AN: So, chapter one. I might not be going into too much detail on certain things because 1.) it's rated T, we won't be going into exceedingly graphic gore and torture, and 2.) I'm writing a fanfic, not an epic medical journal detailing how to survive something like this. Honestly it's probably mostly luck and timing that prevents death here. Anyway, this chapter, like this story, is dedicated to Tienka, who is not allowed to read this until she finishes reading Lies. Tink, if you are reading this before you finish Lies I will be confiscating your hats for a week.

Disclaimer: I, Mistystarshine, do not own Gone or any of the characters.

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It was an average day. Which, if what was coming and the changes it would cause where known to anyone at the time, would feel very wrong to say. Life-changing events weren't supposed to happen on average days. They were meant to be on dark and stormy night, sunny days, in the middle of the worst hurricane of the century, things like that. Not a day where things were just… normal. Well, as normal as things could get inside the FAYZ.

But that was the only way Caine knew to describe it, normal. He was out a ways away from the mansion, staring over the edge of the island, although cliff was probably a better word, and toward Perdido Beach. Or the mainland, for the entire area was certainly not just Perdido Beach. As he did this he couldn't help but feel a small wave of amusement. Here he was, standing on some faraway place and staring at somewhere that used to be his home. He supposed that is this were a movie he would be feeling rather homesick right now, basking in the warm and loving memories of home. Well he wasn't. He didn't miss that place at the moment, not one bit. When they had arrived at the island they had been starving, in fact the signs of starvation still showed on them. Lines had been crossed and nearly drove Diana over the edge. But now he didn't have to worry about that, neither of them did.

Oh, he had no doubt that one day he would feel the urge to try and go back. Take over and claim his rule over that pathetic little town. But not right now. For the moment he was happy, despite the fiasco with Penny a few days ago, despite those brats escaping on their helicopter. Right now he was feeling a moment of peace.

But peace was not made to last. And sure enough, him was soon shattered by a familiar voice calling, "hello, Caine."

It did not send chills down his back or make him feel a jolt of fear. Instead all he felt was a harsh prickle of annoyance. Perhaps he should have feared, maybe that would have saved him. But there was no fear as he turned around, instead he was completely confident that whatever the psychotic girl through at him he could deal with. His voice was cool as he replied, "Penny." The annoyance did not show through. If there was one thing that Caine had become good at over the years it was controlling his voice. He was an excellent liar and great at hiding any emotion he might be feeling. Really it was one of his greatest strengths. But he wasn't thinking about this as he paused to give the girl a once over.

He didn't let his gaze linger on her legs, as unpleasant of a sight as they were. No guilt entered him for the brief moment that he did look at them though. After all, she had brought this upon herself. Penny noticed this and, had Caine been paying any attention to her face, he might have seen the anger flash across it. But instead he was looking at the thing she was sitting in, a wheelchair. It didn't surprise him that there was one in the Brattle-Chance house, surely one of those children had injured one of their legs at one point or another. What confused him was how she got it. There was no way she could walk and no way Diana would have given her one. It took him seconds to figure out who must have gotten it for her, although he did not call him out. Not yet anyway. Instead he asked in an icy voice, "what are you doing out here?"

She smiled at this, which was Caine's first warning. It caused a wave of uneasiness to pass through him. She shouldn't be smiling, he hadn't seen her smile since the accident. It looked a lot like Drake's smiles after he lost his arm, never smiling because of something good, smiling because they were going to do something. The sight of this smile told him that she wanted to do something bad, and he had no doubt that that bad thing would happen to him or Diana. Yet he pushed his discomfort aside, not willing to let her see him squirm. Her voice was a parody of sweetness as she said, "come closer and I'll show you."

Caine frowned before replying, "I don't think I will. Now go back inside before I make you." He got no reaction. Not physical, not vocal, she just sat there, still as a statue.

The teen narrowed his eyes at her just before she responded, "no, I don't think I will."

And then there was fire. Coming up all around him, the only opening leading directly to Penny. He could see the flames, bright and red and real, he could feel the heat on his skin. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this was an illusion. He knew it was just Penny, knew that she was playing tricks on him. But logic was not able to overrule the panic he felt. The flames were creeping up behind him, licking at his heels. He could feel it begin to burn through his pants leg and into his skin. So he did what instinct told him to, he ran, ran for the only path out of the fire.

This was a mistake. As soon as he was close enough Penny lunged forward, falling directly on Caine. For a moment there were no illusions as she lost focus thanks to the pain caused by moving her legs rushing through her. But it was not enough time for the stunned Caine to use his powers and throw her off of him. Soon enough he was stuck, vines emerging from the ground and wrapping around his legs. Vines that weren't they yet were and, combined with the light but present weight of Penny on his chest, were enough to keep him there.

Fear rushed through him. Strong, genuine, powerful fear. Despite his pride he screamed, hoping that someone, anyone, might hear him. This just got a laugh from Penny. "Silly Cainey," she murmured, "no one's coming to save you. There was no one to save me, certainly no one to help you."

With that she brought her right hand into view, which had been hidden behind her back. And in it was… a knife. Had she had it the whole time? How had he missed it? Caine wondered about that for less than a second before pushing the thought aside. He had stopped screaming once she had started to speak and had no intention on starting to again. However, that did not mean he planned on being silent. His voice was a growl as he said, "Penny, listen to me. Don't do anything stupid. If that knife so much as touches me I promise, you won't live to regret it."

She did not lower the knife. Instead she let out a small chuckle, leaned forward ignoring any pain from her legs and whispered, "and you won't live." She didn't give him time to respond. Instead she brought the knife forward, positioning it over his throat. He had told himself that he would not scream again, he had too much pride to scream over the likes of her. And yet, at the cool feeling of the blade against his skin, he couldn't help it. A scream left him, somehow louder than the others. If he were paying much attention to his captor's face at the moment he would have noticed that she seemed to be paying a lot of attention to where she put the knife, positioning it and re-positioning it. She wanted to make him suffer, not give him a quick and easy death.

Maybe human anatomy class had been good for something after all, aside for being rather easy for her to pass.

His scream was soon cut off by the knife slicing through his neck. The pain was red-hot, more real than any of the illusions that she had used to get him in this position. He began jerk around in an attempt to get free but it was weak at best. With a wild laugh Penny pulled the knife out, pausing to gaze at the blood on the blade. Not that he noticed. In fact he was having trouble focusing on anything but his fear and the pain. The vines were still there, pinning him to the ground, the psychopath was still on top of him, and he suddenly had the very real feeling that he was going to die.

And he would have it not for two things. Time and luck. For although neither Caine nor Penny noticed it the third person on the scene, the one that had been moving unseen, did. The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Bug slowly approached Caine and Penny and hissed, "someone's coming." It was fear that drove him to warn the girl and possibly save her life, fear of what she would do to him if he didn't.

A frown crossed Penny's face at this. With a glance back down at Caine she murmured, "and we were just starting to have fun. Maybe there's a bit more time…" With that she leaned forward and Caine managed to feel another surge of fear despite the lightheadedness he was now starting to feel. That was when Penny froze, apparently hearing the footsteps as well. She let out a curse under her breath before straining her neck to look over her shoulder. She then cast one last glance at Caine before hissing, "well he's dead anyway." Without letting go of the knife she began to try and drag herself back to the chair, only to let out a hiss of pain. Despite not being able to see him she snapped to Bug, "what are you waiting for!? Help me up!"

He didn't need to be told twice. Caine watched with eyes he struggled to keep open, although whether it was because of blood loss or pain he did not know, as Penny seemed to be lifted by some invisible force back into the chair and wheeled away. The vines were gone but there was no way he could get up. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Was she happy here? She wasn't completely sure. On one hand she didn't have to face the risk of starving to death any more. That was certainly a good thing. But on the other hand she was still having trouble escaping the guilt of what she did when starvation was still a very real risk. And why should she? Did she even deserve to get away from that? The answer was clear to her without really having to think about it. No, she didn't. What she had done was unforgivable, there would be no forgetting it or getting over it, no matter how much time passed. Not to mention that she had admitted to loving Caine, not only to him but to herself. Some might think that was a good though, but to her it was almost laughable. Part of her still doubted that either of them where actually capable of feeling love, no matter what she might think she felt. Or what delusions of the feeling he might have, not that he had actually been able to say the words back on the cliff.

But he had saved her life instead of killing those kids. That had to count for something, right?

Diana was lounging on a couch in one of the many rooms in the mansion pondering this when she heard the scream. At first she wasn't completely sure it was real or even human, whatever it was it seemed to be quite a ways away. But it was still enough to alert her, and so when the second scream came she had absolutely no doubt over what she had heard. There was no hesitation as she stood up and began to move for the door. She might be running right into a life or death situation, yes, but the island wasn't that big, whatever it was it would probably be coming after her sooner or later. And she certainly wasn't worried about Caine's safety. No, just her own, or at least that was what she told herself.

However, she only got a few steps before something occurred to her. If she was going to run out and face whatever dangers lurked out there doing so without some sort of weapon could easily be suicide. Which, while she wasn't in the best place right now, she didn't exactly feel eager to experience. So with a small snarl and turned around and sprinted through the house to the room with a rather large table, what she had dubbed the 'meeting room', where she and Caine had been sorting through various weapons that they had found throughout the house, or things that could be used as weapons.

Without pausing to spare it more than a passing glance she grabbed one of the two guns on the table. Now, if she had been slower and paid more attention she would have noticed that while neither of the guns were exactly high-powered rifles the one she grabbed happened to be a flare gun. But as the worry she insisted she was not really feeling continued to rise within her the little part of her brain that would tell her to check and make sure it was actually something that could do damage fell silent.

Gun in hand she headed out of the house just in time to hear another scream. Mentally cursing she ran, but despite her best efforts her every step seemed painfully slow. For a moment she was envious of Brianna, she would have been there in a heartbeat. The screaming stopped for a moment before starting again and, despite already putting in her best and then some, she forced herself to speed up even more.

Then it stopped. Not a natural stop though, it sounded cut off. Unnatural silence that had been forced upon someone. For a moment she could swear she felt her heart stop. Despite having no proof she was sure that it was Caine. Unless someone had gotten on without them noticing there were only four people on the island. Penny was trapped in the bathroom and Bug… she would know if it was Bug. She didn't know how, she would just know. Her heart wouldn't beat nearly as fast, there wouldn't be this lump starting to form in her throat.

She didn't allow herself to stop for even a second. As she got closer to the source of the sound she could swear she heard the harsh snap of a twig under someone's foot. Someone running away then. Part of her wanted to turn around and chase after whoever it was, see if they would know what was going on. But another part of her, a louder part, said that she needed to keep going. Had to see what the screaming was, had to see what had happened.

The louder part was right.

Upon reaching the scene Diana had to stifle a scream of her own. There was Caine, lying in the ground, his throat cut open. And there was blood, so much blood. So much blood and yet, some faraway part of her registered, not enough. Not enough for a severed artery least. For one moment she was stood there, frozen, unable to think, unable to act.

And then she snapped out of it. Rushing forward she knelt down beside him, paying no attention to the fact that her pants would end up covered in blood. A string of curses left her as she pressed her hands against the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. If it helped it was pitiful, human hands were not enough to clot up the blood enough to make it stop. "Crap," she hissed. Glancing at Caine, who was still alive and somehow still conscious, although he was looking blankly up to the sky and she had no doubt that he was completely out of it, she exclaimed, "you will not die." It wasn't a reassurance to either him or herself, it was an order. He would not die, he would not leave her alone.

Something wet ran down her cheek. Was she crying? She didn't notice, and either way it didn't matter. She wasn't about to let herself curl up into a ball and start sobbing, she needed to do something, she needed to act. Diana was no doctor, she was no Lana, she wasn't even Dahra. But she had had a basic first aid class, although she didn't pay much attention to it, which she was bitterly regretting now. Yet she remembered that wounds needed something to stop the bleeding and pressure, which apparently wouldn't work with just human hands. She didn't bother looking around for some sort of fabric to magically appear, miracles didn't just happen in the FAYZ after all, and running back to the house would take far too long. Instead she pulled off her shirt and pressed it against the wound. For a moment he did not move, just stared in horror at her hands pressing down upon it, at Caine, his eyes beginning to flutter shut. And his face… beginning to turn purple?

Alarm ran through her at this. Air, air, hadn't they said something about people not getting enough air when it came to throat injuries? Choking, he was choking. For one horrifying moment she didn't know what to do, than it came to her in a hazy, panicked blur of memory. Pride forgotten for the time being she leaned forward, using one hand to prop his head up with the other held her now blood-covered shirt against the wound, and blew into his mouth. Breathe for them, they had said, you need to breathe for someone if they couldn't breathe themselves.

It was as she did this that he finally lost consciousness, sending another stab of fear through her. Yet she did not stop, he was alive, and as long as he was alive she had to keep going. Had to keep him alive. It was when the purple tint to his face faded that she allowed herself to pull back for a moment, sucking in a great gasp of air. One hand remained on the makeshift shirt-bandage, for while the bleeding might have stopped, or at least slowed, she wasn't taking any chances. It seemed that he was breathing on his own, although his breaths were shallow.

That was when her gaze wandered to the gun, forgotten beside her. She noticed the odd lump-like things on the back of it, flare cartages, and she finally realized her mistake in choice of weapon. For a moment she cursed herself, if whoever had done this was still there the best she could have done was set the island on fire. Not that it would have mattered, she growled to herself, if I had arrived before the coward could run off I'd have torn them apart with my bare hands.

Her gaze wandered from the gun back to Caine and she felt her heart sink. Which was pretty impressive, considering that she thought it couldn't have gotten any lower. He wasn't going to make it. She could keep him alive for a while, sure, maybe a day if she was extremely lucky and turned out to be some sort of miracle worker. But she couldn't truly save him, not by herself, if he didn't bleed out from the wound there would be infection, or he would eventually choke, or something she wouldn't see coming. She needed help.

But they were alone, alone on this stupid island that he had dragged her off to.

A sob broke free from her chest without her permission. It felt wrong, she didn't cry. She was Diana Ladris, the horrible witch of Coates Academy. There was no way she was crying, no, not crying, sobbing. And there was no way she was giving up.

Again her gaze flickered to the gun. However, immediately after it moved up to the sky, which was beginning to turn pale as dusk approached. Three shots, it looked like there were three shots, assuming that they actually went off. Flares were supposed to go a long way, right? Maybe, just maybe, someone would see her back at Perdido Beach. Well, saw her, realized that flares probably equaled bad, and decided to help.

It didn't seem likely.

But then again, it was her only chance.

With her free hand she grabbed the gun, wrapped her finger around the trigger, and fired it into the air. A flare came soaring out, climbing up and up before exploding in a blinding mass of red light high up in the sky. After a few minutes she shot another, to assure it would be seen and, half an hour later, another.

It would be hours before they were found, both covered in blood, Caine unconscious and Diana still trying her best to keep him there.