After we’d burned the fire for about an hour, Preacher loaded that shit pit with hot embers and killed the snakes. He fished a few out and cleaned and skewered them on long sticks, and for the first time in my life I ate snake. Best fucking thing ever. If I was starving, I could only imagine how hungry Tara was. She’d eaten it after I’d made a huge deal about how it tasted just like bacon. In the morning we’d fish out the flag and pray it wasn’t melted to hell. Oh well, melted or not, it was the fucking flag, they didn’t say it had to be pretty. And it was our third flag. Tomorrow was the fourth. Then one more and we were home free to get off the island, get out of the game. Dom Wars was over. In only two days. I could hardly fucking believe it. I pulled Tara closer to me, remembering that first day I met her. In line at the audition. I smiled softly at the memory of her picking up her pennies on the ground. You can keep them she’d said. I pressed my lips into her hair and stroked her cheek.
