Chapter Thirty-Three

A loud horn blasts into the air. I jerk awake. What? Where? The dawn light filters through the tall, tall trees, and the sky is a pale version of its impossibly blue hue, so it’s early yet. Too early, for someone who fell asleep well after the moon hit its peak.

Groggily, I push myself up on my elbows. Around me, on the patchy ground, Bodin, Rae, and Eduardo are slowly waking up.

Wait a minute—ground? As in, dirt and grass?

In an instant, I am up, brushing off any dirt or possible bugs that could be on me. The only thing clouding my mind from the panic is my confusion. I fell asleep on my sleeping bag next to the firepit, in the center of camp. After having a single, perfect kiss with Bodin. Most people say that first kisses are awkward…kind of gross…not particularly enjoyable. Mine was pretty much the opposite. Not too rough. Not too soft. It was delicious, not to mention addictive.

Here, there’s no sand. No firepit. No shelter…which means no Mama.

“Um, guys?” I ask in a wobbly voice. “Where are we? And where’s my mama?”

I take in my new surroundings. Thickets of trees grow at a slight incline around us, forming a clearing that’s more egg-shaped than circular, but it’s clearly manmade. Tufts of grass poke up through the dirt amongst flat stones, big and small. The pebbles that I dislodge with my movements roll downhill, and the air here smells crisper: less like the ocean and more like the earth.

“We’re still on the island,” Rae says, reaching the same conclusion as me. “On the mountainside. Remember that dense forest we saw from the helicopter? I’ll bet you anything we’re somewhere in there.”

“What have we got here?” Eduardo lunges forward and retrieves a short dagger from the tall grass. Its hilt is black, banded by rings of gold, and it fits in his grasp like it was made for his hand.

Rae fishes out a double-edged sword, long and shiny, from the patch of grass in her corner, while Bodin uncovers a traditional krabong and shield like the ones the croc-people were using.

I look down—and my mouth falls open. I can’t believe that I missed it before. There, only partially hidden in the grass, are a lethal-looking blowgun and a sheath of darts.

I pick them up gingerly. Each of these weapons was placed in a specific quadrant of the clearing—and probably not randomly, either. The sword, the dagger, and the krabong are meant for close-range battles. They require skill and a certain amount of athletic ability, which my three fellow castaways all have.

Me, on the other hand? I would never trust myself with a weapon that required much expertise. Here’s hoping that you just kinda huff and shoot with a blowgun.

Feigning confidence, I swing the sheath over my shoulder and pick up the blowgun. Whatever we’re about to face, I want to be ready.

Bodin drifts over to me. “Insert the pointed tip of the dart into the mouthpiece,” he whispers. “You then put your dominant hand a quarter of the way down the barrel; your other hand will extend farther out to support the entire length. To aim, look down the sight…but if your target is moving, adjust your aim above and in front of the target.”

I swallow hard. So a little bit more complex than blow and shoot. But at least our first interaction after the kiss isn’t awkward. In fact, it’s strangely comfortable. “My mama—”

“Could be anywhere,” he interjects. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. She’s probably sleeping peacefully back at camp. There are a lot of reasons why she might not be here—the most obvious of which is that she’s too sick to participate in whatever the hell challenge this is.”

“Agreed,” Rae says, coming up to us. “This is definitely one of Xander’s challenges. You don’t just wake up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by weapons, on accident.”

“But…what are we supposed to do?” I voice the obvious.

“Battle.” Eduardo takes a practice lunge with the dagger. His back is straight, his form strong. I’m not sure if he’s ever wielded a deadly weapon before—but he’s a natural. The point of the dagger sparkles in the now rising sun, and I can imagine it cleaving a person in half.

I shiver. Maybe I should be practicing, too. At the very least, I should figure out how hard I need to blow into the mouthpiece.

“But there’s no one here.” Rae frowns at her reflection in the double-edged sword. The weapon droops awkwardly, as though it’s too heavy for her hand. Maybe I’m not the only one out of my league.

Eduardo lunges again, deeper, harder. The dagger thrusts squarely into his invisible opponent’s throat. “Exactly. There’s no one here. So we battle each other.”

Rae’s sword thunks onto the ground. “Why?”

“To win the prize,” Eduardo says, as though it’s apparent. “To be free. Isn’t it obvious? The last person standing gets to go home.”

“Um, buddy?” Bodin says. “I think you’ve been watching too much TV.”

Rae strides over to Eduardo, using her sword as a walking stick, and pokes a finger into his chest. Hard. “Of all the ridiculous things to say. You’re willing to start slaughtering your friends, based on zero evidence?”

Eduardo swipes her finger away. If he’s anything like me, he’s not a fan of being touched. “You take one step closer to me, and I’ll start with you,” he snarls.

It’s just a show. I think. They’re taking their frustrations out on each other. I hope.

“Stop it,” I say. “Don’t you see? This is exactly what Xander wants. He wants to pit us against one another. Make us paranoid, so that we don’t work together as a team. We’ll never get out of here if we self-destruct.”

“But we aren’t a team,” Bodin points out, swinging the krabong casually. Like Eduardo, the weapon seems like a natural extension of his arm. “The only thing we have in common is that we all woke up on this island together.”

I shake my head. “I don’t believe that. Not anymore. I don’t trust easily, but I trust each of you. I know, at my core, that you’re good people. Xander’s strategy is to create chaos, to be divisive. To wake us up too early, in a strange place. Much easier to push us to our emotional limits if our brains are fatigued and our thoughts are all jumbled up. This is one big mind game, and we can’t play into it.”

To my surprise, Rae nods. “She’s right. We can’t turn on one another.” But she can’t resist poking Eduardo one more time. “But I’ve still got my eyes on you, buster.”

“Keep your distance, if you know what’s good for you,” he growls.

“We found our weapons hidden in the grass.” Bodin speaks up. “Maybe there’s something else we need to find, something that will make the objective of this challenge clear.”

He, Rae, and Eduardo begin to search, poking in the bushes and looking inside trees. But this isn’t Survivor. We’re not searching for a freaking immunity idol. This is Xander’s Game, and his idea of fun is to twist our emotions into a pretzel—and then tighten the knot.

The weapons were stashed on the ground, so I scan the tree line, where emerald leaves meet sapphire sky and lonely trees stretch their bare branches into the empty expanse. Up, down, and around, my gaze flows, as it traces tall, short, and middling trees, and then—

“Mama,” I say, my throat thick with tears.

“This again?” Rae says as she sticks her hand into a hollowed-out log. “We talked about this, Alaia. You need to let go—”

“She’s not back at camp,” I interrupt. “Look!”

I point at the highest tree, whose glowing leaves are, fittingly, closest to the red-hot sun. There, hanging horizontally from the uppermost branch, lies a human figure, wrapped up in a white sheet, with a sunset orange silk scarf tied around her head.

Eduardo squints. “What is that? Is she lying in some sort of hammock?”

“Does it matter?” I snap.

“Of course it matters. You want your mother to be comfortable until we can rescue her, don’t you?”

“Don’t worry, Alaia,” Bodin says, by my side once more. “We will rescue her.”

I inhale slowly, filling my lungs with the smell of the earth, the vegetation, the growth. Of Mama. Of the scent of safety that is uniquely hers.

If there was ever a time to be brave, this is it. “Xander thinks this little trick of his will break me. He’s wrong.” I survey the smooth lower trunk of the tree that’s holding Mama captive. The closest branch is about eight feet off the ground. Mama is twenty feet above that.

Interestingly, a bunch of leaves, which I thought appeared burnished gold because of the sun’s rays, actually is gold. A cluster of leaves next to it shares the same strange sparkling phenomenon—but in silver. Strange, but not something I can dwell about at this moment.

“Bodin, can you give me a boost?”

“I should go first—”

“No,” I say. “I’m lighter than you. I don’t know if the branch will hold your weight—or Eduardo’s. Besides, it’s my mama. I’m going.”

He nods, not arguing any further. He kneels by the trunk, and I climb up, dropping my blowgun and sheath of darts to the ground. In another time and another circumstance, I might have been embarrassed scaling his body. Now, I’m tunnel-focused on saving Mama, even as scenes from last night flash through my mind.

I straighten so that I’m standing on his bended knee. Even on my tiptoes, I can’t…quite…reach…the branch.

“I’m going to have to jump,” I say.

“Don’t worry about me.” Bodin’s voice is only slightly strained. “I can handle the impact.”

I let all of the air flow out of my body, with my arms still overhead. And then, I jump. Got it! Pieces of bark flake off the branch, and the wood digs into my palm, but my grasp is steady and strong.

Holy crap. The muscles in my arm are already burning. I wish I’d worked a little harder in gym class. I kick up my legs and swing my body, so that I can press my feet against the tree trunk. I walk up slowly…and then, I’m hanging from the branch like a koala. From there, I pull up with my arms, hug the branch, and, by some miracle, manage to wriggle on top of the thick cylinder.

“I did it,” I gasp. “I don’t know how. If that didn’t bring my abilities to the surface, I don’t know what will.”

And that’s when the monkey attacks.