Not so much dialogue this chapter, and more just… well, Gwen talking, I guess. Not that it's all paragraphs and no wards at all.

xx

Chapter 3 = The Girls Left Behind

I had originally hoped that the shopping trip would help take my mind off things, such as… well, everything that had happened the previous night. But I couldn't help but think about the other girls at the mansion, since they would have to go through a stupidly long process if they wanted to actually leave, and probably didn't really think of escaping. I had wondered if some of them were thinking about me.

I knew there was one who would not miss me in the slightest – Heather. In fact, I would be pretty sure that she was actually happy that I'd left, even if it was an overnight escape.

The first time I met Heather, which was on 'orientation day' at the mansion, we almost immediately hated each other. She was the typical Queen Bee stereotype, and referred to a lot of people as 'losers', even the butlers. Due to this, she wasn't very… widely liked at all. Alright, she was hated. But that was her problem.

I could still remember that first day, almost like it was a few weeks ago. Except it was a few weeks after New Years'.

It was a cloudless winter day, and all I could hear was girls chatting with the various butlers and gardeners as I stood in the lobby of the brand new mansion, which had finished construction just over a month ago. We were all told it was a bachelor-type thing, which was moderately exciting at the time.

I had decided to come basic that day, only wearing a grey low-cut top and dark blue jeans. A large, navy suitcase stood behind me, making me feel like a first-time boarding school girl.

After looking around at the massive lobby for several minutes, I headed for the stairs, dragging my bag along with me. And of course, after a few steps, I heard someone calling my name.

"Gwendolyn Evans?" A male voice called.

I turned around to look for the owner of the voice, just as I suddenly crashed into someone that I managed to not see coming down the stairs.

"Ugh, watch where you're going!" A female voice complained.

Having not found the other voice, I turned back to see who I had bumped into – tallish, raven black hair, supermodel thin, and the icing on the cake – a steely glare directed right at me.

"Sorry, someone had called my name. One of the butlers, I think." I told her, totally not expecting what was coming next.

"Whatever, wife of Dracula." The girl retorted with a scoff, stalking off.

My head snapped back to stare after her, and even though I was telling myself not to, I lunged forward and grabbed her by the wrist, causing her to look back with a rather annoyed expression.

"What did you just call me?" I asked, giving her a glare of my own.

"Nothing. It wouldn't matter to a loser like you." She grumbled, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, really?" I raised an eyebrow. "I heard pretty well what you called me. And before you do ask, I can thank my mother for having such pale skin."

It was a glaring contest for a few seconds, but I broke off once I heard the male voice again.

"Gwendolyn Evans?"

I looked to my right, just in time to see a tall, tanned guy with greenish-blue eyes walking over, a clipboard in hand.

"What's this, a sort of register or something?" I asked, turning to face him.

"That is pretty much what it is." The guy replied, looking up and flashing a smile. "And you are Gwendolyn Evans, I take it?"

"Oh, sorry, that's me." The other girl said, pushing me to the side.

I stumbled backwards for a few feet before regaining my balance, and I stood there listening to the new conversation. And through that, I had managed to hear that her name was apparently Heather, and she claimed that the photos were mixed up. But I could fix that problem easily. I grabbed my suitcase and dug into the front pocket, pulling my passport out and quickly opening it at the photo page, striding over and then waving it in front of the guy's face.

"Now this is me." I said, casting a side glance at a suddenly peeved Heather. At that point, I was almost sure she looked that annoyed all the time.

The guy took my passport and quickly jotted down a couple of things, which I could only assume were to do with the information on there, and handed it back to me. "Thank you, and your room is up the east stairwell, third on the left." He told me with another smile.

I could only walk off, having just managed to confirm my identity. I knew that Heather was probably just trying to give me some sort of payback, but I had a feeling that wouldn't be last time we butted head. And oh boy, it wasn't the last time at all.

One other thing that did happen – Heather had 'recruited' a couple of the girls to… basically wait on her hand and foot, as well as try to dish up a bit of dirt here and there. Lindsay was her second in command – a dumb, blue-eyed, big breasted blonde. Such a typical stereotype, I had always thought. But I couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for her – she was that clueless, she didn't even realise that Heather wasn't trying to 'be friends' with her, and (mostly) happily accepted every order, errand, whatever it was.

Then there was Katie – mostly sad all the time, because she had apparently left her 'best female friend for life' at home. She didn't do as much as Lindsay, and was usually bringing food or drinks from the butler into Heather's room. She also had to 'keep watch' for an hour after dinner, as Heather always seemed to have a bit of peace and quiet around that time, which included a shower in the practically soundproof en suite. Why they were made that way, I never got to find out.

Another day I could remember, which heavily involved Lindsay, Katie and obviously Heather, was when one of them snatched my diary from my room while I was having a shower. It spread around the mansion like the plague, but didn't reach as far as his jerkiness's headquarters, which would have been an embarrassing disaster if it had. Most of what happened was some way of trying to push Heather up to girlfriend no. 1, or as most of the girls called it, 'top bitch'. The second title worked so well for her, but there was already someone else who had it, and was pretty much locked in it.

Courtney. Probably the less annoying out of the others, but it wasn't to say that she was perfectly fine. For days upon end she'd ramble about being a councillor in training, and seemed to like the idea of trying to sue Chris – but like that ever got her anywhere. Instead, she was bumped up to the top once Mildred, or Blaineley as she claimed to be, left after throwing a bit of a tantrum – not even applying to leave. But of course, that only pissed Courtney off more, and what was worse (for her) was that there was no way out unless she went through the application process, which nobody really bothered to do unless they really wanted out. So she was basically stuck with no real friends – she deemed mostly everyone to be stupid or insane, except for Bridgette, who did leave just a week before the 'promotion'.

Unlike Courtney, Bridgette made a few more friends, the others being Lindsay, Izzy and Zoey. And myself, of course. She was the next person I met, after my little confrontation with Heather.

It was a bit of a drag as I carried my suitcase up the stairs, but once I finally got to the top, I put it down and wheeled it along the marble floor. I went past a couple of large rooms, including a television room and what looked to be a library before coming to a corridor of bedrooms – and each of them seemed to have a name on the door. I slowly walked down, watching the first few names go by – Courtney, Lindsay, Heather, and then there was mine. I looked down to the end of the corridor out of curiosity, but only saw unlabelled doors. Shrugging the confusion off, I reached out and pushed the slightly ajar door open, just as a voice distracted me.

"Hey, I think we're… neighbours, I guess!"

I looked over my shoulder and saw a green-eyed girl who had her blonde hair in a ponytail, and also had a much friendlier demeanour than Heather. For a minute I suddenly thought that this girl was also called Heather, but I turned to the door to my right and saw that the label on it read 'Bridgette'.

"Well I guess we are." I replied, turning back to face her. "You're not the first girl I've met here, but you're the first decent one. Had a run in with another girl earlier." I pointed to Heather's label.

"Oh, is that the crazy ginger girl? I saw her earlier, and she's really nuts…"

"No, did you see the Asian girl?" I stepped back slightly as I tried to recall her outfit. "She was wearing a maroon crop top, I think, and really short khaki shorts.

"Oh! Actually, I think I did see her at one point, but she looked pretty frustrated."

"Yeah, I've already got the impression that she's a bit of a bitch." We laughed for a few seconds, but stopped as we both seemed to hear someone crying.

"Who's that?" Bridgette wondered, turning around, just as a tall, tanned girl with black pigtails stumbled around the corner. "Oh no! Are you okay?"

Bridgette had spent the next few minutes comforting the girl, who I later learned was Katie. She had ended up comforting a lot of girls over the time she was there, therefore pretty much becoming a mansion counsellor.

Later on that day, I got to know the rest of the girls who I hadn't met yet, including the crazy ginger that Bridgette had mentioned – Izzy.

For someone as crazy as Izzy, mostly everything that was going on, she partook in with a… pretty large amount of enthusiasm. Even when activities went slightly… well, quite a bit sexual, she was always first, or close to first, if the no. 1 girlfriend was requested to go first in whatever it was. Then about seven or eight months into it, the challenges were inputted (as well as us being sorted into small teams), which Izzy seemed to love more than anything – especially jumping of a thousand foot cliff into the water, where there was a large shark zone and a tiny safe zone, but big enough for an average person to have plenty of room to swim, if they really wanted.

But suddenly, after a canoe challenge, Izzy left. Without any notice at all. It was fretted about for over a week, but eventually brushed aside, as matters would only be serious if the top girlfriend was to disappear – or even Chris himself.

There was no sign of Izzy for at least a month, until of course, late last night, when she came to 'smuggle' me out of the mansion, along with Zoey.

Zoey was the first of three reserves to be recruited into the 'business', and she was quite lonely right from the start, as she apparently had lived in a small town overrun by jocks. And as a reserve, it was still mandatory for her to do the challenges, but for anything else, she was sometimes allowed to choose whether she wanted to or not (and of course most of the time she said no – I couldn't blame her). During a cooking challenge, we had been partnered together to make an entrée, which I had strangely forgotten the name of. Even though there was the odd bump in the road while trying to make it, we ended up getting to know each other quite well, and were pretty much friends at the end of it.

The other two reserves weren't as interesting, and were both a bit dumb as well. There was Dakota – a spoiled wannabe who wanted nothing more than fame. I didn't really see that much of her, as she was almost only on for the challenges, and that was about it. A few things that I did learn about her was that she had numerous 'back up' cell phones, which all slowly got confiscated one by one, as electronics like phones weren't allowed. And another thing, which was half the reason why all her phones were taken off her – the paparazzi. Almost once every single day, she'd call them up for a 'photoshoot', as she called it. Of course, that never went down well.

The other reserve, Anne Maria, looked like she belonged on Jersey Shore. Big hair, fake tan, a lot of make-up – somewhat horrifying, almost. And since she was the last reserve, she was exclusively on for challenges. Add that to the fact that we were on opposite teams, and I never really saw her, or even knew that much about her.

I was so deep in thought for that entire time, that I had just followed Izzy and Zoey to wherever they were going. Wordlessly, I would slowly walk through stores, grab clothes to try on, and very nearly missed something about the coffee being pushed back until the end of our trip.

Whilst waiting outside a pyjama store, having bought some things from there already, I shook my head to stop myself from thinking – it was starting to hurt. I stepped back slightly and watched all the other people going past, still trying to relax my mind. Even that was a bit tiring.

"Hey Gwen! You coming?" Izzy called out to me, although it sounded a bit far away.

I shook myself again and turned to see her standing at the entrance with Zoey, who had another bag added to her small haul, which was now at four bags, whereas I had three.

"Are you sure you're alright with paying for all this?" I asked Izzy, walking over to them.

"Yeah, totally fine!" Izzy replied, nodding quickly. "Are you alright though? Izzy noticed you were really quiet!"

"Oh, I've just been… thinking about the girls back at the mansion, and what's happened over the year. It is kind of sad that they're still there, and we're here… free from all that crap."

"But hey, at least you are here!" Zoey chipped in, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Imagine what would happen if Izzy never came…"

"And Izzy's gonna be getting everyone out before long!" Izzy continued with a cackle. "Oh, do you guys think you've got enough stuff for now?"

I stopped for a minute to quickly look through the bags I had, Zoey eventually doing the same. "I think I'm alright for about a week, but I don't know when I will be able to get more if I need it." I replied, hoisting one bag up over my shoulder.

"Okay! Zoey?"

I looked up as Zoey picked up all her bags again – two in each hand, and she simply nodded with a smile.

"Awesome! Now let's get some coffee!"

Xx

New chapter next week, should be Thursday/Friday, yada-yada (lol)