Nadine Book 3

42. Final Challenge

The Final Challenge.

I land all by myself in the middle of the woods. There is a fishing net and a yellow pouch sitting beside me. I open it up and it says... You need fresh meat for eating.

"Well how am I supposed to get meat with a net?" I ask for assistance but no one is with me.

There are no paths. I'm taking a nice stroll in the woods searching for something to kill with a net.

I find Mary eventually. She is carrying around an axe. "I need water."

I show her my net. "Fresh meat." We keep going.

Omar comes out of nowhere with a map. "I need to clean the fish."

Dipak yells, "WHERE YOU AT WOMAN?"

"HERE."

The 3 boys join us. They are carrying a bow and arrows, a jug, and a knife.

Dipak rubs his eyes. "Everyone put your stuff in the middle."

"I need a tree." Tye picks up the axe.

Mary says "I need water." and takes the jug.

Omar picks up the knife. "Clean the fish."

Dipak grabs the net. "Catch the fish."

Tre grabs the map. "Find the location."

I pick up the bow and arrows.

"Found the location. This way."

We all follow Tre to a little clearing. It has a little hut and a place cleared for a fire in the front of it. It's quite cute really. There are enough seats for all of us around the fire.

"Well, that was my job."

"Which way is water? You have the map."

He points. "About 50 yards that way." Dipak, Omar, and Mary all go.

I sneak off in the other direction. I haven't seen anything to kill yet. I go off by myself. I always liked exploring. I can still hear Tye using the axe, so I know I'm still close to him.

I see a boar after a bit. I'm close to it, but it doesn't see me yet. It doesn't look big either. I bet I could carry it if I could kill it. As quiet as I can, I pull an arrow back and let it fly. I hit it right through the throat. I jump up and down. I really can hunt.

I hook the bow and arrows over my shoulder and pick it up. It's heavy but I got this. I throw it over my shoulder and then pull the arrow out. A bunch of blood falls out of the arrow hole and all over the front of me.

"Well, gross."

I head back to the axe sound. Then I hear something snap behind me. I turn around and there is a boar about 10 times bigger than the one I'm carrying. It's mad as hell.

I run as fast I can. "TYE!!!! TYE!!" I keep running. I hear the axe again, and I go right for it.

"TYE!"

That damn boar is catching up with me. I throw the little one down and pull my bow and arrow out while I'm running. I turn and shoot an arrow as fast as I can. I hit it in the shoulder, but it keeps coming.

I do it again and again. I hit it in the chest, and it slows down. But then it picks up speed, and I think it's faster now. "TYE!"

"HERE" The axe stops.

I know I'm close to him. I turn and shoot another arrow at the boar. When I turn back around, there is a tree propped side ways between 2 tables. I jump over it, but it catches my foot and I fall. I flip to my back and draw the arrow back.

The boar comes flying in and tries to jump the tree, but it really messes up. It catches the tree right across the chest. The tree breaks and chunks fly everywhere. I get an arrow off, and it hits the boar right in the back of the throat. The damn thing pukes everywhere. All over me. And then the tree completely breaks. The boar drops to the ground at my feet and stops moving. I relax for a second.

I stand up. Tye and Tre are staring at me.

I don't know what this boar ate. But this is the nastiest smell I've ever been covered in. I puke everywhere. I reach in my boobs and "TRE THERE IS BLOOD IN MY BOOBS!"

"What was your job?"

"Fresh meat. I went hunting."

Tye says, "Why did you pick something that would hunt you back?"

"I DIDN'T. I GOT A LITTLE ONE AND THIS CAME AFTER ME." They nod.

Tre takes off his shirt. Then he puts it back on. "Let's do this at the river baby." I catch a whiff of that smell. I lean over and puke again.

"WHAT IS THAT SMELL?"

"That's you baby. You are covered in something gross. Come on." I follow him.

I take about 4 steps and jump up and down. "MY BOOBS ARE GROSS. HELP ME."

Dipak comes up. "Oh wow."

"I WILL PUKE ON YOU ALL. HELP ME."

Dipak nods. "River baby. Come on."

Epoch shows up. "SO SORRY. WE DID NOT SEE THAT COMING AT ALL. Get the challenge done, and a bath will be waiting for her. Before we send you into the next part."

Tre starts laughing. "She can't stay this way even that long."

"The only thing you have left is to start the fire. The wood and meat are done now." He glances around. "Rather abrupt ending."

I puke again.

"FIRE PEOPLE GO."

It only takes the 3 of them about 2 minutes to get the fire going.

"OK THIS IS DONE. GIVE ME AN EMERGENCY EXIT TO THE ENTRY." A door lands right beside him. He points at the hut. "If you are not a mate. Go through the door in that hut. Your mates can help you through here."

Mary jumps straight up and runs into the hut. "NOT A MATE!"

Tre pushes me into the emergency exit with Dipak right behind us. We land in the entry. The closed space makes the smell that much worse. I puke all over the floor.

"Well, she should run out of things to puke up soon."

We follow him down a hallway to the side and into a room with a bath in it. "Throw her dress in the hallway, we will get rid of it."

The boys strip me so fast. They rip the dress off. I still don't think either of them can take it off the right way yet.

The second it rips apart, the blood that was pooled in my boobs runs down my stomach all the way onto my legs. One of them rips the underwear off me and throws them in the hallway too.

Tre smiles. "We'll figure it out baby. Don't worry."

Dipak turns on the water coming out of the ceiling and I step into it. I am flooded with water running over me. Clean water. That smell is finally gone.

The boys pull me out of the water and one of them washes my hair and the other washes my body. Not sure what they are using, but it does smell good.

After a few minutes, I get pushed back into the falling water. Then they pull me out and wrap me in big white puffy towels.

"Thank you both. That was terrible."

They get me dry. "Anytime baby."

"What are we dressing her in? I can give her my shirt. But it's not very long and her underwear are gone."

Tre shakes his head. "What's in that cupboard?"

Dipak opens a floor to ceiling cupboard and I see the queen's dress I wore in the challenge with Tre. "I WANT TO WEAR THAT." They laugh.

I drag Tre over to the cupboard and pull the dress down. Everything is in here. Right down to underwear. I put them on. Then the extra poof for the gown. Then I put the gown on and Dipak gets it all straightened. Tre finally gives up on drying my hair and combs it. I get the high heels on. Then I see the diamonds they had in my hair. I put it over my head the second Tre is done. Then I put a new diamond necklace on. This thing has about 50 diamonds on it. I have never been this decorated.

I stare at myself in awe. "I really feel like a queen."

Dipak hugs me. "You're always our queen. No matter what you are wearing."

"Or what you're covered in."

I giggle and run out in the hallway. Epoch is standing there with the crown I had on in the challenge. I jump up and down.

He puts the crown on me. "Straight that way. Last door on the right." I take off running and hear him say to the boys. "That dress isn't tied down yet."

The 3 of them run in the door behind me. Dipak busts out laughing. "We've done all we can, Mary. It's your turn."

Epoch hands something to Mary. "Here's the safetys."

I turn my back to everyone and the entire back of the dress is open.

"You couldn't even attempt to button it?"

Tre shakes his head. "She ran away."

Mary rolls her eyes. Then gets me all fixed in the dress. I feel it get tightened, and then the safeties go in. "I like this hairpiece."

"Me too. I love them."

"Don't break it, and we will figure it out for you."

Epoch stands in the middle of us. "We are sending you into the ending part of the last challenge. Only you and 1 of your mates have to go. But this is the final part, so we decided to send you all in. Your item is at the end. You are the only one who can grab it, Nadine. The second you do, the challenge is over."

The door pops up right beside me.

He smiles at me. "Good luck my queen."

"We have to get this because I do not want to do all that again." Everyone nods. Then we go through the door.

We all land on the grass outside a big old barn.

Omar rubs his eyes. "No magic at all."

Tye nods. "No dragons."

Tre goes to the spot where we found his crown in the last barn. He opens the hidden spot on the floor again and walks down the stairs. We all follow him, and he does another puzzle on the door.

The next room has the 2 boxes with the boulder in the middle. We go to our boxes.

"1..2..3."

A big part of the wall falls away behind me.

There is a beam like the one I had to use to get my crown. I go to step onto it and fire shoots from both sides of the room. I jump back and Dipak catches me. The fire reaches almost to the beam but not quite. There is just enough space to walk over the beam without getting burnt.

"I don't think we can go down to the bottom level this time."

"No, I don't believe so."

I step out onto the beam, and it is hard to balance on this. Seems to be only about 6 inches wide and the fire on both sides of me is making me very nervous.

Dipak wraps his arms around me from behind. "You got this sweetheart. Take your time." He kisses my head and lets go.

I step out on the beam again and it is so hot. I manage to get half way across without issue. Everyone is following me, but we are all a good distance apart. Once I hit the halfway point, the fire starts shooting across the beam in a pattern.

It's only shooting from the right though. So take a step. Wait on the fire. Take a step. Wait again. It's an easy pattern. Time consuming. I go slow and make it all the way across.

Everyone follows me across. We all make it.

Tre does a puzzle on a door, and we all move to the next room. This room is very different. It's not very wide. But it's long. I can see something at the end. It's glowing blue.

Tye smiles. "Maybe we just..." He steps into the hall and spikes come out of the floor. They only go up about 3 inches. He jumps back with a bloody foot. "Nope not that." Spikes in the whole hall start going up and down.

Tre watches. "It's a pattern of some kind. Watch it, it's repeating."

Omar nods. "That's a weird pattern. But yes it is repeating."

Mary scratches her head. "What is it?"

I watch it. "It's that dance. The one the prince did with me when I was talking to him, and you were all sitting there getting yelled at by Ylle. He said he might help me in here."

Tre looks at me. "I've never seen that dance baby."

Tye shakes his head. "Me either."

Dipak smiles at me. "It's an old one sweetheart. Stay off the spikes. If they hit someone, it might reset. I can get her over there."

He lines me up beside the start of the spikes. He leads the dance as soon as the 2 spikes beside us go down.

He dances me 3 quarters of the way when, all of a sudden, the spikes start shooting up 6 feet instead of 3 inches. Then fire shoots above us.

It makes me really nervous.

"Sweetheart. None of that matters. Let me lead."

I can't help but relax. He's so calm.

We step out of the spikes after a minute. He pulls me close to him and gives me the deepest kiss.

"Thank you love."

"Anything for you sweetheart." He gives me another kiss.

"NO s*x IN THE CHALLENGE." They are standing at the end of the hallway watching us. Mary has her hands on her hips.

"WE WERE JUST KISSING MARY."

"DON'T MAKE EPOCH COME BACK." Tre is laughing.

"FINE." I turn and grab my scepter.