the wilds • toni shalifoe

Day Twenty-three

Fatin and Rachel watched Dot use Martha's bra as a cannon to hit a bird with a rock. Lana was still sleeping, so she couldn't even inform her that Toni and Shelby would be back with lychees.

Lana woke up hearing some noise and saw the three girls rushing over to a bloody Martha. It clicked in the blonde's head what she had forgot to do yesterday, and her brain instantly went to blaming herself. She knew something was wrong.

"Jesus, are you hurt?" "What happened? Where are the others?" Fatin and Rachel interrogated as Dot and Lana rushed over too.

"I can't... I can't carry it," Martha stuttered. "What?" Rachel asked confused.

Martha led them to the goat. "Oh my gosh. Martha you ended up..." Lana didn't say "killing it" because she knew that it might make the already shaken up girl feel even worse.

Martha just nodded her head in response. "MVP Martha. M-V-fucking P," Rachel gushed. "For rea. This must be what cavewoman felt like when their men came home with meat. I am legit hot for you right now," Fatin confessed.

"Okay well, how about you keep that in your pants and help me with this?" Rachel told Fatin as they took the goat and started walking back.

"Are you sure you're holding up okay?" Dot questioned Martha. "Yeah, I know you weren't keen on... that yesterday," Lana soothed.

Martha nodded her head with a sad smile. "Okay," Dot said before Martha started to walk back.

****

The group besides Shelby and Toni who still weren't back yet, sat around the fire watching the goat cook.

"It's literally a bloody shank. All fugly and veiny and dripping. Yet it's the most beautiful thing I've seen in my entire life," Fatin mused.

"Smells so fucking good," Rachel added. "Hey Nora? Where's your journal?" Leah questioned. "I think I left it somewhere. Like on the bluff or something. Why?"

"I know you've been keeping track of the dates. Has to be close to Fourth of July right?" Leah asked.

"It's June 29th," Nora responded. "Yeah, I was just thinking it must be close to the fourth... here we are. Having a barbecue. It's like if you squint your eyes and forget 95% of our reality, it's almost like you can convince yourself everything's normal," Leah ranted.

"Here I thought we'd be saving the day. Looks like we've been upstaged," Shelby dropped a bunch of lychees out of her shirt.

"Oh shit. I completely forgot to tell you guys that we found lychees yesterday," Lana realized.

"What? You let us think we were about to die of starvation?" Dot half-joked. "Hey, you should be thanking me. If I told y'all you would've been counting down the seconds until they got back."

"Where have you guys been anyways?" Dot asked Toni and Shelby. "Well... do you have a good chunk of time? Cause that is a long story which starts with this serious wrong turn into-," Shelby awkwardly responded.

"Yeah, we got lost," Toni saved Shelby.
Lana knew something was up instantly. She could sense a weird tension between the two, and the way Shelby was nervous.

"Marty, is that the goat?" Toni asked noticing how the girl sat staring into the abyss, and quickly went to console her.

"So are you okay? I know you're never too psyched to be in the buddy system alone with Shelby," Martha told Toni.

"She's alright, you know? More importantly, are you okay?" Toni responded. Lana listened in on their conversation, and she just knew. She felt it in her gut that something happened at that lychee tree when she left.