iCarly/Victorious: Schneider’s Island #13 – Wince
[Warning – there is no sex in this story, please don’t hate me for that, but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless]
"I can’t believe I missed…" Freddie said, huffing as he moved past Carly, who could barely keep up with him.
"He was a long way off," she replied. "And you were upset."
"No excuse… and that was no guy either," Freddie said, refusing to even look back as he looked through the trees for any sign of the woman he saw. "No way that wasn’t a woman."
"I could never imagine a woman being capable of… all this," the former web star said, looking all around and mentally replaying the last few days.
"You and Cat were close weren’t you?"
"Yeah… well, we used to be I guess." Carly thought back to all the times she had spent with Cat- the camp, her visit to Seattle, Christmas time, etc.- wishing she had spent more time with the sweet redhead. "Things just change, I guess."
"Something like that," he muttered before pulling further ahead, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
***
"I’m going to fucking kill whoever did this shit," Sam said, stomping around, unable to get the image of her former roommates out of her mind, and every positive image she had for Cat and Noelle, the image of their bleeding and lifeless bodies was right behind. "Going to slice all his skin off and soak him in salt and lemon juice."
"Yeah…" Andre said, worrying about how close his partner was to her own psychotic break. "If we can find him… amongst all this nature."
"It’s just a bunch of goddamn trees," the blonde said, looking upwards, aiming at anything that might move. "How could he just up and disappear like that?"
"I said this a little earlier and people laughed, but what if this dude isn’t human… like it’s the Slasher, but they died and now we’re fighting a ghost?"
Sam stopped dead in her tracks and just looked at him with so much anger and indignation, he was honestly more afraid of her than the killer for a few seconds. "No," she simply said before walking on.
Andre shook his head and pressed on behind her, hoping they’d find the others before who or whatever this thing was found them. "Maybe we should focus on finding Freddie and Carly rather than chasing some guy who has killed, hand to hand, two people at once and Nate, one of the toughest guys we know. If we just stick close together, we will be fine."
"Oh my god! Stop being such a pussy," Sam said, readying her gun. "He’s not a fucking army or some phantom killer. He is one guy."
Rather than respond and get into another fight that she would no doubt win, Andre simply sighed, and fell in line behind her.
* * *
Jade wasn’t entirely sure how long she was out, but as she woke up in the car, she slowly was f*rced to realize the reality that she was trapped in. And worst of all, she was all alone. The former Goth did her best not to panic as she peered around the car, unsure of what to think. She took a deep breath, fearing the worst had happened with Spencer’s disappearance. Jade slowly slid from her seat to look out the passenger window and-
THUDTHUDTHUD
Jade nearly jumped out of her skin as Spencer knocked on the driver’s side window, looking angry, but also seemingly excited. It was odd to see him so serious, but she couldn’t really imagine anyone keeping their humour amongst all the carnage.
"Jade!" he called out, tapping the glass, and she pressed the unlock button. He just opened the door without even trying to get in. "Found a ship!"
Um… what?" she said, shaking her head, unable to even begin to process this message. But Spencer was running a mile a minute, hitting the trunk button, and rummaging through the trunk as Jade climbed out of the car, still a bit confused.
"A ship." he said, clearly irritated at having to repeat himself as he searched the trunk for anything they could use to signal it. "I saw a ship over by the cliffs down the road. Might be a cargo ship but a ship’s a ship, right?"
"I guess," she said, pawing at her arms, still shaken up by her rude awakening, but then she actually thought about his words. "Wait… where did you see that ship?"
"Down the road toward the cliffs…" he said nonchalantly, pointing. "Maybe a mile, mile and a half that way."
"A fucking mile from here?!" Jade said, starting to shake. "You left me all alone, and without a gun in that car, while you just went on a stroll through the fucking woods?"
Spencer practically ignored her, handing her a road flare he found, and starting to walk toward the supposed ship.
"I’m not going anywhere," Jade said firmly, earning a tired and annoyed glance from her partner. "Freddie told us to stay right here, and that is what we need to do."
"I’m almost 10 years older than him, Jade…" Spencer said, locking eyes with her. "I don’t need to be told what to do. The car’s wheel is over the grate so the killer isn’t getting through. I saw something that could get all of us to safety, and I think that trumps whatever we’re doing here."
"But-"
"Look, I’m going and if you want to get off this rock, you’ll come with me. We’ll be fine."
* * *
"Oh, this is just great…" Andre muttered to himself as he trudged along through the woods, trying to be as quiet as possible as he was all alone. "’Let’s split up and cover more ground’ she says. ‘Nothing is going to happen if you get off the path.’" The black young man slipped by tree after tree, clutching his gun tightly, hoping he wasn’t getting lost, and secretly hoping that something would happen soon.
Unbeknownst to him, however, a lithe body slipped from the trees above him, quietly landing with a large Bowie knife in tow. The figure slunk behind him, for a few seconds, waiting for the right time to strike, and when her chance came, she lunged at the defenceless young man.
BANG
Andre ducked from the shot and looked over at Sam who had been following from higher ground several yards back. "Cut it a little close to me!" he called out, rubbing his ear and trying desperately to breathe, but remained focused on pointing his gun at the ‘wild’ woman Sam had just shot.
The bullet had grazed her face, being far from lethal but going to leave a hell of a scar on her cheek.
"I told you the plan would work," the blonde said, almost smirking, at Andre, keeping her gun aimed at the body on the ground. "Horror movie 101."
"If this was Horror movie 101, I would have been dead first." Andre looked down at the woman, and was actually a bit surprised to find out that it was a woman. Just uh…" he searched for words and thoughts for what to do next, "just know that next time, you can play the bait."
* * *
Freddie and Carly were silently searching when they nearly jumped when the shot rang out through the woods. Neither knew who the gunman or the target could be, but they knew they had to run towards it in case one of their own was in trouble.
As they cleared the woods, they saw that Sam and Andre had a woman on her knees with her hands behind her head, and from the look of it, his ex-girlfriend was on the verge of executing her.
"Guys!" he called out, earning their attention. "Is that…"
"Yup," Sam said, keeping focused on the killer. "This would be the bitch that has been murdering all our friends."
"We thought we should at least wait on someone before we…" Andre looked like he was searching for the right words, "do something else."
"You’ve pretty much led us this far, Fredward… what’s your call?" Sam looked to him, eagerly waiting for the order to blow the bitch to hell, but from the looks on Andre’s and Carly’s faces, they seemed much less eager.
"You know I’ll support you whatever you choose," Carly said, touching his shoulder.
Freddie closed his eyes for a few moments to process everything, and then opened them again, staring into the brown eyes of their tormentor. There was something dark and dead in them, but her face was just a bit too familiar. She looked like someone and he didn’t know how to feel about that. Then there was the way she looked at him. The Seattle born tech producer raised the gun to the woman’s face, and the others moved behind him. The woman also rose putting her hands to the sky as he was torn between his feelings and what he felt was right.
With a quick sigh, Freddie held the gun tight, and then shifted his stance before giving her a haymaker from the butt of his gun.
The woman dropped as Sam rushed to his side, looking like he’d just spoiled her birthday or something.
"The fuck was that Benson?" the blonde shoved him back. "The bitch deserves to die. A bullet to her goddamn brain. At the very least to give her a gut shot and let her bleed out in the dirt here."
"You told me to make a call. I made the call…"
"Because I didn’t realize you would just-"
"Look," Andre said, getting between them. "That’s not the way to do any of this. Just us in the woods, shooting a woman… an unarmed woman… We wouldn’t be much better than what she has done to us."
"He’s right," Carly said, defending Freddie’s choice as well. "She needs to be arrested and tried, and face the justice she deserves."
"The only justice she deserves is to suffer the same fate as those she murdered." Sam stood firm with her words. "But we can’t kill her twenty fucking ways, so let’s just pick one, and that will be it. I’m thinking cutting her face off while she’s still alive is a good option."
"We’re not going to just murder her, Sam!" Carly said, staring at her best friend.
"Did you guys just fucking forget who she has killed? At the very least, for Cat and Noelle, put an end to this." Sam looked to Freddie, almost pleading, but he turns his head.
"It doesn’t matter, Sam," he said quietly. "We got her, and that’s what matters. We can lock her up at the station."
"I’d say we go ahead and tie her up while she’s out," Andre said, starting to lean more and more towards Sam’s argument as time went on. "At least make her manageable to carry while we wait for whatever police there are to arrive."
Rather than helping, Sam stormed off ahead, pausing only to speak. "I’m telling you right now… you’re making a huge mistake."
The others went to work on the unc*nscious woman and prayed that Sam wasn’t right about this.
* * *
Jade and Spencer were almost out of breath as they raced toward the bluffs of the island, and when they finally reached them, it became abundantly clear that this was not worth their time.
"It was…"
"There’s no fucking boat here, Spencer…" Jade said, getting angry, but as she looked at his face, she could tell he was even more upset than she was.
"It was a big freighter…" he said, speaking as if she wasn’t even there. "It couldn’t have just up and disappeared."
Jade stepped up toward the edge, and began looking out into the water, trying to see any sign of what would have caused Spencer to pull them from their spot. "I might be able to get a little better look, but I’m going to need you to spot me."
Spencer pointed at her and she stared at him confused, but got it just about the time he spoke, "I see you."
"Jackass…" Jade rolled her eyes, but smirked to herself which was a new feeling for the last few days. "Just make sure I don’t fall."
Spencer nodded and put his arms out, and tried not to let Jade get the wrong idea.
* * *
Back in the woods, while Sam and Andre were wrapping the woman tight in belts, Carly and Freddie stood several feet away, each looking incredibly pensive. After a few moments of stiff silence, the former web star touched his shoulder softly.
"You did the right thing," she said quietly, but he shrugged her hand off.
"Then why don’t I feel it?" he said, refusing to look her in the eyes. "My father told me to kill… her… on sight, and I can’t even look her in the eyes. I can’t just kill her."
"It’s not a bad thing that you aren’t a killer, Freddie," Carly said, trying to rub his shoulder once more, but not having much luck. "It makes you a better man."
"A weak man is more like it…" he muttered. "This is the woman who killed my mom, my dad, your dad… well, both your parents I guess, Jade’s parents, all our friends… and now that goes unanswered because I can’t pull a trigger?"
"It’s not going unanswered," Carly said, looking back and seeing Sam and Andre getting the woman to her feet. "That woman is going to face jus-tice… the right way… because you are strong enough not to kill her. Don’t beat yourself up over this."
* * *
A few feet away, another conversation had been going, well within the earshot of the killer.
"Can someone please tell me how this bitch is still alive?"
Andre looked over at Sam with an incredulous look. "No idea…"
"Kills a bunch of people 20 something years ago, and then nothing…" Sam sneered, being needlessly rough as she tied the woman," then shows back up to kill all of us. How does that make any goddamn sense?"
"I’m more worried about how she survived off the radar for so long."
"Not me," she said, spitting in the woman’s hair. "I’m more worried that Pussy Benson over there is going to get us all killed."
"Let’s just get her to the station and locked up… I can certainly rest easier."
Sam looked over and Carly touching Freddie’s shoulders and groaned, before hearing noises from the killer. The blonde quickly kicked her nonchalantly as she and Andre helped her to her feet since her hands and feet were bound tight. Carly and Freddie quickly frisked the woman for any other weapons or blades, but besides a few small blades, which they tossed on the ground, she was clean.
"Let’s go," Freddie said, not looking Sam in the eyes, showing clear embarrassment for not going with her idea.
It was nearly a mile back to the station, but with the four of them having to drag the woman, it took way longer than it should have. They took turns, holding her by the arms, swapping out every so often, but it didn’t take knowing what the killer was thinking to see that when Sam’s turn came to carry, it was even more painful.
Finding keys to the cells took even less time than Freddie thought, as they were right inside of the sheriff’s desk. Even after the woman was shoved into one of the cells, Sam and Andre took a few extra moments to check all the cars and the doors for any chance of escape. As they did this however, the woman managed to slither over to a nearby bench and take a seat, staring at the four of them with a faint grin on her face.
Unable to take it, Carly heads out into the main office, followed by Andre, then Sam, and finally, after trying his best to seem confident in the face of what could be pure evil, Freddie joined the others.
"Mission number one now has to be contacting someone," Freddie said, looking around the station. "I searched and searched this place when I came here earlier, but there no radios to speak of at all."
"There’s gotta be some way to contact other people. We can’t just be cut off like that," Andre said, sitting on top of a desk.
"Cell phones are done for," Carly said, checking hers once more. "None of the landlines have worked so far either. Radio is probably our best option."
"Yeah…" Sam said, looking at the obliterated radio at the station. "This one looks like exactly what we need."
"What about those cops? By the marina," Andre said. "Nate and I searched the planes and boats for radios which was a bust, but someone has to come looking for those guys."
"We can’t exactly afford to wait for the cops to just notice something like this," Freddie said. "I mean, as far as they knew, there were only two deaths, and that’s not exactly something huge for people to travel for."
"We could go door to door," Carly said, hopeful. "An older town like this is sure to have a few radios in some of the houses."
"That’s not a bad idea…" Freddie said, looking toward the holding cell door.
"We can watch the psycho bitch," Sam said, pointing to herself and Andre. "She’ll be safe and sound with us."
Freddie knew she was being sarcastic, but he trusted that Sam would follow what he said. "With her locked up, we should all be much safer. We’re going to grab the others and we can all meet up here. Hopefully we won’t be gone too long," he said as he held the door for Carly and the two of them headed out.
"If she’s locked up," Andre mumbled looking around the station, "then why don’t I feel safe?"
"That’s because the unholy bitch is still breathing."
"Sam, we did the right thing,’ Andre said, walking toward her and sitting near her. "If we had killed her, we wouldn’t get any of the answers we need."
"And we’re getting answers now? The fucking psycho just grins at us without a word…" her voice trailed off and she seemed like she suddenly had an idea.
The blonde leapt off the desk for a moment, and began rummaging through the sheriff’s desk for something, but seemed annoyed that she couldn’t find it. Andre started to join her, but then her face lit up as she pulled a small black item from the desk, which looked like a cell phone.
Andre tried to keep up as Sam burst into the holding cells and stood in front of the woman who was standing at the bars, so much that her nose could be seen poking through the bars even from the door.
"Back away from the bars," Sam said confidently to the woman’s face, but there was no reaction. "I said, back away, bitch."
Still there was nothing and Sam was visibly angry. Seeing this, the woman laughed, and Sam narrowed her eyes and pushed Andre back.
"You need to back away from the bars," Sam said, through gritted teeth, but the woman instead stepped forward, getting as close as possible to Sam.
The blonde moved like lightning bringing her newfound toy to the bars and pressing a button, sending millions of volts through the bars and their prisoner. She kept it there for a few seconds before pulling it back, the woman falling to the ground and writhing. Sam looked back at the stunned expression on Andre’s face.
"Told her to get away from the bars…"
* * *
"Freddie told them to stay here," Carly said, getting more and more upset by the minute as she paced around the car. "Spencer?! Jade?!"
There was no response as the former web star stood in the middle of the road, looking up and down the way. In her mind she feared the worst, but since there was no sign of bl**d or any f*rce on the car, she had to assume they were fine.
Carly called out their names a few more times before finally just giving up. She searched the car for something to write with, and finally found a pen and a long receipt. She wrote a note as quick as she could and tucked it under the wipers before heading back to the station, feeling like, add-ing the lack of radios in the nearby houses, this trip was a complete waste.
* * *
When Freddie returned to the station, he had not come back alone, bringing Tori and Savanna along with him, though when he saw the absolute disarray of the station, he was immediately struck with fear that something had happened. Sam and Andre emerged from a hallway, looking annoyed.
"Did I miss something,’ he said casually, showing Tori and Savanna where they could sit.
Sam offered an annoyed glance but Andre responded, "We were just looking for supplies- anything that we could use in case something went wrong, but this place is pretty much empty."
"Pretty sure the crazy bitch cleared this place out of anything useful…" Sam said, not even caring that a small ch*ld was just feet from her. "Also, do not go into the office that says ‘Business’ on it… that’s where she stacked the bodies of the cops and the psychic chick."
"Glad to know…" Tori said, looking sick just thinking about it. Her mind immediately went to her father and how this woman had gunned him down. "Are we just going to wait for the police to transfer her or something?"
"Something like that," Andre said, climbing on top of a desk to sit down.
"Did she give you guys any trouble?" Freddie asked, peering through the small window into the holding area.
"Nothing we couldn’t handle, Fredward," Sam shot back, still searching desk after desk before finally turning her attention to the radio. "You used to be a tech genius… why can’t you fix this?"
"Because someone didn’t want it to be fixed, Sam…" Freddie said, not really needing her negativity at this moment. "Carly went to go get Spencer and Jade, so hopefully, we’ll all be back together soon."
Tori didn’t want to say anything but as she eyed the walls, and the ominous door which held the ‘prisoner’ she couldn’t help but feel that this place still wasn’t safe.
After nearly several more minutes of just sitting and waiting for Carly, Jade, and her daddy, Savanna was getting bored and headed over to Sam, still fiddling with the radio, and refusing to give up.
"What’s that thing?" the young girl asked to the already aggravated blonde.
"Well… it was a radio," she said sternly.
"And what is it now?"
"A nonworking piece of… junk, I guess."
"You should put new batteries in there," Savanna said as if that could solve all the problems. "When I have a toy that won’t work, Daddy always puts new batteries in and everything works again. Does it need new batteries, Miss Sam?"
"It sure does," Sam said, faking a smile for the k*d’s benefit. "Along with a transistor, a tuner, and shilot of other things."
"You should just buy a new one then, and-"
"K*d…" Sam said through gritted teeth, signalling Tori to swoop in.
"Savanna sweetie… Miss Sam is very busy, so just let her work and give her some space, ok?"
"Ok…" the ch*ld said, hanging her head as Tori led her away, giving angry eyes at Sam for being so rude, but the blonde simply shrugged the feeling off.
* * *
Nearly half an hour passed as the crew sat and waited for literally anything to just happen. Sam, Tori, and Andre had all fallen asl*ep, but while Freddie was turning his attention to some maps and figures for the best way off the island, Savanna was pretty much all alone, and so she slipped past her sl*eping guardians and into the holding area. She tiptoed through the office and through the large double doors without waking a single person and congratulated herself for being so sneaky. As the heavy door was shutting behind her however, she couldn’t quite stop it, and feared it would wake up the others. Luckily, the front door burst open about the time she needed that cover.
"They’re gone!" Carly shouted, waking up the entire room as Freddie jumped to the door to see what she was saying. "They’re both just gone!"
"What?!" Freddie said, hoping she would elaborate at least a little for the group. "Who is gone?"
"Spencer… and Jade…" she said, trying to breathe. "I found their car where we told them to stay, but neither of them were in it."
"Are you sure they didn’t just step away for a moment…" Andre said, getting concerned. "Bathroom break or something."
"Yeah…" Freddie jumped in, nodding. "Jade wouldn’t just leave or go somewhere without at least trying to leave notice."
"She didn’t," Carly said, trying to collect herself. "The car was completely empty- no notes or messages. And I called out to them for a good five or ten minutes, walking up and down the road out there."
"Did you at least leave notice for them?" Tori asked, looking for Savanna, hoping that the girl’s father had not suffered a horrible fate like her’s before she was pulled back into Carly’s story.
"Yeah… I told them where to find us if they came back and that we had gotten the killer so it was safe." Carly took a seat on a nearby desk, put-ting her face into her hands. "I just don’t get why my br*ther would just leave the car like that… it wasn’t like anything was messed up so they had to have left on their own."
"Probably…" Freddie said, reaching for his gun and gripping it tight. "But Jade and Spencer are both smart so if they left the car, I’m sure that they had to have had a good reason. I know they are in safe hands with one another."
"Actually…" Tori said, earning all eyes in the room to zero in on her, "I think we should probably talk about something I found."
"Ok…" Freddie said, narrowing his eyes, and hoping this wasn’t horrible news. "Tell us then."
"While Savanna and I were in your dad’s house," she said, taking a deep breath, "we found a pretty thick file…"
"No shit," Sam said, throwing her hands up. "The dude’s house was full of files about the damn Slasher."
"Yeah, but this one wasn’t about him… or her, I guess… it was," Tori was struggling for the words, especially when she looked at Carly. "It was a file on Spencer."
Carly immediately turned her attention to Freddie, her face growing red, "Why would your dad be looking into my br*ther?"
"My dad knew who Spencer was so that’s not really a surprise, though," Freddie said, feeling a pit in his stomach grow. "And maybe it was part of keeping an eye on me."
"There was a mug shot and a number of charges from the Seattle PD in there," Tori said, averting looking at either Carly or Freddie now. "A couple dr*nk and disorderly and one assault in a bar or something. He was even questioned in a murder there. A stabbing that was never solved. Kinda like-"
"Don’t you fucking dare!" Carly screamed, lunging at Tori, stopped by Andre getting into her path. "Those are lies!"
"They aren’t…" Tori said, sounding ashamed of the facts. "They were legit charges, he paid fines and did community service. No actually jail time or anything."
"Why…" Carly said, shaking her head, as if she could get what she’d just heard out of there that way. "Why wouldn’t he have told me about any of that?"
"You think I told Melanie about half the dumb shit I got busted for," Sam asked, cracking her knuckles. "Probably pretty embarrassed about all of those."
"What if-"
Carly’s words were stopped when they saw the holding area doors slowly open, their hearts beating fast enough to burst out of their chests, all turning their attention, and their weapons, toward what was going to come through, but it was just Savanna. Tori rushed to her to pick her up and pre-pare to scold her in the nicest way, but the girl simply looked at Freddie and spoke.
"The lady wants to see you."
* * *
It had taken a few minutes of prep, not only from the others, but also within himself for Freddie to work up the courage to head into the holding cell area and face the woman that had brought immeasurable pain and suffering on everyone he cared about. She looked about the same as when he left, though a little more beat up, and he tried to assume that was delayed bruising and not something that may have happened while he was gone. The woman simply sat on the bench, still bound, and stared at him with a weak grin on her face.
It felt like an eternal staring contest between the two of them until finally Freddie broke.
"What did you do with Spencer and Jade?"
The woman remained completely motionless, staring onward.
"Tell me," he said sternly. "Tell me what you did with the two of them and-"
"WHERE ARE THEY?!"
Freddie spun around to face Carly standing at the door now, staring daggers at the caged woman, a fury building inside the normally perky dark haired girl.
"You’re not going to just turn our group on my br*ther, and think he’s some sicko."
"You did the same thing with my dad," Freddie chimed in, hoping the two of them could elicit a response. "Humiliate and make us question and accuse, and then you kill them. Not gonna happen this time."
"So tell us!" Carly practically screamed before spitting at the woman, which she wiped away with her scraggly hair.
"Why would we ever need to talk about your dad again?" the woman finally asked, her grin turning into a harsh scowl. "The bastard’s dead."
"Then why keep killing?" Freddie asked, narrowing his eyes and gripping the bars. "Why kill us if your whole issue was with my dad?"
The woman doesn’t respond and simply sneers and looks upwards towards the small window as the morning light starts to really pour in.
Carly stares with a fiery hate before doing a quick turn back for the doors, and Freddie began to file out right behind her when the woman’s voice echoed through his ears.
"Because of you."
Both Freddie and Carly stopped in their tracks, but with those words, Freddie had to take a deep breath. He motioned Carly to head back out to the others before he approached the woman once more, grabbing a seat on a bench against the wall.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, staring at her, less angry at this point as he was eager for an answer. "How could any of this be about me?"
"Do you think your father actually loved your mother?" the woman asked, clearly dangling information over his head, baiting him with a curiosity driven question. But as she waited on his answer, he could see the crazy psycho thing seem to slip away a bit, and for the first time, Freddie miraculously saw this woman as vulnerable. "Or did she just shield you away from everything in the world?"
"My mother took care of me, and it doesn’t matter how she did it. She was a great mother. And even though I never knew my dad, I could tell he loved her."
The woman grew silent for several moments, just staring, taking in that answer, and weighing how she should respond. Finally, after shaking her head with a load of indignation, she finally whispered through gritted teeth.
"If they loved you and each other… then why didn’t they tell you whose ch*ld you really were?"
* * *
"You know, as strange as it sounds…" Sam said, pacing the room angrily, "all this shit about Spencer kinda adds up."
"Sam…" Tori said, looking down at Savanna, as if to warn her to tread carefully.
"No…" the blonde said, growing louder. "Spencer’s survived this entire time, despite having plenty of chances to bite it, and who is the only person to be snatched by the killer but not killed? The brat."
"Sam!" Tori said, getting up from her chair.
"I still don’t quite believe it," Carly said, pacing far from Sam in case she had another outburst.
"I don’t want to believe it either, Carls… he’s like a br*ther to me… but think." The blonde tried to calm herself and approach her best friend to at least try and explain the reasoning. "Spencer has been making art projects, sculpting, and doing metalwork for at least a decade now. It’s not a huge leap to say that he could have created or rigged some of the shit we’ve seen so far."
"Yeah, but as my dad used to say," Tori said, looking the blonde in the eyes. "Correlation is not causation. Spencer didn’t know half the people here, and he’d never met Jade’s parents before last week…"
"Yeah," Carly said, trying to weigh what both girls had offered for ‘evidence’ but there was something certainly to what Sam was saying that made her feel very uneasy. "Spencer came here as a k*d, and I don’t think I was even born yet the last time my f*mily came here. Or if I was, I certainly don’t remember this place. He would… maybe know more stuff than we would have…"
Sam seems surprised that the words are falling from Carly’s mouth, but she couldn’t help but nod as she watched Carly put all the pieces together, pointing out that there was a distinct possibility that something more sinister was going on.
* * *
"Fine…" Freddie said, approaching the bars, "I have no problem admitting that my dad wasn’t a very good once since he didn’t even attempt to contact me… and my mom was pretty overbearing and manipulative, but I know that they loved me. I believe whole-heartedly that they would have told me what I needed to know when I was ready."
The woman simply stared at him, with a small smirk. "But would they have told you the truth? About who your parents really are? I loved Bobby and he was a good looking man, but he had some serious flaws. That’s why he’s dead."
"No," Freddie fired back, "he’s dead because some psycho bitch lost her mind and couldn’t handle rejection apparently. If you loved him, why kill him?"
"Because he cheated on me. And the scumbag tore my heart in half… I simply returned the favour," she said, almost smirking at how witty she was. "I mean, what kind of person gives up a good thing with a woman… and then chooses to give up any chance of knowing the very person that he helped create?"
The way the woman would stare at him sometimes really bothered the former tech producer, and he shook his head, trying to shake her glance, but also to understand what she was trying to get to. Suddenly, a horrifying thought crossed his fear addled brain.
"Are you trying to say that you’re my mother?"
"Well," the woman started looking back toward the window for a few moments before shifting her back toward him. "With your incredibly trust-worthy mommy and daddy six feet under, I guess we’ll never know, now will we? But I will say this… if we were talking about my ‘ch*ld’ or ‘ch*ldren’, I wouldn’t stop until my f*mily could truly be together."
* * *
"So we will go out looking for him," Carly said, readying her gun, "but we will NOT, under any circumstance, hurt my br*ther unless we have no other choice. I still believe he’s innocent."
"Fine," Sam said, looking to Andre, who had agreed to stay behind and watch the girls. "But if he tries to attack me, I can’t stop what might hap-pen to him."
"Sam…" Carly said, through gritted teeth, hoping that Sam could keep her temper in check for this one task. "Do what I say, or you can’t come at all."
Sam shook her head and headed for the door to the station and swung it open, coming face to face with the very topic of conversation.
"Spencer?!" Carly said, dropping her gun to her side, and rushing him, but stopping short as he was covered in dirt and some fairly notable scratches. "What…"
"There’s no time," he said, coming to the center of the room.
"Where’s Jade?" Tori asked, petting Savanna’s head, keeping her close in case Spencer was in fact dangerous.
"That’s why I ran here… she fell."
All eyes moved to the lanky man, wondering exactly what that meant.
"From where?" Sam asked, keeping her hand steady on the gun.
"The cliffs out there on the bluffs… She fell, like I said."
"But why…" Carly said, crossing her arms, "would you have left where Freddie told you to stay? No cliffs to fall from on that road."
"I get that… but we need to grab some rope," Spencer said, moving past Sam and Carly, but the blonde stood her ground and snatched the rifle from his hands. "What was that for?"
"We caught the killer, Spencer," she said, getting up to his face. "So you don’t need that gun anymore. Right?"
"I saw your note, so… yeah, I guess not…" he said, looking more confused by the moment. "I really want to know what the heck is going on with you k*ds, but right now I really need some rope and some help because Jade doesn’t have long."
"And if you don’t take us there now," Sam said, pushing his own rifle into his back. "She might just have more time than you do."
"What the heck is going on?" Freddie said, emerging from the holding cells and looking completely drained of bl**d, but he couldn’t care less how he looked if it meant getting answers on Jade. Freddie, in his fragile state, rushed Spencer and pinned him to a wall, almost screaming "Where’s Jade?"
"I told them she fell from a cliff out there near the bluffs. She was able to hang on, but I don’t know how long she has so we need to get some rope and head back out there. But apparently, I’m a suspect or something. C’mon man…" Spencer pleaded, seeing the rage in his former neighbours’ eyes, "you know that’s not me."
"But Spencer, there have been some questions, and-"
"Is she dead?!" Freddie said, interrupting Carly and levelling his rifle at the thin man. "Did you kill her?!"
"No!" he shouted back, seeing the crazed look he never expected to see in Freddie’s eyes. "She fell… and we need to hurry. Believe or not, I don’t care, but we need to go now if we want to save her."
Freddie grew silent, narrowing his eyes at Spencer with such hatred, even he was a bit surprised at how he jumped to anger so fast. The words of the woman in the cell just rattling around his brain, and he prayed it wasn’t true.
"You’re going to take me there, and we are going to save my fiancée," Freddie said sternly, lowering his weapon at long last. "But if she’s not there…"
Before he could finish his threat, Carly and Sam got beside the two of them, eyeing one another before Carly finally spoke. "We’re going with you two…"
"Can I at least go hug my daughter before you take me off for execution," Spencer half joked, but the serious look in all of their eyes made it seem that now was not a joking manner. He rushed Savanna and gave her a huge hug and kissed the young girl’s forehead. "I promise I will be back soon, ok?" he whispered.
"Ok daddy… I’ll be waiting," she said softly, and nuzzled her face into his neck, trying not to cry.
* * *
Thanks to the rush of adrenaline, for a number of reasons, the four of them made it to the bluffs in almost no time, despite the fact that it took three as long for them to get to and from the spot before. And while Freddie had immediately believed the worst when he saw the scratches all over Spencer’s arms and neck, given how many stickers, barbs, and thorns they all faced in the woods, it made a lot more sense.
They approached the cliff and took turns calling out Jade’s name but there was no response, or even any sign of the former Goth Freddie started to climb down, but Spencer stopped him.
"The rocks are way too slick… that’s how she fell in the first place."
"Fell…" Sam repeated with her critical eyebrow raised. "So why didn’t you just try and find a safer way to get down there?"
"I tried," Spencer said, putting his hands up for surrender nearly immediately, "but I couldn’t find anything to get close to her, so I just went back to the car for some supplies. Saw Carly’s note and then I came to you guys…"
"Bullshit!" Freddie said, stomping toward Spencer.
"It looks like there’s a ledge around the bottom part there…" Carly said, still focused on the cliffs. "It’s entirely possible that she got down too far out and thanks to the water’s sound, she can’t hear us any more than we can see her. It would be a lucky fall if that happened though."
"Do you mean fall," Sam said, eyeing between Carly and Spencer, "or do you mean pushed?"
* * *
"So I’ve got half a candy bar, a jar of unsalted peanuts, and two Pop Tarts…"
"I’ll take the candy bar, Mr Andre!" Savanna said, reaching out for the food he’d found.
"Nothing for me, I guess," Tori said, sighing heavily. "Is that stuff even sanitary to eat?"
"Honestly," Andre taking a huge chunk from one of the pop tarts, "I don’t even care… I’d eat almost anything at this point."
"Me too," Savanna said, grabbing the other pop tart, having made incredibly short work of the candy bar. "I’m starving. So what’s gonna happen to the lady?"
"Well…" Tori said, looking to Andre, unsure how direct she needed to be, and whether to factor in her emotions. "The police will come, and they will take her away, and she will have a trial, and then-"
"Will she die for what she did?" the girl asked, biting on the edges of the stale toaster pastry like a little mouse.
"Umm… maybe," Andre said softly. "I don’t know if Washington has the death penalty, but either way she will never be free again, because she will at least spend the rest of her life in jail."
"Ok…" she said softly. "Can I have some of those nuts Mr Andre? I’m so hungry."
"I can imagine, Tori said, amazed at how much the young ch*ld was putting away. "It’s probably been a few days since any of us really got to eat anything."
"Not really… I still ate really well in the tunnels."
Both Andre and Tori’s eyes just shifted back over to the young girl. "What do you mean you ate down there?" Tori asked.
"The lady would bring me food to eat, and stuff to drink. And when the two of us were playing, her helper would come and bring some food for me."
"Someone else was down there?!" Tori exclaimed, nearly jumping from her chair. "Did you ever see them?"
"No…" Savanna said, clearly showing shame that she should have told this earlier. "I did hear footsteps though. They echoed."
Tori started to get angry but she felt her long-time friend’s hand on hers as he gave her a look telling her to calm down, and she slowly started to breathe.
"Guess that means someone is actually helping the killer out," he said, closing his eyes for a second and trying not to lose his mind with fear. "Wonder who that could be…"
* * *
It took a few minutes, but Freddie, Carly, Sam, and Spencer had finally managed to find a path where they could climb down from the cliff fairly easily. But as their feet hit the rocky surface below, so did their hopes of finding the missing bride-to-be. No sooner had Spencer finally reached the bottom, Freddie and Sam were already on top of him.
"Where is she?!" he said, almost growling into Spencer’s frightened face.
"I don’t-"
"Fuck your bullshit, Spencer…" Sam said, her shotgun pointed right at his face. "I might have just grazed your partner, but I can’t miss from four feet away…"
"I’m sorry, but I don’t have any idea where she is!" Spencer cried out.
"Spencer, I don’t know what the game is here," Freddie said sternly, raising his gun with Sam’s, "but I swear, if you don’t tell me where Jade is right now, I will shoot you."
"STOP!" Carly exclaimed, jumping into the middle of the four of them. "Everyone needs to calm down."
"Don’t tell me to calm down!" Freddie said, looking Carly in the eyes and pointing the gun in her direction. "She’s missing and whether he killed or whatever… it’s his fault."
"I’m not going to let you kill my br*ther for something like that…" Carly said, looking into Freddie’s eyes and pushing the gun down, and eyeing Sam who was keeping her focus locked on Spencer. "You wouldn’t kill the woman after all she did, but you are seriously… on just a suspicion?"
Freddie stared at her and lowered his weapon for a moment, but raised it again to keep it trained on Spencer.
"I wanted to kill the bitch so that bullshit won’t work on me, Shay," Sam said, sneering at her best friend’s br*ther with incredibly ill intent. "Admit it… you killed Jade."
"I didn’t kill anybody," he pleads, sinking to his knees, and on the verge of tears. "Why would I kill anybody?"
"We could ask your partner, who is now rotting in a jail cell, no thanks to you," the blonde fired back.
"Stop it!" Carly said, now getting in front of Sam. "This is what she wanted. For us to tear each other apart."
"If he gave the answers we wanted, we wouldn’t have to tear him apart," Sam said, locking eyes with Carly, completely ready to shoot at any moment.
"You guys have known Spencer for over a decade, nearly 20 years for you Sam," Carly said, her eyes pleading with her best friend for her to find some reason. "He’s not capable-"
"Get out of the way," Freddie growled, raising his gun up once more and aiming it at Spencer. "He has to pay for what he did to Jade, and if he won’t tell us, then he’s left us no-"
"Hello?!"
All four of them simultaneously looked up at a cliff several yards away and saw someone standing there, and Freddie dropped his gun right then and just bolted, without a word to the others. That voice, and that figure illuminated by the growing sun was all he could have helped to hear and feel.
"Jade!" he called out, climbing the rocks, and cutting his hands a bit, without a care, eager to reach his love, and in a matter of moments, Freddie had gone from mourning her death, to avenging it, to holding her in his arms tighter than either of them could take. "I… thought-"
"For a while, I thought so too," Jade said, snuggling into his neck. "I fell from the rocks, and Spencer tried to help me, but-"
"Shit…" he said, sighing heavily and refusing to look into her eyes. "He was telling the truth."
"Of course he was…" she said, grabbing his chin to make him face her. "Spencer tried his best to save me, but he couldn’t without falling too, so I told him to go for help. Lost my grip and I slid down a bit further until I almost hit the water."
"But you’re ok?" he said, touching her shoulders.
"Besides a couple scuffed hands, but-"
"Are you two just going to live up there or what?!"
The two lost lovers stared down at Sam calling out to them, standing with Carly and Spencer, who seemed to be keeping his distance from the blonde and wouldn’t look up at Freddie.
"We’re coming down!" Jade called back. "But keep walking along the beach there… I found something."
Freddie took her hand and led her down the way, which was a much safer way to get up and down he quickly realized, with far less climbing and scr*ping, and she refused to tell him what she found until the group was all together. Hand in hand they walked together to meet the others, and Freddie had never felt better and worse at the same time because of what had just happened.
"So," Jade began earning the attention of the other four immediately, "as I was heading around the cove, I found a shack or a boathouse that looked abandoned."
"Great… now we have a place for the winter," Sam said sardonically, rolling her eyes.
"Shut up," Jade shot back, having little patience for her right now. "The point is… it has a radio. I couldn’t get it tuned right but still. An honest to God working radio…"
Freddie’s eyes widened as he embraced his fiancée and squeezed her tight, kissing her cheek. "So we can…"
"Call for help," Jade said, smiling to everyone standing before her. "We finally have a chance to get off this island."
Sam wasted no time, pulling ahead of everyone as Jade attempted to lead the way to the boathouse, holding Freddie tight while Spencer and Carly were at the rear. The older Shay held his s*ster’s shoulder and kissed her head whispering a small thanks to the girl who always had a way of looking out for him even if she was the younger sibling.
After several minutes of impatient walking, Sam finally saw the boathouse and began sprinting toward it, followed closely by the other four. Even though the place was bit rickety, there was no question that the place still had some power, and the radio was working.
"There’s got to be a channel for the Coast Guard," Spencer said, moving past the others, feeling very unsafe being too close by Sam or Freddie. "We might be able to broadcast out if we could just find the right frequency."
"Shouldn’t be too hard…" Sam said, slowly approaching. "Maybe adjust the antennae or something?"
"The antennae is fine," he said, practically grunting at the blonde, pushing her back from him and the radio. "Mayday, mayday, this is Schneider’s Island… If there’s anyone out there, we need help."
Sam started to say something snarky but Carly pre-emptively shushed her and let her br*ther work the radio in peace. The blonde couldn’t help but feel like there was still something very wrong here and nothing about Spencer was adding up.
Once she felt like Sam would sit and stay, Carly headed over to Freddie and Jade who were standing near the door, whispering back and forth to one another, giving the updates on the situation so far.
"Freddie," the former web star said sternly, pulling him from Jade for a few moments, and gritting her teeth as she spoke. "What the hell was that out there?"
"I’m sorry, Carls…" he said, looking like a dog who’d just been caught messing up the carpet. "It was Jade… and then we had our fears about Spencer back at the station, the file Tori found, and then nothing about the cliff thing making sense, and-"
"But it was true, Freddie… Jade was safe, and he was just trying to help her."
"I know, and I’m sorry… I overreacted for sure. But the way that woman was talking, it made me-"
"What did she say to you after I left?" Carly hurriedly asked.
"Just that-"
"What’s going on, guys?" Jade said, sliding into the conversation. "Freddie said the bitch is locked up… why are you guys fighting?"
"We’re not fighting…" Freddie said with a sigh before looking around the room to see if Spencer was close enough to hear. "Back at my dad’s house, Tori found a file on Spencer, and-"
"All of which happened before he even came to this island," Carly objected, interrupting his train of thought.
"Right," he said, "and when he showed up and said you two left the car, and then we couldn’t find you… there was just a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that he could be involved somehow."
"He was nothing but nice and protective of me when we were in the car, and we went to go check on a boat he saw… and while looking I fell. I mean," Jade said, tucking her dark brown hair behind her ear, "if the killer is behind bars now, what do we have to worry about?"
"Well, he said you fell off a cliff, which seemed pretty far-fetched at the time," Freddie retorted, trying to defend his stance. "And then we couldn’t find you."
"Are you sure it was an accident?" Carly asked, trying to cover her bases as well as possible.
"I think so…" Jade said, trying to rethink those moments. "I was stepping out, and I felt my feet slide on a slick one and his hands went to my back… Honestly, it all kinda happened fast."
"Did he act weird or make you uncomfortable at all while you two were together?"
"No, Freddie…" Jade said, giving him a look to let her know that she was fine and to stop asking questions, but the looks shifted a bit as she re-called a few of the things he did that were a little odd, like taking her gun when she slept. "Well, actually-"
"COME IN SCHNEIDER’S, COME IN SCHNEIDER’S… THIS IS THE COAST GUARD. WE READ YOU."
Spencer nearly leaped toward the mic on the radio so he could speak to them.
"Yes, thank you Coast Guard… this is Schneider’s. We have an emergency."
"WHAT’S THE STATE OF YOUR EMERGENCY, SCHNEIDER’S?"
"A lot of people…" Spencer said, as if all of this was hitting him all at once, "Have died here. Murdered. And we got the guy in a cell here, but we have no way of getting any help."
"DO YOU HAVE ANY INJURED?"
"Nothing serious," he replied looking over everyone standing around. "We really just need to get off and the police."
"ALRIGHT SCHNEIDER’S, I’VE GOT POLICE AND RESCUE SHIPS ON THE WAY, BUT WITH THIS WEATHER, IT COULD BE A FEW HOURS."
"That’s great… thank you so much."
"WE’LL BE ON OUR WAY ONCE THE WEATHER CLEARS BUT SOMEONE NEEDS TO STAY WITH THE RADIO FOR FURTHER IN-STRUCTIONS."
"Yes, sir," Spencer replied, dropping the mic piece. He looked back to the others, who were practically jumping for joy, two of which just threatened to murder him less than an hour ago, but he was so elated that he didn’t even care.
* * *
"Do it again!" Savanna called out as she watched her new friend Andre fake singing into a mop handle, as the young girl and Tori clapped their hands.
It was a strange feeling, which offered some light-hearted moments since the nerves of the two adults had been on nonstop edge for days now. Andre had searched the closets for anything to pass the time, but more specifically something to eat. The mop, among a few other cleaning sup-plies were all he could find, and in a rare moment of being caught fake singing, Savanna had now f*rced him to put on a mini show for her and Tori two or three times now.
"I will… you just gotta give me a second, baby girl," the tired musician said, collapsing into a chair.
"When was the last time you slept, Andre?" Tori asked, the smile starting to disappear from both their faces.
"Ummm…"He said looking up at the ceiling for a few moments. "Been a while… can’t really remember. Three days ago, I think. Been just too afraid to close my eyes, I guess."
"Aside from a couple catnaps, I guess the same goes for me," the singer said curling her hair back over her ear.
"Well, I-"
"Do you think the lady was always a bad lady?" Savanna interrupted, turning in Tori’s lap to face Andre.
"Sweetie, I don’t really know…" Tori said, searching for how to respond to this bizarre left field question. "We don’t know her or anything about her."
"I mean," Andre said, the words just tumbling out without much thought behind them, "sometimes bad stuff happens to people and it just changes them. Some people might just be born bad, but we really just don’t know. She may have always been evil, or maybe she had a perfect life and then one day snapped and began… this whole thing."
* * *
The five rejoiced in the boathouse, and after a few moments to collect themselves that the nightmare was finally over, they decided they needed to prepare.
"I will stay here with the radio," Sam said, crossing her arms and moving toward the bench with the radio. "Not like I have anything better to do."
"I have to go grab Savanna," Spencer said, and then finished the statement as if it was an after thought, "… and Tori and Andre as well."
"That’s a pretty long way to go alone, so I’ll go with you," Carly chimed in, feeling as if any of the others accompanying him would not exactly be the safest thing.
"Then Jade and I will head to the inn and grab our bags," Freddie said, not wanting to leave her side ever again. "Since we already packed to leave once, it shouldn’t be too hard to get them all."
"Then I guess that’s the plan," Spencer said, eyeing the others and he and Carly headed out the door, but before she left, Sam pulled her aside for a moment.
"Don’t trust him…" she whispered. "I know you’re mad at me, but something is seriously not right here,"
Carly nodded, and raced off to catch up with her br*ther, leaving Sam to give the same speech to Freddie and Jade before they left her all alone in the abandoned boathouse.
* * *
The woman couldn’t hear the conversation going on in the station but she could hear the voices, and given how focused they seemed to be on each other, the time finally seemed right. Slowly, she worked her fingers over the tool that she’d been given since her surprise capture.
She worked the small razor blade up and down the leather belts that were binding her hands, knowing it was just a matter of time before she got through them, and her mission could be resumed.
* * *
Jade could not believe what she was feeling at this moment. An hour ago she was alone and wet and dirty and fearing for her life, but now… well, she was still wet, but it was the best kind- the kind that comes from a hot shower. As the water completely covered her frame with its almighty shots, she began to almost get chills from how much she had missed this. There wasn’t much hot water left, but since Freddie had opted for just ‘washing up’ it was hers and hers alone.
She lathered each and every part of her pale bod, never feeling like she could truly be clean from what she had experienced, but she was deter-mined to keep trying, as her hands moved up her body, her thumbs sliding across her hardened peaks, she felt a very different kind of shiver, and she remembered that there was a very different kind of wet she loved and that it had been far too long since Freddie had touched her.
"Knock, knock," Freddie said, as if her dirty thoughts had summoned him.
"Yeah?" she said, pulling back the curtain and revealing her naked body that Freddie still had a tough time looking at and not thanking God above for his fortune. And Jade knew it, and had no issue when, even now, he would forget words or lose himself just admiring her figure.
"Umm… I, uh…" he scrambled. "I packed up your bag, and it’s on the bed, so if you want to check it when you’re done, I’m gonna grab everyone’s bags… or at least the bags for the 8 of us. Guess the others won’t really need theirs…"
"Alright… just be careful."
Jade wasn’t sure if it was a bad joke or if it was a sudden realization, but Freddie quickly left the steamy bathroom, and his fiancée, in a hurry. Which now left the former Goth to take in his words, and for the first time in a while, she felt herself begin to cry as the reality took hold once more.
Once she had collected herself, she got out of the shower, and stared at herself in the mirror, seeing minor scratches and the toll a lack of sl*ep and nutrition was having on her face, but was thankful for everything being alright. Wrapping a towel around herself, she headed to the suitcase and slowly unzipped it. Inside she saw the neat packing of the man who should be on a honeymoon with her at this exact moment.
Jade rifled through a few shirts and pants, looking for something comfortable, when something caught her eye- the dress. Her dress. And in that moment, no other piece of fabric existed.
* * *
"You can tell me what all those files were about, Spencer," Carly said, trailing behind her br*ther, who had been mostly silent since the celebration at the boathouse. "You’re my br*ther, and I trust you."
"Carls, I-"
"I jumped in front of a gun for you… the least you can do is tell me why you have a record."
The lanky man took a deep sigh and stared at the ground, slowing his steps down for a few moments. "It shouldn’t matter. I just made some mistakes, but I put that behind me. I had Savanna, you know… had to grow up."
"Spencer, you raised me for like… 20 years, with dad being in and out of the picture, so don’t play that card with me."
"Ugh…" he said, finally stopping and turning to face her. "Fine. After you went to college, I was working on a couple sculptures, drinking a bit, and I went to a junkyard, not really thinking, and it turned out someone owned the junk in question, so I got arrested on trespassing and theft. Slapped with a really light sentence of community service, thanks to a judge who’s granddaughter was a fan of you, which I was kind of already doing, and that was it."
"But what about the murder?" Carly asked, holding her breath for this answer as it made all the difference.
"It was really nothing. I was sl*eping off a bad night in a truck, and something went down, and I was questioned, but I was nowhere near any of it. Like I said, nothing came of any of this stuff." Spencer turned back around and began walking once again.
"And what about you coming to this island a couple years ago?"
"Oh, yeah…" Spencer stopped again, this time to retie his shoe on a tree. "I came here and tried to get some inspiration from nature since I remembered coming here as a k*d. The smell of fish lingering all over an island is not exactly inspiration. I was gone within a day."
"Ok," Carly said softly, breathing a deep sigh. "That’s all I needed to hear."
"Of course, k*ddo," Spencer said with a smile and mussed up her hair a little before leading the charge toward his daughter once more.
***
"Pretty sure this takes care of everyone’s stuff," Freddie said, dragging bags and suitcases through the door frame, with his back to Jade’s bed-room. "Though I’m not sure-"
The Seattle born young man was frozen in his tracks, as he turned around, and all the bl**d rushed from his face. What stood in the bedroom doorway was like something out of a dream- Jade in her wedding dress.
Jade was standing there, with her hair still damp and up in a ponytail, but the rest seemed like it couldn’t be real, her shoulders and upper chest were completely bare, with a deep cleavage that made his mouth water. But what made his eyes water was the rest of it. Besides the dip in the middle, her torso was topped with rounded area from the strapless dress coming down tightly around her stomach and abdomen. The dress ruffled out below that, not creating much of a train or a ball gown effect, but something simple and sleek.
"Do you like it?" he heard Jade say, but the words to respond just couldn’t find their way to his tongue. "I guess I can take that as a yes?"
Freddie simply nodded and dropped his bags and approached her, with deep intention. She met his movements, and raised her hands to his face to grip his cheek and neck while his lips crashed into hers. For a split second, nothing else mattered for either of them, and they just fell into each other. Their tongues simultaneously snaked their way into the other’s mouth as Freddie’s hands slipped to her bare collarbone. He began to paw at her milky skin, and pulled away slightly from her lips so he could place gentle kisses along the soft and welcoming flesh. Jade simply held his head still, gripping his hair in her fingers and rubbing her cheek against the side of his head.
"I’m not wearing anything underneath here…" she whispered, kissing the edge of his ear.
As he moved back up, his soft kisses deepened on her neck, becoming deep and a couple times, she wondered if he was going to leave a mark on her. But her fears slipped away as he led them back to the bedroom and they collapsed on the bed.
* * *
"You can’t tell me that Cinderella is a weirder story than that!"
Andre and Savanna were sitting face to face and while the young girl had been talking incessantly, the two adults had been trying to rest, but as Savanna transitioned from talking about Hansel and Gretel, Andre felt the need to jump into the conversation.
"Yes, huh," she said, her eyes wide with offense, as if to ask how dare he suggest such a thing. "Cinderella has magic in it, and the magic stops working, and she still gets the guy. You could make a house out of candy."
"Yeah… but the woman in the house was a witch, who used magic to make the house," Andre retorted, knowing fairy tales in and out since his grandmother read them to him all the time growing up. "Cinderella would go the same way without the magic really. Girl just loses a shoe."
"But it’s a prince that finds it and then goes searching… it’s just not real."
"Yeah, but," Andre shook his head, "So is the candy house or witches, so-"
"AAHHHHHHHH!"
"What-" Andre was startled by Savanna’s scream, and tried to speak as he spun around, but he moved right into the path of the killer woman who punched him right into the throat.
Tori was immediately shaken from the scream, and leaped from the chair to grab Savanna to protect her from the now loose menace. "Come on!" she shouted as the two climbed over a desk to escape the woman.
While she was charging toward the defenceless girls, Andre had regained his composure and jumped on the woman’s back using his arm to strangle her into submission.
"Run!" he shouted at them, just before she managed to throw a punch behind her and nail the musician right in the nose. He was startled for only a second, but it gave the woman a chance to free herself, and again made her way for the seemingly paralyzed girls, but Andre was not done, lunging for her again.
This time however, she managed to dodge him, and using the belt that she had freed herself from, she wrapped it around his neck, strangling him. Andre fought her and through strained breathing screamed out again.
"RUN!"
This time the girls followed his orders, which distracted the woman long enough for him to get up and throw her on his back toward a nearby wall, followed by another one, and then another until finally, after throwing her hard enough against a fuse box that it opened, her grip had finally loosened.
Andre threw a strong punch into her stomach, and while it did seem to slow her down, she wasn’t as affected as he could have hoped for. His hope increased however when Tori came back into sight and she was holding a rifle, her hands shaking with fear. She tried to aim for the woman, she couldn’t see a way to shoot her without hitting Andre as well.
The woman regained her strength and tackled Andre again, scratching at his eyes, but the fairly athletic black male, dodged and threw an old coffee cup at her head, missing, and shattering near where Tori was standing.
Andre raced for her, so he could grab the gun, but the woman pushed him into a desk, and he lost his balance, falling at Tori’s feet.
"Just give it to me, and get out of here!"
Tori handed him the gun as she took Savanna and just ran out the doors. Andre silently prayed for her as he aimed the rifle at the woman, but couldn’t get a shot off before she lunged at him, with a glass ashtray in hand. While he dodged the first couple thrusts she made with it, as he tried to kick her off of him, he was left defenceless and she hit him across the temple.
For a moment, everything became extremely blurry for Andre, as he tried to stand up and face her, knowing this is how Nate would have never given up either, and as he threw wild punches at what he could barely see, he felt something wet against his chest, pushing him backwards.
It wasn’t until he felt the metal box at the back of his head that his senses finally returned to him, understanding that he was standing next to the fuse box, and unfortunately, his last sight was the woman thrusting the mop at his face.
The woman dropped the mop as soon as it made contact, because at that point the job was done, even as she watched his body convulse and shake as smoke began to appear and his dark skin blackened even further, until finally, his body dropped, and continued to sizzle at her feet.
Nursing her own head injury, the woman slowly made her way from the building to chase after the other two.
* * *
When Freddie and Jade kissed after what was arguably their most passionate lovemaking session in a long time, they weren’t sure if minutes or hours had gone by, but it certainly felt like the Earth had shifted quite a bit. The entire time they had been in locked embrace, making love with-out the dress leaving her body, Freddie would touch her stomach ever so often, softly. When he did it again while they were in afterglow, Jade had to speak up.
"I’m ok, you know."
"I know…" he said, looking into her eyes. "I just couldn’t help but think that with everything that has happened, that something might have gone wrong. That stress or stuff like that can really hurt people and cause… bad things to happen."
Jade knew he meant the word ‘miscarriage’, but neither of them had even wanted to spend a second thinking about that possibility. The truth was, she didn’t actually know if she was alright. It was far too early to tell anyway, but the hell this island had put on her mind and body could certain-ly put that possibility into question.
"Thank you, though" she said softly.
"Well, thank you for finding us a way off this rock. You saved us all, Jade."
"But you’re the one who has kept all of us safe," she replied, giving his cheek a small kiss. "You were like our leader, and you weren’t afraid, and everyone who is alive has you to thank for it."
"I don’t know about that," he smiled, almost blushing, "but-"
CRASSSSSSHHHHHH
The couple sat up in bed, their emotional honeymoon over, and began looking around. Freddie threw on his jeans and headed for his gun near the doorway. Jade moved toward the bathroom, where she felt safest.
"Look," he whispered to her. "As much as I never want to stop seeing you in that dress, you need to get changed. I’m going to go check it out, but if I’m not back in like two minutes, you need to climb from the window and just run to the boathouse."
Jade simply nodded as Freddie silently opened the door and slipped out, leaving Jade all alone once more, as she searched her suitcase for some-thing to wear.
* * *
"How far do you think we are?" Carly asked, her legs beginning to ache.
"At least another five minutes," he replied, and was going to speak again, when he heard rustling heading their way.
He and Carly took a hide behind a couple of trees to just listen out, but they didn’t have to wait long to find out the identity of the loud noise. Spencer moved from behind the tree and nearly scared Tori to death, but when Carly moved up beside him, she felt a bit more relief.
"Ohmygod…" the singer barely managed, trying to catch her breath. "The woman… she’s loose."
"What?!" Carly exclaimed. "How?!"
"I don’t know…" Tori said, "She just burst out and we ran."
"What about…" Spencer asked, but he didn’t have to finish the question to know the answer, which made him even more upset. "Ok, look… there’s a boathouse straight down this path, and it will take a while but when you come to the car in the road, take a left and then head down a hill. Sam is in the boathouse on the radio, and you can stay with her. I doubt she’ll try and shoot either of you."
Carly understood his lead, and handed Tori her gun. "You guys need some protection either way. Spencer and I will go check it out and we will meet back at the boathouse."
Savanna rushed to Spencer’s leg and squeezed her father tight, before the lanky man picked his daughter up and kissed her forehead and whispered, "You’re gonna be fine. Daddy will be back real soon, alright?"
Savanna weakly nodded with her lower lip outstretched before Tori took her back and the girls held hands and headed down the path while Spencer’s face shifted from sweet and loving to dark and hate-filled as he gripped his rifle tight and headed toward the station, ready to kill anything that got in the way of protecting his daughter.
* * *
Before Jade could even get the dress off, there was a noise at her window, and she didn’t care if it was the killer or a squirrel; she was getting the fuck out of that room.
"Freddie!" she called out, throwing open the door and starting down the stairs. "Where are you?!"
"Here," he said, appearing from the kitchen area, looking annoyed that he was disturbed. "You ok?"
"Yeah…" she said, wondering if it was a mistake to make a big deal out of a noise. "I heard something against the window up there."
"Babe," he said, coming to hold her in his arms, "I’m sure it’s-"
CRASH
"… Something that we should leave on," he finished, clearly in a different mind-set than where he began. "Let’s get to the boathouse and give Spencer and the girls the head’s up."
Taking Jade’s hand, he pulled her toward the doors, barely caring about the bags any longer, and raced toward the boat house. The bride to be was struggling to move, as the dress, though free and comfortable, was not exactly built to run in as she did her best to keep up with him. She nearly tripped a couple times, but he managed to hold her up, and the couple slowly lost any luster of hope and happiness with each step they took away from their ‘marital’ bed.
* * *
"Just want you to know k*ddo that I’m super proud of you."
Carly looked up at her br*ther who had slowed his pace down so they could walk side by side as he spoke.
"Thanks… but why?"
"Because…" he said, reaching over to her shoulder, "you have been incredibly brave, and kind, and you have been one of the most rational and level headed people here. I mean, I have been a wreck, and losing Amy, and then dad, and all that time with Savanna… I was a mess. That’s why I’m not really mad at Freddie for losing it on the beach back there. I get it, but you’ve been super calm and I think that is amazing."
"Thanks, Spencer. You were always a great br*ther to me," she said, feeling heat on her cheeks and trying not to blush from the compliment.
"See, that’s the thing though…" he said, pulling her close. "After you went to school, I feel like I didn’t do much of anything. I have always been a big screw-up and you’ve always been there to help me, so I think that’s why I spiralled out when you left. And I guess I forget sometimes that you were always the better one of the two of us. I mean, you gave up your gun without even thinking when we ran across Tori and Savanna. I couldn’t dream of losing this thing with the killer back on the loose, which I can’t fathom."
"I know… I can’t believe it took her that long to cut through those belts."
"Yeah, I know…" Spencer said before he actually listened to what she had just said, releasing her. "Wait… what?"
"I slipped her that razor blade this morning, right after we grabbed her," Carly said plainly. "As sharp as it was, I don’t know why it took hours for her to finally get loose."
Spencer had stopped cold and looked at her, cocking his head to the side to try and figure out what she was talking about.
"Sam was right about everything," she continued. "That woman had been getting help this whole time, but it wasn’t you, as you’re already aware."
"No…" he said, slowly shaking his head, preparing himself for the punch line of this crazy prank. "No… Come on, Carly…"
A swift kick to the back of his knee sent her lanky br*ther to the ground, kneeling in front of her. Taking a good grip of his dark hair with one hand, she reached into her pocket and flicked her wrist, releasing the glimmering blade from its cocoon. Realizing at this point that this was not an elaborate joke, he began to struggle, but she pressed the sharpened blade against his throat.
"Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, Spencer," she said, nonchalantly. "Believe me, I don’t like doing this anymore than you do."
"Carly… no…" he pleaded, tears beginning to run down his face. "You don’t have to do this… Just… please… stop… you aren’t a killer."
"Technically, that’s not entirely true…" she said, sliding the blade across his throat. "I’ve actually killed a few people. Had to train on some throw-away bodies of course- cadavers, bums, smoothie salesmen… the types no one would miss. Killing dad though… or your dad at least… that was probably the toughest one. It used to burn me up that he never told me about my mom, so I decided to return the favour."
"Why?" he weakly said, fearing that this all was over.
"Hahaha…" she laughed, pulling the knife’s flat end to his chin as he winced, waiting for the end. "Because life isn’t fair. But you don’t have to worry because the rest of your life is in my hands. You can leave it all to me…"
With that she jerked the knife across his sweat covered neck, getting deep enough to sever the jugular. Carly pushed him away from her so not to get any bl**d on her or raise any suspicion, as she watched him wriggle on the ground. After almost a minute, his jerking ceased and he was still.
Carly stared at her ‘br*ther’s’ body and just pondered this entire week, and believed that she had rid herself of the hardest kill yet, so now fulfilling her dream would be much easier. Just a few people left to pick off now. Hearing noises, Carly quickly put her theatre face on and prepared her act in case someone stumbled upon her over Spencer’s body. She was, however, quickly relieved to see it was the one person she didn’t have to put on the act for.
The woman slowly moved down the hill and stood by the former web star putting her hand on Carly’s shoulder and kissing the top of her head as she whispered.
"I love you too, Mom," Carly whispered back.