But this was the only clue they had to go on. She spoke up. “Why don’t we split up and search the area? We just need to stay within sight of the path so that we don’t get lost.”
Ky insisted that Morgan and Brinkley search together with the weak flashlight running on its last battery. The women took the right side of the trail next to the broken tree. Ky headed off in the opposite direction, still toting the pack of camping supplies on his back.
The sun had dropped behind the trees. It was dusk, but it was almost pitch black in the thick of the jungle. Morgan went ahead, holding the flashlight. Brinkley followed a few feet behind her. She didn’t know what exactly they were looking for, other than Harper laying on the ground somewhere.
Were they supposed to be searching for clues? Were they ruining any fresh tracks by trudging through the jungle on foot? But she kept her mouth shut. Morgan seemed confident. She seemed like she knew what she was doing as she charged through the underbrush deeper into the jungle with the flashlight in hand.
The farther they went, the thicker the jungle became. Without even looking, Brinkley knew that her legs were cut to shreds from the branches, thorns, and spiny plants that grew densely on the jungle floor. She was out of breath from hiking, but Morgan hadn’t slowed her pace.
“Morgan?” She spoke up timidly. So timidly that Morgan didn’t hear her. She tried again, a little louder that time. “Morgan?”
“What?” Morgan finally stopped.
Thank goodness. She just needed a second to catch her breath and get her bearings. She felt faint and knew without a doubt it was because of the lack of water and food in the past forty-eight hours.
“D-do you know what we’re looking for?” She stumbled over her words. “It’s just . . . I haven’t seen anything, and I think we’ve been hiking for a while. Should we turn back and make sure that we can find the trail again?”
Morgan sighed and shoved a clump of sweaty hair from her eyes. “You’re probably right. Knowing Harper, I don’t think she would have hiked this far into the jungle. She probably wouldn’t have wanted to break a sweat,” Morgan joked in a flat voice.
The two women turned around and headed back in the direction of the trail. Since they’d hiked straight into the jungle, it was easy to find their way back. Brinkley only hoped Harper had been as smart when she was searching for camp by herself.
When they finally reached the broken tree at the fork in the trail, they saw Ky sitting on his camping pack on the ground waiting for them.
Alone.
No Harper in sight.
Ky raised his head and smiled when he saw them. “There you are! I’m so glad you both came back. I was about to go and look for you, but I didn’t want to get lost myself.”
She and Morgan stared back at him.
“So you didn’t find her?” Brinkley asked, incredulous. You didn’t find anything?”
She held her breath. What were they going to do? They couldn’t just leave her there.
Ky shook his head. “I don’t want to disappoint you ladies, but I think it’s too late to head back to camp for the night. Besides, we’ll probably be able to find Harper easily once it’s light in the morning. We can use the tarp and set up shelter and look again in the morning.”
Brinkley nodded reluctantly. There was nothing she wanted to do less than stay in the jungle another night and sleep on the hard, soggy ground. For the second night in a row.
She took a deep breath, plastered a smile on her face, and said to Ky, “Do you want me to help you spread out the tarp?”
Chapter 15
Morgan
Morgan’s Confessional: It feels kind of stupid to be doing this interview in the middle of the jungle. I mean, is the show still going on? Everything’s totally gone to shit. But you guys are still here, filming everything. I know this interview is supposed to be about me, but do you have a conscience at all? We’re out here looking for someone who is lost and probably really hurt. But no one seems to want to do anything about it. If you want to know how I feel right now . . . I feel disgusted with this whole thing.
Morgan woke up with a start. She could hardly move her shoulders and upper back. But that was to be expected after spending yet another night on the hard ground. The only upside to the whole situation, if you could call it that, was that it didn’t rain overnight. So she didn’t wake up covered in jungle slime, reeking of mildew, for once. That was something.
She opened her eyes and took a few seconds to adjust to the bright sunlight streaming through the tarp overhead. Ky and Brinkley were still fast asleep on opposite sides of the shelter.
She had no clue how the two of them could sleep so soundly in such a terrible sleeping arrangement. It was like sleeping on a bed made of marbles. Or boulders. Or some other really hard substance that made your back spasm periodically throughout the night so that you couldn’t get a decent hour of sleep.
The next time that she had to spend the night on her grandmother’s pullout couch for Thanksgiving, she wasn’t going to complain. That was nothing compared to sleeping on the muddy, hard, rocky ground of the jungle. Pure torture.
She cleared her throat, but still, Ky and Brinkley didn’t stir. She reached out her hand and shook Brinkley’s shoulder. “Hey,” she said in a loud whisper. “I think we should probably get up and start looking for Harper. We don’t want to lose any more time.”
She didn’t want to say it out loud, but it was pretty clear why time was of the essence. If Harper was hurt, or worse, every second they wasted meant that she was less likely to be found. Or to make it back to camp alive.
That was something she didn’t want to think about, but the thoughts kept creeping into her mind all night long. What if they were hiking and found Harper’s dead body? What were they supposed to do then? When did this turn from a stupid reality show into some kind of cruel joke where the cast was stranded in the jungle and left to die?
She still couldn’t get over the fact that they were being filmed through all of it. She knew her contract said that she wasn’t supposed to talk to the cameramen, which she had obviously breached when she asked for help with Sarah M. But if she hadn’t begged the cameramen to take Sarah M. out of the jungle, she could have been in serious trouble.
Maybe it was all a scheme to see how they would react. Maybe Harper had been discovered by the crew. Or maybe she had escaped this hell and was sipping a margarita somewhere. Or maybe Harper was in on it. Maybe Harper was totally fine and had disappeared just to get the group to trek through the jungle over and over again to make for some good TV. It was a possibility, but Morgan didn’t want to get all conspiracy-theorist about it. She’d leave that to Sarah M.
Brinkley stirred and smiled up at her. “Mmm.” She yawned and stretched like a cat in the sun.
It was amazing that Brinkley, covered in mud, dirt, and grime, managed to wake up, stretch, and look absolutely adorable after spending two uncomfortable nights in the jungle. But that was Brinkley. It was probably because of her super happy, hyper-cheerful demeanor and delightful dimples that she was going to win the competition.
At this point, Morgan could have cared less who won. She just wanted to make sure Harper was alive and well and then get the hell out of the jungle for good. She’d never longed for Boston so much in her entire life.
She missed the smog. She craved the traffic. She even wanted to wait in line for forty-five minutes at the Starbucks on the corner of Winter and Jackson just to get a crappy latte made with weak espresso. She wanted anything, anything other than what she had right now.
She cleared her throat. “I think we should all get going. We need to try to find Harper as soon as we can so we can get her back to camp in one piece.”
Brinkley nodded, her eyes wide and sleepy like a little girl who’d just woken up from an afternoon nap. A few feet awa
y, Ky groaned and rolled over. He sat up and began massaging his shoulder.
“Good morning, beautiful ladies!”
And still, he managed to use his best, camera-ready greeting to say good morning. Clearly, this guy had been well trained by years spent in the eye of the media. He never let down his guard. He never turned off the charm. He never ceased to be totally, utterly, pointlessly, cheesy.
Morgan didn’t even try to hide her disgust. She rolled her eyes. “Morning, Ky. I trust you slept well.”
Though she was clearly being sarcastic, it sailed right over Ky’s gorgeous head. “You know? It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The ground was pretty hard, and I have a kink in my shoulder, but I slept like a baby. How ‘bout you?”
She ignored his question. It was that asinine. There was no way she was going to answer him because last night was one of the worst nights of sleep she’d had in her entire life. Between the tossing and turning and the sharp rocks poking her in the spine, she’d probably logged a good twenty minutes of sleep total.
She was grumpy, she was irritable, and she wasn’t in the mood for anybody’s bullshit. She wanted to find Harper fast so that they could get back to camp and hopefully find a way to get home. No matter how much she was going to be fined or sued or whatever for breaking her contract, she was ready to get out of the jungle.
Since there was no time to be spent on making breakfast, they set out on the trail again with empty stomachs. She was past the point of feeling faint. She felt hollow and empty. She had no energy, but she managed to put one foot in front of the other and continued to call out Harper’s name as they hiked up the trail back to the broken tree.
Her throat was hoarse. She would have killed for a glass of water, even if it were filled with dead gnats and jungle slime. Ky and Brinkley hiked a few feet ahead of her, but she hung back. She wasn’t trying to take her pity party too far, but she was having a hard time staying motivated.
Every step she took felt like a death sentence since it took her farther and farther into the jungle. Farther away from camp, where at least there was a pot of old rice waiting for her. Her stomach growled.
Brinkley shrieked. “There she is!”
That got her attention. As the group rounded the bend in the trail, Morgan saw Harper’s foot sticking out from underneath a pile of dead leaves just a few feet away from the broken tree. A chill crept up Morgan’s spine. There was no movement, nothing to indicate she was alive and well.
As they approached, she saw that Harper lay curled in the fetal position underneath a pile of leaves. Brinkley was the first to reach her as she sprinted up the trail then grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard. Harper didn’t move a muscle.
Oh my God, oh my God. It was exactly what Morgan had been afraid of. She’d never seen a dead body in real life. She’d thought that she’d watched enough CSI to desensitize her from the sight of blood and gore, but the reality of seeing someone dead right before her eyes made her blood run cold.
She wanted to hide her eyes, but she couldn’t look away. The scene was like a movie playing in slow motion. Brinkley shook Harper over and over again. Harper flopped back and forth like a rag doll. When Brinkley stopped, her head rolled to one side. Ky crouched in front of them. He frantically dug through his camping pack to try to find any first-aid supplies that would help.
Suddenly, Harper opened one eye and let out a low moan. Brinkley squealed even louder and wrapped Harper in a bear hug. “Harper! We were so worried about you! Are you okay? What happened to you? Have you had anything to eat?”
Brinkley bombarded her with question after question, but Harper didn’t say a word. Harper opened both of her eyes and stared straight ahead as if in a trance. Ky approached her and cradled her weak body in his arms.
After a few seconds, Harper registered that someone was touching her. She looked up into Ky’s eyes and said, “Where am I?”
Morgan stepped a few feet closer. “Harper, you’ve been out in the jungle for at least two days. Do you remember what happened to you? You left to go search for food, and you never came back.”
Harper rubbed her head. She paused and said, “I tried to leave and find camp by myself. I wasn’t really getting food and water. I was trying to go home, but I got turned around.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay, Harper,” Ky soothed. “We understand. You don’t need to explain. Just try to relax and save your strength.”
Fuck that! Why should anyone be comforting Harper right now? She did exactly what she had thought she would do. She’d only considered herself and tried to abandon the group in the jungle. And the three of them had spent the past three days practically killing themselves to find her.
Not only had she slept for two nights on the hard, dirty ground in the middle of the jungle, but Sarah M. had collapsed out of mental and physical exhaustion, just because they were looking for some stupid bitch who had tried to abandon them!
“Why are you coddling her? She tried to ditch us. And we’ve been out here for two days looking for her for no reason,” Morgan snapped.
“Hey, we don’t need to think about that right now,” Brinkley said. “We should just be happy that we found Harper alive. This was just what we had been praying for. Thankfully, nothing worse happened to her out here in the middle of nowhere, all by herself.” Brinkley shuddered at the thought.
Morgan opened her mouth to argue but didn’t see the point. All of her completely true words were falling on deaf ears. Somehow, Brinkley and Ky were more than willing to overlook the fact that Harper was a backstabbing, selfish bitch who’d left them without any food or water in the jungle.
Instead, she was like the prodigal son, being celebrated for doing nothing other than passing out on the side of a jungle trail in a pile of leaves.
As the group trekked back to camp, she was given responsibility for the camping pack. That was fine by her. She hiked the last few miles back to camp with the pack on her back while Brinkley and Ky supported the flimsy weight of Harper between them.
By the time they made it back to camp, Harper seemed to have gathered her bearings, at least a little. She became much more talkative. She ordered Brinkley to help her back to her cabin so she could fix her hair and change into new clothes.
Morgan went straight to the campfire. She dumped the camping pack on the ground and opened the pot of rice sitting next to the fire pit untouched since the night before.
Her mouth watered. She was tempted to grab handfuls of cold rice and shove them into her face, but since the cameras were still on her, she opted for a plate. Even though she was literally starving, there was no need to look like a total hobo on television. Not yet, at least.
She took the lid off the pot and saw that the rice was covered with black ants. She tried to scrape the ants off the top of the rice, something she never would have even considered at home, but the rice was infested the whole way through.
What were they going to do now? That was the only food that had been given to them in the past twenty-four hours, and the camp workers still appeared to be MIA. She took a second to survey the camp. Totally deserted. The lights in the office were off, and the door hung open on its hinges, as if the workers had left in a hurry.
She called to Ky as he made his way to the campfire from his cabin. “Is the water working yet? We don’t have any food at all. The rice is ruined.”
Ky gave the rusty pump a few turns, but nothing came out. She tried not to panic, but she couldn’t help herself. This was bad. This was really, really bad.
Chapter 16
Morgan’s Confessional: I have such a massive headache. I can't even think straight, and I don't know why I'm doing this fucking interview anyway since it'll probably just be aired on the news when they find our bodies in a few weeks. This is getting ridiculous. We really need water, and there's nowhere t
o get it. And what happened to the camp workers anyway? This isn't funny anymore. We need to know what's going on!
Thwack, thwack. The sound of Ky’s machete cutting through the jungle brush was almost soothing. Almost. It wasn’t necessarily the sound that Morgan wanted to go to sleep to every night, but it was reassuring to finally have someone else take charge.
After Ky came to grips with the fact that there was no food or water anywhere on the campsite, he made the executive decision that the group would have to hunt for their dinner in the jungle. Of course, Harper bitched and moaned so much that Ky told her to stay and wait for them by the fire pit.
Morgan thought it was a wise decision. After all, they didn’t want Harper wandering off again to try to escape, only to have to look for her for two more days in the jungle.
Harper didn’t have the best survival instinct. Keeping her close to camp was the only way she wouldn’t get lost or do something stupid. And they wouldn’t have to listen to her whining and complaining for the next hour.
She didn’t know what was worse, Harper’s incessant complaining or Brinkley’s constant cheerfulness.
Brinkley was at Ky’s side a few feet ahead. She was like a puppy dog, perfectly trained. Ky doesn’t even need a leash for her, she thought bitterly.
Brinkley said something to Ky that she couldn’t hear. She hadn’t even tried to keep up with the two of them since they were hiking with newfound energy. She had no clue where their sudden burst of pep had come from.
They’d spent the past two days trekking through the wilderness like nomads without any food or water. Then they’d returned to camp, only to find their food infested with ants the size of termites and the water pump still dry.
Adventure to Love Page 17
