“Juniper Rayes,” Juniper said, going next. “But people usually call me June. I’m a forensic anthropologist. I work with skeletal remains. I’m usually found at crime scenes and sometimes at mass graves. It’s not a glamorous job, but I love it.”
Allie opened her mouth to go next, but then Connie interrupted. “So you see dead bodies for a living?” Connie asked, looking both horrified and impressed.
“I see what’s left of them,” June replied. “Then I try to give them their names back.”
“That’s so cool,” Connie said.
Barra had to agree. She absolutely loved Bones. Dr. Temperance Brennan was devastatingly hot in an emotionally unavailable way. “What’s the worst case you’ve—”
Sutton cleared her throat, then tilted her chin toward Allie.
Allie swatted something against her neck. Then again against her thigh. If it were a bug, it was invisible. Barra couldn’t see a thing.
“I used to be an artist,” Allie said, reaching down to scratch hard at her calf. When her fingers moved away, Barra spotted a thick red welt blooming against her skin.
Shit. That didn’t look good.
“But that didn’t work out as planned, so I went to business school instead,” Allie said, moving her fingers back to her neck. Had Allie picked up sand fleas from wiping out earlier? Were sand fleas even a thing on the Osa Peninsula? “Now I own three galleries across LA. Just last month I exhibited Alina Kovács’ work.”
That was impressive. Barra had long admired Kovács for her enormous architectural canvases, which she based on abandoned brutalist buildings. Lots of concrete, shadows, and negative spaces. Barra was just about to ask Allie what Alina was like in person when she remembered that it involved having a normal conversation. She wasn’t sure she could do that. At the time she couldn’t bring herself to casually converse with the woman who’d ravished her in that bathroom stall at Dominique’s wedding, whom she’d vomited in front of, subsequently ghosted, and had been inexplicably rude to before overlooking her during the pair choosing.
Thankfully Sutton spoke. “Should we move on? I’ll go ne—”
Valerie cut her off for the second time, and Barra would be blind not to see that smile of satisfaction on her face. They all would. “We should probably start building the shelter before it gets dark. Unless everyone feels like sleeping on the sand tonight.”
Barra sure as hell didn’t. “Shelter time,” she said, clapping her hands.
Chapter Six
Allie wasn’t going to lie... she’d made a grave mistake coming out into the jungle in the middle of the night. The moon was half full, just enough to silver the treetops but not enough to illuminate the roots, the vines, or any obstacle she might encounter on her illegal walk. Illegal, because everyone was asleep, and she was out sneaking around in search of that protection bracelet. She was fully aware it was the exact thing people warned against. Sneaking around for anything, especially something as significant as a protection bracelet, was the fastest way to put a target on your back.
But she couldn’t help herself. They were only a few hours into the game, and Allie already felt like the underdog. Not only had she been chosen last, or technically not chosen at all, but Barra had overlooked her completely. And then later, once everyone had gathered along the beach, Sutton had asked if anyone knew each other, which Allie assumed meant if anyone had hooked up.
Allie had nearly said yes. It had been only one night, but Allie’s lips had met Barra’s lips, and if that wasn’t intimate, then she had no idea what was. But then she’d caught Barra’s eye, and her face had been a warning of “don’t say anything.” So Allie hadn’t. She’d looked down at the sand and prayed Sutton would move on quickly. There would be time to talk to Barra later. It turned out that hadn’t been the case. Allie had spent the entire afternoon, while everyone constructed the shelter, trying to corner Barra for an actual conversation. Barra had instead skittered around as if Allie were a fly she wanted to avoid. Allie put that down to Barra feeling a deep sense of humiliation forvomiting in the cab. So Allie had let it go. She filed it under a problem for tomorrow while she dealt with the problem for tonight.
“If I were a protection bracelet, where would I hide?” Allie muttered under her breath. She had checked the obvious places first. She had checked the watering well where they had refilled their canteens before sunset. And then she’d gone to the base of a massive strangler fig that wasn’t too far from the beach. After she didn’t find it there, she went over to a cluster of smooth rocks where the tide couldn’t reach. But there had been nothing. Then she’d ventured into the jungle, two cameramen tight on her heels, which had been deeply comforting. Without them... wait. Where were they?
“Shit,” Allie muttered under her breath. She snapped her head left, then right. But there was no one. There was no man wearing a backward cap or a woman in checkered Vans. She didn’t see the reassuring red recording light blinking through the darkness. Just her. Alone. In the jungle.
“Fuck!”
Allie started jogging. Camp couldn’t be far away. She’d only been walking for about five minutes. Surely she would break through the trees right at the end of this. Her foot caught on something hard. She pitched forward with a strangled gasp. Her arms windmilled, her core tightened, and somehow she managed to keep herself upright.
Then she froze. Diego’s voice filled her head, calm and cautionary, just like it had during the wilderness workshop when he’d rattled off all the little things that could keep them alive. “Never step blindly over a fallen branch,” he’d said. “Snakes often use it for cover. Especially at night.”
Snakes. Why did there have to be snakes?
Allie snapped her head down toward the branch she’d just tripped over. “Fer-de-lance,” Diego had told them as he hadshown a picture of a thick-bodied snake with brown and cream patterning that looked indistinguishable from a pile of leaves. Allie had shuddered all the way to her toes at the sight of it. “They’re aggressive and fast and responsible for most snake bites in Costa Rica. They like leaf litter, so always keep an eye out.”
Low ground? Well, her feet were on low ground, weren’t they? Allie’s heart hammered so violently she could feel it in her gums. Then she remembered Diego pointing to a photograph on his phone of a delicate yellow-green snake with little horns above its eyes. “Eyelash viper,” he’d explained calmly. “They’re beautiful, but their venom is hemotoxic and can cause intense pain. They sometimes sleep on low branches.”
Allie’s gaze shot to the branches above her. Something swayed gently overhead, and a shudder shot up her spine so fast she actually let out a voiceless scream. Fuck!
She would duck and run if every other thing Diego had mentioned during their three-hour-long workshop wasn’t leaving her incapable of simple bodily tasks... such as moving. Instead, she recalled golden orb weaver webs, which he’d said stretched across entire paths. “You walk into them before you see them.” And tarantulas. “They’re mostly harmless,” Diego had said. “But if you surprise one, it may throw hairs.” And wandering spiders, which apparently were fast-moving hunters found on the forest floor or in banana trees. “Banana spiders are considered highly venomous and aggressive.”
Something scuttled nearby.
Allie felt like she was going to die. And maybe it would just be easier to accept her fate. Maybe she should just find the nearest banana tree and shove her face into it.