Page 40 of Wandering Wild
She shrugs. “It’s no secret that reality television is fake. It’s more about drama than any real truth.” She stretches her shoulders and winces. “That said, there’s nothing fake about how much I’m hurting today. I’d kill for some anti-inflammatories and a hot water bottle.”
“Same here,” I agree. “I feel like I aged fifty years overnight.”
Hawke and Scarlett approach as I’m saying the words, and both of them try—and fail—to hide their amusement.
“Buck up, Prince Charming,” Hawke says, his lips twitching. “You’ll both feel better once we get moving.”
“I have serious doubts about that,” Charlie grumbles under her breath.
“You’re all doing so well,” Scarlett jumps in. “One day down, three to go. Are you enjoying yourselves so far?” Both Charlie and I look at her flatly until she clears her throat and continues, “We’ll get out of your hair now so you can continue on, but we’ll check in again later today. Our location scouts didn’t realize how tricky it would be to get our wheels through the scrub—they did the journey on foot, same as you—so we’re having some trouble finding safe routes, but you’re in good hands with Hawke here, regardless.”
A huge bald man walks over to us before she can say more, his eyes on Hawke as he reports, “The rope is set on the ravine and we’ve done a full safety check, so you’re all sorted there. I’ve also told Erik and his crew to drive on ahead of us to secure the bridge near your extraction point, even if you won’t reach it until Friday. It’s early, but I want it done today, in case the weather turns so bad that we don’t get another chance.”
Without context, I only understand part of what he said, but all of it has Charlie and me sharing nervous looks.
“Thanks, Hux,” Hawke says. To Scarlett, he asks, “What’s this about weather?”
“Nothing to worry about yet,” she replies, though the bald man, Hux, raises his eyebrows. “There’s some rain developing off the coast that we’re keeping an eye on, but it’ll hopefully stay offshore. If it begins to track inland, I’ll let you know.”
I glance upward and see nothing but clear blue sky above our heads.
“What happens if it rains?” Charlie asks, peering up as well.
“We get wet,” Hawke says, straight-faced.
Scarlett elbows him, before answering Charlie, “Nothing happens, it just means you might have to change your route to avoid flash floods. Or if it becomes too dangerous for us to navigate with the vehicles, we might need to pull our crew back until it passes. But as I said, right now, there’s nothing to worry about, so put it from your mind.”
With that, Scarlett whistles to her team and makes a circling motion with her hand, indicating for them to get moving. They disperse impressively fast into the trees and, after telling us to take care and reminding us she’ll see us later, Scarlett vanishes with them.
I’m still blinking at how swiftly they all managed to leave when I realize it’s just Hawke, Bentley, Charlie, and me again.
“Can you two be ready in five minutes?” Hawke asks, glancing at his watch. “We have a big hiking day, so the sooner we go, the better.”
It’s not a question, more an order, so we quickly finish our berries before helping dismantle the parachute-tents and grabbing our gear. I hiss out a curse when I lift my backpack, but once we leave the camp and start moving, my muscles warm up and the pain eases, as Hawke said it would.
We hike through the forest for hours on an upward trajectory, the ground mostly keeping to a slight incline, with some steeper sections that leave us panting and needing regular breaks. None of us talk much, aside from Hawke occasionally sharing about the native flora and fauna we see—a blue-tongued lizard that crosses our path, different kinds of poisonous fungi, the nine-hundred-odd species of gum trees, a web-covered hole that houses a deadly funnel-web spider—but thankfully there are no deeper conversations. I’m guessing he’s leaving those for when we’re unguarded, so there’s likely a round two coming for me tonight. I already know what it will be about, since I’m certain Gabe will have asked Hawke to make sure I share one important thing with the world:
My DUI and rehab experience.
I’m not looking forward to talking about it, mostly because I’m going to have to lie through my teeth, and yet still somehow come across as repentant.
But that’s a worry for later. Right now, I need to get through this endless hike.
Just as I have that thought, the incline finally levels out, and the trees we’re zigzagging through begin to thin. A few steps later, we arrive atop a rocky slab similar to the cliff we had to rappel down yesterday. But instead of us being partway up a mountain, there’s a massive crack in the ground before us, like an ancient giant came and cleaved the land in two. The far side has to be over a hundred feet away, and the vertical drop between us at least triple that, full of jutting boulders and lethal, jagged edges.
This must be the ravine Hawke mentioned.
And at the sight of the rope stretching across the daunting gap, I know we won’t be finding our way around it.
We’ll be going straight across it.
Prior to this moment, I knew I hated Zander Rune, but staring at the death chasm stretching out before us, Ireallyhate him.
Worse, after everything he shared beside the fire last night—how his birth parents died when he was a child, how he was bullied in school, how he stood by Summer when the world turned on her—I hate that I’ve started tonothate him. I can’t afford to begin liking him, but he’s making that impossible the more I come to know him. And yet... I also have no way of knowing how much of what he said is genuinely true. He acts for a living, and the whole point of this survival trip is for him to make people love him again.
But even so, I can’t help thinking it’s notallan act. Because there are things he’s still keeping secret, like how he gave only the barest details about his birth parents and about his best friend Maddox before moving on—just enough to make it seem like he’s opening up, when really, he’s also withholding. I’m unsure why... and I’m unsure why I care.
What I’mnotunsure about is how I feel looking at the ravine we’re stepping dangerously close to, since every survival instinct I have is blaring at me to back away, fast.
