gold rush [the wilds, toni shalifoe]

chapter 17

Day Sixteen

"One thing I will say about that place is that it was kind of like hitting the pause button. You know, you could step back and get a really good look at your life from all those miles away. Could really help a girl get some perspective, you know, especially if she was feeling a little unsettled in her own skin."

"Girls like Rachel and Hunter?"

Shelby paused as she took her fake teeth out from her mouth, and wiped them on the sleeve of the jumper that they had given her when she arrived at the facility.

"Right, like Hunter and Rachel."

___

"GUYS! YOU GUYS!"

Hunter sat up from where she had been lying on Toni's lap as they all heard Martha's frantic screams, the girl running across the grass dunes towards them as she tripped and stumbled in the direction of the teens. Hunter felt Toni tense in fear as soon as she heard Martha's yells, grabbing on to Hunter's hand and giving it a quick squeeze.

"Guess what I just saw! Holy shit, I just saw Marcus and he's alive!"

They all paused for a moment before bursting into fits of laughter, knowing fine well that the edibles must have finally gotten to Martha. They'd all watched the mannequin float away from the shore, and it wasn't like mannequins were known for just coming to life - minus in that episode of Doctor Who that Hudson had once forced Hunter to watch that had given her nightmares for weeks about department stores.

Everyone decided to humour the girl and venture into the forest to see what she thought was a living and breathing Marcus, Dot having a small hope that it was maybe some living creature that Martha had hallucinated as the mannequin.

"Okay wait, you're just saying that he like, fucking Pinocchio'd?" Dot asked, trying not to burst into laughter but failing as they all followed Martha through the trees. Toni had her arm swung around Hunter's shoulders, blissfully pacing beside the blonde as the two took up the front of the procession behind Martha.

"YES! That's exactly what I'm saying! He - he turned into a real boy!"

Toni nudged Hunter's side as she was the first to notice that the mannequin had somehow ended back up in the forest, pointing to where it was with a smile on her face. Hunter grinned back before furrowing her eyebrows slightly in confusion on how it had managed to end up in the forest - sure, she understood that it might have washed back up on the coast but it's not like it could have walked into the forest by itself.

"I don't know," Toni said as she lifted the mannequin, the rest of the group cheering as they saw Marcus. "He kind of looks the same to me."

"No but he was different!" Martha tried to argue but the rest of them just laughed her off, Fatin being the first to rush towards Marcus with a huge grin on her face at her favourite man being back in their lives.

"MARCUS! Baby, I've missed you!" She exclaimed, picking him up and pretending to place a kiss on him. Hunter looked around at the rest of them, noticing that everyone was laughing minus her and Leah who shared similar looks. Hunter didn't want to fall into Leah's rabbit hole of paranoia but something really wasn't making much sense for her here.

"I don't understand, he was in a tree! He was up there," Martha told them all, pointing upwards into the trees. Hunter followed her finger but shrugged at the girl, not really understanding what was going on.

Leah noticed that Hunter was trying to process the same thought that she was, holding a hand up as she tried to make the point to the rest of the team.