After the psycho killer challenge Gwen had been being extra nice to Duncan, and Duncan was not happy about it. Did she think they were friends now? Duncan didn't have friends. Plus that weird moment with the hug freaked him out and he needed to keep her at arms length. This, paired with the fact that he probably needed an alliance to get further in the game, was his reasoning for approaching Heather. He didn't want to help her. He still suspected her of getting Courtney eliminated, despite her protests. But he wanted to help himself, and Heather was his biggest competitor. Ergo, she was his best shot at a successful alliance. And if Gwen thought he was teamed up with Heather she would stay away for sure.

Not to mention, Heather was definitely the hottest chick left on the island and she may have been a total nightmare but he was willing to bet she was killer in the sack.

"You can borrow my chainsaw after I'm done," Duncan offered as Heather rifled through a box, looking for something to help her catch a bear.

"Great!" Heather said sarcastically. "The bear can use it to skin me alive, after he's finished mauling me! Thanks!" He should have known she would be less than enthusiastic.

"Well, I did pick something up that might help you," Duncan said, pulling out a pair of antlers from the deer hunting challenge. He tried to squash the memories it brought back.

"Why would you want to help me?" Heather asked suspiciously.

"Because if you team up with me, I'll take you to the final two," Duncan informed her mockingly.

"Not interested," Heather sniffed, stalking off with a huge fish hook in her hand.

"Suit yourself," Duncan shrugged.

"I usually do!" she called back.

"She'll be back," Duncan said to himself knowingly. "Just wait."

As it turned out, catching a raccoon was not as easy as one might think, and Duncan found himself running from them through the woods. After one attached itself to his head, he ran in the direction of camp and managed to throw the beast into the cage.

"Ha!" he barked gleefully, slamming the cage door shut. "What do you think of that?" he asked Heather, ignoring Gwen completely.

"Gwen won already," Heather pointed out. Duncan finally turned his attention to Gwen who was laughing at her victory. Damn her. As Gwen sauntered off Chris's voice blasted through the speakers, reminding them that whoever was last had to clean the communal washroom. Duncan turned back to Heather.

"Well, I've got nothing better to do. I could help you bag a bear… deer," he grinned brandishing the antlers. Heather eyed him for a moment, sizing him up.

"You know what? Fine. Let's form an alliance," Heather agreed.

"I knew you'd come around," Duncan smirked. "And how about after we get the bear we sneak into the woods for a little make out sesh?"

"Ew! Dream on," Heather snorted. Well, it was worth a shot.

The two of them wandered into the woods before Duncan handed her the antlers complete with the little fluffy white tail. Courtney had looked so cute in the ensemble.

"No, no! See, the thing that's supposed to happen is I agree to be in an alliance with you, and you help me catch the bear! What doesn't happen is I wear a reindeer costume," Heather declared.

"How fast can you run?" Duncan asked her.

"Also, you don't ask me a bazillion stupid questions," Heather said acidly.

"You put these on, the bear thinks you're a deer! You run away and lead him toward the camp ground," Duncan explained. He had this whole plan worked out.

"How fast can you run?" Heather asked.

"I bet you're faster," Duncan said. He was only complimenting her so he didn't have to wear the dumb costume again. It was bad enough the first time… though the consequences hadn't been so bad in the end. He smiled at the memory. "But what I will do is follow. To guide the bear into the cage! I bet most of the other morons have already got their animals back at camp. We don't have a lot of time," Duncan urged. Heather hesitated but he knew he'd convinced her.

"Fine!" she snatched the antlers from him and rammed them onto her head.

"Let's go poke a sleeping bear!" Duncan chortled.

The plan was working, the bear was chasing Heather and Duncan was racing along behind. He lost sight of her for a moment and then Izzy was standing in front of him.

"Have you seen Heather?" he asked.

"Who?" Izzy asked.

"About yea tall, long dark hair, hot… wearing deer antlers," Duncan described. Didn't Izzy know who Heather was? At that moment Heather emerged from the bushes with a tranquilizer dart stuck in her butt cheek. Duncan grinned maliciously. He could not be unhappy about it.

"Whoops," Izzy stated. The two of them grabbed Heather and dragged her back to camp, Duncan laughing the whole time.

As much as Duncan had found Heather's predicament hilarious, he was still in an alliance with her, and they agreed to vote for Izzy. That girl was crazy anyway. However, being in an alliance with Heather meant he now apparently had to do her dirty work, and her dirty work was cleaning the communal washroom after losing the challenge. He looked forward to the day when he could be rid of Heather and this game and be surrounded by enormous piles of money.

He quickly grabbed Gwen's toothbrush to scrub the grout as Heather instructed, before thinking better of it and using Heather's toothbrush instead. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it his way. Heather never needed to know.

He was exhausted when he got back to his bunk that night, but for some reason, sleep still wouldn't come to him. He kept tracing over the lines on his chest and thinking about how they should be coloured by now. He scolded himself for trying to hook up with Heather. Yeah, she was hot, but she was a monster. And the hug thing with Gwen? Gwen, also kinda hot, although not on the same level as Heather or Courtney, was so annoying. Duncan realised something then. He knew he didn't really like either of the girls, though he could admit he was a little attracted to both of them. But the real reason he was even entertaining thoughts of a hook up with either of them was just because, well, he was lonely. And he didn't think he'd ever be lonely. He had always been a loner anyway. He didn't have any close friends and he didn't really get close to any girl he slept with. And yet there he was, lying on his bunk feeling horribly and maybe irrevocably lonely.

If only Courtney were here, he thought, then cursed himself for thinking about her at all.

As Lindsay, DJ and Izzy joined the rest of the eliminated contestants on Playa des Losers, Courtney still had no luck with either contacting her lawyers or locating Harold. She refused to listen to any of the stories of the newcomers and generally spent her time snapping at people.

When Lindsay asked who Tyler was for about the fiftieth time (whilst sitting in his lap) Courtney called her the dumbest slut to have ever walked the earth. He was her soulmate for crying out loud, and she couldn't even be bothered to remember his name? She deserved what Courtney called her and worse.

When DJ screamed for two minutes because he thought he saw a snake in the pool, Courtney pushed him in and held him under for thirty seconds, and when she finally pulled him up she slapped him and told him to stop being such a fucking baby because otherwise he'd never find anyone to love him.

When Courtney heard Trent and Cody arguing over which one of them was Gwen's soulmate she knocked their heads together and told them Gwen was ugly as hell and why did they even want her anyway?

She tried to make a snide comment to Bridgette when Katie and Sadie accidentally put on each others tops and didn't notice for the whole day, but Bridgette just gave her a disapproving look and went to sit near someone else. It seemed people had been doing that a lot lately, and Courtney couldn't really figure out why no one ever seemed to find her jokes funny, or why when she asked if anyone wanted to play tennis or volleyball with her everyone kind of just disappeared.

It's not like they didn't like her, surely. She was a nice person. A former CIT. It was impossible not to like her. Maybe they were just avoiding her because they felt bad for her because of the whole Duncan thing. Well, despite what everyone thought, she did NOT care about Duncan. At least, that's what she was trying her hardest to convince everyone. She didn't feel sad about it, although she did wonder why he didn't just tell her she wasn't his soulmate. She just felt angry all the time. So furious at everything that she felt she might explode. She went to the gym sometimes because she just had to fight something and she still couldn't find Harold. And even after an intense session with the punching bag, she still felt incredibly frustrated, only now she was also exhausted.

After Izzy, Geoff was the next camper to arrive at Playa des Losers. Bridgette ran to him and immediately their lips were glued together, much like Lindsay and Tyler the moment Lindsay had arrived.

Great, Courtney thought, now there are two couples on this island. That was her first thought. Her second thought was; why didn't Bridgette tell me? The surfer girl had had plenty of time to tell Courtney that Geoff was her soulmate (which was evident now with the making out and the bright blue waves visible on Geoff's chest), and yet she hadn't bothered.

Courtney felt a lump rise in her throat and she silently slipped away from the dock and back to her room. She could feel something, some emotion other than anger, threatening to take over, and she didn't want to face it. She bit back the tears as she closed her bedroom door behind her. She couldn't cry. She didn't even know why she would be crying. So what if Geoff and Bridgette were soulmates? She should be happy for them. But instead she felt what? Sadness? Depression? Desperation? Emptiness?

As she pressed her face into her pillow, pretending there weren't tears pricking the corner of her eyes, she realised with total certainty that what she felt was hopelessness. Complete and utter hopelessness.

When she woke up the next morning, Courtney scrubbed her face clean of any residual tear marks and put on her face – the one that said "I murder kittens for fun". She then put on her bathing suit and headed out to the pool area to start her daily manhunt for Harold, only to find a film crew setting up.

"What's going on?" she said to no one in particular.

"Apparently they're filming a special 'after the dock of shame' episode," Noah informed her from the lounger where he was sitting, reading a book. "They're going to ask us a load of dumb questions about how it feels to not win. Gee, I wonder," he rolled his eyes before putting his book down. "I need a drink," he said and headed to the pool bar, never mind they didn't actually serve alcohol there seeing everyone at Playa des Losers were under eighteen.

Courtney turned her attention back to the film crew. She panicked for a moment, wondering what they were going to ask her. She needed time to prepare, damn it! What if they asked her about Duncan? About her elimination? How was she going to play it?

After some deliberation she decided she was going to have to act not bitter and angry. Except maybe about the Harold thing. She still wanted to kill him and maybe the audience would sympathise with her, since she had been kicked off unfairly. She would simply say that she'd been eliminated unfairly and she was mad at Harold, but that she respected the remaining competitors, despite the fact that she should be in the final five.

As for Duncan… she couldn't pretend like he wasn't her soulmate. Would it make her seem heartless if she said she didn't care about him? Probably. So she'd have to say she liked him, even if it killed her to say she still cared. (Why was the truth so hard to admit?). Out of all the remaining competitors, he was the only one she would want to win anyway. She wasn't about to say she wanted Heather to win.

And if Chris happened to show up she was going to make sure to give him a piece of her mind. After the cameras were turned off, obviously.

Courtney groaned as she collapsed onto her bed that night, still dripping wet from falling in the pool. Things hadn't exactly gone to plan. She didn't think she'd come off as nice as she had planned to be, but it wasn't her fault everyone else around her were total imbeciles. It was very hard to keep her mouth shut. Then, they'd accidentally eliminated Leshawna, although truth be told that didn't bother her that much. She'd never even really spoken to Leshawna. And to top it off, Chris had disappeared before she got a chance to yell at him. On the bright side, she'd managed to wrap a lamp post around Harold. But now that she'd had her revenge she still didn't feel satisfied, and she wondered if maybe it wasn't Harold she was mad at at all. Maybe she was mad at herself for taking her eyes off the prize. For letting this dumb soulmate thing cloud her vision and make her lose sight of why she was there, and ultimately it cost her not only the game, but her dignity and her sanity as well.

Deep down she knew she could have won Chef's challenge, if she'd been focused. And if they'd won the challenge she wouldn't have been voted off. Imagine being so stupid as to think a soulmate was more important than fortune, only to find out soulmates weren't really worth anything in the end. At least, not enough to save her from her own hellish nightmare that she was living. She was sure it couldn't get any worse. But at least, she hadn't gone and fallen in love with him or anything.

She got up and stripped off her bathing suit, changing into her pyjamas, before turning out the lights and getting back into bed. Maybe she'd wake up in the morning and find that none of this had happened.