“Are you okay?” Jace asks as Haylee and Brice wander away to place a flashlight under a tree.
“No.” I turn to face him. “But apparently I’m doing this anyway,” I say, and he grabs the sides of the black hoodie I have covering my hair and uses it to pull me toward him.
“Stick with Haylee, stay hidden, and move fast. I’ll be nearby and try to block anyone I see coming your direction.”
“All right,” I whisper, and he dips his face close enough that I feel his warm breath against my lips.
“One minute!” Daniel shouts.
“Be safe.” He kisses me, and I sink against him like I always do when his lips are on mine.
“Ready?” Haylee asks, and he plants one more swift kiss on my mouth before he lets me go.
“Ready.” I reach for her hand and hold it tight. When the horn sounds, the two of us take off.
One thing I learn quickly is that running through the woods in the dark sounds as stupid as it is. During the day, I’d likely twist my ankle, tripping over something I could see in my path. So almost zero light, fear, and no real athletic ability is a recipe for disaster as I trip over tree branches and my own feet.
“I think I hear someone coming,” I whisper, tugging Haylee with me toward a large tree, and the two of us duck behind it. Listening, I search for the sound I heard before, but it’s difficult to make out anything over my heart pounding in my ears and our heavy breathing.
“Maybe it was Jace.”
“Maybe.” I look around the side of the tree to see if I can spot any kind of movement, but I don’t see anything. Then again, that doesn’t mean much.
“Do you see that tree over there?” she asks, and I look to where she’s pointing.
“Yeah.”
“I say we run for it and see if that draws anyone out.”
“Okay, yeah. Sure.” I try to hype myself up, and she takes off before me. I follow behind her as quickly and as quietly as I can, hearing nothing but twigs and leaves crunching under my feet. When I get to the tree, I blink, because tied around it is a yellow ribbon that leads to a tree a few feet away, and hanging between the two are three flags, each a different color.
“Oh my God.”
“What?” Haylee asks, glancing around.
“Look.” I point, and she gasps, then her eyes widen as we hear two people start talking quietly nearby, probably whoever is supposed to be watching the flags.
“Now what?”
“I don’t know.” I peek around the tree but don’t see anyone. “We could just go for it. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“We get caught,” she mumbles.
“Well, the alternative is standing here all night.”
“True.” She peeks around the tree. “All right, you go first, and I’ll follow.”
Ducking low, I take off as quietly as I can, and as I’m passing the row of flags, I reach out and grab ours, then keep going, because I don’t want to be too close if the person notices one of the flags are missing. At the third tree I stop behind, Haylee catches up to me and takes the flag from my grasp, waving it above her head.
“That seemed way too easy.”
“That’s because they weren’t watching to see if anyone would come up behind them,” she whispers as we run toward another tree. “Hopefully, the next team will do the same.”
“Hopefully,” I agree, already out of breath again. Damn but I really need to use the stupid gym membership I bought myself back in January when my New Year’s resolution was to get in shape. “Do you remember what other landmark we’re supposed to look for next?”
“Well, that was the yellow team, and their landmark was supposed to be an oversized tree with hanging branches. I think the blue team is a huge boulder, and the red team is a stream.”
“Okay, so we need to look for a boulder or a stream?”
“Yes, but if we’re on the backside of the sites, then I’m not sure we will see either of those things.” She stops me by grabbing my hand when a branch breaks nearby.
Swallowing, I look around, but I can’t see more than a few feet in any direction. When I hear another branch break, I’m half-tempted to yell out “who’s there?” but I doubt Haylee would be very happy if I gave away our position. Plus, that’s exactly how every single female dies in every scary movie ever made. “I really hate this,” I whisper.
“Let’s just keep moving,” she whispers back.
Hand in hand, we move through the woods, and after a couple of minutes, I notice a light in the distance—not a huge light, but like someone has a flashlight on. The two of us slow down and keep ourselves hidden behind tree after tree as we move closer to the light. Then we freeze when a woman screams at the top of her lungs. At first, I don’t know what to think, but then I spot Sammy running after someone with a flashlight in her hand. I think it’s Troy, but it could be Ian; it’s hard to tell.
“I swear I’m going to kill you,” she screams, chasing him, and I look at Haylee.
“Do you think she was the one protecting their flags?”
“I bet you she was,” she says excitedly, and the two of us take off on a jog toward where Sammy and Ian were running from. When I see a red ribbon with one flag hanging from it, I want to shout in happiness, but my excitement is thawed when Haylee screams at the top of her lungs, “Run!”
“No fucking way,” I hear Sammy cry behind us, and Haylee grabs my hand, pulling me with her over the uneven ground. We fly through the ribbon like it’s the finish line at the end of a race, and I can hear it flapping in the wind as footsteps pound on the ground behind us.
“Got you,” I hear Jace say, and I glance back over my shoulder and catch a glimpse of him just before he tags Sammy.
Screaming, she falls to her knees, throwing her hands into the air, and I fight back the urge to laugh at her dramatics.
“Sorry, Sammy!” I yell over my shoulder in her direction.
“Liar.” She pouts, and I giggle as Jace runs up to join us.
“Hey, cupcake.” He bends to press a swift kiss to my lips. “How many flags did you guys get?”
“Two.” I detach the one we just got from the ribbon it’s still stapled to. “So we have to find one more.”
“Nope.” He pulls a flag out of the pocket of his hoodie. “I lost you two for a bit and ended up near the stream, where I found this.”
“So we just need to find Brice,” Haylee says happily.
“Yep.” He takes my hand, and I hate to admit I feel a whole lot safer having him with me. “Let’s just hope no one tagged him out.”
“I’m going to be so annoyed with him if that happened,” Haylee grumbles, then she stops and holds her hand up.
“What is it?” I ask, moving to her side.
“I don’t know.” She looks around. “I swear I heard something.”
“There’s the flashlight.” Jace points, and I search through the dark and spot the flashlight a few feet away lying on its side, no longer illuminating the branches above but instead sending a stream of light across the ground.
“So where’s Brice?” I ask, turning in a circle.