The Love Club

Chapter 2: The Tease

It was a long way down.

I thought the drop would end in an instant. Just like when you ride a roller coaster and everything builds up to that main drop in the end and you almost get disappointed at how instantaneously everything ends. It wasn't like that. I remember holding onto the hazel eyed girl's hands so tightly on the way down and almost feeling awkward that we weren't dead yet.

I had expected her to flail in the air and scream in fear, but she didn't. Her mouth was slightly agape and had her arms spread out, it looked like she was going in to hug the fate that was about to come upon her. I was more afraid of her calamity than of the death waiting for me.

I can remember everything until the moment we hit the water. From the moment our bodies collided with the water my memory goes blank. I can't manage to recall anything that happened in the water or anything after that.

I thought I was dead. Hell, I wanted to be dead. After a massive adrenaline rush and all that buildup of tension, some kind of release is absolutely necessary. Death was the orgasm of my life at this point, but it seemed like life wanted to tease me and didn't let me have it quite yet.

There was a moment when two cords seemed to connect in my head and zap me back to life.

I was alive.

Fuck.

I opened my eyes and all I saw was orange. Maybe I'm in hell, I thought to myself. I squinted at this abnormity until I realized that it was just the color of sky; the sun was setting. I brought my hands up to my eyes to inspect them. One, two, three, four and five. I had all my fingers at least. I started touching my face. Forehead, nose, mouth, two eyes and two ears. Face is still intact. I'm still in my own body.

I sat fully upright and tried to lean my body weight on my hands but felt a tang of pain on my left arm. The pain quickly crescendo-ed it's way up and started throbbing. I reached over to inspect it when I felt a cool breeze on my chest. My shirt was gone. I still had my leather jacket on, but I was completely nude underneath it. Utterly confused, I frantically began to search the area around me for where it could have gone.

"Your arm" I suddenly heard a voice say. The hazel eyed girl was sitting across from me, rubbing sticks together in attempt to kindle a fire. Her hair was dripping wet and she had a massive rip in the sleeve of her shirt.

I froze and looked up at her, "my arm" I repeated, dumbfoundedly, again.

She looked over at me and nodded her head towards it.

"There was blood coming out of your arm. If I end up having to throw away your dead body I'd prefer it not be bleeding all over me, so I took off your shirt and bandaged it. It probably got cut from one of the LC traps while you were climbing over the barbed wire. Your leather jacket prevented it from getting it cut too deep, lucky you."

I stared at her. "Barbed wire." I repeated, still having not come all the way back to earth.

"Yeah, the one you illegally trespassed."

I was still in quite a daze. I felt like a metronome, ticking back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness. I tried to piece things together: I had just gotten out of the LCR and hopped onto the bus to travel to the dam... but then what? how did I end up on the beach?

I looked over to the hazel eyed girl sitting in front of me in hopes for answers, but she minded her own business and kept trying to get a fire going. This girl really doesn't seem to talk much, I thought to myself, when the memory of jumping off of the dam with her suddenly resurfaced, and everything fell back into place. I tried to kill her along with me when I jumped off of the dam, and we somehow managed to survive the fall and landed up on the shore of some island. 

Yikes.

If some magical spirit came down and presented me with two choices: either to be shot dead by the hazel eyed girl on the dam, or manage to survive the fall and face an excruciating amount of awkward tension like now, I would have no doubt chosen to be shot dead. It would be like if one of Jack the Ripper's decapitated bodies got up and said 'oh hey, actually, I'm still alive. I'm so-and-so, nice to meet you.' What are you supposed to do in the situation? I bet even Jack the Ripper would have felt awkward. Which made me realize, I still didn't know the name of this infamous hazel eyed girl.

"So," I squeaked, "what's your name?"

She looked up at me, her long ponytail swinging down her shoulder. After lifting up an eyebrow and glaring into my soul, she ignored me and proceeded to try to get a fire going. She doesn't need a gun to kill me, only her eyes. 

Good Lord this is so painful, I thought to myself, rubbing the sand off of my hands, preparing myself to leave the situation. I cleared my throat and stood up, "Hey, I'm gonna go try and find out where we are. You can um, stay here if you want."

As I started to walk away I heard her voice from behind me.

"Penelope" she said, "My name is Penelope. I have absolute no interest in getting to know you whatsoever, as you're some crazy I.D. girl that tried to murder me, but I figured since we're probably gonna have to spend quite some time with each other figuring how to get home, you might as well know what to address me as. Also, zip up your jacket. We may be on an island but I'd say it's a little too soon to become uncivilized barbaric creatures."

Embarrassed and flustered, I zipped up my leather jacket in a complete frantic and fell over one of the rocks while trying to doing so.

I could almost feel her rolling her eyes.

I heard her throw the sticks away and slam her hand on the sand. The sound of her footsteps started to get louder and, next thing I knew, she was pulling me up from the ground by the collar of my jacket and defiantly stared into my eyes. "You're fucking hopeless" she spat, "you've put me through enough trouble already and I'm not trusting your dumb ass to find out where we are. Either you stay here and rot, or you listen to me and survive." Her eyes darted, she seemed to suddenly remember what the pendant hanging from her neck meant. Taking a complete 180, she flashed me a smile, "because it's my job as an LC member to help those in need" she hummed, letting go of me and watching me fall back to the floor, as it seemed she was carrying my entire weight by the collar.

She started to walk away and walk towards the forest and I followed behind her like a lost dog that was hypnotized by the swing of her pony tail.

I really wish I had just let her shoot me.