“But it was for…” he started to protest and then suddenly pokered up.
If Joss had to guess, she’d bet he took it to give to Lauren, but that mattered less right now than getting Puck water. “Don’t the two of you have any extra? Especially since we have Moody’s supplies?” she addressed the camera operators.
“We… uh… we drank it this afternoon while you two were off exploring.”
“All of it?” Even she knew that was a bonehead move before Shep had warned them not to gorge on Buffalo’s supplies.
Four pairs of eyes avoiding her gaze was all the answer Joss needed. “If you wanted to be stupid, that’s the choice the four of you made,” she snapped. “But we’re talking about an innocent animal here.”
“Dogs drink out of toilets all the time. Just get him to the river, and he can have his fill,” Lauren said with a casual wave of her hand.
“I don’t let Puck drink from non-potable sources,” Shep said. “Dogs can contract Leptospirosis that way.”
“Don’t you have something in your magic pack to purify water?” Bradley asked Shep.
“It takes at least thirty minutes until water treated with purification tablets is drinkable. Puck needs water now.”
“Lighten up, dude,” the younger camera operator said. “He’s just a fucking dog.”
That idiot. Puck was anything but just a fucking dog. Joss shrugged off her guitar and slipped out of her own pack. She rummaged through it until she found the half-full bladder. She looked up at Shep. “Do you have his bowl?”
“Where the hell did you get that?” Lauren demanded.
Joss ignored her.
At least she did until the taller woman charged over and tried to wrestle the container from Joss’s hold. “Hand that over, you little cheat.” Lauren tugged so hard that Joss was afraid she would damage the bladder and spill the water.
No. Ma’am. Not gonna happen.
Joss let go of the bladder with one hand, curled it into a fist, and whacked Lauren with a hammer smack to the cheekbone.
With a satisfying squeal, Lauren released the water and fell on her ass in the dirt. “You hit me.”
“Good. You were paying attention.” Joss motioned to Shep for Puck’s collapsible silicone water bowl. Carefully, she filled it just shy of the rim and passed it back to him.
“As soon as we get back to civilization,” Lauren held a palm to her reddening cheek, “I’m filing a lawsuit against you for assault.”
“Go for it.” Joss twisted the cap back on the bladder, making sure it was tight, before stowing it in her bag. She’d sleep on the damn thing tonight if that was what it took to keep Lauren away from it. Not so long ago, Joss had believed she was mess of cracks and shattered pieces, but she was beginning to believe what she’d told Shep earlier. Maybe she was unbreakable.
If all the things she’d been through before now hadn’t crushed her, that meant something. She’d been rejected, told she couldn’t sing, told girls couldn’t be the front man for a rock band. She’d had beer bottles thrown at her, received hate mail, endured more than her share of death threats. Especially after the accident.
He guarded Puck while he drank his fill of the water. After, Shep strode back over to the group. “It’s time for the opportunity.”
“Finally,” Lauren sighed. “Let’s get this over with so we can eat whatever food is left in Moody’s bag.”
Lauren was the delusional one, if she thought that was happening.
“The opportunity has two parts,” Shep said. “First, you’ll build a stable shelter.”
“That’s not fair,” Lauren protested. “Joss built her own shelter last night. She already knows how to do it.”
“I guess luck favors the fortunate, doesn’t it?” Joss said.
“What exactly does stable mean?” Bradley asked.
Shep swiped a hand over his forehead as if trying to wipe away a massive headache. “Puck has to be able to crawl into it without the whole thing collapsing.”
“And the second part of the opportunity?”
“Find and bring back to camp potable liquid.” Shep glanced down at the rugged watch he wore. “You have exactly ninety minutes from… now.”
“But… but…” Lauren sputtered. “Aren’t you going to give us more information? More guidance?”
“The show is called Do or Die,” he said without an ounce of inflection. “And right now, when it comes to you, I really don’t care which option you choose.”
And Joss couldn’t stand around listening to the two of them if she planned to win this opportunity. She knew how to build her shelter, but the water might be more of a challenge. Which to do first?
“Do we have to do the tasks in order?” she asked Shep.
“My one piece of advice to all of you is to complete the task you think will take the longest first.”
“Let’s go, Bradley.” Lauren threaded her arm through his. “We’ll get water first since that won’t be too hard.”
They each took a water bottle and headed east, tramping into the trees with the young camera operator trailing them.
Joss took a few minutes to dissect Shep’s instructions. She knew what it took to build the shelter, which encouraged her to jump in and construct hers. Maybe that meant it would take her longer to find water. She couldn’t just find a creek or stagnant water source because Shep said potable. Then where?
“Can I use Puck’s water bowl?” she asked him. “I want to take it into the woods with me.”
With a tiny smile, Shep handed it over. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“If you need shade, find the type of tree you tied Puck to earlier.”
Shade? It would get dark soon. Why would she need…
Water. Shep had said potable liquid, not water.
Greg followed her out of camp, and it didn’t take Joss long to find a maple. Her attempt at tapping in to get… maple juice?? …wasn’t pretty, but she used her multi-tool to drive through the bark and into the tree’s flesh. Not much liquid sluggishly dripped out into her bowl. It sure wouldn’t keep anyone from succumbing to dehydration, but Shep hadn’t mandated quantity.
When she jogged back to the meadow, Greg was still filming her. Fine by Joss because she was grinning at her success. She sought out Shep, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed in front of his compact tent. Three deep breaths that expanded and contracted his broad chest, and he opened his eyes.
Joss held out the bowl. “You asked for potable liquid, but you didn’t say how much. I hope this is enough. I got this from a maple tree.”
“Quantity isn’t important for the opportunity.” He eyed the few drops she’d coaxed from the tree. “You do realize you could’ve just given me the bladder, right?”
“That would’ve been cheating.”
“Not based on what I asked for, but thanks for playing a fair game. Good work. You’re currently in first place.”
Yay, her! Hopefully, Lauren and Bradley were still out there trying to find the river.
Joss had branches for her shelter gathered and the support poles in place when Bradley and Lauren came crashing back into camp. “We have water,” Lauren called out.
“You each need your own,” Shep told her. “No sharing.”
“Here’s mine.” Lauren thrust a filled water bottle toward Shep. “Bradley has one, too.”
Shep brought the water close to his face and sniffed. “I said potable.”
“It’s from the river, which last time I checked, runs constantly.”
“It’s not potable as is.”
She kicked a rock toward him, but it just hit the toe of his hiking boot and rolled away. “You are impossible.”
“No. Those are the rules.”
“If we boil it, will it be considered potable?”
“You tell me,” Shep said.
“You’re a real dick, you know that?” Lauren stomped over to Bradley. “I guess we’ll have to boil it.” That was when she m
ust’ve realized that Joss was making solid progress on her shelter. “The river is quite a distance from here. You might want to get your hustle on.”
“I don’t need river water.” Joss continued to lay branches to cover her debris shelter. “I already gave Shep something potable.”
“You poured water from your stash!” Lauren accused.
“No, I found it fair and square.”
“You could be lying. It was just the two of you here in camp. And with the way he looks at you, he’d probably let you turn in a cup of pee.”
No reason to continue engaging in a conversation that wasn’t helping Joss with her shelter, so she turned away from Lauren and began crisscrossing branches over her shelter frame.
“He probably helped you with that, too,” Lauren accused.
Joss didn’t bother looking away from her work. “Nope. But if you want proof, Greg has been filming the entire time.”
“For all I know,” Lauren’s volume climbed. “You could be blowing him, too.”
My God, Joss thought she’d met the sharpest clawed cats in the entertainment industry. But Lauren’s were honed to a fine point and dipped in poison. Shaking her head as if to shoo off an annoying fly, Joss ignored Lauren and trekked into the woods to gather leaves for her shelter roof and mattress. When she returned, one of her support poles was at the wrong angle, compromising an entire side of her shelter.
Lauren’s handiwork, no doubt. But Joss simply moved the limb back to its proper place. Then she finished off her roof, covering every hole. It might not be completely rainproof, but she was proud of it.
She’d even made it big enough to slide her belongings in beside her. And since Lauren and Bradley were both still trying to build structures that didn’t collapse like a house of cards, Joss took the time to move her pack and Fiona inside her new home.
One last look at her handiwork and she raised her hand and waved at Shep. “My shelter is finished.”
He strolled over and gave it the once-over, his face not revealing a single thought. After a thorough visual study, he called for Puck to stand beside him. Then he rolled a ball into Joss’s structure and said, “Puck, retrieve.”
Puck, tongue lolling and tail wagging, took off like a golden-red freight train in the direction of Joss’s shelter. Oh. Oh, no.
“Check it out,” Bradley called out. “The dog is about to decimate Joss’s shelter.”
Yeah, she was having terrifying visions of the three little pigs. But it wasn’t going to take a single huff or puff. Just a swish of Puck’s tail.
Unbelievably, the dog raced to the entrance, then dropped to his belly. That was great, but his tail was still wagging like mad. As he army-crawled into her shelter, his tail took a swipe at both support poles.
Joss held her breath, just waiting for a full collapse. But her poles held strong.
Whew.
Then it occurred to her that once Puck retrieved the ball, he had to make his way back out. He probably weighed seventy pounds, and if he bumped anything when he turned around in there…
Please, please, please.
Incredibly, he exited the way he’d entered, but in reverse. He must’ve been very proud of himself because his tail was even more active. Whap, whap, whap. One support pole leaned a little, making the roof shimmy.
But the shelter stood its ground, and that was all that mattered.
“Here, Puck,” Shep called to him.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Bradley muttered.
“Joss wins the third opportunity,” Shep stated.
“That’s… You can’t…” Lauren sputtered. “That’s not fair because she had practice last night!”
“Lauren, the show is called Do or Die for a reason. You have to do something if you want to win.” A wide smile spread over Bradley’s face and he said, “Good job, Joss. Congratulations.”
12
Since Lauren wasn’t required to finish building her shelter after the opportunity was over, she sidled up to Zach and offered to share Moody’s tent with him.
“Hey, what about me?” Bradley said, but by the laughter in his voice, Joss could tell he wasn’t really interested in sharing his shelter.
Lauren pointed at his lopsided—but standing nonetheless—structure. “Seriously, you want me to sleep in that?”
“No, Lauren,” he said. “I wasn’t serious, but your answer just confirms that you’re a self-serving bitch.”
“If I don’t take what I want in this world, no one’s going to just hand it over. So you’re damn right I look out for myself.”
The humor swept off Bradley’s face. “If you think you’re going to commandeer what’s left of Moody’s food, you’ve lost your mind.”
“Of course, I planned to share with you, Darling Bradley.” She cut a sharp look in Joss’s direction. No words needed there. If Joss wanted so much as a nibble, she was shit outta luck.
“Do you think Moody will disqualify us all when he finds out Shep gave us each a protein bar and that you helped yourself to his food?”
“It’s called Do or Die, as you so nicely reminded me. If Moody has a problem with us eating his food and using his supplies, then he shouldn’t have left it all for us to take. I consider this playing the game, and playing it well.” She strode off toward the younger camera guy’s tent and disappeared inside.
Afterward, camp was blissfully quiet for long enough for Joss to scoot inside her shelter and close her eyes. While she was drifting in a theta state, lyrics began to come to her. Tiny phantoms darting around one another, trying to find a space to become tangible. Touchable.
Wanting someone out there to belong to me and truly understand,
What drove my heart to beat and left a mark on me, a burning brand…
A shriek cut through Joss’s beautiful creative fog. No, no, no. The Muse hadn’t gifted her with a song in much too long. This one was still a ghost and didn’t sound like any kind of rock anthem. More of a folksy ballad. But she’d take anything she could get right now.
“Someone help me!” Lauren yelled. “I burned myself on this stupid soup pot. I need medical attention.”
And like tiny iridescent bubbles, Joss’s lovely lyrics began to disappear.
“Where is that damn guide when we need him?” Lauren demanded, but Joss could hear the tears in her voice. She had truly hurt herself.
Joss didn’t have more than a couple of Band-Aids in her pack, but she unzipped it and found them.
She was making her way out of her shelter when Shep came striding into camp, Puck trotting along at his side, and answered Lauren’s question. “He’s out looking for the asshole responsible for all you people.” He stalked over to Lauren and stared down at her with his hands bracketing his hips. “What the hell have you done to yourself?”
“I touched the pot and—”
“You grabbed the handle without protection?”
“How was I supposed to know it was hot?”
“Because that’s what happens to metal over an open flame.”
“Like I often boil up some shitty canned soup over a bonfire in my backyard.”
“Why would you…” He cut a look at Joss as if asking for her help, and she shook her head, telling him Lauren was being sarcastic. “Never mind. Let me get the first aid kit and see what I can do.”
But when he crawled back out of his tent, his hands were empty, and he sat back on his heels and surveyed everyone in camp with disgust. “Taking Moody’s crap is one thing, people. But I didn’t think you would actually steal from me.”
“What do you mean?” Lauren asked, true tears forming in her eyes as she held one hand with the other.
“The first aid kit is missing,” Shep said flatly, “and one of you stole it.”
* * *
After The Bitcher’s meltdown, Shep had taken a much-needed break from the group and hiked out to the river to get water he could purify for Puck to drink, and he’d kept an eye out for any sign of Buffalo Moody. He damn well
should’ve known he couldn’t leave anything behind with that pack of hyenas. The camera operators wouldn’t have stopped the thief, but they might’ve gotten it on film.
“Do you know how to boil water?” he snapped at Bradley.
“Fire, pot, water. Pretty simple.”
“Then do it, so we have something to clean The Bi… Lauren’s hand with.” He passed the other man the water bottle he’d carried to the river. “Less than half a cup should be plenty to clean her burn. The rest I’ll purify for Puck.”
“I’m happy to boil it all.”
Shep stared him down. If he did something stupid and Shep had to hike back to the river tonight, he’d take Bradley with him and hold his head under the water.
“Hey, man.” Bradley lifted his hands and leaned back. “Whatever’s putting that look of murder on your face, you need to stop thinking it. I’m just offering to deal with the water. No double-cross involved.”
It would be fucking handy if Shep could tell if the guy’s expression was sincere or not. So he turned to Joss. “Does he mean what he’s saying?”
She strolled over and studied her competitor. “I think so.”
“That the best you’ve got?” he demanded.
“It’s not a science, you know.”
“If it was, I could do it myself.” He sighed and told Bradley, “Don’t make me regret this.”
Dismissing that situation as a done deal, Shep turned to the camera guys. “Which of you was filming while I was gone?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to see the footage. If none of you are willing to squeal on the supply thief, then I’ll get the answer myself.” He glanced over at Joss to find her frowning at him. Like he’d done something wrong? She was the one who wouldn’t come forward and tell him who’d done it.
Unless she had taken his supplies.
“No one sees the clips until Buffalo does,” Greg protested.
One in each hand, Shep drew the camera guys up by their T-shirt collars. “I’ll remind you one last time that Moody is not here. I am. And that makes me the boss. If you don’t show me what you taped, I will not think twice about taking your fancy equipment and smashing it with a rock. Then I will make you pick up every tiny piece, every sliver so you can pack it back out with you.”
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