Day Twenty; Night

With the sun veiled by the moon, night fell gracefully upon the island and the forest, occupying four new temporary residents, descended into an eerie darkness. The chirps of crickets were frequent and boisterous, aided consistently by the hoots of camouflaged owls and just recently, the crackling of a small fire. The new occupants had managed (Beck gentlemanly carrying a comatose, limp Jade in brawny tan arms) to find a decently medium-sized clearing to make overnight camp hours earlier than they had planned; seizing their trek just before sunset and remaining here until the sky shifted obsidian.

Cat, having an extremely severe phobia of arthropods (arachnophobia, evidently, sprouted when she was just two years old due to an incident she'd rather not reminisce on) and those ugly, forest-night-crawlers, or thousand legers, was not so enthusiastic of their sleeping arrangement upon the terrain and had, for the past hour, scoped about her spot for any to be on the safe side. Although everyone else had fallen asleep a half an hour ago, she herself thoroughly exhausted, she couldn't bring herself to slumber. Insomnia was not a frequent situation in her case, but was nevertheless, taunting her, causing her to over-think her friends illness and what condition her other friends back at the shore were in.

Only a mere hour ago had Jade woken up, in a cold sweat and clueless as to what had happened. Beck of course, filled her in with her collapse and, as usual, the Goth had snapped and said she was alright, albeit her temperature and nearly albino complexion stated completely otherwise. Cat couldn't help but wonder (and worry) what kind of convalescence had befell her – it was frightening and odd and she didn't like it, because every day it was steadily growing worse and was not lightening up or going away regardless of the medicine given, at all.

If you were to ask her, she'd say it wasn't normal. And it wasn't. At least to her, who had seen diseases first hand before.

Ever since her sophomore year, for a part time job that acted as a necessity in order to help her drug addict mother and criminal of a mother to pay rent, she worked in the Children's Wing in the hospital in Santa Barbra. The illnesses varied greatly from special needs disorder, down syndrome , to the blind and the deaf and of course, to the deadly cancerous diseases. Although it was terrible to see these disabilities degrade them or end their life so shortly, she loved her job. She was likewise adored by the kids that were admitted there, being as she practically was a little kid herself when on her medicine, and just that simple fact that she could bring a smile to their face, make them laugh and enjoy life even though at the moment it didn't seem enjoyable, was enough to melt her heart as if it was a block of ice stuck into a blazing fire. At the end of the day, it made her feel better about herself, and life in general.

She had especially enjoyed coming to work when a young six year old, Gavin Marks, was found homeless and parentless and suffering of leukemia – Cat was assigned as his personal caretaker since she worked so well with the younger children, and not even a day in, she swore if she could she would have adopted him then and there. She watched movies with him, sang to him, played with action figures (though if anything, she would have wanted Barbie's or stuffed animals instead) and made him feel better when he felt ill; the endless, late nights coming home exhausted and going to school incredibly early the next day was completely worth it. Why? Because she made an adorable boy smile in a terrible time in his life, of course it was worth the suffering!

It was at the Asphalt Café, surrounded by her friends (Jade, Beck, Andre, Robbie and Rex; Tori wasn't enrolled in Hollywood Arts at the time), when she got the phone call that absolutely devastated her. Judith, her Head Children's Nurse, had took the time to personally call her that little Gavin wasn't going to survive the remainder of the night, knowing full well how much she meant to him, and vice versa. She ran from the outdoor cafeteria in hopeless and powerless tears, and sped to the hospital to say goodbye to him, cutting each and every one of her classes that she had for the remainder of the school day.

Cat did not want anything like that to happen to Jade – if it had, she really wasn't sure what she would do. However, even though it had come to mind a lot, specifically because of the events of earlier, she didn't like to think that such a thing (death) could happen to the one person whom she considered as a sister.

"Whatcha doin' up so late kiddo?"

Startled, her heart skipping from what she had estimated (wrongly, of course, she was always the exaggerator) 5 whole beats, the petite dark haired girl jumped from her blanket beside the fire, dropping the small rock she had been rolling around within the palm of her hand. She looked over a sunburned shoulder with a hand pressed to her chest, breathing abruptly heavy and compendious, to come face to face to the tan complexioned Beck, long barbarous charcoal hair mottled and messy, sticking out in various directions and making him look uncharacteristically silly – at least, in her humble opinion. "Geez, Beck! You almost gave me a heart attack!" She cried quietly, her soprano voice carefully low as to not awake the two sleeping 'siblings.'

"Oh, right. Uh, sorry." He answered with a light, seemingly forced grin as he lowered himself beside her, elbows resting upon his knees and scouting the dim incandescence licking and dancing at the twigs. "So, what are you doing up? You should be sleeping, we've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

"Couldn't sleep! Keep tossing and turning…" Cat bit her lip as she exhaled through her nose, immediately grasping strands of dark brown hair between her fingers. "And, why are you up too?"

"Kinda just woke up and figured I might as well check on how Jade's doing." His collected, low voice was painted with a worry she hadn't heard before, and the sound was rather foreign. Usually, Beck was calm about these kinds of things, but in mere honesty she didn't dare blame him to be at least a little bit apprehensive toward the situation. If it was Brent who was sick, albeit she was not with him relationship wise, she would undoubtedly be the same way (and there was a tiny speck of hope that maybe that was vice versa as well). "You work at the hospital, right? With sick people. Any idea of what's wrong with her?" He asked before she got another chance to speak, dark gaze flickering toward her for a simple second.

"I'm not a doctor, silly Beck." She giggled subconsciously, twirling her hair instinctively. "I'm a nurse in the kiddie's wing, it's kind of, way out of my hands."

"Yeah, you're right…I forgot. I guess I'm just, I dunno…I just want her to get better. You know?"

"Of course I know! I want her to get better too!"

"Do you think that there's anything I could do to at least make her feel a little bit better?" Beck asked, gaze returning to the flames and tossing a small handful of grass into it, enlarging it; something she would have done if she'd known to do so.

"Jade loves you a lot more than you think; you've been together for two years!" Cat giggled, small smile gracing her lips, though she found it difficult to feel at ease, especially when there was no more antidepressants for her to take. "So, I think just by being there for her is just enough, even if she doesn't tell you so."

"Are you sure? I know she loves me, and I know you know that too, but I feel kind of helpless and –"

"No, no!" She shushed him by pressing her palm to his mouth, silencing him. "Stop beating yourself up, Beck! That definitely won't help anything."

"Like you did? You beat yourself up too." He said seriously, grabbing hold of her wrist (before she could shriek "what's THAT supposed to mean?) and turning it upward so the flickering light of the crackling flames blazed across it, revealing pale pink scars corrupting the creamy white skin unattractively, some covered by various bracelets and hair bands. "You may be naïve, but cutting yourself isn't what the Cat we know would do, so you're kind of contradicting yourself there. Not that you don't mean good…"

Cat hastily tugged her wrist from his gentle grip, that small speck of swelling happiness gone. "It's something Caterina would do…" She mumbled quietly to herself, lips barely moving as she spoke.

"You say something?"

"No." She hugged herself and curled into a small ball, resting her chin upon her knees. "I stopped a while ago, didn't Jade tell you that? And when did this conversation turn on me? You're being, kind of, a meany…"

"Well…I didn't meant to be. I'm sorry." Beck said genuinely, clapping her gently on the back and shifting to get comfortable upon the blanket covering the grass and the grit of the forest terrain. The conversation fell into a slightly awkward silence, Cat occasionally glancing over at her good friend and company – the last time, however, something just behind him and slightly hidden by the various trees and bushes a good 20 feet away, caught her eye in one split second, and in shock, she turned her head and averted her gaze behind him once again, eyes wide.

Standing as still as a statue (like the various ones she saw about Firenze) was a man with short dark brown hair cascading just over the side of his face, covering his ears and eyebrows in curly knots, almost identical to Robbie's. His features were pointy with a slanted nose much like her own, but longer and defined masculine rather feminine – of course – and, through the dark, she could tell his features were handsome. As if upon noticing her staring, he pressed his index finger to his lips, turned around, and began to swagger away in silence, not a rustle to be heard, and his dark clothes camouflaging perfectly with the trees and bushes about their surroundings. The boy, looking no older than eighteen, looked over his shoulder and stopped, as if waiting.

"Beck." She whispered, the back of her hand rapidly smacking against a brawny bicep. "Beck, do you see him?"

As if alarmed, the handsome teenager averted his gaze over to her face and followed her stare, and she could almost feel his body going tense beside her. "See who? Where?" He asked sharply, alert and confused.

"He's right there! How could you not see him?" Cat asked with a blink; behind dark crimson eyelids the face of her brother Mouse flashed, almost completely identical to that of the boys in the forest. Her skin erupting in Goosebumps she used his shoulder to hoist herself to her feet, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Beck stood up as well, towering over her, and scoping out the forest, lighting the tip of a branch aflame to see better.

"Cat, I don't see anybody? Hey – hey, where are you going!"

Nearly blind by the clear lack of light, Cat began a light job toward "Mouse", stepping over Andre in the process pushing her way behind the veils of bushes and trees, half conscious of Beck trailing quickly behind her. Her brother, or who it appeared to be, began to walk faster, making a sharp left turn. She followed behind him, calling out for him to wait and stop moving, only half aware that she was doing so. Why she was, she couldn't tell you if she wanted, and as her converse slapped against the forest landscape, she just knew that she was going crazy, that what she was doing was so incredibly stupid – but she couldn't will herself to stop.

How could Beck not see him when he was right in front of them! Was she really going insane and hallucinating? Likely.

"Mouse, wait!" She called again with ample breaths, shoving a heavily leafed branch away from her path and quickly jogging after him.

"Mou- Cat, what are you doing? Why are you calling for your brother? – Cat!"

Unexpectedly, as if completely spontaneous, Mouse's identical clone disappeared behind the brush and as she pushed passed the leaves to look for him, met by nothing but oxygen and trees, two clicks were sounded. She paid no mind to it, out of breath and frantically looking about her, only stopping when something solid pressed against her temple. Cautiously, dark brown irises peaked from the corner of her eye to glance at the object being pushed to the side of her head.

She froze, her breathing hitching in her throat.

It was the barrel of a gun.

Well..shorter than expected. Next one will probably be longer. Surely.

Anyway…yeah…I don't know what this is, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway! See, this was the twist I'm talking about :P I hope you don't think it's stupid or anything like that, lol. I wasn't going to have it be like this, but like I said the last couple chapters, my hands just kind of have their own mind and I dunno, I just start typing nonsense. Things are going to get suspenseful, action-y, and maybe even a little bit weird depending on the way you look at it, from this chapter on. So, be prepared! Or not, if you want to be surprised, lol. Oh, there might not be any Bade for a little while…but it will be mentioned often. Sorry to disappoint, if I did.

Anyways, please review and let me know what you think! You can also leave what you think is going to happen next, or what you may want to happen! Who knows, it just might (;

s2 xo