Desperate Measures Read online

  CAUGHT

  Carter turned to see several shadows closing in. He bent his knees and put his hands up, ready to tackle his way out of this if he had to. But before any of the others could get there, a vine loop dropped into his field of vision. He noticed it at the same moment it slipped around his head.

  Carter reached up to snatch the vine off, too late. It already had him, and pulled up tight under his chin.

  Someone dropped from a branch overhead. The slack in the vine went even tighter, and nearly yanked Carter off his feet. Whoever it was hit the ground behind him and snaked both arms around his shoulders. The loop tightened again, cutting into his windpipe.

  “Stranded is non-stop adventure!

  If your kids love Survivor, they’ll love this book!”

  —Mark Burnett, Executive Producer of Survivor

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  First published in the United States of America by Puffin Books,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Jeff Probst

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  CIP Data is available

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-16867-1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Caught

  Reviews

  Title Page

  Copyright

  From the Authors

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  How the Adventure Began

  As we conclude another great Stranded adventure it brings me back to how it all began. Lisa, my brilliant wife, had the original idea and we centered it around our kids Michael and Ava—who give me the greatest gift every day when they call me dad.

  Then we took their favorite cousins, Alyssa and Evan and Amanda and Abby and used their best qualities to create the other two characters. We had our family!

  I’ve had so much fun hearing from all of you who enjoy the books. Your comments and in many cases your ideas have really helped shape the series.

  Remember, the adventure you’re ready for is the one you get! Go for it!

  —JP

  For Margaret and Paul, with love

  —CT

  CHAPTER 1

  Carter pinwheeled his arms, trying to hold on to thin air as he fell.

  It couldn’t be done. In a second, he’d landed hard on a wide net of woven vines. The breath rushed out of him. He rolled twice, coming to a stop on his stomach.

  Already, his right arm and leg had slipped through holes in the mesh. It left him bound up in the crisscross of vines as the net shook from the impact of his fall.

  And where was Chizo? The other boy had dropped this way only a few seconds before. He had to be nearby—

  The answer came right away. Even as Carter lay tangled facedown, Chizo sprang into view. He leaped up from the ground, maybe six feet below. The net still separated them, but its gaps were more than wide enough to get an arm through.

  Chizo’s eyes were wild. He looked insane as he held the net with one hand and reached with the other. His fingers closed around Carter’s arm and he dropped back to the ground.

  Rough mesh scraped across Carter’s face. Experience had shown him how strong these vines were. They were going to cut him to pieces before they’d ever break. And Chizo wasn’t letting go.

  “GET AWAY FROM ME!” Carter screamed.

  He swung with his free arm. The punch he wanted to land only grazed off Chizo’s shoulder. Chizo had gravity on his side, with both feet on the ground now, while Carter stayed tangled in the woven vines.

  This was it. This was the moment they’d been moving toward since the first day of Raku Nau. The competition may have been over, but the two of them still had a score to settle.

  Carter bent his left knee. It bought him enough leverage to pull his other leg free and reel back several inches, but no more. Chizo wasn’t giving up, either. He sprang off the ground a second time just as Carter pushed toward him again.

  With a sickening smack, their foreheads collided in the middle. Carter heard a crunch somewhere inside his skull and fell back again.

  His vision blurred. The world spun.

  And everything went black.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jane stood on the beach, staring at the ocean. She clung to Vanessa and Buzz, watching for any sign of their brother.

  Carter had to be coming, didn’t he? He had to. And yet . . .

  She couldn’t even finish the thought. She knew better. Raku Nau was a competition for sixteen seccu. All sixteen of those winners’ necklaces had been claimed. Jane could see across the bay to the top of Cloud Ridge where the seccu had been hung. Each of them had leaped for their own necklace, down through a misty void, and into the water. From there, it had been one last exhausting swim from the base of Cloud Ridge to the beach on the eastern shore.

  Now, the vine that had once held the seccu was empty. Their friend Mima had been wearing the last one as she swam ashore moments ago. And Carter was nowhere to be seen.

  “Carter? Carter?” Jane asked her, knowing the answer.

  “Fah,” Mima answered. It meant no in the Nukula language. Carter wasn’t coming.

  Jane looked at Vanessa on her left, then Buzz on her right. “What’s going to happen to us?” she asked.

  Neither of them answered. There was nothing to say, because there was no way to know. Carter could have been hurt, or worse. And without him, none of them were going anywhere.

  Mima took Jane by the arm, pulling her away from the water’s edge.

  “Jane, Buzz, Ba-nessa!” Mima said. “Ekka-ka, ekka-ka!”

  This way, she was saying, urging them off the beach. A Raku Nau finishers’ celebration would be getting under way soon. The drumming in the woods had already changed, from an earnest, steady beat to something more joyful and expressive.

  But how could they celebrate anything now? Turning away from the water felt like turning away from Carter. Jane dropped to her knees instead, sinking in the wet sand where the Pacific Ocean lapped at the shore.

  The need had been for all four siblings—Jane, Vanessa, Buzz, and Carter—to finish the Raku Nau competition together. It was the only way to reach the remote island’s eastern shore, where the tides were gentle enough to ride away from this place.

  Shadow Island. That was Jane’s name for it. The Nukula who lived here were masterful at keeping themselves hidden in the jung
le’s shadows, away from the outside world. They weren’t bad people. Just the opposite. But the Nukula were also protective of their way of life.

  Even if Carter had made it this far, the four siblings still would have needed some way of getting out to sea under the watchful eyes of the tribe. Then, and only then, could they hope to be spotted by a ship or a rescue plane.

  But none of that mattered now. Without Carter, they couldn’t even think about leaving. The four of them had been stranded here as a family, and they were going to leave as a family or not at all.

  So was that it, then? Was Shadow Island their new home? Did this mean they’d never get to see Mom and Dad again?

  No, Jane thought. No. No. That couldn’t be the case. It just couldn’t.

  Or maybe that was what anyone thought when things went too wrong to imagine. Maybe it really was over and they just hadn’t figured it out yet.

  Buzz knew he had to be strong—stronger than any eleven-year-old should have to be. It wasn’t fair, but that was beside the point. He could see Jane was losing hope. It showed in his little sister’s eyes.

  He’d been there himself. They all had at one time or another. Even Vanessa—who was the oldest, at thirteen, and always knew what to say—seemed out of answers.

  “Let’s get into the woods, you guys,” Buzz said. “We’ll figure something out. We can’t do anything from here.”

  Mima had given up trying to coax them over. Already, she was halfway to the clearing, where the celebration would take place. They were all expected to gather there, away from the shore. The Nukula never lingered for long where they could be spotted by a passing plane or ship, and Mima had to answer to the tribe like anyone else.

  “Buzz is right,” Vanessa said. “We should get over there with the others.”

  “Why?” Jane blurted. “It doesn’t matter what we do anymore. It was all for nothing!”

  “You don’t know that!” Buzz shouted back.

  The force of his own voice surprised him. Then again, he’d never thought in a million years he’d have the guts to finish something as hard as Raku Nau. Images of the last three days flashed through his mind.

  The Nukula village on the far side of the island.

  The endless miles of mosquito-infested jungle.

  The enormous obstacle course where they’d last seen Carter.

  It was all supposed to bring them here to the eastern shore, and ultimately back out to sea, where Mom and Dad would be looking for them.

  But Carter was still on Cloud Ridge, just short of the Raku Nau finish line.

  And the clock was ticking. Nukula tradition held that all those who finished Raku Nau spend the night in celebration. Then, at sunrise, everyone would leave for the main village on the island’s western shore. The tides on that side had washed Buzz and his siblings onto the island, but going the other way was potentially fatal. Without knowing any better, they had tried to paddle away from the western shore on the first day and had nearly drowned.

  Not only that, but Mima’s parents had lost their lives navigating those same tides several years ago, leaving Mima an orphan long before Buzz’s family ever set foot here.

  The only real option now was to leave from this side of the island, or not at all. Once they set out for the west, they wouldn’t be coming back. Then it would really be over.

  But it wasn’t over yet.

  Buzz knelt down and took the purple stone of Jane’s seccu between his fingers. “Do you see this?” he said. “We earned these. That means something.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything if Carter’s not here,” Jane answered. “What if we can’t ever leave? What if we’re here forever?”

  The questions terrified him. Still, Buzz kept a stony expression on his face. The important thing was to get off the beach. As long as they were stuck here, they needed to live the Nukula way, by Nukula rules.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’re going. Now.”

  “But . . . Carter,” Jane said, pointing across the bay toward Cloud Ridge. “He’s still back there with Chizo.”

  Buzz hooked a hand under his sister’s arm and brought her to her feet. There was no knowing what to expect next, or what Chizo might do to their brother. Still, they couldn’t let any of that stop them. Not after everything they’d been through. If the last few weeks had taught Buzz anything, it was that survival meant putting one foot in front of the other—even when he was so scared he could barely breathe.

  Like right now.

  CHAPTER 3

  Carter’s vision swam as he came to. He was lying on his back on the net. When he reached up to touch his throbbing forehead, a golf ball–sized lump blazed with pain. His stomach clenched, but there was nothing down there to throw up. None of the Raku Nau runners had eaten in more than twenty-four hours.

  He rolled over and looked down. Chizo sat slumped on the ground, hands around his knees, head bowed, and barely stirring.

  Carter dragged himself to the edge of the net. He rolled off and dropped, ignoring the shock to his legs as he hit the ground. The pain was everywhere, but it couldn’t be helped. This wasn’t over, and his best bet now was to strike first.

  It was impossible to know how old Chizo was, maybe thirteen or fourteen. Definitely older than eleven-year-old Carter. But that didn’t matter here. On this playing field, they were equals.

  Carter lasered his focus on Chizo. He pushed his feet into the dirt. And he charged.

  Chizo looked up just as Carter hit him in a low tackle. It knocked Chizo flat. With a quick scramble, Carter was on top. The adrenaline rushed through him. He pinned Chizo’s arms with a knee on either side. He pressed his left hand into Chizo’s chest and cocked his right fist, ready to swing—

  But then he stopped cold.

  The dead look in Chizo’s eyes was unlike anything Carter had seen before. Chizo wasn’t even trying to fight back. He’d barely moved at all. And it wasn’t just from exhaustion.

  It was defeat. Carter had seen that look plenty of times back home, usually on the ball field. You could always tell when the members of the other team knew they were done. The fight drained right out of their eyes, leaving them blank and empty. Just the way Chizo’s looked now.

  It felt like staring into a mirror. Carter had everything he needed to win this fight, but something had just changed.

  It hit him with a wave of clarity. Raku Nau was over. There was no winning anymore. They’d both lost. Carter wasn’t going home, and without a seccu around his neck, Chizo’s chance of becoming chief of the Nukula had just evaporated.

  Other runners from the competition had begun to come off the course, too. They gathered around and seemed to be waiting for the next move. At home, there would have been a lot of shouting—fight, fight, fight, fight. But none of them said a word.

  Carter stood up in a daze. When he reached out to help Chizo off the ground, Chizo smacked his hand away.

  “Sorry,” Carter mumbled. He got it. Even now, Chizo needed to save face. And there was no reason not to let him. Whether that made Carter a wimp or a bigger man in these people’s eyes, it was impossible to say. The Nukula had their own way of thinking about things.

  Out of the silence, an adult voice sounded. Carter looked up. One of the tribe elders stood at the top of the gorge that enclosed the giant three-level obstacle course around them. Her face was familiar. She’d been one of three adults acting as observers during Raku Nau.

  A moment later, the woman stepped off the gorge’s edge and onto the course. She walked across a section of vine mesh as if it were solid ground, then jumped and snatched a rope on the fly to slide down one level. There, she landed on a small platform only long enough to turn and free-fall to the net below. With a final, fluid move, she landed on her back, flipped over, and let herself the rest of the way down. The Nukula seemed as comfortable off the ground as on it. />
  “Ekka!” the woman said. She pointed west, where the gorge opened to the valley below. Immediately, all of the others started lining up. It seemed they were being told to head home—down from the peaks of Cloud Ridge, into the jungle, and toward the Nukula village on the far side of the island.

  Carter’s pulse spiked.

  What have I done?

  The thought burned into his brain. Jane, Vanessa, and Buzz were waiting for him on the east shore. They’d be out of their minds by now, wondering what was up.

  Losing Raku Nau had never even been an option. And yet, here Carter was. He’d never considered a scenario where he’d have to choose between his family’s fate and someone else’s. But that was exactly how it had gone down. In the heat of the moment, he’d sacrificed himself to allow Mima through.

  Back home, he was always the competitive one. Maybe even the selfish one. But he’d changed. There was no denying it now. The only thing he could have done differently was to leave Mima behind and take the final seccu for himself. That was never going to happen.

  The four of them owed her everything. If it wasn’t for Mima, they wouldn’t have made it past the first day. And the seccu was at least as important for her as it was for them. Today, Mima’s new life in the tribe could begin. No matter what else went down, Carter knew he’d always be proud of the choice he’d made to help her.

  But could Jane, Buzz, and Vanessa understand all that? And, maybe more important—could they ever forgive him?

  Vanessa held Jane’s hand as they headed across the beach toward the woods. Feast preparations were under way. The smell of roasting meat filled the air and made her stomach rumble.

  Still, it was impossible to think about anything but Carter. As they got near the clearing, Vanessa took one last, hopeful glance over her shoulder. And out there on the water, something caught her eye.

  “Wait!” she said.