Chapter Six
Savannah’s neck pain was at a pounding eight out of ten.
No matter how deeply she pressed her knuckles into her shoulder, she couldn’t find an ounce of relief.
At this point, she was convinced the only way she’d survive the night was if someone cut out her trapezius and pummeled it with a meat tenderizer.
It didn’t help that the beach ahead had been cordoned off into what could only be called a massive sand pit with far too many colored flags sticking out of it.
Unlike the show’s obscene obstacle courses and torturous endurance challenges she’d watched while preparing for the game, this challenge looked tame in comparison.
But that was probably the catch. Anything that looked simple definitely wasn’t.
“Welcome, contestants, to this season’s first reward challenge,” Naomi said.
Unlike this morning, when she was wearing a burnt orange linen shirt and vest combo, tonight she was dressed in dark blue Levi’s and a white tank that showed off her muscly shoulders.
“And as another first, this will be the first-ever reward challenge taking place in the dark.” She paused and waited, but the only applause she got was from the waves crashing against the shore behind her.
Naomi seemed unbothered. Her smile was so bright it could replace the moon.
And from the look of things, in a few minutes, once the sun had set completely, it would be the only source of light apart from the few lights under the production tent.
The thought brought a knot to Savannah’s stomach.
Not because she was afraid of the dark, but because she literally couldn’t see in it.
At least not well. Savannah had a condition called nyctalopia, which meant her eyes struggled to adapt to low-light conditions.
She’d been diagnosed when she was eleven, during a midnight treasure hunt at her friend Stacy’s family estate in the Hamptons.
While the other girls were sprinting through the peach orchards, Savannah had found herself in the estate’s apiary.
Thirteen bee stings later, it was safe to say she’d ruined the party for everyone.
Nowadays, she preferred well-lit places and took Ubers to get around at night.
Yes, Savannah had foreseen some difficulty during the game, especially at night.
But didn’t everyone go to bed early? Wasn’t that the general consensus out here?
“This challenge is called Night Crawler,” Naomi went on, and Savannah suppressed a groan at the title.
“And before we get into the logistics, you won’t know what the reward is until after the challenge.
” That wasn’t entirely surprising. Outlast Her had been known to keep the rewards a mystery.
Naomi smiled again, then added in almost the same breath, “Scattered across this field are thirty-six flags in six different colors. That means six for each of the six teams if you haven’t figured that out yet.
Buried beneath each of those flags is a bag of puzzle pieces you’ll need to dig up and haul back to your station.
The first team to successfully assemble their totem wins the reward.
” Naomi paused, then her grin turned wicked. “But there’s a catch.”
Savannah groaned. Most of the other contestants did too.
Avery shook her head and said, “Of course there is.” Jade, who had her orange buff woven through her braid, added, “This wouldn’t be Outlast Her if there wasn’t a catch.”
Naomi laughed. “You’ll be doing this while tied to your partner.”
Ugh!
Savannah barely had time to glimpse Amy across the mat and register the black sports bra and high-waisted spandex that left none of her curves to the imagination.
Before she could fully take in the view, six production assistants dressed head to toe in black stepped out of the shadows and blocked her.
A woman no older than twenty with hair the color of a pink highlighter instructed Amy to stand beside Savannah.
Then she dropped to the sand so fast that Savannah yelped when her cold fingers clamped around her ankle.
“She’s just tying us together,” Amy said, looking amused.
“I know what she’s doing,” Savannah snapped.
The pink-haired girl pulled the rope tight and, in the process, yanked the side of Savannah’s bare calf flush against Amy’s.
She could’ve gone the entire season without this kind of skin-to-skin contact.
“I just didn’t expect someone else to tie our feet together. Did you?”
“I guess they don’t want anyone to cheat,” Amy replied.
Savannah said nothing. Above them, the last bruised streaks of purple were being swallowed by a pitch-black sky.
She wondered if she should swallow her pride and admit that in two minutes, the defective rods in her retinas were going to completely misfire, rendering her essentially blind.
Before she could decide, Naomi swung her arm in the air and shouted, “GO!”
And go they did. Or at least everyone else launched into the dark like it was a three-legged race. While Savannah still had a tiny bit of twilight left, she spotted what could be a purple flag or quite possibly a blue one, and made a run for it.
The only problem was that Amy lunged hard in the opposite direction.
The rope holding their ankles together snapped tight.
Then Savannah’s upper body pitched forward toward the sand and the only thing she could think about was Abi and Marjorie and the rest of the obnoxious Country Club Gang watching her eat sand from the comfort of Abi’s multistory townhouse with a glass of Sancerre in their hands and a plate of truffle arancini and caviar blinis between them.
No. She refused to face-plant on national television.
Which was why she violently threw her entire body weight to the opposite side.
Amy seemed to have done the same thing because the next second they collided chest against chest with a heavy oof.
And like two runaway trains smashing into each other, gravity sent them reeling backward.
Savannah’s arms flailed as her fingers desperately reached for a shoulder, a waist, or a stray piece of clothing.
Instead, her right palm slammed hard into something soft.
It took Savannah’s brain a mortifying half-second to realize she had just cupped Amy’s breast. But if Amy noticed, she didn’t say anything. Though how could she not notice? Savannah had even given it a good squeeze.
“Over there!” Amy called, sounding completely focused on the game.
Clearly, that was something Savannah should be doing too.
She quickly ripped her hand away as if she’d just touched a hot stove.
“Over where?” she shot back, because frankly, the only way she could see a flag was if it was right in front of her face.
“The orange flag,” Amy huffed. “It’s right there.”
“I can’t see it.”
“What do you mean you can’t see it?”
“Never mind,” Savannah snapped. They were losing precious time, and although Naomi had yet to announce the reward, Savannah knew she wanted it more than anything.
Outlast Her rewards proved to be extremely decadent, and after less than a day on an island in the middle of nowhere, Savannah needed decadence.
Even if it meant getting a whole lot closer to Amy.
“Just lead the way.” Then she wrapped her arm around Amy’s soft middle.
Was she imagining it, or did every inch of Amy’s body tense up?
Amy didn’t hesitate, though. She locked her own arm around Savannah’s waist, anchoring them together, and then called, “Left. Right. Left. Right.”
Savannah assumed she meant their legs and obliged, matching her strides blindly as Amy’s hips guided her through the darkness.
For all intents and purposes, Savannah was the blind woman and Amy the well-trained golden retriever.
She even had an urge to pat Amy’s head and say, “Good girl,” and then thought, how embarrassing is this?
But in the next moment, Amy yelled, “We’re at the orange flag.”
Savannah couldn’t see anything more than black static. Before she could even process the statement, Amy pushed down hard against Savannah’s hips until they were both in a crouch.
“Dig!” Amy instructed. Savannah started digging. And it wasn’t like digging a neat little hole in the garden; it was a frantic, feral clawing through cold sand. Grains flew into her eyes and mouth, but she kept scraping with her fingernails, praying she was digging in the right place.
And luckily, she was. “I’ve got it,” Savannah yelled a minute later, yanking out what felt like a heavy canvas sack with loose wooden pieces. “I’ve got the pieces.”
“One down, five more bags to go,” Amy said, already pulling both Savannah and the bag up. For a woman so soft, she was surprisingly strong. Like really strong.
The next moment, Amy was directing them toward another flag while Savannah relied entirely on the heat of Amy’s skin and the sharp tugs of her waist to know whether they had to dodge another team or leap over a heap of sand that could easily trip them up.
Savannah couldn’t think of a better word than sandbox to describe the massive square of sand.
Even with all that space, there was no guarantee another team wouldn’t clobber her.
“LUNA AND KATE ARE STILL DIGGING AT THEIR SECOND FLAG!” Naomi called out suddenly. “EZRA AND SLOAN ARE ON THEIR FOURTH AND LEADING THE CHALLENGE... SAVANNAH AND AMY ARE CLOSE.”
And they were close. “We’re at the green flag,” Amy muttered close to Savannah’s ear. “Only two more to go after this. I hope you’re good with puzzles.”