Page 54 of Villainous Fate

“Not a chance! We aren’t leaving you behind.” He responds, his face resolute in the decision.

I don’t have time to argue with him, and instead, I slide a pocket knife from my leg, slicing the length at my front and my back to ensure neither is still tied to me. Marcus’s face falls, and anger fills his eyes.

“I’m coming behind you, but I need you to move, or I’ll dump you in the river. Now get over me before we both drown!” I order, refusing to let his hero-complex fuck this whole challenge up.

To my surprise, he doesn’t argue and moves to climb over my prone body. Looking back up to see that he’s clear, I notice once Finn is loose, he finishes moving along the bridge and lands safely on the bank.

One down, two to go.

With Marcus clear, I spring up, pushing my feet hard, knowing the movement would be enough to knock the log off its placement but understanding that I needed to get off this log to get to safety. I pounce forward, no longer trying to stay low and place each foot as hard as I can into the center of the trunk ahead.

Once I’m free of the trunk, it fully submerges, turning horizontally and bobbing down the river until it crashes into a section of boulders, which causes it to splinter and crack.

That would have been me had I held on another minute.

I dance the final few steps and dive into the sand just as the last trunk is washed away, leaving no evidence of the hours of work it took to get across.

We sit, breathing heavily for a moment before I begin to laugh. Both at the absurdity of that challenge and the amazing boost of adrenaline I now have having survived.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Marcus and Finn join me, and for a moment, we aren’t in a challenge. We aren’t competing; we are three young men surviving the wilderness.

Once we get calmed down, I turn to Finn.

“Great plan. Worked like a charm, but maybe next time we just build a boat?” I offer, throwing a grin solidly in place.

“Hey, it worked, mostly,” he laughs in response.

“I’m just glad it did because I forgot to mention I can’t swim,” Marcus admits, a bit of humor still in his tone.

Both Finn and I whip our heads toward him.

“You WHAT?!? You didn’t think that would have been more helpful to know before we did ALL of that?!” I shout at him, losing some of the lightheartedness I had a moment ago.

He could have died. We had no idea!

“Didn’t think it would do anything but add to the stress, honestly,” he shrugs before continuing, “Plus, it turns out it wasn’t relevant anyway since we made it across and all.”

The urge to punch him right in his perfectly square jaw almost overtakes me, but the innocent grin on his face gives me pause. This is my friend. My stupid, completely insane friend, but my friend all the same.

“Fucking idiot,” Finn whispers, shaking his head as he takes the words out of my mouth.

“How about, going forward, small tidbits like that are shared first, okay? So, you know, we can all be prepared for anything.” I ask, allowing my tone to float back to the lighter sound it had before his revelation.

The idiot couldn’t swim and just fucking threw caution to the wind to get across for the team.

It’s at this moment I realize how much Stone has come to mean to me, how worried his statement makes me feel, how I could’ve lost him right there in the Colorado River. For the first time since leaving Grace in Reno, I feel a renewed sense of purpose. I need to protect him from himself. Marcus is too good for this world of political backstabbing and greedy power games.

It’s then I start planning a new future. One where I can be his Second. Let him lead, and serve beside him and protect the goodness he has inside. Grace and I can join whatever pack he takes over, and I will stand by his side, ensuring he doesn’t lose the integrity and honor he carries now.

We just need to survive this stupid trial first.

Standing up, I stretch my calf muscle out. It fully healed after I shifted at lunch two more times. I still can’t believe Rod had them shoot me.

I will kill him for this.

He wanted an enemy, and he got one.

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