Goddess Boot Camp(41)

“We have divided you into four teams—three teams of three and one team of four.” Adara throws me a glare of her own, like I intentionally ruined her even division of teams. She gives me too little credit for inventiveness—like giving her an odd number of campers is the worst thing I could think of—and too much credit for interest in her. I have better things to do with my mental faculties than make her life miserable. It may be a bonus effect, but I have plenty of my own miseries to worry about.

“Each team will be assigned a supervisor, either Miss Orivas, Stella, Xander, or myself.” She flips over a page on her clipboard and reads aloud. “The teams are as follows . . .”

As Adara reads the names on the list of teams, I glance around at the ten-year-olds. They are all dutifully wearing pants and either sneakers or hiking shoes. She lists the members of the first three teams, those supervised by Stella, Adara, and Miss Orivas. The girls line up behind their assigned leader.

“The remaining four campers—Tansy, Muriel, Gillian, and Phoebe,” Adara says, with an extra-sugary-sweet grin at me, “are assigned to Xander.”

“Each supervisor will now explain the exercise,” Stella says. “The teams are not allowed further communication until Navigator is over.”

As Stella, Adara, and Miss Orivas lead their girls in separate directions for the debriefing or whatever, Xander doesn’t move from the spot where he’s comfortably leaning against the maintenance shed. My three teammates settle into the grass at his feet.

He glances at me and raises a brow.

The rebel thing doesn’t do it for me. I move to stand behind the older girl—I think her name is Tansy—and cross my arms. As if I’m going to sit at his feet.

“Navigator,” Xander begins, “is an exercise in strategy, teamwork, and most of all, trust.”

Again with the trust thing? We’ve already done that.

He pushes away from the shed and jerks some pink papers from his back pocket. As he hands them to Gillian he says, “Hidden in the woods behind us are a dozen team flags. Three for each team.”

Tansy twists around to hand me one of the papers. It’s an odd-looking map, with a series of twisting trails, bushy kindergarten-looking trees, and a dozen Xs marked in evenly distributed spots. There’s a map legend at the bottom and the Is are dotted with little hearts. Adara’s handiwork, no doubt.

Although, with Stella’s crazy crush on rebel boy, she might have sunk to heart-doodling, too.

“Are we to find the flags?” the third girl on my team—what was her name?—asks.

“Let him finish, Muriel,” Gillian says.

“Yes, Muriel,” Xander says, not a flicker of emotion in his lavender eyes, “we will find the flags. The trick is finding the right flags.”

Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m traipsing through the woods behind the ten-year-olds, with Xander bringing up the rear. This is the dumbest game I’ve ever played. Like I don’t have better things to do than hunt for stupid flags in a stupid forest. I could be visiting Serifos with Griffin or helping Nicole with her research project or figuring out who is sending me mysterious messages.

“You’re falling behind.”

I don’t have to glance over my shoulder to know Xander is right behind me. “And your point is?”

“This is a team effort.” Twigs crack beneath our steps. “Maybe, since running is an individual sport, you’re not familiar with the concept.”

Like he has a clue. Sure, each race is an individual runner against other individual runners, but there’s also the overall competition. Every race is worth team points. A different number of points for each scoring place—the number of scoring places determined by how many runners are in the race. If there are thirty runners, then usually the first three finishers get points for their team. These points accumulate over the course of the meet, and the team with the highest total at the end wins the overall.

I’m never racing only for myself.

But I don’t expect him to understand. Stomping harder across the forest floor, I retort, “And just what teams have you been on?”

“I never said I was a team player.”

“Then why are you here?” I ask. He seems more like the type to take a solo motorcycle trip across China than to spend his summer babysitting tweens and dynamotheos rejects. “You’re not exactly oozing enthusiasm.”

“Let’s just say I owe Petrolas a favor.”

“Because Damian readmitted you after your expulsion?”

I slap a hand over my mouth. The question slipped out before I knew it was coming. I totally want to know, of course, but I totally don’t want to get zapped to Siberia. Xander definitely gives off a cross-me-and-you’ll-never-be-heard-from-again vibe.