Chapter Sixteen
Adrienne was getting a little impatient. Actually, that was a lie. She felt like a woman forty weeks pregnant, swollen and exhausted, and begging her OB-GYN for an induction.
It had been three days since Adrienne and Valerie had spotted Isla and Sienna sneaking about with that secret advantage, and nothing had gone according to plan. At least not her plan.
Hallie had gone home at the last Sending because Isla had deemed it the smartest move for the collective.
“Everyone loves a hero,” she’d said. “The sooner we get the firefighter out the better... blah blah blah.” Adrienne had no idea what else she had said because Adrienne had sulked off to the beach to exfoliate the betrayal from her skin.
What none of them had predicted was Stevie quitting the very next day because of an infected cut on the sole of her foot she’d picked up scrambling over rocks during a swim. Adrienne had caught a glimpse of the oozing, blister-like sore and nearly fainted.
But Stevie’s game didn’t affect her. She was a floater after all, someone the viewers would only remember for wearing chunky Doc Martens on a sweltering hot Greek island.
Not like Niko’s did. Adrienne needed Niko gone, and she needed that advantage flushed out of the game.
There was always the slim chance that Isla and Sienna would stab them in the back.
“Welcome, contestants!” Vivian’s voice boomed from the beach.
On any other day, Adrienne would’ve appreciated Vivian’s sand-colored Miu Miu gabardine shirt-jacket that she had paired perfectly with high-waisted poplin shorts and a pair of buttery tan leather loafers.
But the moment Adrienne stepped onto the beach, a hideous gut-wrenching feeling twirled in her stomach.
Out past the shoreline, bopping gently in the surf were eight parallel wooden frames fitted with flat, low-slung timber grates, suspended by mechanical winches.
The Downward Press.
The infamous challenge that had completely dissolved Kingsley White—a fitness influencer who was nearly as famous as Kayla Itsines—into a sobbing mess.
By the third drop, when the wooden slats had pressed flush against her nose, Kingsley had suffered a panic attack.
Adrienne, who had watched the episode from her Upper East Side penthouse, could still vividly remember how the safety divers had dragged Kingsley’s thrashing body back onto the beach.
She’d been so genuinely traumatized by that scene that she’d canceled her reservation at Carbone that night, unable to even think about swallowing the spicy rigatoni.
And now she was about to live it.
“I can’t believe they brought it back,” Niko muttered under her breath.
“Brought what back?” Tamera asked, looking confused.
“Didn’t you watch Season Six?” Amy asked her, frowning behind her glasses. “It’s literally the most talked about—”
Vivian cut her off. “I can see that most of you recognize the challenge,” she said, smiling.
Then she gestured toward the open water.
“For the first time since Season Six, we’re bringing back the Downward Press.
” She paused long enough for goosebumps to cover every inch of Adrienne’s body.
“The rules are simple. Each of you will swim out to a lane, slip under the flat timber grates, and float on your backs. Every ten minutes, the grates will be lowered a few inches, moving closer to the water.”
Adrienne swallowed so hard her throat hurt. Two years ago, she’d gone snorkeling in Mauritius with a heavily congested nose and felt so claustrophobic it was like swimming in a coffin. She imagined this challenge would be a hundred times worse than that.
“Today you won’t just be competing against each other,” Vivian went on. “You’ll be fighting your own minds. This challenge is made to break you... but only if you let it.”
Adrienne didn’t want to be broken. The opposite, in fact.
She wanted to be wrapped in a silk robe at the Aman Spa, with someone massaging her lavender-scented feet while an aesthetician applied a chilled hyaluronic eye mask to her face.
It didn’t matter that just a few days ago she’d won the spa reward; Adrienne pampered herself thrice weekly.
She wanted a crisp, ridiculously expensive glass of Sancerre handed to her on a silver platter.
She wanted to teleport straight to the finish line and to the reward without being waterboarded.
She wanted something in this game to come easily for once. Was that too much to ask for?
“And to make things even harder, you won’t be competing for a reward. Instead, the bottom two pairs will be at risk of going home tonight.”
No! That was the exact opposite of what Adrienne needed.
What? There were shocked gasps all around, with Adrienne’s being the loudest. All that pain for nothing? And worse than nothing... the chance of being sent home. If there was ever a moment when Adrienne regretted entering Outlast Her, this would be it.
“Alright, everyone!” Vivian called. If she had even an ounce of sympathy for them, she didn’t show it. She just clapped her hands together and shouted, “Take your spots!”
Reluctantly, she waded toward the water.
Adrienne had to literally convince her feet to move.
Beside her, Valerie walked with her shoulders hunched to her ears.
Was she as terrified as Adrienne was? Did the thought of water rushing over her face for an indefinite amount of time feel as scary as coming eye to eye with a shark?
But she didn’t get a chance to ask. Valerie dove clean under the next small wave.
Adrienne followed a second later and headed straight for the purple lane.
Once she was in place, floating on her back, the wooden slats about twenty inches above her, she inhaled so deeply she imagined her lungs like two buoyant pool floaties.
All they had to do was keep her above water.
“TIME STARTS NOW!”
For the first few seconds, everything felt relatively calm. There was only the gentle sloshing of water against wood, a brilliant blue sky lined by wooden slats, and the hyperconscious breathing of eight women trying hard not to panic. Adrienne was breathing the loudest.
“This might be an overshare,” Niko said from somewhere to Sienna’s left. “But I feel like this is the right time to admit that I was twenty-two when I swam in the sea for the first time.”
“You’re joking, right?” Amy asked.
“I grew up in Ohio. We had a pond in the backyard. My brother and I used to float around on those cheap neon-orange tubes from Walmart, chasing the bullfrogs. The first time I saw the beach was when my brother brought home a surfing magazine. I wasn’t at all prepared for my first experience at sea. ”
“Was it bad?” Sienna asked.
“I ended up in the hospital,” Niko replied, chuckling.
“I swallowed a terrifying amount of water after getting tumbled by a wave. I made the mistake of Googling secondary drowning when I got home, convinced myself my lungs were filling up with fluid, and panicked myself right into the ER. It turned out I was totally fine, just embarrassed.”
“What beach did you go to?” Isla asked. “We usually take the twins down to Paradise Cove. We love having lunch at the restaurant.”
“I think it was called Zuma Beach,” Niko replied. “Can’t be sure. It was a long time ago.”
There was a scoff, then Sienna said, “Zuma Beach is notorious for strong rip currents. What were you doing swimming there as a beginner?”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly knowledgeable about the beaches in LA,” Niko said plainly. “Besides, I was a little preoccupied trying to impress a cute blonde I met the night before at Ruby’s Lounge. She had legs longer than the Pacific Coast Highway. If she said jump, I was going to ask her how high.”
Laughter carried across the water. Adrienne didn’t join in, just squeezed her fingers tighter around the slats and kept her focus on a single knot in the pine that looked just like a tiny, lopsided eye.
“FIRST DROP!” Vivian’s voice boomed from shore.
Before Adrienne could even prepare herself, there was a loud mechanical thunk. Then the wood dropped so close that she could see the tiny, splintered grains in the wood.
“You alright, Adrienne?” Valerie called. “It sounded like something bit you on the ass.”
Adrienne hadn’t even realized a sound had come out of her throat, but then again her heart was hammering so loudly in her ears, it was no wonder.
“I’m fine,” she muttered. But she was absolutely not fine.
Even though the drop was just a few inches, it felt like the entire sky had just collapsed right onto her chest. “I just hate this more than I’ve ever hated anything. ”
“More than a knock-off pair of Chanel slingbacks?” Valerie asked.
“If that’s you trying to make me feel better, it’s working,” Adrienne said, a tiny smile cracking through.
Valerie chuckled. Then suddenly the sea swelled, and water poured over Adrienne’s nose and chin like a heavy blanket.
The next second, all the space between Adrienne’s mouth and the wooden slats was gone.
The world turned to liquid, and before Adrienne could panic—though she was pretty fucking close—the water receded. She blinked back the stinging salt.
You’re safe, she thought.
Safiya wasn’t so lucky. She must’ve been mid-breath when the surge hit because there was a sudden muffled gasp, followed by an explosion of coughing.
The next second, Safiya was diving backward out of her lane.
“I wasn’t prepared for that at all,” she spluttered, still choking on seawater.
“I’m sorry, Isla. I thought I could last longer in this challenge. I’ve been practicing.”
“Don’t worry, Saf. I’ve got—”
Isla didn’t finish her sentence, because the next second Vivian was shouting. “AMY’S OUT OF THE CHALLENGE!”