Chapter 12: The Cave

The storm came on the third leg, six days later, and it came from the wrong direction.

The producers pulled the cameras and the cast off the high ridge by radio.

Tegan and Cal were the last two on the trail, because a contestant had turned an ankle and Cal had gone back for him.

By the time they handed him to the medics, the sky had gone dark grey.

Hail hit the ground in white chips.

"There's a cave," Cal shouted over the wind. "Two hundred yards. Run."

They ran.

The cave was low and dry and smelled of wet stone.

Cal dropped his pack and swept a headlamp across the walls.

The light caught a ledge, a ring of old fire stones and a pile of dead branches.

He built a fire fast.

Tegan stood in the mouth of the cave with her hair streaming and watched the hail turn to rain.

Behind her the fire caught, and she felt the warmth reach her back.

"Get out of the wet things," Cal said. "I'll turn around."

"There's nowhere for you to turn to. It's a cave."

"Then I'll face the wall."

He did.

She stripped off her soaked jacket and her tank top and wrapped herself in the thermal blanket he had thrown on the ledge.

Her hands shook, and not from the cold.

There was no camera here and no cast, and the radio had gone to static.

Only the tablet in Cal's pack still held a satellite link to the production.

"Done," she said.

He turned.

He looked at her wrapped in the silver blanket with her bare shoulders and her hair dripping onto the stone.

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