Reindeer Games
Page 3

“Oh, goddamn it,” I muttered to myself.
“Be nice, Lunatic,” Owen said in that ridiculous alpha-male voice of us. “We’re here on the Christmas show, and Clarissa’s just in the swing of things. It’s not her fault you woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“Oh, was there a bed?” I snarked, in a pissy mood after he’d called me ‘lunatic’ instead of my real name. “I must have missed it after that great night of sleep in our glorious shelter.”
“Shh, Luna,” Patty said in a soft voice. “Be nice.”
I thought I was being pretty nice, all things considering. But I just shrugged and looked over at Clarissa, who was still staring at me with big, wounded eyes. “So what’s in the box?”
Owen hugged Clarissa’s shoulders. “It’s okay. Why don’t you show us?”
She tugged at the big ornate bow and pulled off the lid, peeking inside. Then, she lifted the object into the air. It was a gigantic puzzle piece that had “Challenge in One Hour” written on the front.
“What do you think it could be?” Clarissa asked.
Really? Patty shot me an incredulous look as well. Was Clarissa that stupid or just playing dumb?
I watched as Owen took the piece from Clarissa’s hand and studied it. “Clearly it’s some kind of puzzle.” He looked at all of us. “Anyone in the group an expert at puzzles?”
I raised my hand.
Owen ignored it. “Okay, well, if no one objects, I think I’ll take charge in the puzzle challenge. I’m pretty good at them.”
I put down my hand and rolled my eyes.
“But…Luna had her hand up,” Patty said in a questioning voice.
“I know,” Owen said. “But no one likes Luna.”
This time when I put my hand up, I extended my middle finger at Owen.
“See?” he said.
 
 
Chapter Two
 
 
Can I vote someone off already? Because the Boston Princess is getting on my last nerve. You’d think a girl as cute as her would know when to shut her damn yap. – Owen MacIntosh, Day 2, Endurance Island: Alaska
 
~~ * * * ~~
 
“It’s a puzzle challenge all right,” I murmured as the red team stepped onto the mat. I made sure I was at the front, which wasn’t hard, considering I was a short girl.
“Your powers of observation are astounding, Luna,” Owen said. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
I wanted to shoot him the bird again, but the cameras were zooming in on us. So I just put my hands on my hips and ignored him, trying to suss out the puzzle. There were large wooden blocks in weird Tetris shapes scattered all over the snow, stuffed into Christmas stockings and painted the color of each team. I immediately started mentally figuring stuff out. There were 3D puzzle pieces all over the snow, and at the far end of the challenge area, there was an enormous wall that Chip stood atop of. We’d clearly have to put together a ladder of some kind to get to him.
Piece of cake. “This should be wicked easy,” I told Patty, who stood to my side.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, Chip put on his microphone, a Santa hat, and then proceeded to tell us the same thing. The first team to build their ladder and get to the top of the platform next to him would win a prize. He gestured at a gigantic wrapped present that sat under a Christmas tree.
“There are a hundred puzzle pieces for each team,” Chip told us, and I mentally filed that information away. “I’ll give you a moment to strategize.” Chip then pulled out a mirror, checking his hair.
“So I think what we need –,” I began.
“No one cares, Luna,” Owen said. He turned to the team, who gave him attentive looks. No one was looking in my direction at all. Assholes. I crossed my arms over my chest tightly and leaned in so I could hear what Owen was saying.
“What we need to do,” he said, “is have our strongest runners go into the field and grab puzzle pieces and bring them back. The faster we get them, the better, so if you’re slow, you need to work on the puzzle.”
That would have been exactly what I’d suggested, if he’d have let me finish a thought.
Patty raised her hand. “I’ll work on the puzzle. I’m not the greatest at running.”
Owen looked over at me. “Clarissa’s got long legs, so she can run. Not Luna, though.” He looked over at me. “She’s short, and the snow is deep, so she should work on the puzzle, too.”
I bristled. “I’m not that short, asshole. The snow isn’t five feet deep. I can run.”
“We don’t want to have to wait on you, Luna,” he said in an irritated voice. “Just do this, all right? The other four of us will get puzzle pieces.”
“Fine, whatever,” I said.
Clarissa giggled. “She said ‘whatevah.’”
I was really going to kill her. Maybe I could choke her with a puzzle piece. Mentally, I imagined stuffing those Christmas stockings into Clarissa’s pouty, collagen-injected mouth.
“Is everyone ready?” Chip asked, and all teams turned toward him, the time for strategy over. The host raised his arm in the air. Then, he swung it down in a sharp angle. “GO!”
We sprang into action. I gritted my teeth as I ran through the snow. It wasn’t that fucking deep. Owen was just all caught up in his own power. Fucking turd.
It was a good call to have Patty do the puzzle, though. She struggled even through the ankle deep snow, and I ended up helping her keep her balance a few times as we made it to the far side. Then we were there, at the base of the platform, and turned around to wait.
The field was full of people running around, grabbing stockings and hauling puzzle pieces. I looked for red team members as they ran about. Within a moment or two, Owen had so many pieces in his arms that he looked as if he was going to drop one. Instead, he jogged over to where we were and flung the armful at us, then ran off into the snow again. I gritted my teeth to keep my temper as I picked them up. Blowing up at Owen wouldn’t solve anything. I got to work on the puzzle, instead, hauling the pieces out of the stockings so we could see how they would fit together.
Clarissa came up, offered us one puzzle piece as if it was a gift, and then ran back out into the snow.
That, I decided, was Owen’s fault. He’d picked her to run, and probably hadn’t anticipated that she’d suck at it. Not that Clarissa would have been any good at puzzles, either. I picked up two pieces. “Come on, Patty. Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
There was a pattern on one side of some of the blocks, so we started with trying to lock the patterned pieces together. Eventually, we had a step. Using that step, I pushed it against the wall and began to calculate. “It looks like there will be three more steps after this one,” I told Patty. “So I bet there’s three more patterns.” I looked over and the other teams were listening closely, comparing their blocks to ours. Damn it. I leaned in closer to Patty. “We should sort them into piles and then we can construct each step from there.”
Patty nodded, and we set to work making piles of blocks. Sure enough, this one had a candy-cane stripe pattern, this one had holly leaves, and the next one had a geometric snowflake design. We organized pieces as the red team dropped them in, and worked on fitting the steps together as we went.