Don't Disturb Stella and Her Mates novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Twelve Items
Stella packs mirrors, Thora packs salt and wire, and the five mates turn their backs. Her pod lands forty kilometers from the others, set by hand.
The launch pad at Karst Station Nine was packed with cameras, and every lens turned toward Thora the moment she stepped out of the transport.
A host in a silver jacket stood on a platform and announced her name.
"And here she is, the real Ostrow heiress, back for another chance!"
The crowd booed.
Thora walked through it with a canvas bag over one shoulder, and her mother's signature burning in her head.
A woman in a Marshal's grey uniform stood at the foot of the platform, checking names off a slate.
"Entry form," she said.
Thora handed it over.
The Marshal's eyes went to the red seal on the back and stayed there.
"Signed before you ever walked in," Thora said quietly. "By whom?"
The Marshal's face did not move.
"The seal is valid," she said. "That is all I am paid to say."
She stamped the form and waved Thora on.
Thora walked on.
She had her answer, and it was a closed door.
The five men stood in a line under the show banner.
Joren Vask was at the end with his arms crossed.
Keir Marek leaned on a railing and grinned when he saw her.
"Look who they let out," he said. "Try not to cry on camera this time."
Dax Orlin gave her one flat look and turned away.
Ansel Corvin, the youngest, scratched the back of his neck and looked at the floor.
"Stella said you'd try something," he muttered.
"I haven't tried anything," Thora said.
"That's what you always say."
The fifth man stood apart from the others, in a grey coat with the Brandeis crest on the collar.
He was the Heir of House Brandeis, and he had never once spoken to her at a family dinner.
He did not speak now.
He only studied her, and his eyes did not leave her face.
Stella arrived last, in white, to a wave of cheering.
She hugged the host, then the five men one by one.
Each of them leaned into her without a word, and Joren held on the longest.
Then she walked over to Thora and pressed a packet of protein bars into her hands.
"For the first night," she said. "You always forget to eat."
"Thank you," Thora said.
She turned the packet over and read the seal.
It was clean, and the date was good.
She slid it into her bag anyway, and noted the weight.
The host clapped his hands.
"Contestants, collect your kit allowance! You may take twelve items from the table."
Twelve items was a lot to someone who had once crossed a flooded city with a knife and a jar.
Stella went first.
She took a heated blanket, two mirrors, a tub of face cream, a silk eye mask and a portable speaker.
The cameras loved it.
Keir took a rifle, a flare gun and a thermos of something hot.
Joren took a field kit and a sidearm.
Dax took a medical case and Ansel took a compass.
The Heir took a long knife and nothing else.
Thora walked down the table slowly.
She took a water filter straw first.
Then a sealed pouch of coarse salt, a coil of steel wire, a fire starter, a folding saw, a tarp, a hundred feet of cord, a tin cup, a roll of waterproof tape, a hand axe, a sewing kit and a bottle of iodine.
That was twelve.
Keir laughed so hard he coughed.
"Salt!" he said to the nearest camera. "She brought salt. She's going to season the forest."
Joren did not laugh.
He watched her hands as she packed the tarp, and his jaw tightened.
"Put one of those back," he said. "The kit limit is twelve."
"It is twelve," Thora said.
He counted, lips moving.
"Fine," he said, a beat too late.
The pods stood in a row on the pad, white and narrow, each one with a name stenciled on the door.
Thora climbed into hers and strapped in.
The pod was snug, with room for her and her bag and nothing else.
Through the porthole she could see Stella wave and blow her a kiss.
The five men were already turning away.
Not one of them looked back.
The hatch sealed.
The pod dropped.
It fell for a long time, hard enough that her teeth rattled.
She took slow breaths and kept her hands flat on her knees.
When the pod hit, the whole world went white and then dark.
She waited until the shaking stopped.
Then she popped the hatch and climbed out into a forest of tall black trees.
The air smelled of wet stone.
Somewhere above her something screamed, long and thin.
She pulled the handheld tracker from the bag and turned it on.
The screen showed five green dots clustered close together at the center of the map.
One blue dot sat alone at the very edge, forty kilometers away, past a river and a long ridge.
The blue dot was her.
The start zone for every contestant was supposed to be within two kilometers of the others.
She had read the rules three times before she signed.
She scrolled to the pod's drop log.
Under "destination" was a line that had been changed after the launch window opened.
The original coordinates were still there, crossed out.
Beside them, in small gray text, were the words: manual override, entered before drop.
Someone had picked this spot for her by hand.
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