Page 4 of Wandering Wild
Ember rolls her eyes. “As if you’ve never crushed on someone from Disney. Robin Hood? Simba? They weren’t evenhumanbut you can’t deny their hotness.”
“It was theirpersonality?—”
“And don’t get me started on Flynn Rider and Li Shang.” She utters a dreamy sigh. “Total babes.”
I send her a deadpan look. “I worry about you sometimes.”
She grins and blows me a kiss, before scrolling through more of the images as she murmurs, “I really need to start watching anime, if the guys look like this.” But then she sits up straight and frowns. “No, I won’t be distracted. This isimportant.”
Ember returns to the page that has the photo of Zander on it, but this time she scrolls far enough for me to seewhy. The text is in bold, a blaring declaration heralded across the entertainment website:
WIN AN ADVENTURE WITH ZANDER RUNE!
“You woke me up forthis?”
Despite my annoyance, I’m not surprised. When it comes to Zander Rune, Ember is like most girls our age—and girls younger... and older... and many boys and genderqueer persons as well, for that matter. Zander is a Hollywood icon. Once upon a time, I was among the number who idolized him. I vividly recall being twelve years old and watching the firstLost Heirsmovie at the cinema with Ember, and as soon as the credits began rolling, we sprinted back to the box office to purchase two more tickets so we could watch it all over again. Five years later, I can still remember every minute of that day—and the movie that left the world infatuated with the American heartthrob.
Until three months ago, I was one of Zander’s biggest fans. But then he turned eighteen and made a series of choices that, in my mind, tarnished his image beyond repair. All the usual media scandals could be affixed to his name, but whether they were true or not, those weren’t the things that turned me from my starstruck naivety. He was barely four months older than me, so I could easily relate to his teenage antics and had no grounds to cast judgment.
But then he wrapped his fancy car around a tree, and while he escaped miraculously unscathed, a routine test resulted in a DUI charge—andthatwas something I couldn’t forgive. His actions had put others at risk, and yet, because of his celebrity, he was sentenced to only a few hours of community service and a short stint in rehab. Ever since that day, any infatuation I’d felt toward Zander Rune was gone. Forever.
Ember understood—more than anyone. And until tonight, she’d respected my unspoken wish to never talk about him again, even if she remained a not-so-secret fan. She’s free to admire whoever she wants—of course she is—but this competition... This I don’t understand. And my lack of understanding only grows as I begin reading the terms and conditions.
“You can’t be serious,” I say, my voice flat. She’s practically bouncing beside me, her features aglow with excitement.
“Can youimagine?” she cries, flopping back onto her pillows. “Four days on vacation with Zander Rune.”
“Vacation?” I point toward the fine print. “Did you read any of this?”
She ignores me and continues wistfully, “Him and me, alone, for ninety-six whole hours.”
I snap my fingers in front of her glazed eyes. “Earth to Ember. Tell me you read this?”
She blinks herself back into the room and sits up again, nodding eagerly. “Every word.”
Gathering my patience, I say, “Then you’ll know that the winnerwon’tbe alone with Zander. And it’s not promising a relaxing time—quite the opposite.”
The competition grants not just an adventure with the actor, but also with Rykon Hawke, star of the reality survival showHawke’s Wild World. The man is a legend, having started his career as a park ranger in the Canadian Rockies before founding the first of many wilderness survival camps across the globe, most for rehabilitation programs, though plenty of schools and organizations use them as well. From there, he made the jump to television, where he quickly became a household name thanks to his ability to captivate audiences through various adventures—whether they be him climbing vertical cliffs with his bare hands, digging wind shelters into icy tundras, sprinting down volcanoes, staggering through deserts, or being stranded in the middle of the ocean. Each new episode sees Hawke taking viewers to an off-the-grid destination and surviving anything from a few days to weeks at a time.Hawke’s Wild Worldis beyond extreme, and while I enjoy watching it, I can’t help thinking that the man himself must be a little unhinged to dance with death so eagerly.
... And my best friend apparently wants to go on a trip with him and Zander freaking Rune.
“Not to point out the obvious here, but you and nature don’t mix well,” I say, subtlety be damned. “You couldn’t even last the night camping in your own backyard for your thirteenth birthday party.”
“There was a mosquito in the tent,” she defends. “It had a vendetta against me.”
Unless the winner of the competition is being sent to some ice-barren land, then they’ll likely have to facemillionsof mosquitoes. But I don’t bother saying that, instead continuing, “And this prize—if it can be called that—will send you out to the middle of nowhere for four days. Do you know what that means?”
Ember smiles widely. “Four days of Zander’s entire focus, since there’ll be no distractions?”
I shake my head, unsure if she’s being deliberately obtuse or trying to rile me for the fun of it. “It means no indoor plumbing—no toilets, or showers, or running water. It means sleeping out in the open with all kinds of bugs crawling over you, rain, hail, or shine, and eating whatever Hawke says will keep your strength up—most likely something disgusting, like wriggling worms or dead birds or rabbit guts. Depending on the destination, you might even have to drink your own pee. And no matter where you end up, there’ll be hours of hiking and climbing and living like you’re lost in the wilderness, because that’s exactly what you’ll be:Lost. In. The. Wilderness.”
This time it’s Ember who shakes her head. “Notlost. Just... wandering. With purpose.” Her eyes glaze again. “And none of that matters because I’ll be with Zander Rune.”
God help me, I’m about to kill my best friend. “Snap out of it, Em, and think for a second. You can’t possibly be considering this.”
Finally, Ember comes back to herself. “Of course I’m not considering it.”
The tightness eases from my shoulders. Until?—
