“Penn, there’s plenty of room.” Lexi gestured to the spot next to her, and really there was more than enough room for Gemma. In fact, Lexi hadn’t even needed to slide over, and there would’ve been room for her.

“No, there’s not,” Penn growled.

“Fine.” Lexi sighed and turned back to Gemma. “Sorry, I guess—”

“No, Lexi, there’s no room for you,” Penn corrected her.

Lexi’s head snapped back around so she could look at Penn. “What?”

“You know, I’m fine sitting over here,” Gemma interjected as she edged back to the empty couch on the other side of the room. “I can see the TV great from here.”

“Sit on the floor, Lexi,” Penn commanded, ignoring Gemma.

“Penn,” Lexi tried to protest, but Penn just kept glaring at her. “Whatever.” Lexi rolled her eyes, then got up and flopped down on the floor next to Thea.

With Lexi banished to the floor, Penn smiled sweetly up at Gemma. “Why don’t you sit with us on the couch?”

“Uh, sure?” Gemma sat down tentatively on the couch, careful to put as much room between her and Sawyer as she could manage.

Truthfully, she didn’t care where she sat. But this was obviously some sort of power play on Penn’s part, and she didn’t want to get caught in the middle of it. Especially not when she’d just decided to make the best of the situation. She didn’t want to start by pissing off Penn or Lexi.

“Oh, my god.” Sawyer laughed and pointed to the TV. “She thinks the video cameras are trapping her in the box. That’s so funny.”

Eventually, in large part to Sawyer’s oblivious commentary on the movie, the tension in the room seemed to ease. Gemma settled into the couch, and she ended up kind of enjoying the movie. She’d never seen it before, and it had its moments.

The funniest parts probably were Sawyer’s reactions. Most of the time, when Thea, Lexi, and Gemma were laughing, it was at something he’d said. Penn never laughed once, though.

Every now and then Gemma would glance over to see Penn’s eyes fixed blankly on the screen. Despite that, Gemma couldn’t shake the feeling that Penn was watching her out of the corner of her eye, making sure that Gemma was behaving herself.

After the movie ended, the girls argued about what movie to watch next, and finally Lexi put in Mannequin.

Gemma started to relax then. So what if Penn was watching her? It wasn’t like she was doing anything wrong. She was watching a movie, same as everybody else.

Seemingly out of the blue, Gemma’s hunger flared up. The ravenous one that seemed to radiate from her belly all the way through her. She bit her lip and struggled to swallow the feeling down.