Playing Games
Page 9

I was going to kill Brodie for doing this to us.
Chip pulled out the bright green card inside the ace packet with a flourish and read it aloud. "Since the teams are all safe on this leg, the next leg will be double elimination. In addition, since Yellow Team saved the Black Team, there will be a mix-up of those two teams. You will swap partners."
I stared at Chip, aghast.
Liam straightened, frowning.
Tesla gave a happy giggle, and Brodie just hugged her again.
"Swap…partners?" I said slowly, then looked over at Tesla and my brother. "So I'm with Tesla?" I asked, deliberately misunderstanding.
Chip shook his head. "Since the teams were initially boy-girl, we'll keep them boy-girl. You're now with Liam, and Brodie is now with Tesla."
"Seriously?" I stared at my new partner in horror. Liam had the grim expression of someone who'd just been told he needed a root canal.
"Gee, that's a bummer," Brodie said, in a voice that didn't sound bummed at all.
I turned and gave him a scathing look. "You? Do not talk to me. At all. Ever again. I’m here on this race because of you, and you just screwed me over."
Brodie gave Tesla a look that said I was being tiresome, which just infuriated me all the more. "Quit being so dramatic, Katy," he told me. "Liam's a nice guy."
"Yeah, and I'm a nice girl who had to shovel raw whale blubber into her mouth so we could get first place! Except now I've lost my partner and I'm paired up with the dude that pushed me to the ground and can't eat whale blubber to save his life! So you'll forgive me if I'm throwing a bit of a fit here."
My new rock-star partner said nothing at my ranting, but that didn't surprise me. Heck, the guy never said anything around me.
"So which one of us is in last place, then? Huh?" I gestured at the four of us standing in front of Chip. "Who's yellow and who's black?"
"We'll draw straws," Chip announced, seemingly unruffled by my rage. An assistant rushed forward to hand him the straws, and he mixed them up in his hand and then held both of them out to us, the bottoms carefully masked. "Whichever one is tipped with black means that they will be black team…and last place. Yellow will remain in the lead."
He held the straws out to Tesla. She glanced at me. I waved a hand at Liam. "Let him do it. Doesn't matter what I say around here anyway."
Liam pulled a straw.
It was black-tipped.
I ignored Brodie's whoop of delight and shook my head. "Someone point me to my tent, because I'm done for the day."
"Igloo," Chip corrected.
I could have cheerfully pushed everyone into the icy waters of the bay in that moment.
 
 
~~ * * * ~~
 
 
It was cold in the igloo. Not a surprise, considering we were in Greenland, in a shelter made of ice. I'd more or less sulked in there for the entire afternoon. Abby had come by to try and cheer me up, but I could tell she thought I'd gotten a shit deal, too. "If Dean and I get an Ace, we'll use it to save you, I promise," she told me. "And if we have a chance to sell your brother down a river, we'll totally do it. Dean thinks he did an awful thing today."
"He did," I agreed. Hearing it from another person made me feel a bit better, at least.
"Just hang in there," Abby had told me. "You've got to move up two places in the next round or else you'll get eliminated."
Two places might as well have been impossible, since I was with Liam the Loser. But I kept that to myself and told her I'd do my best.
My brother Brodie had swung by at some point to try and explain himself, too. "It's nothing to do with you, Katy," he told me in a patient voice, after I'd thrown snow in his face. "You know I want a TV career out of this. I have to make big moves in this game to get on the producers’ radar, and I'll do whatever it takes."
I'd said nothing. Abby's earlier advice of make good TV rang in my ears. Hell, I hadn't even shared that with Brodie and he'd already known what to do. I felt a little less angry at him after hearing him say that. He had been totally honest with me about what he wanted out of this. He wanted a career. Me, I wanted a check for twenty grand to kick-start my business and a vacation in Acapulco at the Loser Lodge.
But even as I told myself that, it felt untrue. I might have wanted to come into this race for the consolation prize, but now that I was here? The competitive spirit was catching up to me and I was in it to win it.
So I laid in the sleeping bag provided by The World Races people, huddled in the icy darkness, and hated everyone. Well, except Abby. I hated my brother most of all for selling me out so he could make good TV.
And I hated that I was stuck at the back of the pack. The only thing good about me probably getting kicked off next was that Liam wouldn't be getting the prize money either. Then again, I'd be stuck at the Loser Lodge with him for the next three weeks, so that didn't sound like fun either. I was screwed either way.
A shadow moved across the entrance of the igloo, and I stifled a groan of irritation as I heard the rustle of Liam's thick parka as he came into the igloo. This team switch was awful - not only had my brother sold me out, but I had to bunk with Liam the Girl Shover.
I said nothing as I heard him rustling around in his bunk. It got quiet, and I assumed he was laying down to sleep. Long moments passed, and neither of us said anything. I stared up at the darkness, practically vibrating with resentment.
"I tripped," he said, in a voice that was so low I almost didn't catch it.
"Huh?" I turned to look in his direction.
"I tripped and fell on top of you. I wasn't trying to. I just tripped." His voice was low and even, the words so slow to emerge that they were almost hesitant. "I didn't push you."
Oh. Some of my rage deflated. I thought about the scene with the footballs. It had been pretty chaotic. Horrifically chaotic, even. I could see someone tripping in that mess. And I remembered him offering me a hand after the fact. "You still stole my football," I told him.
"You dropped it."
"You could have given it back."
"I could have, but it's a game."
That wasn't the answer I wanted to hear. I rolled over and tried to go to sleep, but I was too angry and cold to do more than stare into the darkness.
 
 
~~ * * * ~~
 
 
The next morning, I woke up and began to shove my gear back into my backpack. We had twelve hour rest periods between race legs, and the time was dependent on when we finished the last leg. Since black team was in the back, I had at least an extra hour before I had to get going.
Which was fine, because I was pretty wrecked physically, due to sleeping in an igloo. I was also wrecked mentally, due to my brother, the selfish jerk. The only good thing about being so wrecked was that I was pretty sure my new partner was, too. He looked like he had a mukluk hangover, and his shaggy black hair hung in his face.
Tesla, meanwhile, looked fresh as a spring rose as she giggled and cooed and hung on my brother as they paraded to the starting mat. That ratfink. I narrowed my eyes as the cameras moved in close to Brodie and Tesla to film their take-off. One of the Inuit appeared and handed them their next disk.