Survival

The gunshot was heard all over the island. Everyone at the camp jumped, looking around from their fire. Silence followed the shot and made the suspense worse.



“What was that?” Clara stood and looked around to see if it was near them, but shrugged and sighed, sitting back down. “I hope everything’s ok.”



“Alex and Isis have been gone a really long time.” Vicky looked towards the path Alex and Isis took earlier that morning to go search for some other kind of food besides fish.



“Yeah, I hope she didn’t decide to shoot him because he was getting on her nerves.” Nate was sitting against the tree with Clara, not caring at the moment that two of their friends had been gone all morning and most of the afternoon.



“Isis wouldn’t shoot Alex. She’d be more inclined to shoot Vicky.” Gabe lay on the ground, looking up into the sky that he could see through the trees.



“She wouldn’t shoot me now. We’ve been here three weeks and she hasn’t shot me yet.”



“Yet, being the key word.” Abby glared at the person who, three weeks ago, she had worshiped. A lot had changed in the time that they had been here.



“Whatever, Abigail. I just want to know why she won’t leave a gun with any of us. I mean, we’ve been here three weeks! Haven’t we shown her we can be trusted?” Vicky grumbled in protest over the gun issue yet again.



“The fact that none of us have ever fired a gun is what makes her prevent any of us near a gun, Vicky. She’s explained that so quit bitching.” Nate was getting as irritated by Vicky’s grumblings as the rest of them were, and he was the most tolerant of all of them.



On the other side of the island, Alex laughed as he came down from the tree he had been perched in. “I can’t believe you just did that. He could have killed you.”



“I told you I was insane.” Isis wiped the hog’s blood onto her jeans and looked down at the dead animal at her feet, blood seeping from the gun wound in his head. “Besides, we won’t be eating the head so I needed to get close to shoot him.”



“You didn’t have to jump on his back though.” Alex grabbed one of the hog’s front legs as Isis grabbed the other one, helping her carry it back to camp. “Though I am much appreciative of not eating fish again.”



Isis smiled and nodded. She had been getting tired of fish too, hence the early morning search for something edible. They paused a few times to rest, the two hundred pound hog not helping much for their energy levels.



They spotted the fire of the camp just as the sun was setting and made their way a little quicker to the group sitting around it, smiling as they dropped the dead hog in front of their friends. “Tonight, we feast!”



“Thank god, Isis! We thought you had shot Alex and were going make us eat him.” Gabe reached for the hog, taking the knife she had given him, and cutting a huge chunk out of it, putting it on the stick over the fire to cook.



“I don’t think Alex would taste very good, Gabe. He seems like he would be kind of gamy to me.” Isis smiled at Alex before crashing on the ground beside Ryley, laying her head on his lap. “Wake me when dinner’s done. I’m exhausted.”



She fell asleep promptly, listening to the sound of everyone else in the camp talking about how exactly she had killed the hog. She smiled slightly before falling into a deep and restful sleep.



Someone was going for the gun under her left arm. She moved without thinking and hit the person hard in the face, hearing Vicky’s scream. “What the fuck are you doing, Vicky?”



“I want the damned gun, bitch.”



Isis pulled the gun and pointed it at Vicky. “You wanted it? Try to take it. We’ll see who can bleed faster.”



“Isis, don’t.” Alex spoke from across the fire. “She’s just being a bitch, avoid her.”



Isis lowered the gun and holstered it, taking the food Ryley gave her and eating it quickly. She didn’t want to spend any more time at this camp if she had to. She was covered in hog blood and needed to get cleaned up.



She finished her food and quickly started to head to the waterfall, leaving a gun with Gabe, whom she had been teaching to shoot. She gave him instructions not to use it unless he needed to because they didn’t have that much ammo.



She got the waterfall and stripped out of all her clothes, diving into the water and letting the cold water wash down her sore body. She had done far more in the last three weeks that she had done in the last four years. She heard a twig snap and turned to find Alex sitting on his ledge, staring back toward the smoke from the camp.



“Why did you do it, Isis?”



“Do what?”



“Listen to me when I told you not to shoot Vicky.” Alex was talking softer than he should have been, almost like he was afraid of the answer.



“We have been fishing together every night for the last three weeks, Alex. I trust you enough to know that when you say don’t that I shouldn’t.” Isis was frowning even as she explained it. She would have killed herself if she had ever said those words to him in high school, but, as she was constantly reminded lately, this wasn’t high school.



Isis turned her back to him, washing the blood off her, when he spoke again. “Is that the only reason?”



“Do you want there to be more, Alex?” Isis felt her heart leap, not knowing what exactly was going on right now.



“Maybe I do, Isis. Maybe I always have.”



Panic started to rise in Isis, especially when she heard him get into the water with her. She felt his hand on her shoulder and turned to look at him.



He was naked from the waist up, but Isis didn’t think that was the only part of him that was naked. He lifted her chin to look at him and sighed. “Didn’t you ever notice in high school? Every time I saw you in the hall, I would say something to you, and it was never cruel like Vicky or Abby or even Nate.”



“Alex, I …” His lips met hers and she was kissing him, not even knowing why. She had begun to feel for him over the last few weeks, yes, but not like this, not yet. She pulled back and shook her head. “We can’t.”



“Why not? Give me one good reason that doesn’t have to do with the list we were on in high school.”



Isis opened her mouth to say something and then closed it. She couldn’t think of anything that would stop them. “Vicky. What would Vicky think?”



“Vicky and I have been over with for months now. I broke up with her, but she’s too clinging to admit it. This trip was supposed to be her time to win me back. She can’t win me back if I belong to you, can she?” Alex kissed Isis again. This time, she didn’t stop him.



She felt him through the water against her legs, hard and ready, and knew that, even if she wanted to stop, she wasn’t going to be able to. She moved behind the waterfall, pulling him with her.



She kissed him harder and wrapped her legs around his waist, allowing him access to her body. She felt him hesitate and looked into his eyes. “What’s wrong, Alex?”



“Are you doing this because I want to, or because you want to as well?”



Isis smiled and kissed him hard. “I want this, Alex. I think I even wanted it in high school, but you were always with Vicky. Her little attachment.”



“Not anymore.” Alex moved his hips that last inch and entered Isis.



She gasped because of the tightness of her own body but helped him push himself inside her as far as he could get. She looked into his brown eyes from inches away and smiled, kissing him softly. “I think this is the closest I’ve been to a man in nearly six years.”



“Are you disappointed?”



“By no means.” Isis leaned back against the incline of the rocks behind her as Alex smiled, pulling himself out of her before pushing back into her again. The water provided resistance, but they managed to get a rhythm going that didn’t hurt Isis.



He leaned into her while moving in and out of her and kissed the small scar over her heart where the bullet had entered her body. “You didn’t live from this, did you?”



Isis moaned as he twisted his hips, but shook her head in answer. “No. I was dead for nearly five minutes before the paramedics revived me.”



She gasped as he thrust into her one last time and the orgasm she had been ignoring hit her hard. She bit her lip to keep from screaming and felt the muscles in her body clench tight around him, causing him to gasp slightly as he came deep inside her.



She thought he was just going to pull out and tell her that he just wanted to fuck her, but he kissed her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “You’re truly beautiful, I, you know that?”



“No, but it’s nice to think someone besides my friends think I am.”



“So I’m not your friend?” Alex looked hurt as he said it and Isis laughed shaking her head.



“After that you want to be my friend? You’re mental.”



“So I’m more than your friend?”



“If you want to be.”



“That I do, I, that I do.” He kissed her again and she wrapped her arms around his neck.



She heard the sound of a branch snapping and looked up in time to see Vicky running back to the camp. “Fuck. Vicky saw us.”



Alex shrugged and kissed Isis again, initiating a response from himself as well as her. “Let her. What could be the worst that happens?”