Page 8 of Down and Dirty Celebrity Edition

“Where is she?” Amy asked, glancing back toward the tree line. All she could see were the round leaves of sea grape bushes and the twisted trunks of autograph trees.

“Wyn’s taken her to the watering well,” Kate said. “She said if they aren’t back in fifteen minutes, we should assume one of them successfully murdered the other.”

Amy’s frown must have been so pronounced that Luna then grinned and said, “They’re very protective of me. When I said I was coming on this show, Quin wanted to enter too, but there was no way her knee would survive the challenges. She sent Wyn instead.” Amy knew Quin was Luna’s cousin and a former professional soccer player because, well, she knew almost everything about Luna, which was why it was so surprising she had no idea that Luna and Kate were friends.

“My entry was more of a fallback plan,” Kate added, scooping the many flyaway strands of her frizzy hair back into a ponytail. “A joke entry, if I’m being honest. We never expected Elise to cast all three of us.”

Amy opened her mouth to ask why Luna even needed the protection since she was quite the bulldog. Last fall, a video had circulated of Luna really going at a reviewer inside Happier Grocer in Soho. Apparently, she’d tracked down the woman after the woman had posted a one-star review of Too Many Fish in the Ocean. Amy had to admit that the book hadn’t been one of her favorites. The main character, Jolene, had broken up with her girlfriend of ten years during their annual Christmas party. Over a burned batch of gingerbread men, no less. The book had been a total one-eighty from Luna’s usual happy endings. Instead of earning her usual four-and-a-half-star review on Goodreads, it had received a measly two stars.

But then Kate added, “What I didn’t expect was for production to change up the pairings completely this season.” She tugged at a stray strand of hair that had escaped the ponytail. “Brenda putting Luna and me together was actually the smartest move she could make.”

“How so?” Amy asked before her brain could even put two plus two together.

“If we weren’t on the same team, we’d already have half the teams in an alliance with us,” Luna answered first, raising three fingers. “By pairing Kate and me together, Brenda cut the number of people that could’ve been in our alliance by—”

There was the sudden sound of snapping twigs, then a few flabbergasted gasps.

Amy whipped her head back, half-expecting to see either Savannah’s or Wyn’s dead body being dragged out of the jungle. Instead, it was just Savannah looking utterly miserable as she was weighed down by twelve heavy stainless steel water bottles hanging from her shoulders. Wyn walked by her side, flourishing an envelope through the air.

At the sight of it, Amy’s stomach dropped to her knees. Though she wasn’t sure what was more shocking: Savannah looking like a pack donkey hauling twelve canisters while Wyn offered absolutely no help, or the possibility of a challenge so soon in the game. Or worse... The Sending. “Alright, ladies,” Wyn announced cheerily. “We’ve got our first reward challenge tonight.”

Chapter Six

Savannah’s neck pain was at a pounding eight out of ten. No matter how deeply she pressed her knuckles into her shoulder, she couldn’t find an ounce of relief. At this point, she was convinced the only way she’d survive the night was if someone cut out her trapezius and pummeled it with a meat tenderizer.

It didn’t help that the beach ahead had been cordoned off into what could only be called a massive sand pit with far too many colored flags sticking out of it. Unlike the show’s obscene obstacle courses and torturous endurance challenges she’d watched while preparing for the game, this challenge looked tame in comparison. But that was probably the catch. Anything that looked simple definitely wasn’t.

“Welcome, contestants, to this season’s first reward challenge,” Naomi said. Unlike this morning, when she was wearing a burnt orange linen shirt and vest combo, tonight she was dressed in dark blue Levi’s and a white tank that showed off her muscly shoulders. “And as another first, this will be the first-ever reward challenge taking place in the dark.” She paused and waited, but the only applause she got was from the waves crashing against the shore behind her. Naomi seemed unbothered. Her smile was so bright it could replace the moon. And from the look of things, in a few minutes, once the sun had set completely, it would be the only source of light apart from the few lights under the production tent.

The thought brought a knot to Savannah’s stomach. Not because she was afraid of the dark, but because she literally couldn’t see in it. At least not well. Savannah had a condition called nyctalopia, which meant her eyes struggled to adapt to low-light conditions. She’d been diagnosed when she was eleven, during a midnight treasure hunt at her friend Stacy’s family estate in the Hamptons. While the other girls were sprinting through the peach orchards, Savannah had found herself in the estate’s apiary. Thirteen bee stings later, it was safe to say she’d ruined the party for everyone. Nowadays, she preferred well-lit places and took Ubers to get around at night. Yes, Savannah had foreseen some difficulty during the game, especially at night. But didn’t everyone go to bed early? Wasn’t that the general consensus out here?

“This challenge is called Night Crawler,” Naomi went on, and Savannah suppressed a groan at the title. “And before we get into the logistics, you won’t know what the reward is until after the challenge.” That wasn’t entirely surprising. Outlast Her had been known to keep the rewards a mystery. Naomi smiled again, then added in almost the same breath, “Scattered across this field are thirty-six flags in six different colors. That means six for each of the six teams if you haven’t figured that out yet. Buried beneath each of those flags is a bag of puzzle pieces you’ll need to dig up and haul back to your station. The first team to successfully assemble their totem wins the reward.” Naomi paused, then her grin turned wicked. “But there’s a catch.”

Savannah groaned. Most of the other contestants did too.

Avery shook her head and said, “Of course there is.” Jade, who had her orange buff woven through her braid, added, “This wouldn’t be Outlast Her if there wasn’t a catch.”

Naomi laughed. “You’ll be doing this while tied to your partner.”

Ugh!

Savannah barely had time to glimpse Amy across the mat and register the black sports bra and high-waisted spandex that left none of her curves to the imagination. Before she could fully take in the view, six production assistants dressed head to toe in black stepped out of the shadows and blocked her. A woman no older than twenty with hair the color of a pink highlighter instructed Amy to stand beside Savannah. Then she dropped to the sand so fast that Savannah yelped when her cold fingers clamped around her ankle.

“She’s just tying us together,” Amy said, looking amused.

“I know what she’s doing,” Savannah snapped. The pink-haired girl pulled the rope tight and, in the process, yanked the side of Savannah’s bare calf flush against Amy’s. She could’ve gone the entire season without this kind of skin-to-skin contact. “I just didn’t expect someone else to tie our feet together. Did you?”

“I guess they don’t want anyone to cheat,” Amy replied.

Savannah said nothing. Above them, the last bruised streaks of purple were being swallowed by a pitch-black sky. She wondered if she should swallow her pride and admit that in two minutes, the defective rods in her retinas were going to completely misfire, rendering her essentially blind. Before she could decide, Naomi swung her arm in the air and shouted, “GO!”

And go they did. Or at least everyone else launched into the dark like it was a three-legged race. While Savannah still had a tiny bit of twilight left, she spotted what could be a purple flag or quite possibly a blue one, and made a run for it.

The only problem was that Amy lunged hard in the opposite direction. The rope holding their ankles together snapped tight. Then Savannah’s upper body pitched forward toward the sand and the only thing she could think about was Abi and Marjorie and the rest of the obnoxious Country Club Gang watching her eat sand from the comfort of Abi’s multistory townhouse with a glass of Sancerre in their hands and a plate of truffle arancini and caviar blinis between them.

No. She refused to face-plant on national television.

Which was why she violently threw her entire body weight to the opposite side. Amy seemed to have done the same thing because the next second they collided chest against chest with a heavy oof. And like two runaway trains smashing into each other, gravity sent them reeling backward. Savannah’s arms flailed as her fingers desperately reached for a shoulder, a waist, or a stray piece of clothing. Instead, her right palm slammed hard into something soft.