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CHAPTERSIX
Day Seven—Fourteen teams remaining
Lauren
Three daysafter our treasure-hunting expedition, I woke up later than usual, according to the height of the sun, anyway. Alone in the shelter and feeling groggy, I stood and rubbed my eyes, just wanting to curl up and go back to sleep.
This was apparently the day hunger and exhaustion were hitting me. I’d been told it would happen, but I hadn’t expected it to be so intense. My limbs were heavy and I was fantasizing about bacon and eggs…again.
As I left the shelter, a light rain fell on my face and arms. I grabbed a canteen and retreated back to the shelter, where I sat alone with my fatigue until Archer walked back into camp, Linda following him with a camera on her shoulder.
“No luck with fishing this morning, but we’ll still have meat,” Archer said, holding up a snake that was at least four feet long.
“Holy shit, that thing better be dead,” I said, instinctively scooting against the back of the shelter.
“Notice how it’s not moving?” he asked dryly.
I narrowed my eyes, his words about still having meat sinking in.
“Wait, are you planning to eat that thing?”
He nodded. “Tastes like chicken. We have to have protein and carbs for the competition today.”
Tears welled in my eyes, but I couldn’t comprehend why. Was it the exhaustion, the hunger, or the reptile on our breakfast menu?
Honestly, it was all of the above, and also homesickness. But I wouldn’t wallow. I took a couple deep breaths and pulled myself together.
“Want me to cook the rice?” I asked, emerging from the shelter.
“That’d be great. We’ve got an hour until we need to leave, and I have to skin and clean this thing.”
I deliberately didn’t look at the snake as Archer cleaned it. Instead, I watched him. The dark scruff on his cheeks was definitely working for me. His muscled chest and arms had tanned in the past week, and his black shorts hung a little lower on his hips. He had a single tattoo on his chest—a replica of the Purple Heart his grandpa had been awarded when wounded as a POW in Vietnam.
Archer had spent the past couple of days building a raft, weaving rope out of grass. I’d gathered snails, which were my least favorite thing to eat here, and spent a lot of time walking the beach.
It had only been a week, and I was already feeling the effects of poor sleep and little food. None of us knew how long it would take to be the last team standing, but it could easily be a month or more.
After starting the rice, I refilled the canteens and took a quick dip in the ocean to pee and rinse off the sweat. I’d never take toilets for granted again.
Back at camp, I added a few spices to the rice, and once the food was ready, Archer and I ate in silence. I was fantasizing about pancakes and sausage with extra syrup when he interrupted.
“You okay? You’re quiet today.”
“Just nervous about this competition.”
It was the truth, but that wasn’t why I was so quiet. I’d had a lot of time in the past couple days to think about my relationship with Archer, and questions I’d stopped thinking about years ago had bubbled back to the surface. I didn’t trust myself not to blurt them out, so I opted for silence.
There was one question in particular nagging at me—had he ever regretted our breakup? I’d started college at the University of Iowa not long after we broke up and he moved away, and it had taken a couple of years for me to not think of him often. While studying at the library or at off-campus parties, I’d wondered if I was where I was supposed to be. I could have been with Archer, attending school in Minnesota and cheering him on while watching his home games with the Mammoths.
Should I have made engagement a deal breaker? It was a question I still asked myself, and one I wished I had a black-and-white answer for.
Archer passed me a canteen. “Hydration will help. Just do your best and don’t stress about it.”
Easy for him to say. He was a natural athlete, whereas I had to hold the handrail every time I used stairs so I didn’t trip—whether I was going up or down.
Food and water did help, and I was feeling more like myself as we followed the map to today’s event. We had to walk about a mile to the competition site, and as we approached and I got a good look at what the producers had set up, I wanted to turn around and run back to our camp.
They’d created a giant mud pit. Josh was grinning and talking to a cameraman as he sipped from his stainless-steel cup with a built-in straw, his golden hair looking freshly washed. My hair, on the other hand, was filthy from sweat, and the salt water wasn’t helping either. I kind of wanted someone to push Josh into the mud pit, just to see the look of shock on his face.
Within a few minutes, the other teams arrived, and when the cameras rolled, Josh didn’t start by explaining what we’d be doing.
“You guys may have noticed we’re down a team,” he said.
Everyone looked around, and I furrowed my brow when I realized he was right. A woman named Lexi and her partner were missing.
“Gage Lamb’s not here,” Archer murmured.
“Gage and Lexi had to tap out yesterday because Lexi became very ill,” Josh said.
There were gasps and shocked looks among the other teams. We’d all been on the same island, but none of us had known she was sick. Josh let the news sink in before continuing.
“We got her to a hospital where she was admitted and is in stable condition. So, we’re now down to thirteen teams.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Andrea asked.
“She’s expected to make a full recovery,” Josh assured everyone.
It was a relief to hear that, but I still couldn’t help wondering what had happened to her. All thirty-two potential female contestants had sat through a three-hour crash course at the resort about this island before being brought here.
We learned about the many poisonous and venomous ways we could die on this island—by land and sea—if we weren’t vigilant. Jellyfish, snakes, and even berries could be deadly. The creepy crawlies that were venomous were few and far between, but still. I didn’t have to worry about killer jellyfish in Iowa.
“Ready to get dirty, guys?” Josh asked us, grinning. “In this competition, the final two teams to finish will be eliminated, and the top two will win something I think you’ll all be willing to fight for.” He paused for dramatic effect as the cameras panned over all the contestants, taking in our curious expressions. “The first and second place teams will win a sunset cruise tonight, where dinner will be served. On the menu is steak, baked potatoes, and blueberry cobbler.”
From the groans and cries of happiness, you would’ve thought Josh announced the winners were getting bags of gold. Apparently, everyone else was as hungry as I was.
“Each team has to fish twenty hockey pucks out of this mud pit,” Josh explained. “Then, each member of the team has to stack ten of your pucks on the paddle of a hockey stick”—he pointed to a rack lined with hockey sticks—“and carry them to those baskets.”
He gestured to a row of baskets about a hundred feet from the mud pit, adding, “If either team member drops a single puck, you have to go back to the starting line and stack them again.”
My lips parted with shock, and I glanced at Archer.
“No problem,” he said, sounding far more confident than I felt. “We’ve got this, Lo.”
As a production assistant demonstrated the stacking and carrying of the pucks on the sticks, I closed my eyes, picturing myself $500,000 richer. That money would change my life, and I was willing to do whatever it took to win. Even if it took scrambling like a pig in mud.
“Everyone ready?” Josh asked. I gave Archer a panicked grimace.
We were starting now.
Josh yelled for everyone to go, and the contestants descended on the mud pit.
“This way!” Archer yelled, leading me to a far corner.
We were the first ones to drop to our knees and start fishing for pucks. The mud was slimy, cool, and wet. In the tropical heat, it felt good. I’d once paid good money for something like this at a spa in Des Moines.
“Oh!” I cried as my hands found something hard and round.
I pulled out a puck and Archer grinned. Without thinking, I stuck the puck into one cup of my bikini top to free up both hands. I continued searching, covered in mud up to my elbows and from the waist down. We made quick work of locating pucks.
At least, until one of my knees slipped and I belly flopped into the mud.
Oof. I hoped that wouldn’t make it into the edited show. I didn’t want my entire hometown laughing at me from their living rooms or the barstools at Benny’s Tap.
It took me a couple seconds to catch my breath, and then Archer slid an arm around my waist and scooped me up. I got back into position on my hands and knees, and he spoke to me in a low tone.
“Keep going. We’ve got thirteen.”
He’d been stacking pucks, the nine he’d found and my four, counting the one still wedged in my bikini top.
“Hell yeah!” someone yelled from nearby.
Shit. Someone had found twenty.
“Stay focused,” Archer said. “We have to stay focused. We can do this.”
I found another one as another team celebrated finding all the pucks they needed.
Not like this.I didn’t want to leave the show covered in mud, losing a competition Archer and I were capable of placing well in. It wasn’t swimming or running. This was something I could actually do, if I could keep my shit together and just do it.
“We got it!” Archer called, springing to his feet and wrapping an arm around my waist.
He carried me against his side, like a football, racing across the mud pit toward the lined-up hockey sticks.
“Put me down!” I cried.
“I don’t want you to fall!” he said, his arm locked around me.
Well, that was a valid concern. I tried to look dignified, at least as dignified as a woman covered in mud who was being hauled across a mud pit with a hockey puck wedged up against one of her tits could look.
Archer had stuffed all the other pucks into the pockets of his cargo shorts, and he was carrying a bunch in his free hand too. I felt the puck in my bikini top starting to slip and I gasped, the puck sliding out and into my hand just as Archer set me down.
He gave me a serious look and spoke in a hushed tone, “Stack yours on the paddle exactly like I stack mine, okay?”
I nodded and he grabbed two sticks, passing me one. The production assistant who had demonstrated the competition for us had stacked all ten pucks in a single column. Archer stacked his into three piles of three, adding the final puck to the middle stack.
Genius. Josh had only said we had to carry the pucks on the paddles of the sticks, but he hadn’t said we had to have a stack of ten. This way, they’d be less likely to fall.
“We’re going to take it slow and steady,” Archer instructed. “Rod and Andrea went too fast, and they’re coming back to start again. Slow and steady, Lo.”
I nodded, picking up my stick the same way he picked up his. I followed him, my heart hammering. All my attention was on this stick and ten pucks. I had no idea how many teams had already finished and how many were still working.
Archer was next to me, assuring me with every step we walked.
