Playing Games(5)

"The celebrities," Brodie breathed, staring down the field. "Holy shit, they got Finding Threnody."

"Huh?" The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I was more of a country girl. I was short and couldn't see around Brodie, since he'd moved and was now standing directly in front of me and blocking my view. "Who's Finding Threnody? It's a band?"

"They're huge," he told me. "Don't you know the song 'Dark Stars?' 'Worm in the Apple?'"

Um, okay. "Doesn't sound like my kind of thing. I don’t like rock." When he paced in front of me again, I pinched his arm. "Stand still, damn it. You're not a freaking window."

Brodie sighed and moved back a step, giving me my view. Of course, it wasn't an unobstructed view, because the camera crew was hovering around them as they sauntered down the field, toward the starting line. It was clear that they were designated to be stars of the show. That was fine with me. I studied them. Both were wearing black as their team color, and the woman had hair that was dyed black with bright red ends. Her nose was pierced and she had small tattoos along her neck and sleeving her arms. The man had lip piercings, eyebrow piercings, and his arms were just as heavily tatted as hers. The man frowned at the group, while the woman gave us all an arch smile.

Their t-shirts read LIAM and TESLA.

Of course. Total rock star names. I could feel myself giving a mental eye roll as the woman sauntered up to the starting line and stuck her hip out, revealing jeans covered in chains and zippers. Naturally. "I can tell you right now I'll be glad when they're gone," I told Brodie. I'd taken an instant dislike to the two rockers. Maybe it was their attitudes, or the way the cameras crawled all around them, but they didn't seem to have the fun sort of spirit that the others brought. Hell, even Dean and Abby - who I'd thought were the celebrities this round - had seemed genuinely excited to be here.

Those two? Just acted a bit like they were slumming it to be around the rest of us. Which got on my nerves. Contrary to what everyone thinks about country girls, I'm not the most friendly and open type. I may have my hair in pigtails and wear jean shorts, but that's as far as the stereotype goes. You've got to prove yourself to me before I like you. And right now? Liam and Tesla were on my 'do not like' list until proven otherwise.

I glanced around, but no one else was coming out of the stadium. I quietly counted teams as the cameras did another pan of us lined up on the starting line, scoping each other out. Ten teams. Ten men, ten women. I wouldn't be the fastest woman, I guessed, judging by the competition, but I wouldn't be the slowest, either, so that was fine with me. And Brodie was fit. Our odds were decent.

"Makeup! It's hot as piss out here and my forehead is shining. Where's the goddamn makeup artist?"

All eyes immediately turned in the direction of the angry voice. My jaw dropped a little as I saw Chip Brubaker, the normally smiling host of this show and Endurance Island. As I watched him stalk down the field, he grabbed a powder puff out of a woman's hand and dabbed at his forehead. “When I say makeup, you come running. Understand?” he yelled again.

I leaned in and told Brodie, "Guess his smiles are just for the camera.” I saw Abby roll her eyes at the host's antics.

Chip finished patting down his face, examined it in the mirror held up for him, and then strode past the scurrying assistants. Someone pointed for him to stand on an X marked on the grass, and he did. As soon as he stepped there, it was like a light switch was flipped. His face lit up in a friendly smile and he grinned at us as if we were his new best friends. Cameramen immediately circled, filming.

"Welcome to The World Races! I'm your host, Chip Brubaker, and you're about to undertake an incredible journey around the globe." He spread his arms in a magnificent gesture. "You'll travel to exotic locations and foreign countries, competing against each other for a quarter of a million dollar prize."

We cheered and clapped appropriately at that. Brodie was getting excited. He bounced on his feet in place, which was just making me anxious. I clutched the straps of my heavy backpack and concentrated on Chip as he rattled off the rules of the game. Blah blah find a clue, perform a challenge to win a World Games disk. Each teammate had to compete to win an individual disk and then there was a team disk. Once you had all three disks, you could advance to the finish line for that round. It was the same as it was every year.

"This time on The World Races," Chip said, and then gave an ominous pause. "We're switching the rules up on you a bit. The team that conquers the first country on our map? Wins an Ace in the Hole." He held up a big, obviously fake looking Ace of Spades that was larger than a sheet of paper. "This ace will allow that team to save one other team at any point in the game."