For Real(25)

“Yup.” Miranda and I bought a bunch of maps in preparation for the show, and I pull open my pack, proud of myself for being so prepared … until I realize that map ended up in my sister’s bag. “Crap,” I say. “You didn’t bring one?”

“It’s in Lou’s stuff.” Will rattles off a string of words that will definitely need to be bleeped out.

Miranda’s coming out of the stadium now, and she slides into the driver’s seat of the car at the end of the row. “There’s my sister,” I tell Will. “Follow her, okay?”

“Good call.” Will pulls out of the parking lot behind Miranda. When she looks back to check her blind spot, I try to wave at her, but I’m pretty sure Aidan’s head is blocking her view. She’s smiling at something he said, and for a minute I want to be in that car with her so badly it hurts.

And then Will says, “I’m so glad I got you for this first leg. Can you imagine being paired with one of the sorority girls?” He catches my gaze in the rearview mirror, and those eyes make my brain feel like a Cadbury Creme Egg that’s been sitting in the sun too long.

“Hey, just be glad both strippers are guys, so you’ll never have to be with them,” I say.

“I don’t know. On a show like this, a certain willingness to take off your clothes could actually be an asset.”

“There are other ways to get what you want,” I say. I have no idea what I’m even talking about, but it sounds pretty good.

Will quirks an eyebrow at me. “I’m sure you know all kinds of tricks. We’re going to kick some ass together, Claire Henderson.”

I grin back at him, and when my sister’s car pulls onto the highway and accelerates away from us, I’m surprisingly willing to let her go.





Will and I park in an airport garage and dash through the international terminal until we find an information kiosk. There’s really no reason to run at this stage of the game—I can’t imagine there are a lot of flights leaving for Surabaya, and everyone will probably end up bunched up at the gate—but it makes better television if we look like we’re in a hurry. I can’t believe how well Greg manages to keep up with us, given all the equipment he’s carrying. His camera alone looks like it must weigh fifty pounds. By the time we reach the kiosk, Will and I are both breathing hard, but Greg doesn’t seem winded at all.

“Can you tell us which airlines fly to Surabaya?” Will asks the woman behind the desk. She points us toward the Cathay Pacific counter, and we’re off and running again.

Martin the nerd and blue-streaks Zora are already there when we arrive. I look for Miranda, but there’s no sign of her. “Is anyone else here?” I ask Zora as Martin pays for their tickets.

“There are a couple teams over at the Singapore Airlines counter,” she says. Her voice is low and husky, like she spent last night screaming at a concert. “But the flights are supposed to land ten minutes apart, and we heard Cathay Pacific has better food.”

Martin steps away from the desk, and we take his place. “How many seats are left on the earliest flight to Surabaya?” I ask.

The woman behind the desk gives me a cold, penetrating stare, like I’ve asked her what brand of tampons she prefers, then starts typing away on her computer. Her hair is slicked into a perfect black helmet, and her cheekbones are sharp enough to cut diamonds. Just looking at her makes me feel disheveled and sticky—she’s probably never sweated in her life. “There are twelve tickets left,” she says in a clipped accent I can’t identify.

Since we have to buy tickets for ourselves and our crew, that’s only enough seats for us and two more teams, and the rest will have to take a later flight or find a different airline. “Do you think we should check out Singapore Airlines before we buy anything?” I ask Will. “Just to see?”

Philadelphia and Blake burst through the terminal doors and jog toward us, followed closely by Steve and Vanessa. When all four of them head toward our counter, Will says, “We better be safe and go with these.”

I’ve never been on an overseas flight before, and I wish I didn’t have to do it without Miranda. But I slide my show credit card over the counter to the Ice Queen and say, “We’ll take four, please.”

“You can’t reference us,” Greg reminds me. “Tell her you want two, and then I’ll turn the camera off and you can buy another two.”

That seems convoluted, but I don’t argue. “We’ll take two, please,” I say.

As we move away from the counter with our tickets, Blake and Philadelphia step up to take our place. “We need to go to Serbia,” Blake says.

“I think it says Sur-bay-a,” Philadelphia attempts to correct him.

“Is that in Italy? I thought Serbia was in Russia.”

Will rolls his eyes at me, and I feel another surge of gratitude that I got him as my partner.

After we go through security, change our money into rupiahs, and get a snack, we still have three hours to kill. There’s nothing interesting in the terminal, so we end up sprawled on the floor at the gate, playing hearts with Zora and Martin. Zora asks about my Team Revenge T-shirt, and I tell her about Samir. “Is Aidan your brother?” I ask her.

She nods. “We’re twins, but we got adopted into different families when we were babies,” she says. “We just found each other a year ago. We thought the race would be a good way to bond, but … not so much, apparently.”