*Hey! Well, first of all THANK YOU SO MUCH for all the reviews. I honestly wasn't expecting the amazing feedback from you guys, so it was great to get that. Anyways, I was reluctant to post this chapter. I re-wrote this about two or three times because I have no idea what's happening really, my fingers get minds of their own sometimes. Anyway, I did work hard on this chapter, so I hope you like it and that you review!*
Gwen froze, unable to do anything, not even scream as the figure (or maybe even figures by the looks of it) writhed and grunted on the ground. Finally, her instincts kicked in and she picked up a long piece of driftwood, intending to use it as a club, but as the figure's movements on the ground became more spastic, she lost all thought again and finally chucked the wood. It collided with the silhouette with a loud thud, and after that more grunts were heard mixed in with loud cursing.
"Duncan?" Gwen asked through the darkness. There was only one person on the entire planet with that much of a...colorful vocabulary. There was a strained grunt.
"Gwen?" Duncan's voice piped out. "Man, you have an arm!" He complained. Not responding to his compliment, Gwen grabbed another piece of driftwood but this time stuck the top of it into the middle of the firepit, the only place that the fire was still living. when the large piece of wood was lit up, the entire scene unraveled. Duncan was standing there, new bits of dirt and leaves staining his long-sleeved shirt, with an unknown person in a headlock. Whoever it was appeared to be knocked out, or getting there soon enough.
"Who's that? Where's Trent?" Duncan sighed, his grip on the man(?)'s arm loosening.
"Elvis was pretty sure there were two guys so he went the other way. Guess he hasn't come back yet." He observed. A strangled croak broke the silence and it didn't take long to figure out it came from their captive. he began coughing and lifted his head up.
"Harold?" Sure enough, it was Harold in Duncan's arms, coughing and choking on what could only be his own saliva.
"Huh, no wonder I took him down so fast." Duncan gloated smugly. Harold hacked one more time before regaining the use of his legs and standing up, simultaneously pulling himself from Duncan's arms.
"I was searching in the forest for reeds and other vegetation to create a raft for transportation off this island." Harold explained.
"How'd you get here anyway?" Duncan asked, holding his knife close to Gwen's torch to clean it off.
"LeShawna and I were following you guys the whole way until that storm this morning." He answered.
"Wait," Gwen began, "LeShawna?" She raised a brow at the redhead. Before anyone could say anything else, two other dark figures emerged from the bushes, one of them yelling loudly.
"Ooh, I know you did not just poke LeShawna with that tiny hunk of wood!" The voice screamed. It wasn't hard to put a name to the voice, but LeShawna stepped into the light anyway, followed closely by an exasperated Trent. His eyes were the size of saucers and he was panting heavily.
"LeShawna?" He gasped. She turned to look at him and softened immediately.
"Trent!" She enveloped him in his arms tightly and Trent choked a bit. "It's good to see you, Baby!" Gwen noticed Trent's distress and acted accordingly.
"Uh! LeShawna! We're here too!" She said in her nervous voice. LeShawna smiled and dropped Trent into a crumpled heap on the ground and squeezed Gwen tightly. "H-h-hi, LeShawna!" She croaked in a half-hearted greeting.
"Hi, Honey! I missed you!" The other girl yelled happily. Duncan scoffed, unimpressed nearby.
"You sure seem peppy for someone who washed up on some stupid island in the middle of the night. LeShawna released Gwen from her grasp and scowled deeply at the delinquent.
"Don't test me, boy!" She warned.
"Alright, we're all well-acquainted. Can we go back to sleep now?" Trent begged, his breathing shallow.
"I could use some shuteye."
"I'm tired."
"Sleep will definitely be necessary if we plan on getting anything done tomorrow.
"Whatever."
With that mutual agreement, Gwen tossed the glowing torch into the small stream and returned to her resting place. It didn't take long for the other teens to follow.
The blazing sun assaulted Gwen's eyes, waking her immediately. She groaned, peeling herself off the log she was laying on and examined the morning. A light breeze was wafting through the air, slanting the now large fire the tiniest bit. Trent, LeShawna, Harold, and Duncan were seated on the other side of the fire talking amongst themselves. Gwen got up but sat down again soon enough when she took the end spot next to Duncan, who immediately handed her an energy bar.
"I thought we ran out of these." She said as she unwrapped the bar.
"We did, but I must've taught the dweeb a thing or two." Duncan said with his head gesturing towards Harold.
"I have a whole backpack full of them!" He exclaimed, holding up a raggedy old canvas backpack. "I found the backpack while I was exploring early this morning."
"At least that's another sign of life." Trent shrugged.
"Find anything else?" LeShawna asked, obviously not expecting him to reveal a small pile of objects.
"Wow!" The others choroused. They jumped up to inspect the pile. There was nothing grand or extravagant to behold, but there was a considerable amount of rusted, but still somewhat useable tools, a few pots and pans, and enough water bottles for each to have one. (Plus a few!) As they packed the items away in Harold's backpack, they devised a plan for the day.
"Should we keep going straight?" Gwen asked unsurely as she stood behind Duncan. The Goth had set to work on straightening out his mohawk. (After all, it just looked downright silly drooping to the side like that!)
"Well, there's definitely nothing for us on the beach." LeShawna reasoned.
"And if this island is as large as I calculate it to be, we'll just hit more water if we go east or west." Harold said.
"So it's settled on north?" Gwen asked. Everyone else nodded and Gwen scooped up all the empty water bottles. "I'll go fill these." She looked up at the blazing sun, "It looks like we may need them." The rest of the group nodded at her again and she walked over to the small stream, plopped down calmly, and began to fill the bottles. It wasn't long until she heard footsteps coming her way, and Trent was soon stooping down beside her.
"Hey." He greeted with a casual grin. He grabbed an empty old Aquafina bottle from the pile and quickly filled it with water from the stream. "I thought you may need help. There's a lot of bottles." He smiled. Gwen smiled back a little.
"Thanks, but it's really not that much, you can go back and eat if you want." She said, staring down at the flowing water as it filled the bottle she was holding to it.
"I finished." He said simply. "And besides, I think we should hang out more." Again she gave him a small smile and went back to work. It was silent until they got down to the last couple of bottles. "So," He began slowly, "Are you and Duncan..." He didn't finish, but he really didn't need to. Gwen knew what Trent was wondering.
"Yes." She sighed heavily, but she quickly added "No?" A beat later and she had finally decided on "Sort of."
"So...not really?" He tried.
"We aren't...in a relationship. Not really." Gwen tried to explain. She knew that wasn't the right way to explain it, but sometimes it seemed as if her and Duncan's...whatever they had only made sense to them. No, they weren't quite boyfriend/girlfriend, they were more like best-friends-who-like-each-other-and-occasionally-kiss. Wait, what? Gwen shook her head a little as if it would clear the confusion. She looked up at Trent, who seemed sort of relieved. Before she even knew what she was saying, she asked "Why?" Trent looked anywhere but at Gwen and cleared his throat. His eyes looked glassy, as if he were about to cry, when he turned back to Gwen.
"I think we should be together again." He whispered, although the others were too far away to hear what they were saying. Gwen's eyes widened and she lifted her brows in surprise.
"What?" She screeched quietly. She was honestly expecting him to say anything, anything but that!
"Yeah." He said, seemingly gaining more confidence as he spoke. "We're not in competition anymore and we're never going to be. Our relationship can be a whole lot better than it was." He tried to persuade. Gwen just sat there, her mind completely blank. She was really wondering if he was serious. After a (very awkward) while, Trent spoke up. "Are you going to say anything?" She gulped and tried to form a sentence. At this point, she'd let anything fall from her lips as long as it wasn't yes!
"Trent...I don't...know, um...Duncan. He's, he's um, we sort of..." Looking around, she gave into her impulses and grabbed a few of the bottles before standing and turning to go.
"I'm going to fight him for you." Trent said, causing Gwen to freeze. "I'm going to. I love you." Feeling tears prickling in the back of her head, she turned and sprinted back to the fire so fast that she ran right into Duncan's back.
"Whoa." he said, steadying the bottles in her arm as well as taking a few. "You okay?" He asked, concerned. She took a deep breath and felt the threat of tears dissolve.
"Yeah. Everything's fine."
"You sure?" He asked. His gaze shifted from bored to menacing as he glanced over at Trent. Gwen refused to look at what Trent looked like.
"Uh..." She hesitated for a moment. Duncan could read her like a book. Would he know that she was lying? Then again, she also knew that Duncan was tired, as he rarely woke up before noon...or three P.M., so she took her chances. "Yeah, I'm good."
"Alright, let's go, guys." He said to LeShawna and Harold, who both shrugged. Harold picked up his full backpack and threw it on his back excitedly while LeShawna shook her head at him and linked arms with Gwen.
"Don't let me trip over any roots or anything!" she ordered. Gwen nodded numbly and they soon took off.
The five walked in a sort of line through the thick shrubbery. The island and all-around beachy feel was long gone and the teens felt as if they were in the middle of the Amazon. It was a rainforest in every sense of the word. (Except, there wasn't any rain, so it wasn't really a rainforest at all.) Gwen noticed she and LeShawna had fallen behind a bit and tried to walk faster when a firm arm pulled her back.
"You 'gonna tell me what's wrong?" LeShawna asked. Apparently she could read Gwen like a book, too. Gwen sighed.
"While Trent and I were filling up the water bottles," She sighed and looked around at the trees, "He said he wanted us to be together again." She said quietly. The other girls' eyes widened.
"He did not!" She exclaimed.
"Quiet! And yes, he did." Gwen confirmed almost mournfully.
"Did you say yes?"
"No!" She whisper-yelled in reply. "But I still don't know what I'm going to do." She said. They stood there with locked eyes until LeShawna patted the side of her shoulder.
"Okay, Girl. Just don't get yourself hurt. I won't tell anyone." She promised. They shared a smile and a quick hug before catching up with the others.
They stopped an hour or so later when they came across a gargantuan-sized rock leaning slanted on a bunch of others. Gwen sat on the top of it, her legs hanging off the ledge and swinging with her energy bar in hand and her water bottle sitting next to her. She heard footsteps climbing towards her again and prayed that it wasn't Trent. She smiled a bit when Duncan appeared next to her.
"Hey." He greeted, crumbling up the empty wrapper in his hands ant tossing it at Harold's head. He cried out and the two shared a giggle. "You alright?" He suddenly asked again, though this time his voice held more skepticism.
"I told you, I'm fine, just tired I guess." She lied. Duncan raised a brow at her. ("That's hot." Gwen thought.)
"You sure about that? You seem..." He looked up as he thought. "Sketchy."
"Sketchy?" She repeated with her own bit of skepticism.
"Yeah. You know, weird?" Gwen facepalmed.
"Sketchy means hazy, Duncan." She informed him with the slightest bit of playfulness in her eyes.
"Whatever." He shrugged. "You just don't seem so alright."
"Guess it's just...one of those things I guess." She shrugged and even added a laugh for the effort.
"Guys!" Trent called from the ground. "We're ready to go!" Gwen hopped off the log effortlessly, but staggered a bit when she reached the ground. She felt warm hands on her arms and they steadied her gently. "You okay?" Trent asked. Gwen snapped out of...it and nodded, ripping her hands away from him. She felt a rush of air smack her back and knew Duncan had hopped off the rock as well.
"Everything okay?" He questioned, his eyes immediately wandering over to the other boy.
"Fine." Trent responded coldly. They glared at each other before one of them broke it (it was too hard to tell who) and went to lead the group again.
The sun was starting to lose some of its intensity and the group knew it would be dark soon. They stopped at the base of a cliff, resolving that the game plan tomorrow would be to climb it. They sat around a bonfire they had created, eating their food and chatting about anything from how long it would be until they reached civilization to how (not-so) shocking Alejandro kissing Heather was. After they had finished, it was considerably darker out and everyone decided sleep was the best option for them. They were sharing goodnight hugs and in Harold and LeShawna's case almost-kisses when Trent strode over to Gwen.
"'Night, Gwen." He said casually. Gwen's smile got bigger (and harder to fake.)
"Goodnight, Trent." She said uncomfortably. She was praying that he wouldn't open his arms for a hug, but there he was, arms wide open. She sighed and gave him an obligatory hug. When he finally let go, Gwen tried to run off somewhere secluded to have a good cry, but was stopped when she felt herself in Trent's arms again...kissing him? No, no, he was kissing her, she could tell by the way it felt, but it nonetheless felt wrong. She pulled away and was almost angry at Trent's confused expression.
"What was that?" She whispered, her soft voice cracking. Tears were going to start spilling any second and she knew it.
"I-I'm sorry! I just love you, Gwen..." He tried, but Gwen wouldn't look at him. She was looking for Duncan, half expecting him to have already tackled Trent, but he was sitting on an open spot on the grass with a relaxed pose and (thankfully) his eyes shut. Gwen bared her teeth and pointed to him.
"You're lucky he didn't see that!"
"Gwen-"
"Save it. Goodnight." She deadpanned, her voice thick with frustration. She stormed away angrily and walked behind a large tree to wipe the tears from her face. After letting free the sobs a few moments more, she wiped her face completely until it was dry. Emerging from the tree, she walked right over to where Duncan was lying and laid her head on his chest. She felt one of his hands immediately make its way to her hair and relished in the tingly feeling she got when he picked up and dropped her hair like that.
"What's the matter, Pasty?" He grumbled. He was obviously half asleep. It kind of made Gwen wonder how he even knew it was her. She wrapped her arm over front of his shoulder.
"Nothing, just don't go anywhere." She whispered miserably.
"'Kay."
*Intense, right? So, I hope you liked this chapter, and I know you're all going to review because you love me that much xD Noooo, but please review if you have a minute. You have no idea how much I appreciate it!*