Defying Fate: The Unstoppable Eileen novel Chapter 89

The weather was scorching hot, and water was scarce.

Newbie Lucas and celeb Eddie, were running on empty, having not had a drop of water for over fifteen hours.

"You okay?" Eddie grunted as he pulled out the last crumbly biscuit from his backpack and offered it to Lucas, "take this."

Leaning heavily against a hefty tree, Lucas tried to keep his balance. He looked at the biscuit, his voice raspy, "No, you keep it."

Eddie insisted, "No, eat it. It's been too long since you've had anything."

Lucas didn't respond.

Eddie felt bad, "I'm sorry, it's all my fault. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have hurt your leg. How's your leg now?"

Lucas shook his head, "It's okay, I've been through survival training before, this injury isn't gonna stop me."

They fell into a brief silence.

After a while, Eddie split the last biscuit into two and said, "We'll share."

This time, Lucas hesitated a moment before accepting his half.

They finished the biscuit.

Eddie felt bitter.

A single biscuit had to feed two people.

The taste of the biscuit didn’t even linger for three seconds before it was gone.

The atmosphere between them grew heavy again.

Suddenly, Lucas looked up, staring at the tree top, "Is there something hanging up there?"

Eddie squinted, "Looks like a green ribbon? Can't really tell."

"It's a ribbon!" Lucas started to gauge how high the ribbon was and eventually shook his head, "I can’t reach, it's too high."

The tree was massive, the ribbon was tied at the very top, nearly five stories high.

No ordinary Joe could climb that high without safety gear, and if anything went south, the fall would be disastrous.

Eddie sighed, "If we miss this green ribbon, we'll lose another clue. The last blue ribbon was tied to a freaking crocodile, that was nuts..."

"Crocodile? What kind of crocodile? Where'd you see it?"

Suddenly, a voice came from behind, scaring the bejesus out of Lucas and Eddie!

They turned to see a camouflaged, pretty young girl perched on a tree not far away, swinging her legs, watching them.

Eddie recognized the girl, he couldn't help but exclaim, "Eileen?"

Eileen turned her head, staring at the handsome man, thought for a moment before replying, "Hey, Eddie."

On the first day of the show, Eileen was the first to get dressed and leave, then the other two male guests came out.

They were the first to be dropped into the jungle.

"This guy," she thought, "was one of them."

"Why are you alone?" Eddie asked.

He knew Eileen wasn't well-liked, but she was still a girl. In this rainforest, survival was much harder for girls than boys.

Eddie thought about the other teams they had met, he'd heard some people had already been eliminated.

He tried asking, "Was your teammate eliminated?"

Eileen glanced at him, casually replied, "Yeah, he was."

He hesitated before suggesting, "If it's hard for you alone, why don't you join us?"

He looked to Lucas, "What do you think?"

Lucas, being a soldier, knew adding a woman to the team would slow them down but still said, "Sure."

Eddie told Eileen, "Come over here."

Eileen was silent for a moment before leaping down from the tree and walking over.

Eddie noticed her empty hands, asked casually, "You run out of supplies? Have you lost your backpack? No worries, we can find water if we push on."

With that, they were ready to move on.

Eileen, hands in pockets, stayed put, "You are not getting that clue?"

Lucas turned back, chuckled bitterly, "We can't reach that high, that clue is a lost cause."

Eileen glanced at the height of the tree, "It's not that high."

With that, she stretched her wrists and started climbing the tree.

"Hey, don't!" Eddie called out.

Lucas also said, "It's too dangerous, you..."

He didn't finish his sentence!