Vickstik: I agree that Aubrey would not want to just be a second choice.
96itadakimasu96: You're about to be even more in flashback heaven.
Malexfaith: I have been working on this story for 6 years. It would be a little difficult to abandon it at this point. I basically live it like a second life happening inside my head.
Pixie1913: If I did a shower murder scene with Bumper or Jesse, what would be more scarring? The murder itself, or the fact that Aubrey would have to be in the shower with Bumper or Jesse to witness it?
SunDanceQT: Yes, this story will be multiple parts. The original plan was to make each part a separate story since they have different titles, but after mulling it over, I decided it would be less jarring to keep all the chapters under the original and just label them which part they are.
Guest: Yaaaaaaas.
Andiclauds: I love when people quote my writing back to me to tell me what they liked. This made my heart happy.
Vanguard Aria: I am doing a little better. Financially, I am drowning, but other things are starting to go okay. There's a local church feeding me every day, so, that makes things easier.
Guest: Thank you!
Serenity45: Broken Aubrey is my favorite Aubrey.
Bechloe-4evs: Welcome to the club! Thank you so much. I don't think anyone has ever complimented my Beca before.
Layra KPhoenixLover: Heeeey, all their scenes are good. Some are just not so nice, lol.
Arrhythmia
Could it be that I never had the chance to grow inside?
Could it be that my habit is to find a place to hide?
Could it be that sometimes I say things just to disagree?
Could it be that I'm only being me?
- Staind
"You can't just say screw everyone, Aubrey."
Everyone is starting to close in on the building, and Aubrey needs to know Beca is with her on this. "I'm not saying we line them up execution style and shoot them. If anything, maybe we can somehow use this to figure out who is trying to get us all shot. Are you in or out?" If she says she's out, Aubrey might actually have to shoot her execution style.
Beca looks at Chloe as she thinks. "I'm in. You're not giving a lot of options -"
"Good." Aubrey walks away from her toward the group. She counts them again. Just to make sure no one died or went missing between the driveway and the door. "Okay." She claps her hands to get their attention. "Find a seat."
They spread out between the furniture and the floor. There are so few of them. It makes Aubrey feel like she's going to vomit again. "We need ideas. We need to think of a plan to get out of here." They all remain silent. "Anyone?"
"I got one." Bumper raises his hand and stands up. "Suicide." They all just stare at him. "No one can kill us if we kill ourselves first." He shrugs and sits back down. "Maybe we should all just drink the kool-aid."
Aubrey's chest feels so tight. Breathing at a normal pace takes so much effort, she feels dizzy. "Plans on how to get out of here alive," she elaborates, placing her hand on the wall for more stability.
"Did you guys take a shower while you were supposed to be looking for Sophia?" Jesse asks, "Your hair is wet."
Just like that – Aubrey is put on the spot. They didn't discuss how much they were going to share with the others. "We got dirty searching." It's a lame excuse, but she owns it with as much confidence as she can.
"The rest of us didn't?" Luke asks.
Aubrey is going to punch him right in his stupid British accent. "Oh, I'm sorry," she says, "I forgot to consider all the dirty work you've had your hands in. Do you wanna share with the group how hard you've been working this week, or should I show everybody my broken phone?"
"I didn't break your phone," Luke says calmly, but she can see the panic in his eyes, "I think they already know what I've been up to considering they slathered me in honey."
"Oh, do they? Do they know why?" Aubrey arches her brows. She wants to tell them all the truth – but creating a scapegoat, even if it's not Bumper, could be dangerous – especially when she has no way of proving that Luke isn't just a dick.
"Look," Aubrey addresses all of them again, "We might not all get along outside of here, but every man for himself is not going to work right now." If only they knew that was exactly what was going to work for her, Beca, and Chloe. "We have days left to be on this island before anyone starts looking for us. We need to organize to survive, and we can't do that if we can't make an effort to get along. We're all in this together, and if we can't figure out how to work together, we are going to die here." She ignores the peculiar look she's receiving from Chloe, and glances around at all of them to see if anyone else wants to throw another attack at her. "Now give me some ideas."
"We can see if anyone has a private boat," Benji suggests, "One they don't keep at the docks."
"Okay," Aubrey nods, "Anyone else?" Finding a private boat would mean investigating around all the houses – effectively rendering her own plan useless. "We need as many ideas as we can get."
"We build a boat," Bumper suggests half-heartedly, "Maybe a raft."
"We're sitting ducks on the water without something with a motor," Aubrey tells them, "There's nowhere to run or hide out there."
"So, our only option is to find who is doing this and stop them," Jesse says.
"Reverse psycho-ology," Fat Amy agrees.
"We wait until they attack next," Jesse continues, "Then we hit back."
"That's putting us at risk," Beca says, "Especially if this is more than one person."
"Is it more than ten people?" Jesse replies, "We're already at risk, Bec. At least right now, we're still out-numbering them."
"Okay." Aubrey can actually roll with that. "So, we just wait it out here." She shares a brief look with Beca. Keeping everybody in one location can work for them. This can work. They know where everyone is. They have a chance to keep narrowing down their list – and when the time is right, they can run to the townhouses. "Nobody goes anywhere without a buddy group of three." That should keep them safe, and prevent anyone from sneaking around.
Fat Amy raises her hand.
"Yes, Fat Amy?"
"Uhhhh," Fat Amy shrugs, "Some of us have shy bladders."
Aubrey shakes her head. "You don't need to take someone into the bathroom with you, Amy. We can all see the bathroom from right here." She motions toward the door. Sure, it's in the hallway, but it's still visible.
Fat Amy nods her understanding.
Aubrey has nothing else to say – and, by the looks of it, neither does anyone else. She steps away from the front of the room, only to be met with Chloe grabbing her by the arm.
"Can I talk to you?" Chloe whispers.
Is there an option to say no? Aubrey nods.
Chloe pulls her by the shirt sleeve toward the hallway.
"Buddy groups of three, Beca," Aubrey snaps at her and watches her scramble after them. It might be highly unlikely that Aubrey needs Beca to prevent Chloe from murdering her in the hallway once they're out of sight from the others – but she needs to follow her own rules, and also Chloe might be more open to her plan if she knows it's Beca's plan as well.
Chloe stops right around the corner and releases Aubrey's arm to place her hands on her hips.
Aubrey prepares herself. She starts rehearsing in her head why it's a good idea to wait for their assailant to shoot first and then shoot back – and then how to tell her the real plan. No more secrets.
"Did you just paraphrase Jack's 'Live Together, Die Alone' speech from LOST to our friends?" Chloe asks.
That causes Beca to snort.
Okay, that's not what Aubrey was preparing to defend herself against. "Jack was a smart man," she says, "He was a good leader."
"Didn't he drag all of them back to that God forsaken island after they got off?" Beca asks before mocking him, "We have to go back."
Aubrey places her hand flat against the side of Beca's head and casually pushes her away. "His problem was that Sawyer was constantly getting in his way."
Beca looks at her with feigned offense.
"We're going to make a run for it, Chloe," Aubrey breaks the news to her without warning, "Tonight, we're going to go deep into town and find a house to hide out in until your mom sends someone to look for us."
Chloe folds her arms tightly across her chest and stares past Aubrey at the wall.
"I want to go home," Beca whispers, "That isn't going to happen unless we start worrying about ourselves."
Chloe scoffs at her. "You're sacrificing the people we love."
"Dude, I am trying to save the people I love," Beca hits back.
People. Not person. People. That would imply Aubrey too, if Aubrey didn't know the truth. It's a ploy to convince Chloe. Just saying 'person' wouldn't have the same effect. Not that she needs Beca to love her. But the thought of Beca and Chloe, and Aubrey on the outside? It feels like a kick in the gut – one that amplifies the pain already there. She leans back against the wall and rests her hand flat on her stomach. She absolutely cannot go through throwing up another time.
"What if they die?" Chloe lifts one of her hands to rest it on her forehead. "What if we leave, and they die?"
"What if we don't and we all die?" Beca argues, "Our presence hasn't saved anybody so far." She reaches out to touch her.
Chloe shakes her head and jolts back, crashing into Aubrey. "You always do this," she hisses at Aubrey, turning around to face her, "You decide that your ideas and your plans are the best ones – and you never ask me what I think. And we just talked about it. You told me we would make decisions together – that you wouldn't make stupid sacrifices to save me."
"I'm including you in the plan right now," Aubrey points out.
"Aubrey, telling me what to do is not the same thing as including me. I'm not going." Chloe wipes her eyes and plants her feet firmly on the floor. "I'm done."
Panic hits Aubrey like an electric shock, and she quickly props herself away from the wall with her arm.
"Not with you." Chloe throws her hands up. "With you ignoring what I think."
"Chlo, we have to do something," Beca tries to convince her, "What we're doing now isn't putting us in any less danger."
"Well, you should have talked to me first," Chloe tells them.
The light above their head and the lamp at the end of the hallway turn off – leaving the entire hall dimly lit by the light streaming in through the lobby windows.
"What just happened?" Chloe asks, gravitating back toward Aubrey until her hands are on Aubrey's arm.
"I don't know." Aubrey leads them back around the corner into the lobby. The chandelier is no longer lit.
"Did you guys hit a switch?" Jesse asks.
"No," Beca answers.
Aubrey looks around and tries to listen past the sound of their voices. The silence is a good sign. If they were all about to die, it would be a scene staged to a well thought out score. "Maybe it was a fuse?" She pulls Chloe closer, just in case.
"In that case, we should find the fuse box," Benji says, "But, it's probably in the basement."
Aubrey's face hurts from frowning. "I don't think we should go into the basement. We're safer finding flashlights."
"Guys, this could be our chance," Fat Amy says, getting to her feet, "You all surround him, and I'll channel my jelly-wrestling days."
Aubrey shakes her head.
"You scared?" Luke asks.
"No," Aubrey reacts immediately.
Bumper makes chicken noises as he stands up and walks past her.
"You guys are just running into danger," Aubrey points out. It's hard to determine who might be in on everything when most of them are so stupid.
"We can't stay in the dark," Jesse says.
"It's not dark," Beca replies.
"It will be eventually." Jesse stands up. "It's an old hotel. The power used to go out all the time when I was a kid. Something probably just tripped a fuse."
"Was there a murderer waiting for you in the basement when you were a kid?" Beca asks.
"I'm in charge, and I say we're not going into the basement," Aubrey announces, "And that's final."
"I, too, would like to stay up here," Benji says and raises his hand.
"Then we split into two groups," Jesse says. Of course, he would completely ignore Aubrey's earlier speech.
"Badasses go to the basement; namby-pambies stay up top," Bumper says, joining Jesse.
They split up. Luke, Jesse, and Bumper prepare to go check the fuse box. Fat Amy takes one step toward them, stopping when Aubrey gives her a threatening look. She rejoins Chloe, Beca, Stacie, Lilly, and Benji as they stick with Aubrey. If the plan is to kill whomever steps into the basement, in all honesty, those are the three that Aubrey wouldn't mind as much to lose. So she stops arguing.
"We'll look for candles and flashlights," Aubrey says as the others walk away, "Just in case the lights don't come back on. It's better to be prepared." The lights definitely won't come on if everyone in the basement dies. But also then they should probably leave. "Okay, Aubrey, just stop thinking. Nobody else is going to die." She doesn't realize she said the last part out loud until they all look at her. "Fat Amy, Stacie, and Lilly stick together," she tries to deflect, "And, Benji, you'll stay with me, Chloe, and Beca."
Benji isn't all that bad. If Aubrey has to be trapped on an island, searching for flashlights in a power outage with a Treble, Benji would be her first choice. It's honestly a shame he got mixed up with people like Bumper and Jesse.
"We'll go check the second floor," Aubrey says, "You guys stay down here on the first. Gather anything you can find that creates light, and anything else that might be useful."
"Like our friends' bodies," Lilly whispers.
"No, Lilly," Aubrey snaps, "Not like our friends' bodies." She already knows where those are. She shakes her head as she turns around, and runs into Beca as she tries to walk away. "Sorry," she apologizes to her then keeps walking.
xxxxx
"This is called the cleat," Chloe's mom said, guiding Aubrey's hands in tying the boat to the dock, "It's mostly just a lot of wrapping it around then making a loop. Do you want to try?"
Aubrey nodded and unwrapped the rope so she could tie it down herself. She looked up for approval that she'd done it correctly.
"Perfect." Mrs. Beale stood up and reached down her hand to help Aubrey up too. "Hurry up, Noah!" she called to her husband, "Aubrey already tied up the boat!"
Mr. Beale dragged the cooler from the truck bed and dropped it on the ground. "Aubrey tied up the boat?" He lifted the handle on the cooler and rolled it over with him, letting go to tug on the rope. It didn't slip. "You're a natural." He ruffled her hair.
"You two have fun," Mrs. Beale told them. "You," she kissed her husband on the cheek, "be good. And, you," she pulled Aubrey closer to her, "You are always good." She pressed two kisses to Aubrey's cheek. "Keep him out of trouble."
Aubrey stood semi-frozen for a second before nodding. "Yes, Ma'am." She clasped her hands together in front of her, resisting the urge to touch her cheek. "I'll do my best."
"Do I look old to you?" Mrs. Beale asked.
Crap, she did it again. Aubrey quickly shook her head. "I'm so sorry. My father always said that showing respect for your elders -"
"Elders? You just told me I didn't look old."
Aubrey clamped her hand over her mouth to shut herself up. "Sorry," she mumbled through her fingers.
Mrs. Beale's brows quirked in amusement. "I'm playing with you." She pressed one more kiss to the side of her head then patted her back. "Go catch us some dinner that Chloe will whine about and refuse to eat."
Aubrey nodded. "Yes, Ma-I'm sorry, the word just comes out." Her face started to feel hot, and she took a step back toward the boat.
"Well, then, change it to 'yes, Mom'." Mrs. Beale gave them one last goodbye wave before heading back to the truck. "Bye, guys, I love you."
It hadn't been the first time she had requested Aubrey call her Mom, but it was the most direct. Aubrey already had a mother. Sure, she didn't hug or kiss her unless people were looking. But she had birthed her and fed her and clothed her while her father kept a roof over her head. She taught her to cook and to clean and other necessary life skills. She most definitely never told Aubrey she loved her, but Aubrey knew she did. Some people just had difficulties showing affection.
"Hey, Champ, bring the cooler?" Mr. Beale picked up their fishing rods and bait box.
Yes, Sir. Aubrey grabbed it by the handle and dragged it onto the boat.
"You ready to see some gators?" Mr. Beale asked, finding a good resting spot for their poles.
Aubrey's head snapped up. "I'm- I'm sorry?" No one had mentioned anything about alligators. She looked around at the lake.
"I'm just kidding," Mr. Beale said, "But it is Florida. Who knows?"
xxxxx
"So, you're on our side now?" Beca asks Benji as they climb the stairs to the second floor, "Why?"
"I thought we were all on the same side," Benji says.
"Right," Beca murmurs.
"One could also inquire into your decision to be up here with Aubrey rather than down in the dark, confining basement with Jesse," Benji points out.
Aubrey glances back.
"You wanna inquire about it?" Beca threatens.
Benji shakes his head. "No. But if you must know, they won't be able to see anything in the basement without a flashlight anyway. There aren't any windows."
Aubrey nearly snorts, but the sharp inhale hurts her lungs.
"It looks like it's all guest rooms up here," Chloe points out as they reach the top of the stairs.
"Let's just do a round, and then we'll head back down," Aubrey says.
xxxxx
"Have you ever been fishing before?" Mr. Beale asked.
"Mhm." Aubrey took her eyes off the shore as they sailed by to look at him, "My father is in the Army. He thought we should all know how to protect ourselves and survive in the wild." She returned her gaze to outside the boat, searching for alligators. "We camped a lot. He caught our food."
Shoot the god damn deer, Aubrey.
"You don't go anymore?" He asked.
"Mm mm," Aubrey hummed.
"That's a shame."
It really wasn't.
"Alright, this looks like a good spot." Mr. Beale stopped the boat. "You wanna learn how to cast an anchor?"
Aubrey readily agreed.
xxxxx
201. 202. 203. Aubrey focuses on the room numbers as they walk by each door. There isn't a lot to talk about. Not with Benji there listening. He may not be a spy helping someone kill them, but he does put them at risk. Anything they say could get back to Bumper or Jesse. Maybe even to Luke, although that's much more unlikely. 204. 205.
"Do you guys hear that clicking?" Chloe asks.
Aubrey stops walking and listens. She nods. It starts out barely audible, then slowly gets louder.
"Is it coming from the wall?" Beca asks.
It is. Aubrey steps forward again. 206. 207. 208. She stops. Between 208 and 210 is a small door in the middle of the wall. The clicking stops.
"Great," Beca whispers, "First we find the Ninja Turtles lair, and now it's the door to Wonderland."
"A dumbwaiter," Aubrey corrects her underrated her breath.
"Dude, you're a dumb…waiter," Beca informs her.
"Beca," Aubrey says and slowly turns to face her, "The door leads to a dumbwaiter, but I can understand how you'd confuse it with being a dumbass." She pats Beca's shoulder, only to have her hand shoved away. "It's similar to an elevator."
"So is there a person in there right now waiting to jump out at us?" Beca asks seriously – like Aubrey wouldn't be booking it out of there if that was the case.
"Who would fit in there besides you?" Chloe whispers.
"Oh, you have humor now too?" Beca asks.
"I'm just saying." Chloe shrugs. "It's a pretty small door."
"They were popular in the late 19th, early 20th centuries," Aubrey explains.
"To transport small children and dogs?" Beca asks.
"Are you being intentionally dense?" Aubrey replies.
"What?" Beca asks.
Chloe slaps Beca in the shoulder with the back of her hand. "Aubrey, keep going."
"Because now is the time for a History lesson," Beca says, and Chloe smacks her again.
"Businesses used them to transport food and laundry and whatever else between floors," Aubrey continues, "Starting in the 1920s, the Prohibition era, when this hotel was built, they started to make them electric, but a lot of them continued to still be built using a pulley system."
"Why do you know this?" Beca asks.
"Which means that even with the power out, the dumbwaiter still works – and someone is below us right now operating it."
"Maybe the guys thought it was the door to the fuse box or the Bellas thought it was a cupboard, and now they're just fucking around with it?" Chloe suggests.
"Maybe." Aubrey looks at it out of the corner of her eye.
"Which means, we have no reason to open it, and should go find our friends," Beca says.
"Unless someone who isn't a 'friend', whatever that word means at this point, is down there," Aubrey argues, "Which we won't know until we see if there's anything in the dumbwaiter."
"Do I get a vote?" Benji asks.
"This isn't a democracy." Aubrey gives him a sympathetic smile. "It's a monarchy that Beca keeps insisting needs a debate team."
"She means it's a dictatorship bordering tyranny, where any sort of opposing opinion is seen as a coup détat."
"I'm going to open the dumbwaiter," Aubrey informs Beca, staring her down, "And then I am going to put your troll sized body inside of it."
"I would gladly ride downstairs in the dumbwaiter alone, if it meant you wouldn't be there," Beca replies.
"Do you guys have any idea how annoying you are?" Chloe interrupts them.
"If I may," Benji tells Chloe, "Maybe you should reevaluate your taste in women if you don't enjoy the two in front of you."
They all three glare him back into silence.
"God forbid I annoy you for once, Chloe," Aubrey says.
Chloe folds her arms. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"You leave your towels on the floor, you never take the used k-cup out of the keurig, and you let a stray cat into our apartment. Should I keep going on how annoying you are?"
Chloe rolls her eyes. "Aubrey, just open the dumbwaiter."
Aubrey doesn't even know how this argument began. She groans in irritation as she spins around and grabs the door.
"What if it's a bomb?" Beca asks.
"I should be so lucky," Aubrey answers and flings open the door.
xxxxx
Aubrey stabbed the hook through one end of the worm then twisted it around and stabbed it again through the other end to make sure it was secure.
"You do know how to fish," Mr. Beale said, grinning.
It was hard to hold back a smile. Aubrey lifted her pole back behind her then flung it forward to cast her line. It was a good cast, so into the holder her pole went. Her father always disagreed with holders, claiming it built muscle mass in the arms to hold the rod the entire time. The only thing it did for Aubrey was make her arms nearly too tired to reel in her fish.
"One time," Aubrey told him, "I caught a fifteen pound northern pike. It was the biggest fish I ever caught. It was this big." She held her hands as far apart as she remembered it being – perhaps exaggerating a little as fishermen often did.
"I bet it put up one hell of a fight," Mr. Beale said.
"Oh, it did." Aubrey nodded. "My father said it wouldn't count if he helped me, so I'd have to reel it in all by myself. It took almost an hour."
"He musta been proud," Mr. Beale said, "I know I woulda been."
Aubrey left out the part about how at the very end, she couldn't quite get it over the ledge of the boat, and he did in fact help her, because her pole was about to snap in half. He hadn't said he was proud. He had sighed, shook his head, and not said anything at all. "It was huge," she bypassed the comment about her father completely. "It tasted real good, too." She had helped prepare it until her mother claimed she was just slowing down the process. But pike was a difficult fish to fillet. "Did you know pike eggs are a delicacy in Eastern Europe?"
"You know what I want to do, Aubrey?"
"Hm?"
"Ice fishing," Mr. Beale said.
"Ooooh," Aubrey hummed her approval. "In Greenland to see the sharks."
"But not to catch the sharks," Mr. Beale said.
Aubrey shook her head. "Just to look at them."
"I heard their flesh is poisonous." Mr. Beale looked at her for confirmation.
"It has high concentrations of trimethylamine oxide," Aubrey confirmed, "Which when ingested produces a very similar feeling to being extremely drunk. But, sometimes, they do treat it to make it edible." She noticed Mr. Beale's rod move. "I think you got something already." She quickly stood up to peer over the side of the boat.
Mr. Beale grabbed his pole and stood up. He began to reel it in slowly. "It's a big one," he said.
Aubrey stood up straight and watched him anxiously. It felt like it took forever to reel it in. Maybe not quite as long as her northern pike – but at least fifteen minutes.
"Here it comes." Mr. Beale pulled it up out of the water. "Oh." It was barely longer than the length of his hand.
Aubrey pressed her lips together for a moment to avoid smirking. "It's a good size for a TV dinner," she told him optimistically, "We just need to catch two more of them. It helps that Chloe won't want any." She carefully grabbed the fish and unhooked it from his rod to throw it in their bucket.
Mr. Beale laughed. "You know she'll eat it at a restaurant or from the store?"
"Oh, I know," Aubrey said, "Except if she sees the live lobster tank."
Mr. Beale cast his line out again. "Or a fish with the head still attached."
"Also a delicacy," Aubrey stated.
"Don't tell my other kids you're my favorite now," he said.
Aubrey didn't know how to respond to that. She wasn't anybody's favorite. Well, except for Chloe, but that was something very different. "I won't," she whispered and shook her head. He was probably just joking anyway. Her smile wavered. It was fine. She shouldn't be considered a favorite when he had his own children. It was rude to Chloe to even be considered an equal.
"Good," Mr. Beale said and playfully elbowed her shoulder, "We can watch as they figure it out over time."
xxxxx
"See," Beca says and points at the dumbwaiter, "It's literally nothing."
Aubrey draws in a deep breath, ignoring the pain, and puffs up her chest. This shot at Beca is strictly to bother Chloe. "You're literally nothing."