Chapter Ten
Allie shifted on the sun-warmed driftwood log and crossed one leg over the other.
Then she immediately uncrossed it when a stinging pain shot from one of the angry red welts on her thigh.
There were three bites, which she hoped were from mosquitoes or at least polite little bugs with polite little legs.
The thought of a spider crawling over her body in the dead of night was enough to make her quit the game.
But Allie didn’t quit. Especially with a protection bracelet hidden in her backpack.
“The bracelet is huge,” Allie said, scratching at one of the welts closest to her knee.
“It means there’s at least one vote where I don’t have to lie awake wondering if my name is on the chopping block.
Sleep is hard to come by as it is. I don’t think I’ve ever been so uncomfortable in my life, and I think I might be getting bursitis on my right hip.
” She rubbed at her hip, which had been achy all morning.
But if it was sympathy she wanted, she wasn’t going to get it from Tracy.
“How do you feel about Barra knowing about the bracelet?” Tracy asked coolly.
Tracy was one of the producers in charge of the confessionals.
Her hair was black and straight, cut into a bob just above her shoulders.
She had the hair on the sides clipped back at the ears with those butterfly wings Allie remembered from the late nineties.
Yesterday, during Allie’s first-ever confessional, Tracy had fired off question after question.
How did you find it? Do you think anyone saw?
Who do you trust? The whole point of these confessionals was to confess, but Allie always thought the confessionals were about saying more than you meant to.
Or at least that was what production wanted.
They nudged and prodded until they could get enough juice to stitch together a narrative, one that might be completely false.
“Fine,” Allie replied, glancing past the camera Landon had trained on her and toward the ocean where the waves crashed in frothy white bursts against the rocks.
Now and then Landon would peek out from behind the camera, and Allie would catch his red beard glinting in the sun like a warning flare. “I feel fine.”
“Really?” Tracy asked, lifting one immaculately shaped eyebrow.
Allie absentmindedly touched her own. She hadn’t seen her reflection in three days and was dreading the moment she would.
Her hair was slicked back—not by choice, but by its own natural oils—into a tight ponytail.
And her skin, which Allie usually layered with expensive serums and moisturizers, felt tight and desert-dry, like it might crack if she smiled too hard.
“I was hoping to keep the protection bracelet a secret,” Allie said, dropping her hand to her lap. “The fewer people who know, the better.”
“But?”
Allie drew in a breath. She had no idea what the cameras had caught last night.
Had they witnessed Barra trying to kiss her?
Had they filmed the moment Allie yanked herself out of Barra’s embrace and then proceeded to drag up their old history and the fact that Barra hadn’t apologized?
Had they captured anything at all? As far as she could remember, she’d spotted the red flash of the camera right up until she had stepped past a banana leaf tree. After that, there had been nothing.
“I think I can trust Barra,” she said carefully.
Tracy tilted her head to the side. “Is it because you and Barra have a history?”
And there it was.
Allie’s stomach turned in on itself. The question she wasn’t sure they’d ask, but somehow dreaded all morning, ever since she’d been informed that she’d be doing a confessional.
Ugh!
She shifted again and glanced back at the jungle rising like a thick wall of green behind her. For a fleeting second, she wished a jaguar would come leaping out of the trees.
“Yes,” she said reluctantly. “We have a history.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Can I say no?”
Tracy shook her head and looked way too satisfied at having the power to reject Allie’s request. But surely there were limits.
Surely Allie wasn’t obliged to mention anything from before the game started.
But Tracy didn’t look like she was letting it go.
If anything, she looked intent on prying it out of her.
“Fine,” Allie muttered. Sometimes you just have to let things go.
It wasn’t as if the producers were going to tell everyone back at camp.
Nope. Their secret was still safe. The only people who would know they’d hooked up were the thousands of viewers watching the show.
Thankfully, that did not include Allie’s parents.
They were apparently above watching reality television.
“We met a few months ago at a wedding, and that was that.”
“That was that?” Tracy questioned, looking increasingly impatient.
Allie exhaled slowly. She’d been told these were meant to feel like self-monologues, a verbal diary of sorts, but today it felt like she’d been cornered by hungry dogs.
Tracy was indeed starving for anything that would push the ratings up, and what would be better than a scandal?
“We ended up enjoying each other’s company and afterwards went our separate ways.
” It wasn’t a lie. Just a bent truth. “The next time I saw Barra was here, at Outlast Her.”
“And?”
“And nothing,” Allie said. “Barra didn’t choose me to be her partner, even though I guess I was expecting it. I don’t know what I was expecting, but in hindsight, it was probably a good thing.”
“You seem upset about it,” Tracy said.
“I’m not upset,” Allie said, feeling a flicker of exasperation itching her skin.
How had they gone from talking about the protection bracelet to Barra?
“Anyway, that’s not the point. What matters is that she now knows I’ve got the protection bracelet, so I’m hoping that will put us in some sort of alliance. ”
She barely got the word alliance out before there was a sudden explosion of noise coming from the direction of the camp. Raised voices were overlapping.
Allie snapped her head toward the far edge of the beach where it curved.
Tracy turned, too.
Even Landon stepped out from the camera and squinted against the sun. “What’s that about?”
Tracy had just opened her mouth to respond when Allie leaped up from the log. She was both relieved at the distraction and desperate to know what the ruckus was about. “I have to go.” She didn’t wait for Tracy to give her the go-ahead before she took off toward camp.
“SHOW US,” SUTTON SAID, holding out her hand. “We want to see what it looks like.”
Valerie looked at Sutton’s hand and laughed. “Why would I do that?”
“Just show us,” Sutton pushed. “We want to see what it looks like.”
“What’s going on?” Allie muttered as she stepped in beside Barra. The Season Five winner was standing at the edge of a semicircle. In the middle of the circle were Valerie and Sutton in some sort of standoff.
Barra turned her head just enough for Allie to catch the edge of her smile. “Connie and Margaret found mail,” she said. “The Sending is happening tonight.”
“Okay,” Allie said, unsurprised. Day three was a perfectly acceptable day for The Sending.
Alliances were already beginning to form, and based on the previous seasons, the timeline fit perfectly.
But that couldn’t be the reason Sutton was looking at Valerie like she wanted to punch her. “I don’t understand.”
“Sutton saw Valerie hide something in her bag,” Barra replied just as Sutton scoffed loudly and took one step forward.
She practically towered over Valerie, who couldn’t be taller than five feet two.
Not that Valerie looked deterred. Chihuahuas were brave even when facing a Great Dane.
And Valerie was no doubt a Chihuahua. “Then Valerie admitted to finding the protection bracelet.”
“What?” Allie stammered, feeling like she’d dropped her phone down a staircase. Had Valerie gone through her backpack and stolen her protection bracelet? Or had she found another one somewhere else?
Allie wanted nothing more than to run to her backpack leaning against one slightly lopsided pole of the shelter and dig through her things.
Past the fancy shirt she’d worn on day one, the rolled-up linen shorts, the plum purple sweatshirt with RISD printed on the front, and right down to the bottom where she’d tucked it into a pair of socks.
She needed to brush her fingers across the smooth, polished green jade beads strung onto a braided leather cord the color of sand.
But then Barra leaned closer. Close enough for Allie to smell sea salt in her wet hair. “She’s refusing to show it to anyone,” she whispered. “Which is rather clever, if you ask me.”
Allie must have frowned too deeply because Barra smiled and added, “Because you don’t know if she’s bluffing or not. She might have the protection bracelet. Or she might not.”
“Do you think she’s bluffing?” Allie asked.
Barra shrugged just as Sutton said, “Fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest like some mean girl in high school and arched both brows. “You can show us tonight then... after we vote you out.”
Juniper made a strangled sound.
Allie couldn’t blame her. But then again, shouldn’t Allie be worried too? Sutton was acting like Regina George in Mean Girls, and didn’t everyone applaud when Regina got hit by that bus? Maybe it was Allie and Sutton who were on the chopping block tonight.
“Fine,” Valerie shot back. Then she made a noise like she was clearing her throat and turned on her heels before stalking off. Sutton did the same, except she went off in the opposite direction. The rest of the circle scattered, including Barra, who walked off without a word.
“Where are you going?” Allie called after her.