Race with Danger (Run for Your Life Book 1) (2 page)

It’s funny how when you’re a kid, you never imagine your parents had lives before you were born. Most of the time we don’t even register what’s going on with them when we all share the same carton of orange juice. I never really thought about who Alex and Amy Robinson were before I knew them as Mom and Dad. Yep—Alex, Amy, Amelia, Aaron. My parents used to call our family “the straight A’s,” and of course they had to add that our grades in school needed to live up to that.

Dad grew up in the foster care system in Chicago, so we never had grandparents or aunts or uncles on his side, or at least not any that he’d admit to. He went to college there on some sort of poor-brilliant-kid scholarship and then he got an MBA in New York before moving to the west coast. Mom was a Jansen in Africa before she became a Robinson and a biochemist in the U.S.

Or is any of that true?

Now that I’ve become an expert at hiding in plain sight, I know how easy it is to make up your own history and plant bits and pieces in public records that get splashed all over the Net. Mom and Dad must have had secrets, and those secrets had to be something awful. Ninjas don’t just show up one night and slaughter whole families for no reason.

I spent the night of my family’s murder in a dumpster, rolled into a quivering ball of tears and snot. We’d just done a study unit on the homeless in school and the dumpster diving bit really stuck with me. Getting inside wasn’t as bad as you might think, because it was garbage day, so the dumpster had been emptied that morning and had accumulated only a few bags of trash since then. I managed to mostly stay away from the damp spots that still had bits of rotting food clinging to them like some sort of gruesome confetti. The worst part was the ripe-vomit smell, which still haunts my imagination anytime I stumble into a place I don’t want to be.

Of course I didn’t sleep that night. Every moment kept replaying in my head—the bodies, the blood, Aaron’s screams, the hissed word, the car chase.

Were Mom and Dad really dead? How could I have abandoned my little brother like that? How could I
not
run for my life? None of it seemed possible, but it was all too real at the same time.

All night long I heard cars drive by and people moving around outside. Once the lid flew open and I thought it was the end; they’d found me. But a large trash bag sailed in, the lid clanged shut, and my wait for daylight went on.

Somewhere I’d dropped my cell phone—probably when I jack-knifed over the fence. I had thirty dollars in the back pocket of my designer jeans, and another twenty zipped into my inner jacket pocket—my emergency stash, in case I needed to take a cab or buy dinner for myself.

What a spoiled little rich girl I was then.

I don’t want to think about any of this as I stare across the table at Sebastian, but it naturally comes to mind because his past used to be a secret, too. Now everyone knows his history. His mother was the Cuban cook in a senator’s house, back before her boss became President T. L. Garrison and took up residence in the White House. According to the magazine articles, Sebastian grew up “in a stable household with two older sisters and a man he thought was his father.” For eighteen years, more than my lifetime, nobody except his mother knew Sebastian was American royalty.

I’m trying to remember how the secret came out when the prince looks up from his lunch plate, aims those laser green eyes at me, and snarls, “Stop staring.”

Somebody should have put the clues together a lot earlier than they did. The son’s eyes may be green, but they burn with the same intensity as President Garrison’s famous gold-colored eyes. Sebastian shoves a forkful of barbecued beef into his mouth and chews as he points his fork toward the table and mumbles, “Focus.”

He’s right. Stay in the here and now, Tana. My cheeks burning, I take a swallow from my banana protein smoothie and then shift my gaze to the contour map stretched out between us. The map is one of those old-fashioned 2D printouts instead of a regular 3D projection. Map-reading is one of the skills that differentiate endurance races from easier contests. Along with no cell phones or visual assist devices that might help with the route.

Verde Island is the ultimate endurance contest, five days of racing on our own hand-picked routes through dense jungle and rugged mountain terrain, dodging wildlife and enduring whatever weather blows in. No water stations, no first aid stops, although the organizers promise that any contestants injured along the way will be rescued and evacuated if required. Racers must carry everything they need to make it through each day. Added to the usual challenges is the twist of not knowing who your partner will be until the drawing on the first day. These elements make the Verde Island Endurance Race more dangerous and more exciting than most endurance races, which is why the prize money is bigger, too.

When the starting horn goes off two hours from now, my partner and I have to find the fastest route to our first checkpoint. As the crow flies, it’s only about twenty-five miles away, but that crow would be able to fly over some serious terrain, while we’ll be on foot all the way.

Sebastian picks up his erasable marker and draws a wavering line from our current location across the map until his hand reaches the spot where the contour lines form a dense black barrier. Then he zigs the line around the black slash and zags it to the checkpoint. He sets down his marker, lifts another forkful from his plate, and looks at me expectantly. I can tell he wants me to nod in admiration of his superior navigation skills.

“No way,” I say. “You just added at least four miles to the best route.”

I draw a line that slants only slightly from our current position and ends up at the black slash. Then I zag it a bit west and then straight up to the checkpoint.

“Are you crazy?” He frowns and points to the dense black contour lines in the middle of my route. “For your information, Wacko—”

“Zany!” I blurt.

It just comes out. I immediately feel the blood rush to my face. “I mean, my name is Tanzania, so call me that, or call me Tana. I am
not
running a race with someone who calls me Wacko. Unless I get to call you Bastard.”

I wanted payback, but I still can’t believe that word came out of my mouth. Since so many couples don’t even bother with marriage nowadays, I don’t think there are
illegitimate
babies anymore. I mean, how could any baby not be
legal
? That medieval concept only seems to crop up with politicians because they’re a subspecies that failed to evolve with the rest of humanity.

It’s just that Se-
bastian
is so close to…oh crap, never mind. Television and vids are clearly rotting my brain.

“Like I haven’t heard that one a billion times in the last thirteen months,” my partner grumbles. “My friends call me Sebastian. Or Bash.”

“Bash? Sounds violent.”

“You might want to keep that in mind.” Then he leans forward and taps a finger on the dark lines on the map. “My point, Tarzan, is that this”—he jabs the same spot a couple of times—“is a cliff, and a damn high one.”

“No shit.” Like the diplomatic professional I am, I decide to ignore the Tarzan dig for the moment while my blush dissipates. I take a bite of the quinoa-veggie casserole on my plate. Despite the fact that the mixture looks like something you’d dig out of a compost heap, it’s delicious.

The expression in Sebastian’s creepy light eyes tells me he thinks my proposed route is insane.

I smile sweetly at him. “We’re allowed to carry whatever gear we want. I brought everything we need. We’ll rappel down.”

His lips press together into a tense line. I wonder if he has ever rappelled before.

Full disclosure: I personally have never rappelled off a cliff in the middle of a race before. But I knew this was a mountainous island, and my colleague Sabrina and I have been practicing off the roof of the giraffe barn at the zoo.

He taps the map again with his index finger. “That’s a river at the bottom.”

“No shit again. That’s why my line goes west there—to account for the float downstream. You can swim, can’t you?”

He ignores my question and asks, “How long do you plan to carry the extra gear?”

“It’s only about four pounds each. We’ll carry it as long as we need it.” We both know that every pound could slow us down, but once you leave anything behind, you can’t go back and get it. An endurance race is sort of like a video game that way.

“They said to avoid the water.”

He’s talking about the vid we all had to watch yesterday about the potential dangers on Verde Island. I was so busy fighting jet lag that I didn’t pay a lot of attention. I remember a mention of a lone female tiger, which—being me—I thought was terribly sad. Oh, and a remark about pythons. “They said it was best to avoid
swamps
. This is a river.”

He licks his lips and takes a sip of his own smoothie before saying, “We could die.”

I lock eyes with him. His are not solid green. Little burnt orange and gold flecks accent his irises. In my imagination, I see other eyes, the scorching black-coffee irises of Shadow’s jealous glare, and the bottomless amber wells of my friend Bailey.

I have to get that mil for him. I can’t bear to think of any other outcome.

“We could win,” I tell Sebastian.

“Sir.” This interruption comes from one of the two suits standing against the wall behind Sebastian. I’d almost forgotten they were in the room with us. It’s eerie how still they can be, like they’re robots instead of people.

Sebastian’s head swivels toward the speaker. “Shut up.”

“The threat,” the robot guy says.

“I said, shut up.” Sebastian practically spits at the guy.

“What threat?” I ask the robots, turning in my chair to look at each of them.

Neither of them even glances at me. This threat better not be anything that’s going to slow us down.

“Nothing worth talking about,” Sebastian growls.

I frown. “How is this going to work?” I jerk my chin toward the robots. “They can’t possibly keep up with us. And no assistance, or we’ll be disqualified.”

Sebastian sighs heavily and uses his fork to move his food around his plate.

“We use a dedicated drone,” the speaking robot interjects from over by the wall.

Crapola
. The whole race is going to be filmed from overhead by camera-carrying drones. Team Seven is also going to be tracked by another damn eye in the sky?

“Why?” I squeak. “We’ll already be on camera.”

“Our drone will replace your vid drone,” says the Secret Service guy. His eyes flick toward mine, but only for a second. “It’s for your protection.”

So Team Seven won’t be filmed? “Does this mean I don’t have to pee in the bushes?”

The corner of the guy’s mouth twitches. “Our security drone will have cameras like the rest of the drones.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes. “They”—he tilts his head in the direction of the guards standing along the wall—“will approve the film before handing it over. There will be weapons on board our drone, too.”

Crapola again. I cannot believe this. If our drone shoots something along the way, Team Seven will be disqualified. I study the tablecloth. I think about backing out of the race. Then I think about Bailey and the trouble he’s in. And how, even if he doesn’t understand it, his whole future depends on me.

Sebastian’s hand lands on top of mine. It feels hot and heavy. Is this a gesture of friendship, or an attempt to intimidate me? The President’s Son holds my gaze for about ten seconds—I count them off in my head—as we try to decide if we can trust each other. His eyes flick toward the map between us. Then he gives in, sort of, saying, “I choose the next segment.”

“Maybe.” I pull my hand back from beneath his. “Assuming we survive.”

He places his palm flat on the edge of the map and studies my proposed course for a minute. Finally, he nods. He erases his line from the map, and then I tap the button in the corner of the map, saving our route to the GPS units on our wrists. I double-check my unit and then erase my line from the map on the table. We can’t leave any clues behind about our plans.

One of the suits checks his wrist, dips his chin at the other suit, and then leaves the tent with only a rustle of his jacket against the canvas flap. I realize that the gizmo on his wrist is tied into our GPS units. He’s off to program that drone or make a call to the White House or perform some other secret squirrel maneuver I really don’t want to know about. As long as he keeps everyone out of our way and doesn’t tip off our competitors about our plan, I guess I can cope.

The remaining suit looks up from his own gizmo to stare at me. “You’re seventeen.”

“I know that,” I tell him.

Some people say I’m a smartass. I prefer to think of myself as wittier than average.

“And you’re an emancipated minor?”

“I know that, too.”

Is he going to go through my whole online bio? That’s fine by me. As long as that’s as deep as he goes. It’s easy to seed words into the Net. Real history is a totally different organism, one that’s harder to plant in the digital past.