Page 106 of Alice Chen's Reality Check

“Alice, you’ve been quiet,” he says. “Share your thoughts with the class?”

“Dawn Taylor said she was going to put our relationships to the test,” I say. “It seems like she’s really delivering.” I give myself a mental pat on the back for saying all of that with a straight face.

“Buckle up,” Daniel says to the others. “Tomorrow’s probably going to be crazy.”

“Do you know what’s the theme?” Ava asks. “Not all of us had the time to read up on Dante before we got here.”

“Fraud,” I supply.

Daniel says, “And if this was what they did for Violence, I can only imagine what they’re going to put us through for Fraud.”

“Well,” Ava says. “Shit.”

—

The next morning, I drag myself out of bed when Leah comes barging in to take us to the day’s shoot.

“Leah, it’s still dark out,” I protest. I’m used to waking up early to teach zero period, but I’m getting really sick of being dragged out of bed at the actual crack of dawn.

“Weather app says this is the only break in the rain today,” she says cheerfully as she presses a banana and a granola bar into my hands. “Eat. Quickly.”

We pass by the living room, which has been cleared out. With Trevor and Mikayla’s departure, there’s enough bedrooms in the villa for each couple to claim one. It’s strangely quiet without all the other couples here, a marked difference from when Chase and I were crashing with everyone else. Gone are the heaps of laundry, the unmade beds, and the scattered luggage.

“It’s starting to feel like a ghost town around here,” I whisper to Daniel as we walk through the halls.

“We’re in the endgame now,” he says, and it hits me for the first time that we could actually win this. I’d gone into the competition determined to win, but that’s a far cry from actually being so close that I can taste it.

I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment and imagine coming home with the money. Walking up the stairs to my mom’s apartment and showing her a huge novelty check. Well, they’d probably just do a wire transfer or something like that, and I know that my winnings will be taxed to hell, but a girl can dream.

I can tell it’s going to be a wild day when it starts with us getting into a helicopter.

“We have helicopter money?” I ask Leah as people start climbing in.

“As of a few days ago, yes,” Leah says. She turns me to face her. “Here’s the deal. Just keep your head down and focus on making it to the end. I’m pulling for you and Daniel.”

“Aw, you’re just saying that,” I say, but it’s nice to know someone is in our corner, even if that someone is a cutthroat reality-show producer.

The view below is dizzying, and I find myself gripping Daniel’s arm as the villa falls away from us. It looks like we’re headed to the verycenter of the island.

“Is it really safe to be flying with the storm still going?” I shout to Leah over the noise of the helicopter.

She shrugs. “I’m sure they wouldn’t do it if it weren’t safe.”

That makes me feel a little better.

“This helicopter’s way too expensive for them to risk it,” she adds.

My mind jumps off from that point, trying to calculate the cost of the helicopter—fuel plus the pilot’s hourly fee plus maintenance. But then Daniel nudges me.

“What?” I mouth.

“Look,” Daniel mouths back and points out the window.

We’re high enough up that the helicopter is no longer climbing. The water below us is a maelstrom of bright blue, sea green, and sapphire, with gleaming sparks of sunlight and white crests of waves. I’m mesmerized by how stunning it all is as the helicopter turns sharply and the view of the ocean gives way to the greenery of the trees on the island, foliage so dense that you can’t see the ground, just palm fronds and vines layered on top of each other, all racing to climb up to the sky.

I glance over at Daniel, and the corners of his eyes crinkle when he looks back at me. He mouths, “Isn’t it amazing?” and I find myself genuinely grateful that he told me to look, and that I didn’t just waste the entire ride thinking about how much it cost or what could go wrong. I wonder what else I’ve been missing.

Soon enough, we land on a flat spot next to a bridge. The bridge is a classic stone and concrete arch, reinforced with steel, with what I’d estimate is a six-hundred-foot drop to the ground below. The crew has already set up a technical rig of metal, harnesses, and ropes, which I have a distinctly bad feeling about.

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