Of course I didn’t sleep that night. Every moment kept replaying in my head—the bodies, the blood, Aaron’s screams, the hissed word, the car chase.
Were Mom and Dad really dead? How could I have abandoned my little brother like that? How could I not run for my life? None of it seemed possible, but it was all too real at the same time.
All night long I heard cars drive by and people moving around outside. Once the lid flew open and I thought it was the end; they’d found me. But a large trash bag sailed in, the lid clanged shut, and my wait for daylight went on.
Somewhere I’d dropped my cell phone—probably when I jack-knifed over the fence. I had thirty dollars in the back pocket of my designer jeans, and another twenty zipped into my inner jacket pocket—my emergency stash, in case I needed to take a cab or buy dinner for myself.
What a spoiled little rich girl I was then.
I don’t want to think about any of this as I stare across the table at Sebastian, but it naturally comes to mind because his past used to be a secret, too. Now everyone knows his history. His mother was the Cuban cook in a senator’s house, back before her boss became President T. L. Garrison and took up residence in the White House. According to the magazine articles, Sebastian grew up “in a stable household with two older sisters and a man he thought was his father.” For eighteen years, more than my lifetime, nobody except his mother knew Sebastian was American royalty.
I’m trying to remember how the secret came out when the prince looks up from his lunch plate, aims those laser green eyes at me, and snarls, “Stop staring.”
Somebody should have put the clues together a lot earlier than they did. The son’s eyes may be green, but they burn with the same intensity as President Garrison’s famous gold-colored eyes. Sebastian shoves a forkful of barbecued beef into his mouth and chews as he points his fork toward the table and mumbles, “Focus.”
He’s right. Stay in the here and now, Tana. My cheeks burning, I take a swallow from my banana protein smoothie and then shift my gaze to the contour map stretched out between us. The map is one of those old-fashioned 2D printouts instead of a regular 3D projection. Map-reading is one of the skills that differentiate endurance races from easier contests. Along with no cell phones or visual assist devices that might help with the route.
Verde Island is the ultimate endurance contest, five days of racing on our own hand-picked routes through dense jungle and rugged mountain terrain, dodging wildlife and enduring whatever weather blows in. No water stations, no first aid stops, although the organizers promise that any contestants injured along the way will be rescued and evacuated if required. Racers must carry everything they need to make it through each day. Added to the usual challenges is the twist of not knowing who your partner will be until the drawing on the first day. These elements make the Verde Island Endurance Race more dangerous and more exciting than most endurance races, which is why the prize money is bigger, too.
When the starting horn goes off two hours from now, my partner and I have to find the fastest route to our first checkpoint. As the crow flies, it’s only about twenty-five miles away, but that crow would be able to fly over some serious terrain, while we’ll be on foot all the way.
Sebastian picks up his erasable marker and draws a wavering line from our current location across the map until his hand reaches the spot where the contour lines form a dense black barrier. Then he zigs the line around the black slash and zags it to the checkpoint. He sets down his marker, lifts another forkful from his plate, and looks at me expectantly. I can tell he wants me to nod in admiration of his superior navigation skills.
“No way,” I say. “You just added at least four miles to the best route.”
I draw a line that slants only slightly from our current position and ends up at the black slash. Then I zag it a bit west and then straight up to the checkpoint.
“Are you crazy?” He frowns and points to the dense black contour lines in the middle of my route. “For your information, Wacko—”
“Zany!” I blurt.
It just comes out. I immediately feel the blood rush to my face. “I mean, my name is Tanzania, so call me that, or call me Tana. I am not running a race with someone who calls me Wacko. Unless I get to call you Bastard.”
I wanted payback, but I still can’t believe that word came out of my mouth. Since so many couples don’t even bother with marriage nowadays, I don’t think there are illegitimate babies anymore. I mean, how could any baby not be legal? That medieval concept only seems to crop up with politicians because they’re a subspecies that failed to evolve with the rest of humanity.
It’s just that Se-bastian is so close to…oh crap, never mind. Television and vids are clearly rotting my brain.
“Like I haven’t heard that one a billion times in the last thirteen months,” my partner grumbles. “My friends call me Sebastian. Or Bash.”
“Bash? Sounds violent.”
“You might want to keep that in mind.” Then he leans forward and taps a finger on the dark lines on the map. “My point, Tarzan, is that this”—he jabs the same spot a couple of times—“is a cliff, and a damn high one.”
“No shit.” Like the diplomatic professional I am, I decide to ignore the Tarzan dig for the moment while my blush dissipates. I take a bite of the quinoa-veggie casserole on my plate. Despite the fact that the mixture looks like something you’d dig out of a compost heap, it’s delicious.
The expression in Sebastian’s creepy light eyes tells me he thinks my proposed route is insane.
I smile sweetly at him. “We’re allowed to carry whatever gear we want. I brought everything we need. We’ll rappel down.”
His lips press together into a tense line. I wonder if he has ever rappelled before.
Full disclosure: I personally have never rappelled off a cliff in the middle of a race before. But I knew this was a mountainous island, and my colleague Sabrina and I have been practicing off the roof of the giraffe barn at the zoo.
He taps the map again with his index finger. “That’s a river at the bottom.”
“No shit again. That’s why my line goes west there—to account for the float downstream. You can swim, can’t you?”
He ignores my question and asks, “How long do you plan to carry the extra gear?”
“It’s only about four pounds each. We’ll carry it as long as we need it.” We both know that every pound could slow us down, but once you leave anything behind, you can’t go back and get it. An endurance race is sort of like a video game that way.
“They said to avoid the water.”
He’s talking about the vid we all had to watch yesterday about the potential dangers on Verde Island. I was so busy fighting jet lag that I didn’t pay a lot of attention. I remember a mention of a lone female tiger, which—being me—I thought was terribly sad. Oh, and a remark about pythons. “They said it was best to avoid swamps. This is a river.”
He licks his lips and takes a sip of his own smoothie before saying, “We could die.”
I lock eyes with him. His are not solid green. Little burnt orange and gold flecks accent his irises. In my imagination, I see other eyes, the scorching black-coffee irises of Shadow’s jealous glare, and the bottomless amber wells of my friend Bailey.
I have to get that mil for him. I can’t bear to think of any other outcome.
“We could win,” I tell Sebastian.
“Sir.” This interruption comes from one of the two suits standing against the wall behind Sebastian. I’d almost forgotten they were in the room with us. It’s eerie how still they can be, like they’re robots instead of people.
Sebastian’s head swivels toward the speaker. “Shut up.”
“The threat,” the robot guy says.
“I said, shut up.” Sebastian practically spits at the guy.
“What threat?” I ask the robots, turning in my chair to look at each of them.
Neither of them even glances at me. This threat better not be anything
that’s going to slow us down.
“Nothing worth talking about,” Sebastian growls.
I frown. “How is this going to work?” I jerk my chin toward the robots. “They can’t possibly keep up with us. And no assistance, or we’ll be disqualified.”
Sebastian sighs heavily and uses his fork to move his food around his plate.
“We use a dedicated drone,” the speaking robot interjects from over by the wall.
Crapola. The whole race is going to be filmed from overhead by camera-carrying drones. Team Seven is also going to be tracked by another damn eye in the sky?
“Why?” I squeak. “We’ll already be on camera.”
“Our drone will replace your vid drone,” says the Secret Service guy. His eyes flick toward mine, but only for a second. “It’s for your protection.”
So Team Seven won’t be filmed? “Does this mean I don’t have to pee in the bushes?”
The corner of the guy’s mouth twitches. “Our security drone will have cameras like the rest of the drones.”
Sebastian rolls his eyes. “They”—he tilts his head in the direction of the guards standing along the wall—“will approve the film before handing it over. There will be weapons on board our drone, too.”
Crapola again. I cannot believe this. If our drone shoots something along the way, Team Seven will be disqualified. I study the tablecloth. I think about backing out of the race. Then I think about Bailey and the trouble he’s in. And how, even if he doesn’t understand it, his whole future depends on me.
Sebastian’s hand lands on top of mine. It feels hot and heavy. Is this a gesture of friendship, or an attempt to intimidate me? The President’s Son holds my gaze for about ten seconds—I count them off in my head—as we try to decide if we can trust each other. His eyes flick toward the map between us. Then he gives in, sort of, saying, “I choose the next segment.”
“Maybe.” I pull my hand back from beneath his. “Assuming we survive.”
He places his palm flat on the edge of the map and studies my proposed course for a minute. Finally, he nods. He erases his line from the map, and then I tap the button in the corner of the map, saving our route to the GPS units on our wrists. I double-check my unit and then erase my line from the map on the table. We can’t leave any clues behind about our plans.
One of the suits checks his wrist, dips his chin at the other suit, and then leaves the tent with only a rustle of his jacket against the canvas flap. I realize that the gizmo on his wrist is tied into our GPS units. He’s off to program that drone or make a call to the White House or perform some other secret squirrel maneuver I really don’t want to know about. As long as he keeps everyone out of our way and doesn’t tip off our competitors about our plan, I guess I can cope.
The remaining suit looks up from his own gizmo to stare at me. “You’re seventeen.”
“I know that,” I tell him.
Some people say I’m a smartass. I prefer to think of myself as wittier than average.
“And you’re an emancipated minor?”
“I know that, too.”
Is he going to go through my whole online bio? That’s fine by me. As long as that’s as deep as he goes. It’s easy to seed words into the Net. Real history is a totally different organism, one that’s harder to plant in the digital past.
“How did your parents die?”
I glare at him for a minute before responding. “I was told it was a scuba diving accident off the Egyptian coast.”
I have invented this story because I know it’s hard to get records from some foreign countries and nearly impossible to ship bodies home from others.
“Why weren’t you with them?”
“I was only seven. They went on a cruise, and left me with an aunt in Tanzania.” I sniff sadly for effect. “She’s gone now, too.” Please leave my past alone.
“How do you support yourself?”
I wave my fork at the canvas walls. “I win races. Plus, I work.”
He studies his wrist gizmo again, presses a button a couple of times. “You’re a zookeeper?”
“That’s right, I work at a zoo.” Some might say it’s a bit of a stretch to go from shoveling antelope dung and hosing cockatoo feces off the walls to “Zookeeper.” But who wants to read “Habitat Maintenance Technician” on a resume?
“When do you go to school?”
“I don’t.” I lift my chin. “I got my GED last year.”
He lifts a brow at that. I know it’s unusual for a sixteen-year-old to take the GED exam. It’s not that I’m so smart; I just needed to get high school out of the way so I could get on with life.
“A seventeen-year-old makes enough to pay rent in Seattle?”
This episode of twenty questions is getting tedious. I point my fork at his wrist computer. “Google my address, man. I live in a closet.”
This is pretty much true. On paper my place shows as a rented room. Once upon a time it was some sort of utility shed out back of the big house. There are three of these sheds, identical except for the framing around the windows and door. Mine is the one with the bright blue trim. To call my place an efficiency apartment would be an undeserved compliment.
People don’t need nearly as much stuff as they think they do; they just need to team up with friends. If I need a pair of pliers or a piece of duct tape, I ask my neighbors Don or Melody. If Don or Melody needs an egg, they ask me. Poor people are a lot more generous than rich folks that way. I have my own toilet and sink; a room with enough space for a bed, a table and chair, my laptop, and a refrigerator and microwave. I have a door and two windows that lock. What more could a girl need?
Outside our tent I hear a cameraman say, “One more, please? Hold hands and smile.”
He’s talking to Team One. In the perverse universe we inhabit, Catie Cole drew Ricco Rossi to create the wealthiest and most-gorgeous pair of competitors for Team One. The perfect star couple. The media loves the way their alliterative names roll off the tongue, too. I’m okay with all that, and in fact, I’m grateful. It takes the media heat away from The President’s Son and Team Seven for a while.
There’s a brief murmur I don’t quite catch from the other side of the canvas, and then Catie ducks her perfect golden head inside and walks her perfect golden body my way. She’s carrying a bouquet of delicate pink Calla lilies and a box of chocolates. She bestows the flower bouquet on me.
“I have too many flowers to fit into our tent, so I’m sharing.” She smiles brightly at me with her perfect teeth.
I don’t smile back.
“Maddie Hatt gave me the chocolates, but I don’t do candy. I thought you might like them.” She places the box in the middle of the table and glances at Sebastian. “I just want to say, good luck, Team Seven.”
The corners of Sebastian’s mouth flick up. “Thanks, Catie.”
I guess The President’s Son is not immune to her charms.
“Enjoy!” Catie chirps. The robot by the door holds up the canvas flap for her as she glides out.
The box of chocolates looks as if it’s still sealed in the original plastic wrap, but I’m suspicious. “Don’t touch the candy,” I tell Sebastian.
“I know,” he says. “Madelyn Hatt.”
“Ninety minutes,” a loudspeaker blares outside of our hut.
Sebastian and I focus on eating and drinking everything before us so we’ll have a little time to digest before the starter horn goes off.
Chapter 3
The instant the starter horn sounds, all twenty of us surge forward like Black Friday shoppers ready to stomp each other into the sidewalk for a bargain on the latest flat-screen. The organizers like to keep us bunched up at the beginning; it makes for a better show.
At the start of the Jungle Marathon in the Amazon, they actually make all the competitors jump through a flaming hoop. At least I don’t have to worry about my hair catching fire at the beginning of this race.
I get an elbow to the ribs from The Mean Hatter and
I give one right back before breaking free of the mob and dashing across the clearing. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Maddie’s partner, Jason Jones, try to trip Sebastian, but Sebastian easily evades his outstretched foot. It’s a miracle that none of the racers ends up with a broken ankle or a couple of teeth knocked out in the first fifty yards.
The teams spread out in different directions, but that’s mostly to add confusion at the start; eighty percent of them will dash through the jungle toward one of the few hiking trails on the island map.
Verde Island has remained uninhabited because the place was used for bombing practice in every war humankind has cooked up over the last couple of centuries. It’s still used for jungle training by various military squads. And once in a while, it is explored by a few outdoor adrenaline junkies with more money and free time than sense. There are trails—some of them made by the feral water buffaloes that live here, some made by Navy Seals learning how to survive in the tropical wilderness, and some by wildlife poachers and recreational hikers. Any of these trails will divert the racers around the steep canyon that Sebastian and I are headed for.
I have to give my partner credit. He doesn’t do the macho thing of trying to beat me out of the starting gate, but instead jogs close by or a little behind me. Of course it’s pretty much impossible to run side by side through the jungle. We orbit around vine-wrapped tree trunks and leap over fallen logs and snarls of broad-leaved plants I’ve previously seen only in pots back home. We check our GPS devices every few seconds, trying to keep our course close to my map line. Every now and then he zags when I zig, but it’s easy enough to find each other again because it’s not remotely possible to gallop through a jungle in anything close to silence.
Humongous flocks of birds rocket off their perches overhead, screeching in harsh tones that don’t match their rainbow beauty. I worry that they might collide with a drone overhead as they break free of the tree canopy, but maybe the birds and the machines are capable of easily avoiding each other. Blurry black and brown shapes are moving far up among the branches, too, so I guess monkeys or some kind of leaping marsupials live here, too. Did the vid briefing mention them? I was too busy trying to stay awake and stewing about my potential partner to glean anything but the most crucial details. After all, the vid was just a repeat of the risks spelled out in the contract we all had to sign when we registered. Natural dangers are what set endurance races apart from mere marathons.
Race with Danger (Run for Your Life Book 1) Page 2
