The thought of food turns my growling stomach up a notch. Time to eat.
I make my way back to the teal bunk, passing Team Fuchsia as they stretch awake. I wonder what Legend and Silver will eat for breakfast since they didn’t stop at the crates last night. Coconuts, I guess. That had been my plan, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad Missy decided to go feral and demand we stop. But I’d never tell her that. She’d hold that over my head well into the next decade.
I’m almost to my bunk when my ears are accosted by someone’s gurgling snores. I glance at our team bunk bed and think for a moment that it’s Missy snoring, but it can’t be. Her soft blonde hair falls gently across her milky skin, her lips a warm pink and slightly parted, and her dark lashes fan across her cheeks angelically. She’s stunning, even in sleep. I’m just pulling my eyes off her when Sleeping Beauty transforms into Maleficent’s dragon form. The chainsaw snoring rips through the air.
It is her. The snoring monstrosity is Missy.
One of the comedians from Team Violet, Carolyn, I think her name is, calls from the bunk bed next to me. Her team bandana is folded halfway over her bleary eyes.
“Please, spare us all and wake her up,” Carolyn says with a slight Midwestern accent before smashing her pillow against her ears.
I crouch down on my haunches, so I’m level with Missy’s peaceful face. “Miss Woodpecker,” I whisper. Her snores shudder in response, but she doesn’t wake up. I lean a fraction closer. “Miss,” I say a little louder. She stirs but is about as awake as the dead. I smirk when I realize what I must do for the sake of all contestants within a fifty-mile radius.
Holding my hands slightly apart from each other, I bring them right above Missy’s face and clap—hard. My hands make a satisfying snap while I yell, “Missy!”
Missy screams and, with surprising speed, pounces on me. My back hits the bottom of the airplane as all of Missy’s weight gets transferred to my chest, knocking the wind right out of me. I wheeze.
Missy doesn’t seem to care. Her eyes are groggy, still coated with a thick layer of sleep. She squints at me, as if just recognizing who she’s pinned to the ground with the force of a WWE champion. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Off,” I cough out, my lungs less than enthusiastic about their status as a trampoline.
Missy reassesses her Wonder Woman stance, finally processing how her body weight on my chest might be affecting my ability to breathe.
“Oh,” she says with little sympathy. Instead of hopping off gently, she uses both her hands to push off my lungs like I’m the yoga mat that she’s decided to do a downward dog on.
I groan.
“What happened?” Missy asks, getting to her feet and flipping a curl of frizzing blonde hair from her face.
“You tell me, Miss Miyagi.” I roll onto my hands and knees and slowly stand.
“Well, that was highly entertaining,” Carolyn interjects from her violet bunk bed, looking more awake than before. She nods at me. “Thanks for taking the fall for all of us. Literally.”
I nod and angle my arm awkwardly behind my back, trying to brush sand off my shirt.
Missy’s face scrunches in pain as she looks down at her open palms, likely viewing the seven small holes in her skin that were full of crate slivers last night but, thanks to theSunsets and Sabotagemedical team, are now gone. She flexes her hands once more, then bends down to unravel the blanket that got twisted around her ankle when she embraced her inner panther.
Tossing the blanket onto her bed, Missy whispers, “What does she mean, ‘taking the fall for all of us’?”
I lean my shoulder against the rail of our bunk bed, finally taking in a normal breath of air before folding my arms across my chest. “You know, I find it perplexing that you complained aboutmysnoring on the plane ride over here, when you yourself turn out to be the queen of snores.”
“I am not the queen of snores,” she snaps.
“Empress of Snores? Or maybe, Lord of Snores. That’s catchy, right?” I sing a little ditty, trying the phrase out. “Lord of Snores. She doesn’t sleep, she roars …”
Missy lifts a finger to my face, her eyes two hazel bullets of fury. “Colton, I will pounce again.”
Surprising both me and Missy, Carolyn steps between us, putting one hand on Missy’s shoulder and one hand on mine. “You know, Juliet and I,” she says, referring to her other teammate who is in line for the bathroom, “are going on tour, and we sure could use an opening act. I’m sure you two wouldn’t disappoint.” Carolyn laughs at our frozen expressions. “You should see your faces. I’m just kidding. But you two are good comedy.”
Carolyn gives our shoulders a double pat, then leaves us, grabbing her backpack and heading out onto the beach. It’s then that I tune into the ever-present hum of drones just above us. One drone skims closer, its single camera lens deceptive. It maybe just one circle of glass, but it’s the means of millions of eyes watching us this very moment.
I glance at Missy’s reddening cheeks and wonder if she’s thinking what I am. I straighten, running a hand through my hair and patting down the less-than-flattering rogue strands. I’m on national television right now. And while I’m not being filmed at Dad’s side or interviewed by the press, I am still a Downing. I try to hold back the heat creeping up the tips of my ears.
I was being too cavalier. I wasn’t filtering my actions or my words—I never do when I’m around Missy. With her, I just speak and act without thinking. But it’s those thoughtless moments that can get someone in a world of trouble, especially someone with a legacy to protect.
“Right. Well, we should eat,” I say.
Missy brushes off some sand clinging to her black shorts, then tries to inconspicuously adjust the teal strap of her bathing suit peeking out from underneath her T-shirt.
