Page 18 of Sweet Surrender
“You mean a snake?”
“Of course I mean a snake,” Allie said, turning toward the edge of the clearing. Another shudder. This time she clutchedher bag tightly to her chest like a shield. “Now, can we please head back to camp? This jungle is freaking me out.”
“Fine,” Barra said, heading toward the edge of the clearing. She also felt a sudden, almost urgent need to get back to camp. Knowing Allie had the protection bracelet was enough, or so she hoped. She might lose a few valuable minutes of sleep replaying that humiliating attempt at a kiss, but at least she wouldn’t be lying awake wondering what Allie was hiding... or what Dominique was doing right this minute.
“And don’t try to kiss me,” Allie said, brushing away a large, flat leaf that blocked their path. “I don’t want to have to push you away again.”
Barra laughed. “Don’t worry, I’d rather kiss a fer-de-lance than try my luck with you.”
“Good,” Allie said. Though, was it Barra’s imagination, or did she sound just a little disappointed?
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 pointof 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.”
