Reindeer Games
Page 4

I noticed the other team watching us closely and nudged our stacks closer together. “We can’t make it look like we know what we’re doing,” I murmured to Patty. “Or they’ll catch on.” From the looks of things, the other teams still hadn’t figured out that there were different patterns.
Patty nodded and shoved the holly leaf pile into the candy cane pile, making sure that the pieces were all in the same bunch, but still separated. The candy cane pieces were on the right side of the pile, and the holly leaf ones on the left. We’d know which stack to pick up from, even though it all looked like a jumble.
Clarissa came up, dropped another piece – her fourth – and collapsed on the completed step. “I’m exhausted. It’s hard running through all that snow.”
“Me too,” said Pat-The-Guy. He took a page out of her book and sat down next to her. “There’s hardly anything left, anyhow.”
“Are you guys serious?” Patty said. “This isn’t all the pieces and you’re giving up?”
“Owen and Gary are still out there,” Clarissa said, panting. “They’ll bring the rest.”
But a few moments later, Gary dropped over to the platform and gave a dramatic collapse, even as Patty and I fitted our pieces together, working on another step.
Then, Owen dropped in, throwing down six more pieces and putting his hands on his knees, panting.
“Is that all of them?” Patty asked.
I counted quickly, adding the pieces that Owen had brought. “Ninety eight. There’s still two more somewhere out there.”
Owen gestured at me and Patty. “You go. We’ll work on the puzzle.”
My brows drew together. “Excuse me?”
He straightened, wiping his brow. “It’s only two pieces. You two go get them, and we’ll work on the puzzle while you do. It’s clear you’re not getting very far.” He gave me a disapproving look, as if this was somehow my fault.
Patty gamely trotted out into the snow, searching for a red puzzle piece.
I didn’t. Fuck that noise. We’d been working hard on the puzzle part of things. So I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’ll have you know that we have a method–”
“There’s no time to argue,” he snapped, and grabbed the puzzle pieces out of my hands. “Will you just go already?”
I wanted to snap at him, to argue the point, but the others were staring at me like I was the problem, not Owen. So I bit back my comments and tromped off into the snow, looking for a goddamn puzzle piece.
I found it several minutes later, half buried under a pile of churned snow. It had clearly been stepped on repeatedly and was soggy and muddy. Hauling it, I began to make my way back to the platform, puffing hard. Running through the snow was difficult as hell, but I would never tell that jerk Owen that.
When I got back to the platform, though, I lost control of my temper at the sight of Owen and Clarissa trying to fit together a holly leaf piece with a candy cane piece. “What the fuck are you guys doing?”
Our teammates turned around and looked at me like I was crazy.
I shoved my way forward, flipping puzzle pieces, and groaned. Patty and I had carefully piled them into a semblance of order, but the order had been destroyed by a few minutes of grabby hands that didn’t know what they were doing. There was no order to things now. None whatsoever. “You shouldn’t have sent us out to find the pieces,” I snapped at Owen. “We could have been here finishing our steps!”
“Really?” He said. “It didn’t look like you were doing too great a job of that.”
I turned and glared at him. “There was a method,” I snarled, and jerked the candy cane piece out of his hands, shoving a holly piece at him instead. “Which you would have noticed if you didn’t have the brains of a caveman.”
“Jeez,” Clarissa said in a wounded voice. “You’re being kind of mean, Luna.”
“Let’s just work, okay?” I said, furious. I began to re-sort pieces as Patty trotted up and delivered the last piece. “Now that we have everything, we can finish.”
A bell chimed. “Yellow team wins!”
I jerked up, looking at the far end of the platform. Sure enough, while I’d been out merrily tromping through the snow, searching for a trampled piece of puzzle, the yellow team had surged ahead and won. They were at the top of the platform, hugging and screaming and bouncing with joy.
I threw down my piece in disgust.
 
~~ * * * ~~
 
The walk back to our beach-side encampment told me a lot. Patty was silent, and when I looked over at her, I’d catch her surreptitiously wiping away tears. Poor Patty. She probably blamed herself.
The rest of the team talked a little, but no one talked to me. That suited me fine – I was in a black mood after losing the challenge. I didn’t like to lose. So I brought up the rear of our small group and ignored them as much as they ignored me.
When we got back to camp, I headed for the now-dead fire and began to layer new wood into the fire pit. First on the agenda, something to drink.
Clarissa watched me work for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders. “I think I’m going to take a walk down the beach.”
“I’ll join you,” Gary said.
They disappeared. Yeah, I could guess what they were going to do. Anyone that had seen a single episode of Endurance Island knew that people got up and went on walks together because they were plotting.
Owen got up a moment later. He wasn’t subtle at all. He didn’t even make any excuses, just got up and left, heading down the beach in the same direction Gary and Clarissa had gone.
“I, uh…I’m going to go use the bathroom,” Pat-the-guy said, and bolted to his feet. He practically ran down the beach after them.
There was clearly a team meeting going on down on the beach and I wasn’t invited. I guessed they were talking about how I had ruined the challenge for them. Or something. And because I was short and couldn’t run through the snow, and I pronounced my words weird, I’d be the first one to go.
I mean, heck, you didn’t have to be a genius to see the writing on that wall. But I wasn’t at camp alone. I looked over at Patty, my one and only friend here on the Red team.
Patty sat on the edge of the shelter and sighed, dejected.
I tossed a handful of kindling down at the base of the fire pit. “You not going to go with them, Patty?”
“I’m tired. I think I’ll just wait for the fire.”
Was she being deliberately dense or did she not get it? “I think they’re probably having a team meeting.”
“Oh?” Her big eyes blinked for a moment, and then she began to sniff. Again.
Ah, hell. I was getting sick of the tears. I got up and sat next to her, then patted her on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go join them?”
“I don’t think they like me.”
“They like you just fine,” I told her truthfully. “It’s me they don’t like. You need to go show them you’re with them and not with me.”
She gave me a wounded look. “But we’re friends. You’ve been nothing but nice to me, Luna.”
“I know. I’m a nice girl.” I nudged her with my arm and grinned to take the arrogance out of my words. “But this isn’t a game for nice people. This is a game for money, and you’ve got to play as cutthroat as the rest of them. So go down on that beach and go talk strategy.”