Page 17 of Down and Dirty Celebrity Edition

Still, Savannah couldn’t help mulling the idea over. It would be quite the blindside, and she could always exact her revenge on Luna another night.

“Fine, I’ll vote with you, but first I want an apology,” Savannah said.

“I’m sorry,” Luna said immediately.

“Not here,” Savannah countered. That would be too easy. “A formal apology on Book Time. I want you to retract calling me a literary bully and instead say something nice.”

Luna’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. She swallowed something, possibly her pride, and nodded. “Fine.”

“And I want you to call off your hounds,” Savannah added, eyeing Wyn under her lashes. On the very first day of Outlast Her, Wyn had quite literally threatened Savannah at the watering well. Savannah had received plenty of threats from writers wounded by her reviews. Once, a fantasy author she had shredded online simply because Savannah thought a troll would make a convincing protagonist posted a video of themselves dripping hot wax onto a voodoo doll made in Savannah’s likeness. Standing there now, Savannah felt like a lamb in a butcher’s shop. The actress was a head taller with icy blue eyes that felt like ice picks pressing against Savannah’s throat. Anyone in their right mind would have felt intimidated. But Luna had approached her, not the other way around.

“Done,” Luna said, extending a hand.

Savannah swatted it away. “Don’t be so obvious.” Then she walked away, feeling a whole wave of satisfaction settle warmly in her chest. Even better, Amy would be beautifully relieved when Savannah told her they weren’t sending Kate or Luna home. This was a win-win situation.

Chapter Eleven

Amy wasn’t prone to neck pain. Being a librarian came with a few occupational hazards, like paper cuts and dust-induced sinus infections, but this was her first-ever case of whiplash. One minute they were voting Kate, the next Luna, the next Brenda. In the end, she was relieved Savannah had picked up the stone to drop in the cup because she’d been so close to forgetting who they were voting for that she could’ve ruined the split.

She yanked off her high-tops with an oomph, without undoing all the laces, and placed them on the sand beside the log. The fire was crackling ahead with flames dancing in the light breeze. Amy had expected to feel happier about Luna staying in the game and about the alliance Savannah had agreed to join, but frankly, she couldn’t get Luna’s words out of her head.

What did she mean when she said playing the game a second time was a disadvantage? And comparing it to rereading a book! The audacity. Amy reread books all the time. When she was fourteen, she’d read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire three times back-to-back during one suffocating summer, impatiently waiting for Mockingjay to be released the following year. No matter how many times she reached the moment when the arena revealed itself as a giant clock, the realization still hit her with the same breathless shock.

“Why do you look so grumpy? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you frown quite that much,” Savannah said, sitting down beside her.

Ever since they got back from The Sending, the book critic had remained close to the fire, though if anyone else had noticed Savannah’s night blindness, they didn’t say. Amy’s hips still burned where Savannah had gripped them while they’d walked along the shelf of rock back to camp.

Amy touched her face. There were lines everywhere. Frown lines. Pout lines. Even her nostrils were flaring as she watched Luna bend over to scoop a shell full of rice out of the cast-iron pot. For a second so quick she could convince herself it didn’t happen, she imagined Luna tripping over the thing and tumbling headfirst into the fire.

“I’m not,” Amy said, shaking herself out of it. “I’m just thinking.”

“About your book?” Savannah asked, raising an eyebrow. Was it Amy’s imagination, or was Savannah looking at her a little differently tonight? Like Amy was no longer a leper to be avoided, but a Chanel flap bag to be cherished. What had changed?

“I can’t believe Sloan passed out from heatstroke,” Amy said, changing the subject altogether. Her mind remained a faithful sponge of inspiration, but her mood wouldn’t let her piece a single sentence together. She wasn’t one of those moody artistic types who thrived on pain and suffering. The happier she was, the better she wrote. And right now, trying to build a plot in her head just made her feel sad.

Avery huffed from across the fire. “I can’t believe we still had to send someone home after Sloan.” She was sitting on the sand with her back pressed against a log. Her brown hair was looped into a bun above her head, and she was dressed in Brenda’s grey SWIM USA hoodie that hung like a bag on her thin shoulders. “And I can’t believe we were betrayed like that.”

“Betrayed?” Savannah asked, looking shocked, even though it was exactly what they had done. They had betrayed Brenda and Avery, who had thought they could count on the two of them for their vote.

“Yes,” Avery snapped back, her voice breaking. “I know your pair held the swing vote. I saw Luna whispering in your ear. You betrayed...”

But Amy stopped listening as she spotted a stray ember pop up from one of the logs. It floated briefly, and Amy thought it would disappear into the night sky, but then it landed on the delicate hem of Luna’s grotesquely oversized dress as she stood far too close to the fire. The fabric caught fire instantly. For a split second, it was just a tiny glowing orange eye eating into the fabric... and then it wasn’t. A jagged tongue of orange flame licked its way up.

“FIRE! FIRE!” Ezra screamed from the lean-to. She was out of the shelter in the same second it took for Amy to register what was happening and leap to her feet. Amy’s first reaction was to find the fire extinguisher, but there was none. Just sand and seawater.

“GET DOWN!” she heard herself scream as she bent down to pick up a clump of sand.

Then Kate’s voice echoed from the tree line where she was reappearing after a quick stint to Moon Pit. “STOP AND ROLL, LUNA! ROLL ON THE SAND!”

But Luna was spinning in a circle as if she was trying to run away from the fire, and Amy suddenly had the mental image of a dog chasing its tail. Before Amy could shove the thought away, she watched as Wyn grabbed her canteen and hurled a sheet of water across the burning fabric. A loud, violent hiss shattered the air. Then, half a second later, Avery tackled Luna to the ground and used her own body weight to smother the remaining sparks.

By the time the production crew came sprinting out of the darkness with red fire extinguishers raised and ready, they were already too late. “What the hell happened?” Elise spluttered, trailing behind them. Her face was pale, her blonde bob limp on her shoulders, and she had the distraught look of someone holding a ton of responsibility. Two medical emergencies in one night. It was completely unheard of in the history of Outlast Her. “Maurine is on the mainland with Sloan,” she said sharply. “We need to—”

“I’m fine,” Luna cut her off as she scrambled back to her feet. She lifted the tattered, water-soaked edges of her burned dress to reveal smooth, burn-free, albeit sandy legs to everyone. “See? I didn’t get burned.”

Kate let out an immensely relieved sigh. Then she planted her hands on her hips and glared at Luna as if she could throw her back into the fire. “You’re supposed to stop, drop, and roll! Did you learn absolutely nothing from last time? Claire will kill us if you end up in the hospital again.”

Wyn stepped in beside her. “Not to mention what Quin will say.”