Witch of the Wild Woods

Chapter 14 - Handshake Drugs

Chapter 14  - Handshake Drugs  

"I'm forming a hypothesis," Luna whispered to her brother.

    Lane continued marching along with the others. He tapped his ear encouraging his sister to continue her explanation. They had another quarter mile or so to hike before reaching the archery range. Just following the arrows. Following the crowd.

    "This isn't really a team-building exercise," Luna suggested in a hushed tone. Something about the fearful delivery of such an obvious observation mixed with her subtle French lilt sent a shiver up Lane's spine.

    "I would agree, but only because team-building exercises rarely accomplish what they're supposed to. Namely, building a team. At best, those subjected to such an exercise can rally behind a common enemy of whoever forced them into the exercise in the first place," Lane replied in a quiet, measured tone. As the councilors approached the two-hour time limit, tensions began to rise. The afternoon sun seared their flesh, and a lone pine needle falling from the trees the wrong way could cause the whole lot of them to snap at any moment.

    Luna leaned in closer to Lane; "Sure. But, something feels more malicious here than usual for a silly, albeit antagonistic game."

    Lane took a moment to observe the line of councilors in its entirety. At the head of the line, Jordan pulled on the rope that connected them all like a stubborn sled driver whose huskies had fallen dead in the snow. Franki refused to so much as glance over her shoulder back at Julia. Brandon, or Topeka now, kept poking fun at Cole for being on Korri's short leash. Zoe and Gracie had bickered intensely over nothing before the exercise began, and continued to do so now.

    In the middle of the rope, Alice and Boozeman each gave off a chilling, unsettling sense of calm. Occasionally, the former sent an icy glare back at Lane along with a wicked smirk.

 Luna again spoke softly into Lane's ear. He could taste her breath; a mix of lavender, vanilla, and rose petal tea; "I think this course is designed to do elicit a much more nuanced emotional response. Not comradery, but..." She trailed off, still trying to place her finger on the right word.

 The Tiki Drum strip show and now this scavenger hunt did feel less like a game and more like a ritual to Lane. It triggered a deeper memory of the cultists from his family's mission to Thailand years ago. He remembered the girl who'd escaped the compound and shared her experience. It wasn't simply that the cult had been watching, controlling, dictating her every move prior to her exodus. The cult leaders had deliberately broken the spirits of their members. Then, once those under their director's influence had been broken down, they were molding up into something else entirely. They'd been reconditioned. Remade. Their free will had been revoked from right under their noses.

Lane was familiar with the tactics, the how. Now he needed to figure out why this was being done to college students, in Washington State, at a youth camp. He needed to solve this puzzle and fast before they shared a similar fate of those forsaken Thai children.

---

Brandon laughed, "That's it? This is your big challenge, Vegas?"

"This is your second challenge, yeah. It's only slightly less thick and hefty than what you had in your mouth last night," Brad chuckled, "So, I guess you could call it big? Sure."

Lane looked about the group to see if anybody picked up on Brad's admission that they'd only completed one challenge, not two. Fortunately, the only one who noticed was Jordan. It was unfortunate that her face gave away how she felt about that intentional dig from Vegas. Still, as long as the group didn't outright revolt against their current leader, for Jordan's sake, Lane hoped she'd make it through this event.