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Forty-Seven
BROOKE
“These,” Noah boomed, “are your Shadow Teams!”
He continued talking, but I could no longer hear what he was saying. I was too fixated on what I saw. Too shocked and surprised and—
“Carmen?”I muttered incredulously.
My friend and former teammate was there, hands on her hips, looking like Superwoman. Meghan stood beside her, as sharp and ready as she always was. Ingie too, towering over them both.
“Holy shit!” I cried, loud enough to get a dirty look from Noah. “Holy—”
But it was the fourth person on their team — the teammate who would be replacing me — that sent literal shockwaves up and down my body. It was also the one competitor Devin, Reese, and Hayden were staring at, like they were the only person in the room.
Melissa!
The badass bitch from last season stood there looking larger than life, her mouth curled into something smarmy that wasn’t a grin and wasn’t a frown. If I had to categorize her expression, I’d call it a challenge. And her eyes were locked on her three former lovers, which I didn’t like atall.
“Six teams?” Sarah from the Banshees sneered angrily. “There are six teams now?”
Across from the Boston Banshees were Southern Hospitality, another four-woman team that hailed from Louisiana. They’d had a bitter north-south rivalry with Sarah’s team, stemming from the Banshees being turned around at a checkpoint and forced to do an extra challenge that had almost eliminated them. All courtesy of a ‘sabotage’ Hospitality had won and assigned to them.
“No,” Noah corrected her loudly. “You’re still the only three teams eligible for the grand prize. But consider these your pace teams, because they’ll be competing against you all the way to the very last challenge. And if your Shadow Teams happen to finishaheadof you…” Noah smiled, “well, then they steal ten-percent of your winnings. In the case of the first place team, that would be one-hundred thousand dollars. Each.”
I saw Meghan’s eyes beam, and Ingie shifted to the other leg. But Carmen’s gaze remained locked on me. Her expression wasn’t exactly angry, but it looked hurt. Wounded.
Shit.
“So if we beat them they get nothing?” asked Lunchbox, staring across at his own team’s rivals. The third Shadow Team I only barely recognized. They were a team of professional mall-Santas who kept their beards going in the off-season while traveling the world. They put out a hilarious calendar each Christmas showing them water-skiing, cliff-diving, and lying on white-sand beaches while sipping fruity drinks.
“If you beat Naughty List to the end of the last challenge they get absolutely nothing,” Noah smiled. “You might get coal in your stockings come the holidays, though.”
The Santas huffed, but Erica — the woman formerly from Born to Run — was already stretching her quadriceps. I had to admit she rounded out the fighter pilots nicely. Need for Speed was an apt name, too. If we could avoid a footrace, I definitely wanted to.
“All of you have about an hour to get ready,” said Noah, “so I really should be heading to the finish line. But before I do, I have one last thing to say.”
Everyone turned to face the host, who by now was standing on one of the tables. Noah grinned and ran a hand straight through his spiky blond hair. It was so gelled up it didn’t even move.
“GOOD LUCK!” he boomed, as the room broke out in a rousing cheer. “The next time you see me, one of you three teams will be four million dollars richer.”
The cameras dropped, and everyone started moving at once. Melissa made a beeline to the guys, and Meghan began moving toward me. Before I dealt with any of that though, I pushed my way through the contestants and crewmembers to catch Noah just before he ducked through the restaurant’s side entrance.
“Hey!”
The host was looking down in surprise to where I’d apparently grabbed him by the wrist. So were the producers surrounding him. I hadn’t even meant to do it, it just sort of happened.
“Ah, the lost Sorority Sister,” he said awkwardly. “Have you come to rub my head for good luck, or—”
“Did you set this up?”
Noah’s face remained impassive, expressionless. Like he hadn’t even heard the question.
“I mean did youknow,” I said, “that you’d be combining us like you did. Back on the island. Back in Tahiti.”
“Are you asking me if I knew the four of you would hit it off?” he asked. “Make a great team?” He smiled placatingly. “You do, you know. Dream Team turned out to be a great name for you after—”
“The villa,” I cut him off. “You double-booked it, didn’t you? You put us there together on purpose, the guys and I. You had this all set up from the beginning.”
