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wire—I’m going to quickly give you a demo, then it’s all you. Set as many snares as you can, then grab your knife and try to stab something. Don’t forget to load up on that DEET insect junk before you start. And,” he warned, looking directly at me, “I want absolute silence during the hunt.”
    After his demonstration to the group on how to set a snare, as well as the proper way to humanely dispose of the catch, he set the group loose to hunt.
    With the men off hunting, he turned his attention to me. “Well, sis , I don’t have an extra kit for you, but I have an extra knife you can use. The snare thing is useless anyway—it would take multiple snares for days to nab enough meat to make it worth the energy expenditure. I just want them to learn various ways of obtaining food.” I stood speechless as he handed me a large knife in a leather scabbard. “You’re joking—I’m not going to kill anything! I can’t. Rex, please. ”
    “Of course you can. That rainforest,” he pointed his own knife toward the overgrown jungle, “is so full of food only an idiot would starve here. Surviving off the land in Colombia is child’s play. Go stab something, and because you look so hot in those snug jeans, I’ll be a gentleman and show you how to clean it.”
    Without another word, he walked into the lush jungle and left me standing there alone—alone and freaked out.
    I sat in the grass for half an hour as my stomach howled. His words rang out in my head: “You need to grow the fuck up and start acting like the badass woman that you are.” He was right—I’d been floundering for years. My mother’s long, grueling illness had leveled me. After college, I did nothing but shop during the day and cruise exclusive clubs at night collecting men. Most of them, all of them, looked like Nate. Rich, pretty, and coveted by the less-connected, less-spoiled women who, unlike me, were able to maintain a size two. A man like Rex would never be attracted to the shallow, trivial Penelope Sedgewick that lived in a Las Vegas casino penthouse. But, I knew damn well he was attracted to the captured Penny who was in Colombia. I liked myself here a lot more than I did at home, I decided, as I stood up and rubbed the insect repellent into my skin.
    With knife in hand and head held high, I ventured into the moist jungle.
    Rex was right—the place was teeming with life. Hunting would never be my thing, but I could see the value of being able to survive if I had to. My mind raced through the list of small mammals that Rex instructed the group to be on the lookout for—I mentally kicked myself for not paying better attention to his lesson.
    It took me an hour to happen upon what resembled a large rat sitting in the heavy foliage under a canopy of trees. With the quietest footsteps I could manage, I crept up behind it, and in a flash stabbed it with my knife. Well, tried to stab it, anyway. The minute my arm lunged toward it, the tiny creature was gone. My knife sunk into the marshy earth as my body crashed into the muddy jungle floor.
    Before I could think, a massive, fat snake fell from above and landed several feet in front of me. I was frozen in place, the snake and I in a catatonic stand-off. My worst nightmare sat there, its beady eyes staring into mine. A voice began to scream, to howl—a voice I recognized from my out-of-body state as my own. I screamed, and screamed, and screamed—the snake never moving.
    The demon was brown with marbled markings, his pink forked tongue occasionally darting out at me like a threat. I was sure he was the devil incarnate, there to drag me to hell. The snake was bigger around than my thigh and longer than I was tall. I continued to howl, slowly trying to free myself from the quicksand-like mud I was immersed in. The villainous snake continued its evil stare.
    Footsteps—I heard footsteps!
    “Penny, I mean Joanie , very nice work. Now kill it.” Rex stood nearby, the small group of men babbling