory still in place, Heather seemed to think it over for a moment before replying. "If you must know, I got it from Jo this morning after Cody left for his classes." Noticing the confused look on her old rival's pale and battered face Heather sighed. "Jo Elliot, one of the dorm's two RA's happens to be a...friend of mine. It took a little convincing on my part but she gave it to me after a little…persuasion."

At hearing Heather had one of her buildings' RA in her pocket, and about how she had incriminating evidence of one of Duncan's bad spells, Gwen was starting to feel very much afraid. Regardless, she didn't want to show it, lest she give Heather the satisfaction of it. So, instead of showing her fear she put up her best façade of bravery. "Pfft, whatever," she said with a puff of air escaping her lips, "And just what do you think you could do with that anyway? Couples have arguments all the time. It's no big deal."

The wolfish smirk that Heather sent her had alarm bells going off in her still throbbing head. "That's where your wrong, Gwenny," The Queen Bee said, apparently pleased at seeing the small flash of anger that flashed across the Goth's face at the old, hated nickname. "Firstly, it's on video. Secondly, it's video from university security cameras, i.e., on campus grounds. I'm sure criminal justice isn't your major, but let me ask you this, do you have any idea just how many charges Duncan could get from what's on this tape?"

Gwen's façade of bravery weakened at that. Even so, she put up an admirable effort. "T-there's nothing illegal on that!" she said, her voice cracking under the strain of attempting to sound unfazed when in fact the Goth was feeling absolute dread.

Heather's smirk simply grew. "Oh, I don't know, I can think of a few laws he's broken within the last twenty-four hours. Operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, public drunkenness, assault and battery, and I'm willing to bet there are still a few bottles or cans in his car right now if they checked, no alcohol on campus grounds, remember?" Heather taunted.

At hearing that, Gwen abandoned her obviously false attempt at bravery, and groaned in defeat. She couldn't tell for sure if Heather was accurate in her points, but every one of those charges she listed did exist. Heather's confidence was strong enough that she knew she would have to look it up herself to know for certain, or maybe change over to a criminal justice major. "Why are you doing this!?" She asked, exasperated, "why can't you just mind your own damn business!?"

Again, Heather effortlessly switched from cocky to cold as her smirk morphed to a bitter frown. "I'm doing this for Cody, I already told you that," The Queen Bee reminded, "For some reason beyond my understanding he still cares about your well-being. Even if you don't give a shit about your own life, he does, and as long as he does I'm not going to let this pathetic life of yours run to its inevitable end."

"That's bullshit!" Gwen snapped, there was simply no way someone would go through that much work and that much effort for another person. As much as she loved Duncan, if their positions had been reversed she knew she would have just walked away from Heather with a smile stretching from ear to ear.

"Actually, your right," Heather admitted. Gwen stared at her rival wide eyed. Truthfully, she had just been firing in the dark with that, despite her seeming to hit a bull's eye. "While I am doing this mostly for Cody, I can't deny that it's also for me. You made life hell for me on Total Drama, even after you lost the moral high ground. I've let a lot of my old grudges slide but you? I haven't forgotten what you did to me on the Triple Dog Dare Challenge, and all the other shit you pulled back then against me. Consider this my insuring that I get the final say-so in our rivalry. You were my enemy, and I crush my enemies." Then with it happening so fast that Gwen barely noticed it, the coldness left Heather's face, and the previous cockiness returned in full with a devious smirk. "Besides, the chance to boss you around again and make your life a living hell is just too delicious a bonus for me pass up on. It almost feels like a cosmic consolation prize for all of the crap that your lingering hold on Cody has put me through. Whether it is or not, I'll gladly treat it as such." With that, the smirk and sadistic energy left Heather's face.

Feeling her anger growing inside of her like the rising roaring fire of a furnace, Gwen's face became a pale, bruised war mask. She was about to launch into a venomous tirade.

But before any verbal poison could be released into her hated enemy's ears and brain, said hated enemy cut her off again like a reflex. "I'm not going to tell you want to do with your life, and I won't dictate every little thing you do. I will limit myself to just three things." Once again, Heather had done a seamless transition, becoming cold and clinical. "If you agree to those three things, I'll delete the video from my phone right now. And if you keep up your end of the bargain until the end of this class year…I'll even arrange for a little…accident on the school's servers to erase the original footage."

Gwen scoffed. "Do you really think I would just agree to something as open as that? With you, 'three things' might as well be my soul, dignity, and freedom!"

"Of course I don't expect you to agree to anything open like that, only a complete dumbass would do that. No, what I want from you is much more simple and agreeable," Heather replied evenly.

As much as she hated to admit it, that colored Gwen curious. She waited until the Queen Bee explained what three conditions she had in mind to keep Duncan out of a prison cell were.

"One, you will live here with myself and Cody until the end of this class year. That means the remainder of this semester and the entire following one. Come summer you will be free to do as you please. Two, you will be here every night before midnight. I don't care if it's because of traffic or you're in the middle of the best orgasm of your life, if your ass isn't here at or before eleven fifty nine PM once, just once, Duncan's ass will be in the slammer at twelve 'o one PM. Three, Duncan is never, and I do mean never, to set foot beyond our front door. I don't care if he's bleeding to death with a ten-inch knife in his back or bullet holes in his gut; he is never to pass beyond our door for any reason. Simple, and agreeable enough for you?"

The Goth stared at Heather in disbelief, before quickly grabbing a hold over herself. "Is that it? What, you aren't going to force me to break up with Duncan and start having threesomes with you and Cody every night?" Gwen snarked blithely.

"Honestly, you have far more faith in what you call your relationship with Duncan than I do if you think I'd need a direct order to end it," Heather replied. "And I don't need to resort to blackmail or bribery if I want to bring another girl around for myself or Cody. More importantly," The Queen Bee gave the Goth a quick once-over from head to toe before adding, "even if I did, I would aim a hell of a lot higher than…this."

'Oh, thank God!' Gwen thought to herself in a balm of much-needed relief. 'Wait? What the fuck is she saying?! Am I not good enough!? Oh yeah, like Miss Tiny Tits here has the right to-oh my God why the hell am I even thinking about this!?'

The Goth shook that absurd train of thought aside, only to find the entire weight of this course of events, which would change her life as she knew it, weighting down on her. It felt like a blue whale resting on her chest. Before the full weight of everything that had happened in such a short span of time could completely dawn on her, Gwen saw Heather outreach a hand while asking, "So, do we have a deal, Gwen?"

For what felt like eons stacked upon eons, Gwen simply stared at the hand and brooded. Her mind a seething maelstrom churning from reeling at what had happened today and fuming because of it. Flashes of hatred lightning and torrents of despairing rain bombarded her brain at the same time that panics gusts and dreads thunder assaulted it. The center of this mental storm was quite obvious, the rage at Heather for pulling this on her but also fear of what Heather would do if she didn't accept this 'deal with the devil'.

Indeed, despite having little to no religious belief of any kind to speak of, Gwen viewed the small Asian girl before her not as a flesh and bone human but as Satan incarnate, as the universe's malice and capacity for misfortune distilled into a sentient, corporeal form.

Her brain running a mile a minute, running through option after option, the Goth was desperately trying to figure out a way out of this deal. But every idea ended with less than ideal outcomes for herself, Duncan, or both of them. She was also trying not to think about how Duncan was going to react to this. No matter what she did, the near future didn't look promising, as she distinctly remembered how she had done something she almost never did, lied to him. She hadn't told him that the person who attacked and humiliated him was Heather, instead saying that it was some random and unknown feminist during her time of the month. Saying almost anything else would have resulted in Duncan going on a rampage through the building to find out who was responsible.

Feeling as though she were backed into a corner, Gwen nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Heather's opened hand replaced with her phone offered to her. "Well, what's it going to be? If you accept my offer, I'll even let you delete the video yourself. What do you say?"

As much as Gwen hated to admit it, she knew she had no other options, at least not if she wanted to keep her boyfriend from being thrown behind bars. Even so, a new plan became to form in her mind, shooting up like a sapling amid the mental maelstrom, with its encouraging emerald contrasting the grey gloom around it.

'There is a way to get out of this nightmare…I just can't do it right now.' Gwen thought to herself. 'All I have to do is get Heather to kick me out by pissing her off, or wait until she gets bored with me. Yeah, that's it. I'll just wait until, like a cat playing with a mouse, she gets bored with me. Yeah, that just might work! If Heather's just as bad as before, which I'm sure she is, she'll get bored within two weeks!'

Feeling confident as the sapling grew and grew until it was a mighty redwood of an idea with branches and leaves of potential ways to get out of this deal sooner, Gwen said, "Okay Heather. You've got a deal."

With that, Gwen reached out her hand, but instead of shaking Heather's, she snatched the phone. More than anything, she wanted, no needed, to delete that video. That would take care of things for the short term. Quickly she found it, saved to the main screen, but before deleting it another idea sprouted from her mind.

'Maybe I should delete a lot more than just this video?'

The rush of dark pleasure at that particular thought was strong, quite strong, but regardless it was soon cast aside by practical reason. She figured that it probably wasn't a good idea to start getting under Heather's skin just yet, not until things cooled down. So, she limited herself to deleting the video in question before handing the device back to Heather.

'Remember, it's no different than normal, nothing has really changed,' The Goth silently reminded herself, 'I just need to ride it out and wait for all of this to blow over.'

And that is the latest chapter of Unbreakable Red Silken Thread! As always, we hope you all enjoyed it! :)

Once again, I'm going to give the floor to Kenju to offer up some closing comments:

"Okay, I know there are going to be a lot of people up in arms over Heather's treatment of Gwen in this chapter, but before any pitchforks and flaming torches are passed around you might want to go back and reread a few of the previous chapter, one in particular actually casts the events here in a very different light. And that is, of course, Heather's talk with Jasmine in chapter nine. Additionally keep in mind that as Cody often says in this story, Heather is Heather, she never does something without a reason.

"As we said before, the next nine chapters will be a sequence devoted to Gwen's first week in Heather and Cody's place, while also offering hints and peaks at what her relationship with Duncan is like. Even though the next two will still be on this Monday. Don't worry; from here on out for a while, the chapter outlines get shorter.

"I'd also like to put another little offer out there of a prize; this one will go to whoever the first person to correctly identify the weapon hanging on the wall crossed with the katana is. What is it? *grins* Best of luck to you."

Now, let me just add one more thing. There IS a method to the madness of Kenju and myself as far as chapter arrangement goes. I feel the need to prove that, so here's an example. In the previous chapter, in that end flashback, we saw Heather at her best. We saw just how far she has come and grown as a person thanks to her relationship with Cody. By contrast, in this chapter we see Heather at the harshest she's been all story. Also, for further depth, this is contrasted with us seeing Gwen's character regression to a point worse off than she was BEFORE TDI. Just thought that was interesting, and able to convince you that we DO have a plan for this.

With nothing else to say, I'll say that I'm not sure when the next chapter will come but it will show Gwen moving into Heather's place…and Gwen telling Duncan about this! ;)

Until next time, read, review, favor, follow, and spread the word! :)