chapter three

Tuesday, a day full of activities like waking up early to watch the sunrise, snorkeling and enjoying the nightlife around, meeting other travelers and locals, passed quickly.

Wednesday came around with clear blues skies and perfect weather.

The plan was to spend the morning at the resort pool with their friends before venturing off on their own and going their separate ways. As much as Beck would have enjoyed visiting one of the national parks with them, he was looking forward to his day with Jade much more.

"Everybody ready?" He called as he and Jade entered the other's upstairs hotel room. André was seated on one of the couches in a pair of dark red swim trunks, strumming a soft tune on his guitar, and Cat was tucked onto a chair across from him, clad in black denim shorts and a pink bikini top, bowed over the sketchbook she'd bought in Paris. Cat was a very spatial person, able to draw with a finesse and dexterity none of them could match. Beck supposed that was why she took such an interest in special effects makeup.

"We are," André said, fingers picking at the strings of his guitar. "Robbie's not."

Jade made a disgruntled face as she leaned against the back of Cat's chair, peering over her shoulder to see what she was drawing. "Of course not. What could possibly be taking that nerd so long? We're just going to the pool, all he has to do is slip on a pair of shorts."

"Robbie has a problem," Cat said lightly, though she didn't look up from her drawing.

Beck leaned against the kitchen island on his elbow. "What kind of problem?"

André shook his head and set his guitar against the side of the couch, standing up. "He slipped on his socks and rammed his face straight into the counter, right where Beck's standing." André pointed, and Beck looked down as his girlfriend cackled in delight. "Now his nose is all bloody and his lip is split. Tori knows some stuff from her mom, so she's helping him clean up," he explained, turning toward the bathroom. "Yo, Tor! You guys almost done?"

A moment later, Tori emerged from the open door, looking exasperated. "You guys just go, we'll meet you down there in a few."

Jade quirked a studded brow. "You two have fun together."

Cat giggled. Tori stuck her tongue out at both of them before disappearing back inside the bathroom, where Beck could hear Robbie's gripes and groans.

Beck clapped his hands together, straightening up. "Alright then," he said. "Let's get going."

The other three mumbled their agreements and followed him out the door, André snatching up a volleyball on his way out and bouncing it between his hands. The pool wasn't overly crowded when they got there; with a few kids in the shallow pool and adults reclined on olive green cushioned lounge chairs, bathing under the hot morning sun. Faint instrumental music was playing through the stereo at the tiki bar, where a woman was making smoothies for a group of four younger children and their vexed looking mother.

Although there was no net in the larger pool, Beck figured that they could make it work, so long the other guests didn't get annoyed with them for taking up so much space. Beck peeled off his denim button up and dropped it on top of a chair, where Jade was placing their towels, before unceremoniously hopping into the pool, André in tow. The water was cool but bearable beneath the heat of the sun, and went up just a little above his waist.

"Okay," André said, balancing the volleyball in his hand. "Teams?"

Cat gracefully jumped in, hardly making a splash. "Oh! I call being on Jadey's team!"

"Girls versus boys," Beck announced, smirking over at his girlfriend as she scowled down at the water, her arms crossing over her chest as she waded to Cat's side. "We'll could divide the pool into two sides using the 4ft marker," he pointed to the side of the pool, where the depth was painted onto the brick surrounding it in blaringly white print.

"Yeah yeah, we know the rules," Jade commented, resting her elbow on Cat's shoulder. "Let's make this interesting. The losers, which will be you two, will have to rub lotion all over Robbie's disgusting mosquito bites for the rest of the trip."

André laughed despite the awful bet, clapping Beck on the back. "Oh, I'm not worried, ladies," he said confidently while puffing out his chest. "We won't be the losers here."

They were.

The girls both proved to be surprisingly competent in the sport, fueled by an unexpected competitiveness that had both Beck and André floundering to keep up. After they had one the third game in a row, Beck proposed another in frustration, noticing the way his teammate's shoulders were slumping in defeat. "Nope, you two lost enough times. Another would just be embarrassing for you," Jade said loudly, her smirk as smug as could be as she high-fived a giddy looking Cat. "Never pegged you boys for sore losers."

"Man that's not fair," André objected, "I don't want to rub lotion on Rob's gross bug bites."

Jade's smirk grew, as if it were possible. "But André, you lost." She said sweetly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Cat laughed and pulled herself out of the pool, wringing out red velvet hair as she retrieved her shorts and slipped them back on. "It's only fair," she said, batting her eyelashes innocently. Beck tossed the volleyball over to her, and it bounced across the stone tiles until it was stopped by one of her feet, and she bent to pick it up.

André, his face scrunched despondently, followed after her. "This sore loser's going to get himself a smoothie," he announced, shooting Jade one last look before making his way to the bar.

"I guess you girls won fair and square," Beck said as his girlfriend sidled up to his side, looking smug. She pressed a quick kiss to his lips, tasting of chlorine water and something a little sweeter, although it didn't relieve the feeling of dread that he felt at his fate. No one should have to rub lotion on someone else's mosquito bites - that was just disgusting. "Since when did you get so good at volleyball?"

The music spluttered and came to an abrupt stop.

"Since there was a lot on the line," Jade said, green eyes alight with mischievousness. Beck smiled down at her, shaking his head -

Birds suddenly propelled from the trees, flying away in large, loud groups. The pair of them both glanced up in surprise, and Beck's brows slightly creased.

And then the ground started to shake.

It was a slight tremble, unlike the earthquakes they'd often experienced back in California, but enough to startle them. Around them, the occupants of the resort pool all stopped what they were doing, staring off in the direction of the beach, hidden behind buildings, where people were distantly screaming. Beck faltered, suddenly unsure of what to do with himself, a pit growing in his stomach. Up ahead, several palm trees were falling down - and it didn't make sense, not to him, because if this was an earthquake, which it certainly didn't feel like, it couldn't have been powerful to knock them over.

"What the hell is going on?" Jade murmured beside him, but Beck couldn't find his voice to answer her.

Instead, he peered over his shoulder to glance up at his friend's hotel room. Sure enough, Robbie and Tori were standing by the railing of the balcony. Neither looked like they could see what was happening.

They were both squinting and staring off into the distance, their expressions mixed with confusion and apprehension. Beck turned away from them, and there was one short lasting moment of uncertainty before a large wave hit the surrounding buildings in front of them with a loud roar of ocean water. Beck's eyes widened as glass windows and doors shattered, and everyone around them started moving all at once - running frantically in all directions, trying to get away as quickly as they could, while others were frozen in fear and disbelief.

The tidal wave streamed powerfully through the buildings of the resort, leaving nothing but destruction in it's wake, catching up to a few running tourists and sweeping them off their feet. Beck saw, in a quick glance, a little girl standing in trepidation, get smacked down and pulled underwater.

Jade's wet fingers were suddenly pressing against his arm, digging tightly into his skin. "Oh my god," she said, taking an instinctive, but impractical step back. There was a tremble to her voice. "Holy shit."

He thought he heard Tori calling out for them on the balcony of her hotel room, but everything was chaos and happening too quickly for him to comprehend.

Ahead of them, the volleyball slipped from Cat's hands in shock, and she turned as Jade yelled out for her, diving into the farther side of the pool just seconds before the water reached her. Beck watched, his gut flooring in horror, as the wave and the remains of houses and trees surged over her, and she disappeared without a trace. André had tried to make a run for it to get inside and on higher ground, but it was fruitless, and his cry was cut short when the water swept him off of his feet, and then André was gone too.

Beck acted without thinking.

He grabbed Jade around her waist and bodily pulled her in front of him, turning and shielding her from the curl of the wave as it barrelled over them. It slammed into his back, hard and heavy, and his breath was rushed from his lungs at the sheer impact of it.

People often underestimated the power of water, and just how strong it could be. It was a relentless force, one you didn't want to be caught in the crossfire of.

Ocean water and debris billowed around him, clogging his ears and his nose and into his aching lungs. It was completely debilitating, and it pushed and pulled him in so many directions that he didn't realize Jade was gone until his head broke the surface. He fought to keep himself above water, drawing air desperately into his lungs; seafoam sprayed into his mouth, wood splinters stuck on his tongue and his lips, and Beck was forced to spit them out. Everything was a rush of sound and chaos around him, the current vigorous as it surged, pulling Beck along with it. In the trees and wreckage, people were screaming and crying out for help, voices woven with trepidation.

And he felt it too. This lurch of panic, clawing it's way into his chest and hooking it's talons in deep. Beck withstood the current and grabbed the closest, sturdy thing that he could get his hands on; he wasn't sure what it was. It was metal and he thought it may have been a telephone pole, but he couldn't be sure. His arms wrapped tight around it, holding on, and his vision danced, surveying his surroundings frantically.

He had no idea where he was. And he was very, very alone.

"JADE!" He called out, his voice hoarse and raw in his throat. He tasted blood on his tongue, but for the first time since he could remember, he was delirious with panic, and he couldn't bring himself to care.

Beck's eyes darted around him, looking for any sign of his friends, any sign of his girlfriend. Every part of him screamed in protest when he moved, and his arms strained around the metal pole, desperate to keep it in his grasp. Other people that had been caught in the wave, if they had been lucky enough to hold onto something, were climbing up palm trees, screaming and wailing.

He swore, spitting out water as it splashed into his mouth, his dark hair clinging to his forehead and the nape of his neck. He called out for her again, her name tearing from his throat - and he called out for André too, and for Cat.

He couldn't see any sign of them. He couldn't even see the resort, where Tori and Robbie were - and he couldn't tell if it was gone too, or if he'd just been carried so far out that it was nowhere in his immediate sight. He doesn't know what to think. It's almost like he can't grab his thoughts; they were racing through his mind too quick for him to focus on one thing at a time, or to make any sense at all. All he knew is that, that incapacitating fear that Sikowitz had once tried and failed to make him feel, churned furiously in his stomach, adrenaline and disbelief coursing through his veins like white hot fire and making his straining arms shake.

The ocean water was murky brown around him, littered with the wood of destroyed buildings and fallen palm trees and the occasional floating car. It rushed around him, carrying bodies and debris and glass that hit and cut into his skin.

In the blink of an eye, everything was just…

Gone.

"Jade!" He yelled out, again, desperate for some kind of answer that never came. His heart sank, desperation clawing at his chest. Where was she?

Instead, there was another rush of sound, and the current stopped pulling so forcefully. Beck moved gingerly around to look, kicking absently at something that had wrapped around his ankle - not far off in the distance, a second wave was hurdling toward him, carrying the destruction along with it. Although fear had made him slightly delirious, Beck knew that he had to act, and act quickly.

He used the fact that he was already in water to his advantage, tightening his hold around the pole and forcing himself under water just seconds before the second wave pummeled over him, hoping that his grip was strong enough to keep him in place.

It wasn't.

well...sorry guys. your trip had to take a turn sooner or later!

anyway, I don't mean to be that person, but I really hope that some of you readers will leave your thoughts in a review! I've gotten a few, but silence is never very encouraging. hope you guys enjoyed this chapter anyway. we'll find out the fate of some of the other's soon. maybe ;)