New Year Island (26 page)

“Go get the other team’s flag. Bring it back to your own base, and plant it next to your own flag. If both flags are present at the same time, the player who plants the enemy flag earns ten points, and his or her teammates all earn five points. Each member of the other team loses six points. As I said, it’s a zero-sum game.

“Anytime you are in enemy territory, the other team can tag you out, and you lose a point. The person who tagged you gains a point. But if you are carrying the flag at the time, you lose five points and they gain five. So don’t get caught with the flag.

“If you do get tagged, you are out of play until you run back and touch your own base. Then you are back in.”

Their host looked at his watch and back at them.

“The first team to plant the enemy flag three times wins the challenge.”

Julian’s image faded, replaced by the scoreboard. The red team’s scores filled the top row; the blue team’s scores ran across the bottom. Between the rows, in the center of the screen, a long irregular shape faded in, rendered in bold white lines. A red X appeared on one end, a blue X appeared on the other end, and a white line zigzagged down the middle—the seal barricade. The whole thing was a map of the island.

Their host’s voice came from the monitor. “Blue team’s base is behind these houses, at the bottom of the bluff. Red team’s base is on the small beach at the far side of the island, where you staged from to get the water. The game starts when both teams reach their bases. Good luck to you all, and may the best team win. Go!”

L
auren had her eye on Travis as the five members of the red team hurdled the barricade and jogged toward their base on the far side of the island. He ran with a loose, easy arm-swinging stride: surefooted despite the rocks underfoot and the cowboy boots he wore. How did he end up being her problem? Still, for five million, she’d deal with it.

Natalie was hanging back, keeping her distance from the others. Not that Lauren could really blame her, but it meant she wasn’t going to be a lot of use today. Why did Julian have to stick her useless ass on Lauren’s team?

She turned her attention back to Travis, thirty feet ahead of her, and her eyes narrowed. She had to talk to Juan and JT as soon as possible; she needed a moment alone with the two of them.

Ahead lay the narrowest section of the island: a fifty-foot causeway like a neck, with bluffs on each side that dropped to sections of beach. A choke point, easy to defend.

“Travis,” she called. “You’re defending. Stay there.”

Muscles thrumming with impatience, she waved Natalie forward across the causeway. “And you cover this end. The blue team has to come through here to reach our flag. Tag ‘em.”

They stopped at opposite sides of the causeway, a hundred feet apart, watching her. Perfect. Lauren hustled after Juan and JT, who were already sliding down the rocky slope to the small beach at the island’s northern end.

Her feet hit the sand, and she stared at the wide red rectangular banner waving atop a ten-foot steel pole: their flag. Julian’s hidden crew had been busy last night, sneaking out to set this up for them. The flagpole rose from a hole in a black plastic cone, like the base of a patio umbrella. Another hole waited to receive the blue flag, which they needed to go and capture right now. But first things first.

“Listen, you two.” She waved them over. But why did JT need to look at Juan first? Why did Juan give him that little nod? She frowned. “Something you need to know about—”

“I’ll captain us today,” JT said.

Son of a bitch.
All of a sudden, Lauren’s chest was so tight, she couldn’t breathe.

“Bullshit.” She stepped up into his face, her hands curling into fists, what she wanted to tell them irrelevant now. “I’m captain, and that isn’t changing, so get with the program.”

“Capture the flag?” JT waved a hand at the red banner behind him. “Fucking C-T-F? Girl, I
own
this. In Afghanistan, when we weren’t on patrol, my squad played CTF twenty-four seven. Beat every other unit on base. Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, Halo, Counter-Strike, whatever, didn’t matter—we always won.”

“So y’all sat around playing video games? Real nice. No wonder it took us ten years to get Bin Laden.” Her fists clenched and unclenched. “Video games mean nothing, asshole.”

“You had your shot at captain,” he said. “We fucking lost, remember?”

Lauren looked at Juan. “You tell this clown—”

Juan stepped forward, silencing them both with an abrupt “cut” gesture across his throat. “I’ll do it.” His voice was hard with command, the finality of his tone absolute. “Now, both of you stop arguing, and let’s go win this thing.”

Fists uncurling, she stared into his dark eyes, speechless. Couldn’t he see how badly she needed this? “Juan, I…”

His eyes held hers, and she could see no compromise in them. None. A bitter, sharp-edged plug clogged her throat. He had kicked her to the curb and taken team lead, just like that.

Juan’s hands flexed restlessly at his sides. He was energized again, the way he had been yesterday when they went after the water together—so unlike his usual look of bored disinterest. He pointed at her and JT, then stabbed a finger upslope, the direction of the blue team’s base.

“Get their flag. I’ll make sure no one takes ours. If we let ourselves lose again, we might as well go home.”

A
t the narrow southern end of the island, the blue team gathered around their flag. Their base occupied a small bench of smooth sandstone at the foot of the bluff. Waves crashed on the rocks a few yards away. A slippery sandstone ramp led up to the seal-free zone surrounding the two houses, fifteen feet above their heads.

Camilla looked around their base. It would be easy to defend. On the ocean side, the rocky bench dropped away into the water beneath vertical bluffs that curved out of sight around the edge of the island. On the side facing the mainland, the sandstone yielded to a narrow strip of sand that wrapped around below the bluffs to join the main beach. A few seals basked on the strip, like dogs guarding the blue base’s back door.

Jordan waved them into a huddle. Camilla monitored her other teammates in her peripheral vision: Brent’s deep slow breathing, Veronica’s ready stance, her intense pale stare locked on Jordan. Would they all be able to work together today the way they needed to, to win this? She glanced at Mason and almost rolled her eyes—he had added a tie to his pin-striped suit. Still, his inability to take anything seriously also made him drama proof. She knew she could count on him.

The morning sun backlit Jordan’s hair, turning it into a halo of molten gold. “Okay, guys, an easy blue team win again,” she said. “Camilla, what’re you thinking?”

“Mason and I go out on offense,” she said. “We get the red flag and bring it back. Veronica and Brent defend, inside our territory. And you…”

She looked at Jordan’s bare, scab-encrusted feet and winced. Their captain’s speed would have made her unstoppable playing offense, but the island’s rocky surface meant that was out of the question. Those missing shoes were going to hurt the blue team badly today.

“You better stay with the flag. Be our goalie.”

“Don’t worry.” Jordan laughed. “As long as you guys don’t let the whole red team through at once, I can handle any of them.”

• • •

Reaching the top of the ramp first, Camilla sprinted past the two houses and headed for the seal barricade. Lauren and JT were already coming her way, hurdling the barrier into blue territory.

“Do we tag them?” Mason called.

“No!” she yelled. “Leave ‘em for our teammates.” Angling away to avoid them, she threw a leg over the logs. An angry shout rose from JT. Straddling the top of the barricade, Camilla turned to stare in surprise.

Near the edge of the oceanside bluff, Lauren suddenly dropped to her belly and slid her legs over, disappearing from sight. Those bluffs dropped straight onto rocks and whitewater—what on earth was she doing?

Cursing, JT ran to lean over the edge, staring after her. Mason took advantage of his distraction, doubling back to grab one of his biceps.

“Tag.”

“You sneaky four-eyed motherfucker.” JT shook him loose.

Camilla laughed and threw her other leg over the barrier, dropping into red territory. Travis tried to intercept her, but she darted around a group of sea lions, avoiding him.

“Get that little bitch, Natalie!” he yelled.

Passing the fallen lighthouse tower, she crossed the narrow causeway where the island pinched into a neck. Natalie chased her halfheartedly for a few steps but couldn’t even get close.

A minute later, Camilla stood staring at the red flag, waving fifty feet away at the bottom of a short rocky slope, and felt a burst of excitement that sent her pulse throbbing in her neck. Even though she couldn’t see Juan, she knew he was down there somewhere, guarding the red team’s flag.

Go for it.
Skating down the rocks, she caught her ankle at the bottom and sprawled onto the sand, hands splayed to catch her fall. She scrambled to her feet, facing the flag.

And there he was, pushing off the bluff face where he had been leaning beneath an overhang, hidden from above. He dusted off his hands and walked casually forward to a spot on the sand opposite her. The red flag rose between them, flapping in the wind. Neither said anything for a moment.

Juan’s faint smile of acknowledgment looked open and friendly. Camilla was struck by how relaxed he appeared. Realizing she was panting slightly after her run across the island, she willed her breathing to slow.

She eyed the flag, watching for an opportunity to rush it. Juan matched her distance exactly. She knew that his relaxed demeanor was deceptive: he was ready to tag her as soon as she tried.

“I know it was you,” she said. “Your motorcycle is black, too.” Wow,
that
came out sounding really intelligent. She tried again. “I mean the kid in the street—you saved his life.”

Juan shrugged, still smiling. God, he was good looking.

Shouts rose in the distance—several voices yelling, furious threats. She heard Veronica’s voice, strident and angry, but couldn’t make out the words.

Juan turned his head to look in that direction. “Sounds like things are getting rough out there,” he said.

“Not surprising.” She started to circle around the flag. “People want that five million.”

He looked at her feet, as if measuring the distance, and backed a few steps away from the flagpole. And then a few more. What was he doing?

The distant shouting continued.

“Makes you wonder exactly who the intended audience is,” he said. “Doesn’t quite seem like something that would air right after
Glee,
does it?”

“Where did you go the other night?” she asked.

She shifted from foot to foot, watching him retreat, leaving the flag exposed. Was he giving her a fair shot at taking it? Why? And where was Mason?

“Cory Mitnick,” Juan said. “What do you think happened to him?”

She drew a momentary blank on the name, then remembered: the eleventh shipboard invitee, whose name Jordan had wangled out of the ship’s crew.

“Guess he had someplace else to be,” Camilla said. “He wasn’t a contestant, anyhow.”

“Why not?”

“Five men and five women,” she said. “He’d have made eleven, and anyway, he wasn’t on board, according to the crew.”

Giving her a speculative look, Juan took two more steps back. “What if he actually
was
on board when we left the dock…”

She remembered Jordan’s exact words:
“A Cory Mitnick, too—some confusion about him.”

“…but then later on, he wasn’t?”

“What, you think this Cory guy jumped overboard?” she asked.

Juan watched her closely. “Maybe he had some help.”

Camilla imagined floating in the cold ocean at night, watching the yacht’s running lights getting farther and farther away. It reminded her of something—an old story she had once read. Despite the warmth of the morning, a chill raced down her arms.

“You’re just trying to freak me out,” she said. “But if somebody did end up in the water that night, they’d have been dead in half an hour.”

A strange look passed over Juan’s face. “Not necessarily.”

He looked down at his feet, which meant he wasn’t looking at her. Or the flag. She sprinted for it, her sneakers throwing up sprays of sand.

Juan blurred into motion, too. He was fast, she realized—a lot faster than she had expected. Suddenly, he was right there, reaching forward to tag her.

Diving under his arm, she wrapped a hand around the flagpole and yanked it out of its base. She spun to run, but her foot skidded and she lost her balance. Juan’s arms wrapped around her as he tackled her to the sand.

He immediately rolled to the side to avoid crushing her under his body, and she rolled with him and somehow ended up lying on top of his chest. Camilla lay there panting for a moment, her face inches from his. Seen from this close, his eyes were light brown. He smelled good: his own clean scent and a hint of aftershave. Her chin tingled where it had brushed the line of his jaw. She really should get up. Right now. As soon as she caught her breath.