Page 67 of Charlie and Her Sweet Escape
My stomach flipped, even though I’d always hated the pet name baby. Turned out, I didn’t hate almost anything when Bennett was saying it.
I tilted my head up so from this camera angle it looked like his lips brushed mine, when they were actually a few tantalizing centimeters apart. “How’d hunting go?”
“I reset a few of the traps. There’s definitely something out there stealing our catches. A bear, I think.”
I shivered, not wanting to think about the wildlife. At night, we sometimes heard snuffing and shuffling near our shelter. “Dinner’s done.” A crack of thunder, followed quickly by lightning, sounded above us. “And just in the nick of time.”
This area had gotten a few volatile storms, and this one was shaping up to be big. We washed our hands and faces and then hurriedly ate our food before the first drops fell. We escaped into the shelter and sat across from each other, working on our own projects. I loved the easy companionship I had with Bennett. I tried not to think about Greg anymore—tricky with so much time to think—but I couldn’t imagine us quietly sitting, working onwhittling and sewing. I was creating a pair of moccasins out of the dried rabbit fur, and he was whittling cutlery for us.
“I didn’t hear what the doctor said to you this morning,” Bennett said. We’d had med checks, where the crew came out to make sure we were healthy enough to stay out.
“Oh. Nothing much. My vitals look good.”
“Yeah, same. My blood pressure is a little low, but not enough for them to worry.”
They’d had us weigh ourselves, and we’d each lost nearly ten percent of our weight since coming out here. Which reminded me …
I went to grab the fruit leather from my bag when my hand brushed against something unfamiliar. “Look at this.” It was a scroll of paper, tied with a shiny ribbon. I undid it and read the note.
Dear Team Forrester,
Congrats on making it two weeks in the Wild! And welcome to your first challenge.
Life in the Wild can be brutal, but you two are the salt of the earth.
For this challenge, you’re going on a scavenger hunt. You will need to find:
Dandelion, chickweed, fireweed, fiddleheads, burdock, and willow shoots. You will need to correctly label your finds with the enclosed tabs.
You have until midnight to complete the challenge and present your findings to the cameras.
If you succeed, you will receive adelicious block of sea salt.
If you fail, you will be punished.
In the Wild, the stakes are high, and we play for keeps.
Your time starts… now.
“Midnight tonight?” I squeaked. We both paused and listened to the rain coming down in a deluge against our slatted-wood-and-tarp roof. “What time do you think it is?”
Bennett checked the camera display. “It’s already 8 pm.”
We were only minutes away from getting ready for bed after an exhausting day. Dismay shot through me.
“We don’t have to do it,” he said.
“We can’t afford whatever the punishment is!” In the past, theWildproducers had done everything from sending people straight home to making them relocate without warning. “They must have left this here this morning. I can’t believe I didn’t find it until now! They always hide the challenges on med check day.”
“I didn’t think to look for it either.” Bennett was tugging on his waterproof coat. “They didn’t leave us any challenges last week, so I forgot.”
“This is going to be miserable,” I groaned.
“If I was smarter, I could do it alone,” Bennett said, his words sounding almost like a curse. “Then you could stay in here and be comfortable.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard him reference himself as not being smart enough, but I’d always thought he was joking. The frustrated expression on his face was anything but light and funny. “You’re really smart, Ben.”
He didn’t respond, just continued to jam his foot into the shoe.
