Unscripted

Chapter Eight - The Challenge

My eyes widened as I turned around to see a woman striding in from behind us in a brown, ruffled one-piece that suited her caramel-kissed skin. She tossed her dark curls over her shoulder and waved at all of us. As she walked past us and stood by Jesse, I could feel that she exuded a positive kind of energy and bubblyness similar to Bec. Jesse looked at Harper appreciatively before leaning over to give her a quick hug.

"Harper, why don't you introduce yourself?" Dani said as Harper blew kisses to everyone.

"I'm so excited to be here!" She said with a grin while bouncing on her toes, "I'm Harper, and I'm 26. I'm from Arizona, and I'm here to hopefully - look for the love of my life that can deal with my hyper ass." She grinned and leaned over to look at everyone, "I'll give ya a hint - the way to my heart is loads of ice cream and a good back massage." She laughed, "Otherwise, I love going for a nature walk and painting - oh, I'm actually a plant bio lab technician for a living."

"Well, thank you Harper - that was quite an intro. Looking forward to the new energy you'll bring, and maybe mix a few things up." She looked at everyone else. "Now that everyone is settled. Pick amongst yourselves on who will puzzle, dig, and/or sabotage."

I turned to look at Becca, who was appreciatively looking at the new-comer, before turning her smile on me. "This sounds so fun!" She looked at me, "What would you rather do?"

I thought about it. "To be honest, I'd rather do the puzzle. I'm pretty active, but I don't know how long I'd be able to hold up a shovel and dig efficiently for - but I'm open to anything."

She waved it off, "That's literally no big deal. Digging sounds fun, plus it sounds like a good tactic to have the data scientist figure out the puzzle." She winked, then lowered her voice, "What are we thinking about sabotage? Honestly, I'm not sure how we can. I feel like that's where they're trying to trip people up - if we focus too much on sabotaging others - then how are we going to be able to effectively find the S's?"

I nodded. She had a point. "That's true. How about we focus on communicating and getting the pieces so you don't have to do as much work? When I figure out a piece, I'll yell it over to you." I paused as I had an idea form. "But, if you see any fragment of the golden S, don't pick it up and run it over yet."

Bec looked at me weirdly, "If it's deep enough in the hole, the other teams won't be able to see it. We can pretend that it was a goof." I lowered my voice even more, "Why don't you whistle or something to signify if it was a hit, then when we find them all, scoop them all up and drop them in?"

Bec's eyes lit up and she tried to contain her excitement. "That's genius! Yes, absolutely." She looked around, "But, how are we going to find out which one is our real map?"

"I'll listen to the other couples. If I hear they missed a spot that so happens to be where you found yours, then I'll know to go to their map. In the meantime, I'll yell out random numbers to throw them off if they're doing the same."

"Ugh, you're fuckin' beautiful and a genius. Love it." She said and squeezed my arm affectionately. Soon, all the other couples were done discussing strategies and we lined up to each of our grids. Bec and I were the purple grid, and to our left were Harper and Jesse, while to my right were Cassie and Emily. To the right of them were Charlie and Morgan, and finally Janele and Victoria were on the other side.

I ignored Cassie when she blew a kiss in my direction.

Dani moved a bit farther away from the action and to a raised platform as she shouted, "Okay, couples - are y'all ready?!"

I took my place in front of my table, noticing that the puzzle pieces were in random shapes with lines and numbers all around. I watched as Bec had her purple shovel in hand as she leaned forward in preparation.