Day Twenty Nine; One Night Ago

Countless, restless nights of walking and searching for the missing duo, had finally, at last, worked to their utmost benefit and relief, and they found themselves hiding within the bushes before vast acres of luscious emerald land, a large campus domicile, the sun beaming orange and crimson above them, painting the sky a multi-colored glow. There were people, an actual civilization that they had once been searching for and Jade would have very well ran to them, demanding where her friend and her boyfriend were if it wasn't for the fact that they had been holding guns and various other weapons that their tiny little pocket knife simply could not compete with whatsoever. The temptation, however, had been so strong that her stepbrother was forced to hold her back by her arms, and the two had evidently rolled themselves into a bush patch, that hid them very well.

The premises in itself gave off a very eerie sensation, as if it was a penitentiary holding murderers and anybody who had done poignant, punishable crimes to somebody else or even, to themselves. Perhaps it was, she concluded as she scoped about the area for the tenth time that hour, attempting to search for one of the missing two in the limited region in which they were placed, but she couldn't find a reason why it would be. Maybe there was an entire civilization out there that lay beyond this – she didn't know, but she was more than curious. She was impatient.

As cheesy or as corny as it sounded, she missed Beck. And she wanted him back.

"How long are we going to sit out here? What are we, admiring the view or something?" Jade snapped at Brent, who was kneeling down within the bushes beside her, his back pressed against the bark of a topiary.

"Would you rather go looking for another way in, risking our chances of NOT being caught?" He challenged, appearing solemn as he avoided her gaze and pointedly observed the campus before them. Their voices were in hushed, barely audible tones, and needless to say, she had quite the difficult time understanding everything he was saying to her, and she paused momentarily before responding back.

"Uh yeah, actually I would. Sitting here doing nothing isn't going to help us." She said with a roll of her eyes.

"That's too bad," he chortled smugly, piercing emerald eyes finally meeting hers as he turned his gaze away from the unchanging building, "because we're staying here until nightfall, when, guaranteed, everyone will be asleep."

"And what if they aren't asleep, hmm?"

"Your offer still stands, does it not? We'll just do what you said and wire ourselves around them without getting caught – it would be easier when it's at the night time, don't you think?"

Jade, unable to help herself, sat back against a tree as quietly as she could and rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time that night, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and dirty brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. "You know all about that…" She mumbled almost incoherently, tearing her irises from his and taking a false interest upon one of the walking men.

"Kept me alive, hasn't it? I know much more about this stuff than you do – you just said it yourself. So just sit here and be quiet before you ruin our cover." He snarled maliciously, seeming to take this into extreme offense. Jade didn't blame him.

"Oh stop acting like you're all that – "

"I'm not."

" – just because you have experience in this type of thing and because you're older."

Hours passed before the next person spoke, and Jade, still leaning in that same, stubborn position upon the tree behind her, shielding her from view, was beginning to fear she would fall asleep at any given moment. It was, as they had guessed, nearly close to midnight – given that the watch upon her stepbrother's wrist was correct or if it wasn't. Her steel grimace was plastered upon the campus as it remained unchanged, but gradually, more and more guards had begun to disappear, and eventually, she was left staring at only two of them. She wasn't about to admit that what Brent had said was of course, like always, correct – she had far too much pride for that – and instead asked him what they should do next. His answer remained the same: "wait."

It was much to her utter relief that they did not have to delay much longer; she was sure that if they had, she'd forget all protests and barge into the building herself, wielding her favorite pair of scissors and the pocket knife at anyone who dared to even cross her path. However, as the last of the remaining guards scoped the dimension with his hand firm on his gun, both Jade and Brent saw something that captivated their interests: there were prisoners, though not many, with their hands cuffed behind their backs and their clothes dirty and ripped and they were being pushed into a tunnel, in which appeared to have been a cave, or a corridor leading underground, by the looks of it. A short female was being held by a portion of her dark brunette, straight hair regardless if her hands were cuffed, as if she was a threat when in fact, she appeared to be anything but – she was skinny, and looked no taller than five feet. Maybe even less.

"CA-"

Before Brent could continue his loud outburst, in which caused one of the guards (and Cat herself) to look about them; she in curiosity as to who was calling her name, and he in alarm, Jade clamped her hand over her stepbrother's loud mouth and yanked him down, fingers pressing harshly into his chiseled jaw. "Don't be stupid!"

Physically stronger than her, he removed himself from her vice tenure and whipped away from her, pushing her away. "Shut it, d'you see how that bleeder was handling her?"

"Yeah, I did, but what happened to Mr. Let's-Keep-Our-Cover? Are you fucking insane?" She asked him pushing her hair from her eyes and maliciously glowering at the older boy. If there was one thing Jade couldn't stand, amongst the various other existent contrivance, it was hypocrites; and that was exactly what he was being. Nothing boiled her blood more despite when girls flirted with Beck, and she swore her blood was decocting the moment he had explained himself to her; she couldn't afford to lose her temper here. Not now, when they were so close to getting the two most important people in her life back.

"I'm done waiting, let's just go already." Brent's handsome face was pulled into a glower, lips pressed firm into a straight line as he yanked her up by the arm. She ripped herself away from his grasp, nearly cutting his forearm with her wielded scissors in her anger. She didn't have the control over her temper as many people did, and when she lost it, it was long gone. And it wouldn't ever come back. Unless Beck somehow managed to calm her down like he always did.

"Whatever" She muttered darkly, keeping her scissors substantially within her palm as she, alongside her stepbrother, stealthily pushed through the bushes containing them and out into the open, away from the swarming bugs and at last coming face to face with the building they had been studying for the past five hours. Of course it hadn't been any different, but, nauseous and light headed as she had been for so long (still, no idea what was wrong with her, but she felt as if she was gradually getting worse every day; she was just good at hiding it. She was an actress after all, wasn't she?), her nerves were beginning to twin around her thoughts, making her have second scrutiny's. Here, out in the clearing of acres by the hundreds, she felt bare and vulnerable and that would definitely, not do. At all.

"Think we could take out the guard if we get in there unseen?" Brent asked her after they had begun to walk forth once more, toward the tunnel in which Cat was taken.

"Obviously." She rolled her eyes dramatically, gesturing to the scissors planted within her pale and clammy palm.

"Jade, we're not going to stab him with your scissors. We'll…"

"Negotiate with him? Have fun, because I think that giving him a little maim with these would do the trick. Just look at all the beautiful sciss they have"

"Sometimes, I question your bloody sanity." The college student shook his head and at once, the two had dwelled into a familiar silence. Their feet were taking them toward the tunnel, she just slightly ahead of him, impatience clearly running through her cold blooded veins. She was anxious; to see Cat, and most importantly, to see if Beck was here with them, and if he was alright and well. If he wasn't, Jade wasn't quite sure what she would do – she hadn't really thought it out. Upon entering the cave, however, they came across the complications they were afraid off. The armed guard was instantly alert, with his flashlight glaring at the two and his hands immediately finding the hilt of his gun.

"Well hey there, nice to meet you too." Jade grumbled, placing a hand upon the stone wall beside her in order to keep herself upright, suddenly lacking the ability to do so.

"INTRUDERS – INTR-"

Brent's fist immediately met the face of the other man, and, fisting his hair, slammed his visage into the wall in which Jade was leaning on in which ultimately knocked the man cleanly unconscious for the time being. She did not bother to suppress her twisted smirk of satisfaction, her hands coming together in a gentle, silent clap at the doing. Her stepbrother however, shot her a warning glare to be quiet, snatched the weapon and a ringlet of keys from the guard and stood upright once again, expression wary and passive. "Let's get out of here, someone could have heard him."

Day Thirty

Through caliginous corridors, blind spots all about them and nothing but a single torch to light their path, the duo crept silently down the corridors beneath the ground, as quiet as mice and as slick and stealthily as two foxes. Soft fingertips grazed the stone walls, lacerating the tender pale flesh each time they had come across a sharp, uncut edge; but she, as she snuck alongside her step brother, anticipation knotting her nauseous stomach like a pretzel, did not seem to mind. She had dealt with a larger sum and dose of pain before, this, she decided, was nothing in comparison. It was as if she had cut herself on a piece of paper, yet the small slits were barely even noticeable she wouldn't have noticed they were there if it hadn't been for the tiny droplets of crimson blood that had formed and cascaded down the lengths of her fingers.

Like her companion was doing, Jade was taking everything into account – having a rather subjective hearing, where she took almost everything into notice, this was not a difficult task for her to handle. It was the simple fact that there was blind spots to her left and to her right, behind her and what laid beyond the lengthy, subterranean foyer she was walking, that made her just as alert as her step brother always was. After all, the duo hadn't exactly thought out the plan as well as they should have; should they be caught or happen to see someone unwanted, she didn't know what her stepbrother had set out to do; it was most likely, she considered, going to be the two of them just winging it.

Just a clear hour before, when the clock (or the watch upon Brent's wrist) was to hit midnight, the pair of them had snuck into the campus one final time, with their plan of getting Cat and Beck out of here well set and thought out; they would sneak into their holding cells within the dungeons with the keys they had snatched from the sunset before and free their two friends; in any case, lovers and to-be-lovers, rather. They would make their swift exit unknown and unseen, and set off to the shore where they had left the other quad so many days ago. That in itself, the expedition back at the campsite, would take days at the very least – they were, Jade estimated, most likely on the other side of the island from where the plane had landed twenty six days ago.

"How long is this stupid pathway?" She hissed sharply as they continued to walk forth, her fists clenched at either of her sides as she sent a glare in her stepbrother's direction, who was surely taking his sweet old time as he treaded along.

Brent shot her a grimace with his index finger pressed to his lips, the orange flames from the torch outstretched within his hands flickering upon his handsome, brute morphed face. She raised her pierced eyebrow at him and in turn, scoffed in disapproval of his rule of silence at all costs – she wasn't stupid, she knew the reason for regulation, but considering the two were very well alone in the corridor they had been walking for a good 5 minutes, she would reason that this was to be an exception. And Jade, being well…Jade, did not like to be bossed around. It was bad enough that she had to be with teachers, parents and just recently Vega, and she wasn't about to take it for much longer. The only reason they had come out here in the first place was because they didn't want orders and they didn't want rules; all they wanted, was to be rescued.

Fat chance now, she thought bitterly as she stomped along by his side, envisioning the news channel back in Los Angeles two days from their crash, announcing all passengers to be dead. She could picture perfectly the mourning parents and the teachers and the other friends they barely talked to besides the deficient exchanges in the hallways. She could picture the rescue squads putting down the lost-cause-case of Flight 192 and moving on, forgetting the eight teenagers, one pilot and attendant who had been victims of the unannounced and unexpected misfortune. She could picture the coffin-less headstones in the graveyards, lacking a body six feet below it. She could picture the –

"Jade, we're almost there. See?" The back of Brent's palm found her shoulder lightly, and she followed it as he discretely pointed in the direction ahead of them, snapped cruelly from her reverie. A callous finger was pegged directly parallel to them, where she could vaguely see the faint outline of another torches glow beyond the one that he had been carrying all this time, down a sharp turn toward the left.

"Then let's pick up the pace, dimwit! The sooner we get there, the better!" She snarled at him, removing his hand from her collarbone and pushing him aside, her feet quickening upon the ground. It was almost as if she was taking monstrous steps compared to her usual stride, and she imagined she looked quite comical, but with her comrade walking just as quickly and her mind set in 'I don't give a fuck what people think' mode automatically, this didn't exactly bother her as much as it would have to any other insecure or subconscious female.

With quickened paces and shoes slapping against the cold stone floor beneath their physiques, the pair of them simultaneously turned the sharp left in which the other torches glow had protruded from. They, almost immediately upon stepping foot passed the turning wall, entered the room beyond the corridors they had just walked, and found themselves staring at a pigsty room holding two cells adjacent to one another; one empty, and one containing a girl curled up into a small ball, brown hair cascading around her hidden face and her petite, skinny figure slumped against the farthest wall from the confinement opening, smooth legs brought tightly against her chest. The girl did not look up and Jade had figured that she was simply sleeping – after all, it had been passed midnight by now and this was rather expected to happen.

"Cat!" Brent shoved the torch upon a post on the wall next to the other, rushing over to the cage in which she was held with a hopeful expression etching slowly across his features. Upon the call of her name, the brunette looked up, startled.

Jade sucked in a breath at the sight of her friend, a sudden fury rushing through her veins. The much tinier girl looked completely exhausted and frightened and as if she had been repeatedly slapped in the face by the clear reddening of her cheeks once creamy skin; she had slight bags under her eyes like she hadn't slept in days and her bottom lip was split. She didn't necessarily look dirty despite the grit coating her clothing, and her straight hair appeared as if it had just recently been washed, leaving her in a wonder of curiosity masked beneath her anger.

"Brent?" She whispered, standing upon wobbly legs and slowly approaching the cell doors. "Jadey? What on earth are you two doing here?"

"Appreciate we're here, Valentine" Jade replied as she fished the keys from her back pockets, dangling them before the other girls face with slightly sore fingertips. "We came to bail you out."

"Oh my god" Cat gasped, her fists slowly and gently enclosing around the bars that held her back from the two on the other side of her, face longingly staring at the keys within Jade's waggling hands. "How'd you -?"

"So you haven't heard then? We figured you would have." Brent commented, reaching to push back untarnished hair from the short girl's eyes, the long fringe delicately falling behind her ear. Jade eyed the two for a moment as they stared at each other, jamming one of the keys into the lock and twisting. It, as much as she hoped it would work, didn't budge.

"Heard what?"

"We made ourselves a little private show last night with that skinny guard" She grunted as she placed another key near the lock, attempting to get it to fit, but with no avail. "Brent socked him one, got the keys and we left before they could see us."

"Oh wow" There was a pregnant pause between the trio as she fumbled with the keys. "It's the one with the tick on it." Cat commented quietly afterward as she peered at the dangling keys within the ringlet held in Jade's hands, and aggravated, the Goth glared at her – though admittedly, it wasn't as harsh as she would usually have it; she was too relieved that she was alright to be mad.

"So you decide to tell me this now?" She muttered sarcastically, finding the right key and slipping it within the slot, successfully opening the dungeon's entrance with a loud creak of the corroding metal. "Hey, how'd you get your hair so clean? And your legs so smooth?"

"Is now really the time to be asking that question?" Brent asked her with a glower as he gathered Cat's small body within his arms, the two embracing each other as if their lives had depended on it – in some ways, if you thought about it correctly, their lives did depend on each other at the moment.

"They have showers inside their houses," Cat said, head nuzzled within Brent's torso, "but the only way you get to use them is if you behave and stuff…"

"And what about if you don't?" She proceeded to ask, shoving her stepbrother out of the way and embracing her closest friend within a comfortable clasp, their arms encircling around each other in that sisterly manner that they always shared. Beside Beck, Cat was the only one that Jade hadn't minded hugging; the naïve girl was an exception.

"You should ask Beck that" Said the petite girl as she pulled away, a foreign frown tugging at the corners of her lips.

"What do you mean I should ask him that, Rina? Where is he?" Jade asked sharply, stormy gray irises flickering over to the empty cell beside the one they had just freed Cat from. Her worry, bubbling up within her stomach, was not doing much help to her nausea, and if she could she would have thrown up upon the floor and gone to sleep – but it was as if her behavior toward the situation at hand, her determination to get her friend and her (beloved) boyfriend back to them, was taking over, and she did not have the will power to do as she normally would have pleased.

"I can show you," The tiny brunette whispered quietly, running soot blemished fingers through her thin locks of pin straight hair and recoiling into Brent's side, "but it's like…really, really dangerous and -"

"Just take us to wherever he is," Jade said, her voice edging with impatience. "We're not leaving here without him."

And take them Cat did – clinging to Brent's hand, hunched underneath his arm and glancing all about her in some type of frantic worry, she led the duo from the reformatories, out into the open, and through the back door of the building in absolute silence. It was, Jade concluded, by far the longest walk she had ever taken just to get to a room (partially because they were watching out for guards the entire time), and the quietest she had ever seen, or rather heard, the once bubbly redhead, who seemed even more paranoid and confused. She appeared to be jumpy and had mumbled to herself as she turned a bend in the corridors, footsteps silent and nearly impossible to hear, and she found herself wondering how Brent could question her sanity instead of the shorter girl's.

Eventually, the trio had come to a stop outside a closed, metal door within the hallway of the basement and only then did the other brunette begin speaking once more. She turned to Jade with wide expectant eye, finger playing with her hair and twirling it around as if it was naturally a ringlet, albeit it was far to straight to be. "Can I have the keys? He should be right in there…" She whispered quietly and expeditiously, jutting her bottom lip out curiously and holding her hand open before her. "At least, I hope he is. Oh no, what if he's not!"

"Yeah, sure" Jade said, fishing into her pockets once more and dropping the circle of keys into the other girl's soot blanketed and cut hand. "And you better not have led us to the wrong place."

"But he should be! It's where he tells me all the time…" She trailed off, glancing up at the ceiling and snapping her fingers together. Soon after, however, before Jade could say anything that would possibly speed the process of opening the door, she shook her head and lightly jabbed the key inside the lock, twisting and pulling the metal slate open with caution. It creaked as she unbarred it, in which all at once, everyone froze for a moment, before she continued forth. "Beck?"

"Cat? Cat! How did you -?" The door fully swung agape and in the process of doing so, completely silence the disheveled boy loitering about the other side and in the interior of the room. He looked completely worm, his long hair in need of a trim and a wash and completely bedraggled atop of his skull. His tan skin appeared to be slightly paler and sullen; upon it, his bare torso was smeared with what had appeared to be oil, or maybe even gasoline. "Baby?"

"That would be me." She retorted, though her voice was not abnormally smug, it was rather uncharacteristically sweet – and a smile upturned her once frowning lips almost immediately as the sound of Beck's smooth intonation reached her ears. He ran forth at once, his arms spread wide and enveloping around her instantaneously, gathering her into an embrace so tenacious that she almost found that she no longer had the ability to breath, her lungs constricting slightly at the strong hold. Nevertheless, she returned it eagerly, burying her head into his olive skinned torso and embracing him just as tightly. He pulled back just partially and hooked his finger beneath her chin, forcing her to look up at him, his eyes bearing desire and love, and crashing his lips to hers in a hungry kiss, in which she gratefully returned, her hands cupping the sides of his face. The feeling of their lips molding perfectly together, the taste of his upon her tongue, was enough to make her stomach flip-flop and completely fall to the floor underneath her feet.

"I missed you so much" He whispered in between kisses, and her smile broadened – she hadn't remembered ever smiling so much in such a little amount of time before.

The things that this boy does to me…

Almost reluctantly – extensively reluctant, because she hadn't wanted it to stop, she pulled away for an intake of air, a smile marred upon her lips and steel gray eyes staring into his own. She would have gone in for another one hadn't it been for the sensation of warmth upon her lower spine directly where his arm had been. Bewildered and confused, she took his arm with her hands and brought it away from her to investigate; crimson liquid was seeping from the tan skin, as if someone was spilling paint from it, slowly and thickly.

"What the hell happened to you? What did they do? Is this what you were talking about Cat?" Jade demanded, a sudden fury bounding through her veins like a expeditiously spreading wild, forest fire.

He held up his wrist and displayed the torn tissue as if he was showing her a trophy, the skin pulsing red and dripping blood. "D," he began as he glanced at it, expression collected, "for disobedient."

"We're like dogs to them" Cat whimpered, sounding like a small child caught in an act the parents or guardians did not want occurring and, as if she needed protection, she backed up against Jade's arm and nearly leaned into her side – just like she had done that one night at Karaoke Dokie, against those two bimbos Haley and Tara.

"Did you expect anything more?" Beck asked, his gaze intently focusing on Jade alone although he was speaking to the other female in the room. "What are you guys doing here? You know, they could walk in any minute."

He spoke a tad bit too soon.

"Time's up, Beckett…Oh, well well, what do we have here?"

Finally about to be rescued from that place and they get caught. But…Bade is reunited! Reunited and it feels so good… haha.

Hope the story isn't too rushed or anything. I'm afraid this chapter was kind of rushed, because by the time I was halfway finished writing it, the new Victorious came on (which was, in MY opinion, not very good and I couldn't find myself liking any part of it…) and messed me all up. Oh well. So, major time skip, hmm? I wasn't going to do that, but I figured, why the hell not? Lol. Yep. That's that, and all I really have to say.

Brent and Jade have a lovely "sibling" relationship, don't they? You can just feel the family love surrounding the both of them.

Anyway. Something big is going to happen next chapter. Well. A couple big, big, things ._.

Preview!

(The next chapter will have two days in one, like this)

"Trina! – What the hell?" Tori, baffled, yelled as her skinny figure hit the terrain of the shore, a whoosh of sand erupting from underneath her and her flailing, stick limbs. Robbie appeared to be just as bewildered from his own spot upon the ground, glasses tossed from his face and beach chair, in which had fallen with him, dropping atop of his scrawny build.

Her sister snatched her items in movements so quick that she was afraid she would have missed them if she blinked, and turned her gaze upon her, light brown eyes lit up and her words enunciated as she shouted rather loudly at the pair of them. Andre was right behind her, looking elated as he helped Tori up from the ground – whatever they were excited about, she didn't know, but who was to say she wasn't curious?

"There. Is. A. BOAT! We're finally getting out of here! Hollywood, mama's coming home!"

Leave a review with your thoughts and what you think is going to happen next! :D