Jude and I trapped five rabbits, skinned them, and roasted them over the fire. I was normally a finicky eater, and thought I'd be queasy about eating an animal I had seen alive less than an hour earlier, but my hunger won out and I devoured the meat, eating until I was so full, I gave myself a stomachache.
In the forest, night fell early, and Jude and I decided to hold off leaving for Idlewilde until first thing in the morning, rather than navigate the trees after sunset. We couldn't be sure how much longer our flashlight and headlamp batteries would last, and it seemed foolish to risk the long hike when we'd likely wind up walking in utter darkness.
Jude scavenged evergreen branches and laid them under the ground mats and sleeping bags to create a more comfortable bed. One bed, which we would share.
A practical side of me knew sleeping together was the smart thing to do-it would conserve body heat-but as the evening wore on, I found myself wondering if Jude was as jittery as I was. When I caught him stealing glimpses at me from behind those long, dusky eyelashes, I tried to guess his thoughts, but his face never wavered from its pleasant, friendly mask.
"How did you learn to hunt?" I asked him, stretching out on my back. Ghostly blue moonlight filtered through the network of roots overhead. Bundled up in my coat and gloves, the night sky didn't look quite so glacial or inhospitable.
Jude rubbed his nose, smiling mysteriously down at me. "Do you have the bottle of moonshine I gave you earlier?"
Moonshine. Of course, he'd given me alcohol. I'd never drunk it before, so the taste had been foreign. But I should have guessed by the sting it left behind. My dad pushed two rules in our household. First and foremost, no sex. And second, no drinking. Those rules that had strictly governed my weekend plans through high school suddenly felt useless out here in the desolate and lawless wilderness.
I handed him the bottle and watched him take a long swig.
He closed his eyes, letting the alcohol soak in, and after a moment said, "Summer before my senior year of high school, I went to wilderness camp."
His confession caught me off guard; I threw my head back, laughing. "So you were a troublemaker, a menace to society, long before now!" I teased. "Korbie's boyfriend, Bear, also had to go to one of those camps."
"Bear? That's his name?"
I shook my head, giggling. "Bear's his nickname. His real name is Kautai. He moved to Idaho from Tonga when we were in junior high school. He didn't speak a word of English, but he was this big, surly-looking guy, so nobody teased him. And then he joined the football team. He carried the team to the National Youth Football Championships in Las Vegas. That's how he got his name-not only did he look like a bear, but he was an animal on the held. Anyway, Bear's parents sent him to wilderness camp when he got in a fender bender. His mom, who is super strict, was convinced he was drinking, and thought a few weeks at wilderness camp would dry him out. So what's your story? What did you do that was terrible enough to get you sent to bad-boy camp?"
He smiled. "It wasn't like that. I went to high school in an affluent part of San Francisco. My classmates were kids of congressmen, famous lawyers, and foreign diplomats. For most of them, summer vacation meant partying in Ibiza or Saint Barts. My mom wanted me to spend the summer before my senior year traveling in Europe with her and my sister. I grew up thinking bouncing from one European five-star hotel to the next was normal. But by the time I was seventeen, the extravagance revolted me. I told my mom I wasn't going-I'd signed up for wilderness camp. I think I wanted to prove to myself that while I couldn't help being rich, I wasn't a spoiled, lazy, entitled punk. Wilderness camp was my personal crusade to separate myself from my family's lifestyle."
I took the bottle from Jude and coughed down several sips. I knew the moonshine wasn't technically making me any warmer, but it did a good job of helping me forget how cold I was. It was also relaxing me. I wasn't even sure I wanted Calvin to rescue me anymore. I was enjoying spending time with Jude, getting to know him better. He was a mystery I wanted to solve. At least, that's what I told myself. But a voice of worry at the back of my mind dangled the idea of Stockholm syndrome. Was that what this was-a false attraction? One born out of necessity and survival?
"What did your mom say?" I asked.
Jude grinned, accepting the bottle from my outstretched hand. "You should have seen her face when I told her I wasn't going to any old wilderness program, but to Impetus."
"What's Impetus?"
"It was a cultlike wilderness program for troubled teens. They used harsh punishments, abuse, and brainwashing to correct behavior. It's no longer operational. Impetus is being sued for child abuse by former participants. In the end, they'll probably pay out around twenty million in settlements. At seventeen, it sounded like the perfect cultural backlash to me." Jude laughed nostalgically. "My parents were furious. At first my dad forbade me from going. He threatened to take away my Land Rover and told me he wouldn't pay for college. My parents didn't think I'd survive. A fair concern, since two of the kids in my group died."
I covered my mouth with my hand. "They died?"
"One from exposure, the other from starvation. We were expected to make our own shelter and hunt our own food. There wasn't a safety net. If you failed to trap a rabbit or get out of the rain, you had to deal with it."
"That's horrible. Seriously, I can't believe that was legal.”
”We signed a very thorough disclosure agreement."
"I can't believe a rich little punk like you made it out okay.”
”You're as bad as my parents,” he said, ruffling my hair playfully. I froze. I'd sworn to deny any attraction to Jude, but when he touched me, the wall I'd built between us suddenly felt weak at the base. If Jude noticed my stiffness, he didn't show it. He went on, "I had a few close shaves, but after a rough first week, I caught on fast. I followed the best hunters in the group and watched how they built their traps. By the end of the summer, I wasn't scared of anything. I'd learned to hunt, learned how to set broken bones, which insects and plants were safe to eat, and how to build a fire with minimal resources. I'd dealt with hypothermia, infections, and freeloaders-that was the hardest, having to fight off my camp-mates to protect what I'd rightfully killed or built. Walking around for days on an empty stomach didn't faze me. Looking back, it was an impressive transformation in three short months." He took another long drink from the bottle, then stretched out on his side next to me, propping his head on his fist. I felt a whirl of dreadful excitement at this forbidden closeness. His facial hair had a couple days' growth, and it gave him a roguish appeal. A faint smile had curved his mouth all evening, and I was going wild trying to guess his thoughts. The fire had warmed our little hideaway, and I was beginning to feel dizzy and drowsy. And daring. Very subtly, I stretched my arms over my head, then rolled closer to Jude.