“What was your favorite part?” Tamera asked, sitting with her chin on her bent knees. Her blonde hair was in two French braids, and her faded Yeah Nah shirt was torn at the collar.
Isla laughed out loud. Then, almost immediately, her smile turned guilty. But what exactly could she be guilty of? “Would it be criminal if I said it was eating food without interruption?”
Valerie frowned.
Amy laughed. “My sister has twins as well. They’re four now, but for the first two years of their lives, Tina and Andrew never did anything in the evenings. No date nights. They couldn’t even curl up on the sofa and binge on TV. It was always witching hour after five.”
Twins? What? Did Isla have twins? Like human twins? Valerie glanced around the circle, at Carmen, at Tamera, and Safiya. Even Adrienne. But none of them looked even remotely surprised that Isla was quite possibly a mother. Apparently taking a break from social media, until the whole Adrienne stalking thing of course, meant missing out on other people’s big milestones.
“They keep us busy,” Isla said. “Especially Francis. She’s got a will of her own.”
Valerie had a few follow-up questions. Who had carried? Had they done IUI or reciprocal IVF? How did the whole two-mom family dynamic work for them? Valerie would be lying if she said she hadn’t pictured a little dark-haired toddler with a milk moustache, stained fingers from picking wild salmonberries, and the sound of little rubber boots splashing furiously in rainwater puddles on the deck of a boat. One day, when she was all grown up, she wanted that. She wanted a family. She wanted Harriet to get the chance to be a grandmother.
But she didn’t ask Isla about her family because Eden, who looked seemingly appalled that the subject had drifted onto children, cleared her throat. “We have some bad news, though,”she said. Then, without missing a beat, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out an old, weathered-looking envelope.
Valerie’s stomach dropped to the sand. Every cell within her body filled with a sense of dread. The Sending. Already? The thought of voting someone out tonight suddenly felt horrible. Real. And frankly, Adrienne was the obvious choice. Which would’ve been fine yesterday, or even this morning. Valerie would’ve voted for Adrienne herself if she could have. She even would’ve convinced everyone around camp that she didn’t deserve to stay.
But now...
Now things were complicated. The idea of Adrienne leaving the island made something unpleasant twist in Valerie’s stomach. Not just because of what had happened on the rocks. Wait, that was a lie. Of course, it was all about what happened on those rocks, and in that small cluster of pine trees. It would take hours, maybe even days, for Valerie to shake the feeling of Adrienne’s hands sliding along her thighs or the raspiness in Adrienne’s breathing as she whispered, ‘how badly do you want me?’ Valerie swallowed hard, but it appeared her twisty intestines weren’t going anywhere. Ugh! This was exactly why hooking up with people in this game was stupid.
“Tonight,” Eden read, her eyes flicking down to the piece of parchment she’d slipped out of the envelope. “You will all attend your first Sending. There, beneath the light of the island, loyalties will be tested, whispers will become votes, and new alliances may prove as fragile as the footprints in the tide.”
Valerie ignored the icy chill sliding down her spine and glanced across the fire pit. She expected Adrienne to be looking anywhere else. But she wasn’t. She was staring directly at Valerie and for the first time ever, Adrienne looked genuinely scared.
Chapter Ten
Adrienne’s favorite thing about theOutlast Herseries had always been The Sending. Nothing had ever topped the massive blindside in Season Five when Isla and Tamsyn had handed that advantage to Vivian, and Petra had been sent home. Adrienne had watched it curled up on the custom velvet sofa of her family’s Monaco penthouse. She had sipped on a perfectly chilled glass of Sancerre, a box of Pierre Marcolini’s signature heart-shaped ganache resting on the armrest, while the high-pitched whine of Formula One engines echoed up from the Grand Prix circuit on the streets below. Adrienne could still remember the goosebumps prickling her skin at the gobsmacked expression on Petra’s face. Betrayal!
It had quickly become clear that The Sending was where everything happened. Where secrets spilled, where alliances were cracked wide open, where speaking your mind was not merely welcomed; it was expected. Adrienne had been certain that she would feel right at home.
But now she wasn’t so sure.
In fact, she was beginning to doubt every decision that had led her here. Including not helping out at camp, making a fuss at the challenge this morning, and worst of all, for fucking Valerie under a pine tree while the ocean had crashed violently against the rocks nearby. What an idiotic move. If Adrienne had a beginner’s guide to winningOutlast Her, she was quite certain rule number one would be to leave any and all romantic entanglements at home. Isla was a perfect example of that. She’d found the love of her life on the show, but that was it. She’dplayed this game twice already, and she wasn’t one step closer to the win. Granted, she’d sustained a concussion in her second round. Adrienne didn’t want love. She wanted that fucking title.
She wiped her clammy hand on the back of her linen shorts. Not that it helped. Then she took a deep breath in, but it only made her chest feel tighter than a cinched corset. She also had this deeply worrying knot in her stomach that she wasn’t sure was because of the extra big helping of beans she had for lunch or because of the impending execution awaiting them tonight.
It didn’t ease when a production assistant in black cargos and a mic wrapped around her ear gestured toward a path that cut between the brush. “That way,” she said. “You’ll walk another two minutes and take a right. Then wait for the cue to enter the clearing.”
Adrienne followed Eden and was painfully aware of Valerie behind her. Every now and then Valerie let out a sigh so loud she could sweep the leaves off the path. Adrienne wondered if the sigh meant Valerie was as nervous as she was. Since Valerie had been in this position before, could she predict the outcome of tonight’s Sending? Did she think, without a doubt, that they’d be at the bottom? And if they were at the bottom, would that mean Adrienne would be the one to go home?
Adrienne had been staring so hard at the tattoo of belladonna lilies wrapped around the bones of the inner ear, curling across Eden’s tricep that she didn’t notice Eden stop. At the last second, she planted her feet and windmilled one arm slightly to avoid plowing straight into her back while also muttering a very unladylike swear word under her breath. But she couldn’t stay mad at Eden, though she really should be more considerate, because when Adrienne looked up, every inch of irritation evaporated completely.
Last season’s Sending had taken place in the Azores, in a misty volcanic crater surrounded by steep walls of neon-greenmoss and hydrangeas. Adrienne had painstakingly waited for each new episode, and she couldn’t imagine a Sending venue topping that.
Yet somehow this season’s Sending location did.
This season, the landscape was stripped raw. It was set in a sunken amphitheater of weathered, sun-bleached limestone that glowed bone-white under the full moon. Cliffs pressed in close, and the air was thick with wild thyme. To the side was the inky expanse of sea. It was so dark it swallowed all the shadows. Adrienne spotted star jasmine carpeting the stone floor and wondered where it had come from. But then the woven willow lanterns hanging from gnarled olive tree branches took her attention, and she was reminded of Villa Mariposa perched on the sheer cliffs of Ronda, where she’d spent a week hiding from an old girlfriend. At the center of the clearing was a timber platform that held the pedestal, and surrounding the platform were three long driftwood logs. Adrienne had a little moment of awe as she spotted the six cups.
Vivian stepped out of the shadows of one of the twisted olive trees. She wore a hunter-green poplin blazer dress with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, and the waist cinched with a wide tan leather belt. Her metallic leather mules were paired perfectly, and for one second Adrienne considered quitting. She longed for the silky, liquid-like fabric of her favorite Miu Miu slip dress and the cloud-like hug of her Khaite cashmere sweater. She couldn’t think of anything better than clean hair falling like silk against her shoulders instead of this gritty, salty mess. But no, Adrienne Vale wasn’t going to quit just because she felt like a shipwreck survivor.
“Welcome, contestants, to the first Sending of Season Ten ofOutlast Her,” Vivian announced. Then she walked toward the platform and turned to face them all. “Six cups sit on the pedestal behind me, each representing a pair. The rules of TheSending are simple. In pairs, you will step up and drop a stone into the cup of another pair. Remember, you won’t be able to see stones in the cups. No peeking.” Her smile was a warning. “The pair whose cup holds the most stones at the end of the night will find themselves at the bottom.”
Vivian paused, and Adrienne found it satisfactory this time. The words were so heavy they sank straight into her stomach like lead. She needed all the time she could get to process them.
“If you are the bottom pair, you will face a difficult decision,” Vivian went on. “You can either choose to go home together, or you can enter The Sending, where one of you will be voted off immediately.”
Adrienne got chills.