Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 31025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 155(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 155(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
“I’m doing good.”
She let out a little tut.
“What? You’re upset that I am healing?”
“No, I’m upset that we ended up here in the first place. You shouldn’t be getting hurt and we shouldn’t be dealing with this.” She let out an angry growl. “What would we have done if that bear had killed you?”
“You would have been able to leave here—”
“Stop it. I don’t want to hear that kind of crazy talk right now. It’s just insane, and I don’t like it.”
He liked that she cared.
“You know, you looked pretty badass with that crossbow,” he said.
Calliope sent him a look.
“What? You did. Did you keep practicing even after you and I fell out?”
“No, I didn’t. That is the first time I held a crossbow since our last trip.”
Jaxson let out a whistle. “You were always a good shot, but that was just fucking fantastic.”
He saw her smile.
“It was pretty good.”
“Do you ever miss it?” he asked.
“What?”
“Hanging out with me. Doing the whole adventure stuff?”
She didn’t answer right away. She was putting some food onto a plate for him. Thankfully, whoever was in charge of The Hunt had felt they deserved a reward today. He got a nice piece of steak, and Calliope got chicken, as she didn’t like beef.
“Yeah, I do. Today, I mean, all of this is scary as hell, but it is kind of fun. Don’t you think?” she asked. “It’s strange, but it’s like I know this place.”
Jaxson frowned as he looked around. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. I’m a woman.”
This made him laugh, but then he started to think about it. “Wait a minute. We created this place?”
“No, we had nothing to do with The Hunt.”
“No, not The Hunt specifically. The bear. The stream. Even the first day we were here, something was chasing us. Think, Calliope. Think back to when we were kids, playing out in the yard. We were in a damn forest or jungle. We’d scream at each other what the place would look like.”
Calliope’s mouth opened. “Holy crap. That summer, when we were like eight years old, it was hot as hell, and we were playing out in your yard, and I imagined the waterfall.”
“We created this place,” he said.
“What does this mean?”
“Well, if we remember what we thought about, it might help us figure out what is coming next. We did get attacked by a bear, remember, and you hit it with a crossbow.”
She pressed her lips together. “We’re on our childhood adventure, only this is real.”
Jaxson laughed. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Then that means this is different for everyone, right? I mean, this is our imagination manifested.”
Which also explained the mermaids, sharks, and sea creatures in the lake, on pause. Calliope rarely got trapped in ... he stopped and looked at her.
“No,” Calliope said. “You’ve thought of something and I really don’t like this.”
“One of our ... games was quicksand,” he said.
She pressed a hand to her face. “Is it wrong to hate us as kids right now?”
“Calliope, you’re the one that gets trapped in quicksand.” And it was up to him to save her. They always did this, by bringing furniture together out in the yard, and Calliope would be beneath a cut-up canopy, and he would be the one trying to save her. It was fun.
Now, he didn’t like this.
“This isn’t good,” she said. “What about the hunter that was chasing us? We didn’t name him and he had no face, but that was one of our games.”
“Then the killer birds,” Jaxson said.
“And let’s not forget the poisonous snakebite.” She ran fingers through her hair. “We’ve got to be wrong, right? I mean, this isn’t possible.”
He took a bite out of his steak and looked at her. “Unless that is the point. Think about it, we’ve gone back to a time when everything made sense. We were the best of friends, and nothing could come between us. We were a solid rock, and we lost each other. Now, we’re finding each other, and what better way to find one another, and remember who we once were, than for us to have a live action replay of our games?”
They stared at one another.
“We never mated during our games,” Calliope said.
“We never needed to. We were best friends. The inseparable duo. We were a team.”
“And we’re still a team, and now we’ve got to mate,” Calliope said. She glanced down at her chicken. “I’ve ... never been with anyone.”
This surprised him.
“I didn’t go to prom, because I didn’t want to see you with another girl. So, I stayed home, watched horror movies I hated, and ate ice cream.”
Jaxson couldn’t help but smile.
“Hey, I’m trying here. Opening up and telling you very private stuff.”
“I didn’t go to prom either,” Jaxson said. “There was only one person I ever wanted to go with, and that was you. There was no other girl.” He looked at her. “Until you, I had never kissed another girl.”