Chapter Two
I wedge myself into the semicircle of fellow adventurers between a friendly-looking blonde who reminds me of Reese and a not-unattractive athlete type. High School Natalie would have taken a bite out of him in a heartbeat. Good thing she and her overly romantic heart have been left in the dust by College Natalie, who has so many bigger fish to fry.
I can still appreciate the view, though.
As I’m doing just that, surreptitiously checking out Mr. Gun Show in his very revealing T-shirt with cutoff sleeves, my eyes drift without my permission. To Finn, my non-ally, who is tossing a judgmental look in my direction as he takes a spot as far away from me as he can possibly get.
So he doesn’t like fun, cool people who are good at reading maps. Good for him! No skin off my nose.
I glance at the girl beside me. She really does look like my best friend—cute, wholesome, girl-next-door vibes, down to the spray of freckles across her cheeks. A potential ally if I ever saw one.
“Hey, I’m Natalie,” I say, leaning toward her with my warmest smile.
Her eyes flick my way, and my grin falters. Is she deciding whether I’m worth a turn of her head?
But no, benefit of the doubt. We’re all nervous here and new to being on camera. I stay cheesing while awaiting her verdict.
Her chin angles my way, lips turning down at the corners. “Ally.” Oh my god! Her name is literally ally pronounced differently. If this isn’t a sign we’re going to be best friends, maybe even teammates—“With an i,” she finishes.
Ah. Okay, close enough.
She turns her head away again, so I lean back. It’s fine—this is a weird environment in which to meet people.
“Where are you from?” I blurt out anyway before I can stop myself, because I just can’t leave well enough alone. Can’t let yet another person dislike me today without a clear reason.
Alli’s still-downturned lips twitch, her brows pinching together. At this rate, all of my fellow “Co-EdVenturers” are going to need Botox before they turn thirty.
“Colorado.”
I wait to see if she’ll ask where I’m from, or look at me again, but nope. That’s all I get.
“Oh, awesome. I hear it’s beautiful there! I’m from Kentucky,” I offer.
In return, Alli’s eyes dart my way again before making a quick up-and-down assessment of me, much like Finn did. Then she snorts. A derisive little sound, capped off with a short yet highly judgmental “Oh.”
My mouth drops open. I’m…befuddled. I’ve always been a girl’s girl—not someone who’s ever had trouble making friends of the female variety, always flying my feminist flag, Very Much Like Other Girls. And until college, I thought I was pretty good at making new friends. But when Alli angles her body away from me, I decide to leave this one be for now.
The more I think about it as we watch the rest of the competitors arrive, one by one, the madder I get. Mad that no matter where I go, no matter how little people have to base their judgments of me on, it seems like no one takes me seriously.
Not my parents, when I spent years working my ass off toward my dream of going to college for theater. They’ve both worked on a horse farm doing manual labor for their whole adult lives, so they see higher education as a waste of time and money and eagerly await the day I come back home to get a “real job.” And not my classmates at Oliver, who I thought would finally get me like no one else had. Instead, they were unimpressed by a freshman who’d been good on a small-town stage and in performances in her grandma’s living room, and in all the theater camps she went to in these very Tennessee mountains growing up, but was nothing next to former Broadway child stars.
And now, here, among a group of people who I’m pretty sure have also never been on a reality competition show in the wilderness before, I already feel like the last kid any of them would pick in gym class.
The soft thuds of another adventurer’s jogging footsteps pull me back to the present before a girl bursts out of the woods. Counting in my head, I see that with this latest girl, there are now sixteen of us in the semicircle. How many teams are in a normal Wild Adventures season? Surely no more than ten. Are we close to the last arrival?
“Amanda,” Burke Forrester bellows. His expression is stern as he faces the girl still trying to catch her breath in front of him. If he’s making me this nervous, I can only imagine what she’s feeling. “As you can see, many Co-EdVenturers have arrived before you.”
Oh, damn. I can feel the discomfort rippling through the circle of us looking on, everyone shifting on their feet, adjusting backpack straps and not making eye contact with one another—and especially not with the poor gal on the chopping block.
Burke lets us wait a brutally long, awkward minute before he speaks again. “Unfortunately…for the remaining arrival, you are still in this competition as the last Co-EdVenturer to make the cut. Congratulations, Amanda!”
Her relieved “ohmygod” is a cross between a gasp and a squeal as she bounces in place. There’s scattered applause from some of us surrounding her, the confusion and awkwardness of the moment not totally gone, but at least we have a little forewarning before we have to watch someone’s dreams get crushed.
Only a little, though, as the remaining straggler appears mere moments after the clapping has subsided. Sauntering out from the trees wearing, of all things, a cowboy hat and boots, the guy approaches the flag and our host as if he already knows his fate, so the elimination doesn’t hit as hard as it might have otherwise. When Burke confirms for all of us that Cowboy is the last one to make it to the checkpoint and has therefore been eliminated from the competition, the boy lets out a very sad “yeehaw” and waves to the group before he’s led away by a production assistant.
If my time on this show is ever cut short, I can only hope my exit is that iconic.
Despite the weird introductions with Alli and Finn, and the whiplash of these last few minutes, I’m practically giddy. It’s not something I’ve felt much in recent months, and makes me think once and for all that coming here was a good idea. Even if I don’t win the money in the end, this feeling…it’s still worth something. Obviously I can’t pay for college with good vibes, but they certainly don’t hurt.
My cheeks do hurt from wrangling the massively toothy smile that wants to take over my face into a tame, closed-mouthed grin. After another break during which a PA dabs some powder onto Burke’s nose and forehead—I wonder what brand, and if it’s actually bronzer because how would they find foundation in that shade, and how it isn’t melting off his face in the slightest—the cameras start rolling again.
“Co-EdVenturers,” Burke calls out, voice echoing off the tall trees surrounding us. “It’s my honor to welcome you all to this special season of Wild Adventures, taking place on the world-famous Appalachian Trail. As the longest hiking-only footpath in the world, the trail you’ve all started walking today runs over two thousand miles through fourteen states from Georgia to Maine. Each year, hundreds of intrepid outdoorspeople make the entire trek and join the two-thousand-miler club. But doing so takes the average hiker anywhere from five to seven months.”
At his pause and subsequent wide-eyed look he sweeps across the group, there’s a quiet chorus of nervous laughter.
“Don’t worry—we don’t have the filming budget for that.” Burke is met with more genuine, relieved amusement this time. “So in order to give you all the most impactful—if condensed—experience on your AT adventure, we’ve dropped you in the middle of the action. Right now, we’re about one hundred and seventy miles from the AT’s southern terminus, just within the boundaries of another of America’s natural treasures, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The park service has graciously allowed us to utilize this stunning segment of the trail for the duration of your adventure. It’s all of our hope that while racing and competing, you will also be able to enjoy the nature and history of both the AT and the Smokies.
“All of us at Wild Adventures are very excited to have you, and I’m sure you’re even more excited to get started. So without further ado, let’s do just that! We’ll begin by pairing off into teams, or finding your co-Co-EdVenturer.”
Burke shoots us a cheeky wink, and I’m one of a handful who laugh at the quip. Alli and Finn are not among us.
“In the woods surrounding you, we’ve hidden backpacking packs, each containing a different selection of top-of-the-line camping gear and other tools for survival. These packs will be yours to keep. Each pack is marked with a luggage tag, which will match the tag on one other pack. The person with a tag matching yours will become your partner. You’re welcome to look at what’s in each pack and shop around, but I’d advise you to pick one as soon as possible and return here. There are sixteen of you and only fifteen packs out there. The sixteenth contestant will receive their pack at the next checkpoint tomorrow, so one team will only have half their selection of gear for the night. Are there any questions?”
Yes, I think. Is my voice going to sound two octaves lower on TV too?
All of us look from Burke to each other. I feel my palms start to sweat and wipe them on my leggings.
“All right, you may leave your things here while you search for your new packs.” At this, we all remove whatever possessions we have on our person. I drop my small day pack to the ground. Buff Guy tosses his beside it, shooting me a quick grin before he starts bouncing on the balls of his feet. Alli bends her knees, setting one foot in front of the other like she’s at the starting line of a sprint. I don’t know what else to do, so I reach up to tighten my bun.
Finally, Burke brings his hands together, looking us all over with a smirk as he announces, “Ready…set…adventure!”
The group scatters in all directions, racing into the forest around us like the ground in the clearing is lava. I run to the first opening I see, not paying any real mind to the humans around me, only focused on finding a backpack. I imagine this is how Katniss felt as she ran for her life in the Hunger Games, ignoring the fact that my fellow adventurers aren’t trying to kill me. As far as I know.
I scan my surroundings as I jog, ducking under outstretched branches and dodging overgrown bushes full of thorns. It isn’t long before I spot it—a flash of bright blue between two trees. That has to be a pack, doesn’t it? I jog faster, though I’m pretty sure there’s no one else around to get to it first, and adrenaline surges in my veins. I am so totally getting a pack today, just a few yards ahead now, and—
“Oof!”The involuntary sound escapes me as I trip over something and go crashing to the ground, landing on my hands and knees. But when I look down, there’s no rock or protruding tree root, or anything but flat dirt. And when I look up again, I see the back of Alli’s yellow tank top.
I gasp, a little breathless from the fall. “Did you…just…trip me?” I pant-yell, a thing I don’t recall doing before in my life.
Alli swings the bright blue pack up onto her shoulder before turning my way with a look of completely faked innocence. “What? I would never!” she says in a high-pitched trill. I’ve seen enough shitty acting in my life to know better.
There’s a rustling nearby and I turn to see a camera person emerge from behind a tree. If only they’d arrived a few seconds earlier, I could dramatically yell, “Roll the tape!”
But they didn’t, so I can’t, and Alli is still playing a mediocre harmless bystander.
“Okay, sure,” I huff, knowing this is probably not the battle to pick on day one. “I’ll go find another pack, then.”
I’m about to push up to my feet when a hand appears in front of my face. My gaze travels up, and I see short, strawberry blond curls framing a freckle-covered face. A face I remember from the group gathered at the checkpoint. Her mouth is a flat, slightly impatient line, but her eyes hold too much sympathy for someone planning to kick me while I’m down, so I accept her help in standing.
“Thanks,” I say, brushing dirt from my knees. I expect the other girl to run off, then realize she’s already wearing a pack. Of course. Must be nice!
“Watch your step this time!” Alli’s voice is as cloying as her fake smile when she jogs past us, back toward the clearing.
That’s it. Her name is now Enemi.
With an i.
“That was ugly.” The girl who helped me up speaks for the first time, a soft, familiar Southern lilt to the words. While I know she’s probably referring to my fall, I’d like to think she means Alli’s behavior. My grandma in Tennessee, Starla Lee Hart, loved to describe people as “acting ugly.” Someone cut her in the Food City checkout line? They were acting ugly. The girl in first grade who told me my stuffed bear I brought for show-and-tell was for babies? She was acting ugly. Tennessee politicians? Usually acting ugly.
“You okay?” my helper asks, and it’s only when I meet her eyes that I realize a sheen of tears is forming in mine. I know it’s not from the fall, either—it’s the potential of failure looming closer and closer, the thoughts of Granny Star, everything.
I force a smile, blinking away the evidence of anything but badass resilience. “All good! Thank you! I should probably, ah—”
I gesture a bit maniacally, indicating the woods all around us, and she nods and backs away, offering a short “good luck” as she goes. It’s not the most enthusiastic delivery, but it’s still the nicest anyone’s been to me since Ethel with the hard candies. I should’ve checked her pack’s luggage tag so I can try to find myself its match and lock down a partner who didn’t seem to hate me on sight. As if I have any time to be choosy by now.
Frustration and my long-dormant competitive side, the latter of which I’ve tried to bury since it got me kicked out of intramural volleyball in high school for unsportsmanlike conduct, are what fuel me to keep looking for this damn pack. I pass three more people already heading toward the clearing with packs on their backs, and my hope sinks a little each time. But there are still others out here looking, which means there are still some to be found.
In the end, it isn’t the color of the backpack that gets my attention, but the sunlight glinting off a shiny metal zipper. I probably wouldn’t have seen it otherwise, as my brain was filtering the vicinity for “things that aren’t green.” This pack, which I pull from where it’s half hidden behind a mossy boulder, is a very similar shade of Emerald City to its surrounding landscape, and the victorious laugh I let out as I sling it across one shoulder sounds fittingly Elphaba, post-Wicked transformation.
“Defying Gravity” would be an appropriate theme song for the ordeal of me wrestling my new luggage onto my shoulders for the first time, but I eventually get the monstrosity settled without toppling over. I start an ambitious jog in the direction of all the voices, but quickly find that a speed-walk is as much as I can manage with a big-ass backpack. What am I trying to prove, anyway? I already got the goods, and there’s no reward for getting back to the clearing sooner.
When I emerge into the open space, all the Co-EdVenturers who already have their packs are milling around in a cluster, humming like a swarm of bees as they compare luggage tags.
“Red and green plaid?”
“Red and green plaid!”
Two new teammates hold their tags toward each other in one hand while high-fiving with the other. A shiver runs down my spine as it hits me that I’m about to find out who I’m sharing this experience with—who I’m going to have to count on to help me win the money.
I swing my pack around to my front and find the luggage tag looped through its top handle. One side is plain white, but when I flip it over, I let out a happy squeak. Dark purple background with lighter purple polka dots. This has to be a good omen, right?
Unless Enemi has a purple polka-dotted tag, in which case I might have to try my luck at running back into the woods for a new bag.
“Yes!” The excited shout draws my attention and I look over to find the nemesis herself jumping in place and fist bumping the muscular guy.
“Dream team,” he says back, and I feel my lip starting to curl up into something snarly before I force it back to a neutral line. Good luck to ’em.
I push farther toward the middle of the fray, which has grown by a couple more people since I returned.
“Anyone have purple polka dots?” I project in outdoor-performance-without-a-sound-system volume.
There are some murmurs in the negative as others call out their patterns, and I assume my partner hasn’t made it back yet. Not a great sign if they’re struggling with the very first challenge of the whole competition. But I can be patient and understanding, maybe pull more than my weight if I have to, especially if my teammate is on the nice side of hapless.
But when a voice emerges from just over my shoulder, it’s anything but nice, gruffly muttering, “You’ve got to be kidding.”