Coldness woke me like a hard slap to the cheek. The icy air made my lungs ache.
“Nate, what happened?”
My head.
Pounding.
Hard.
Flat on my back, arms and legs sprawled on the ground, I contemplated my next move. Heaving my body left, I rolled over and curled down to touch my injury. My ankle was puffy, like a balloon. Sore to the touch.
“Nate?” My voice echoed in the cave. Sluggishly, I sat up and felt around for my backpack. I pulled out my water bottle and chugged until it was almost empty.
“I’m here.” He was close by. But somehow, he sounded distant. “Waited a while for you to wake up.” He paused. “What’s the last thing you remember?” A few feet away, I could see his silhouette, but not his face.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s fuzzy and in pieces. The zombies and firecrackers. And…that’s it.” Why couldn’t I remember?
“You don’t remember unrolling your sleeping bag? You complained that you wanted to rest,” he said gently.
Something was off in his tone. The niceness was there, but the friendliness was gone. It was hard to explain, but it didn’t feel right. This wasn’t the Nate I knew.
“How long did I sleep?”
Nate turned on his flashlight but aimed it downward. His face was still hard to see. “A couple of hours maybe? I slept a little too.”
I wanted to look into his dark brown eyes. To kiss him again and feel his body heat against my skin. But we were in the home stretch, and this wasn’t the time to get distracted.
“We should head out.” I pushed myself up to a crouching position and rolled up my sleeping bag. It was still warm from my body heat.
Nate checked his wristband. “If you’re tired, though, we can hang out here a bit. It’s raining out there.”
A light drizzle fell outside of the cave opening, but nothing we couldn’t handle. I hoisted on my backpack, which added extra weight on my inflamed ankle. From the first aid kit in my backpack pocket, I pulled out two Advils and swallowed them.
Our wristbands lit up and buzzed, grabbing our attention with the incoming message. I scrolled down the teeny screen.
EIGHT TEAMS REMAINING. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FINALISTS! AND SURPRISE! WE’VE CHANGED THE RULES (SEE APPENDIX B, SECTION 2 THAT YOU INITIALED, ACCEPTING ALL CONDITIONS LISTED IN THAT SECTION, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ALTERING TERMS OF THE COMPETITION).
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, TEAMS ARE ALLOWED TO DISBAND AND PARTICIPATE AS INDIVIDUALS. GRAND PRIZE REMAINS THE SAME. SEE YOU AT THE FINISH LINE!
I reread the message again. It was a lot to process.
Nate spoke first. “Your ankle, from here it looks pretty swollen, like a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Can you walk okay?”
Based on the limited data I had, standing in a cave with a backpack, the answer was “sort of.”
“I…I think so.”
“Can you run?”
I bit my lip. “I can try.”
Nate’s shoulders stiffened. “Okay, can you outrun zombies, and other contestants, with your leg like that?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
He breathed deeply. “Yes or no? Which is it?”
“I—I—I don’t…” My eyes filled with tears. “No.”
“You don’t know? Or just no?”
“No.” Anger shot through my veins. “NO. Okay? NO. I can’t run. And if I can’t run, we can’t win. I get that. Is that what you wanted to hear?” My voice wavered. Do NOT cry, Kate. Don’t you dare cry.
He waited for me to finish. “I can still win, though.” He cleared his throat. “It’s still possible for me to win.”
“By yourself?” I barked. It came out more harshly that I’d expected.
“Yes. By myself,” he said, barely audible. “If we stay as a team…” His voice trailed off.
If we stayed as a team, we’d lose.
If he left me, he could win.
I wasn’t an idiot. Cutting him loose was the logical answer. But let’s face it, I wasn’t really letting him go. He was letting me go.
Abandoned again. A memory flashed of my mom, wildly clapping for me in the front row of the auditorium. Then another, of her casket being lowered into the ground. Did she know how much I loved her? How it hurt so much when she died? I hated being alone, but love inevitably turned into heartbreak. There was no point in going through that again. My heart couldn’t handle it.
“Go,” I whispered.
“Kate? Are you sure?”
Louder, I hissed, “Just go. Now. I’ll be fine.”
His wristband buzzed. “If I win, I promise—”
I cut him off. “Stop. Talking. Just leave while you still have a chance to win.” Nate wasn’t complicated. Money was the only thing that drove him. I was so stupid to think there was more to him than that.
Nate nodded. Standing up with his heavy pack on one shoulder, he walked to the front of the cave. “I left you extra food and water,” he said before he took off jogging into the rain. The wind had picked up, rattling the trees and blowing debris every which way.
If he’d shone the flashlight back at my face, he would have seen tears tumbling down my cheeks as the fire inside me blew out.