Virgo's Vice Read Free Page B

back at him. I sigh loudly and shrug my shoulders. “Okay, but if anything gets me it’ll be on you. Come on, Jake.” I turn around and hurry back along the narrow pathway we’ve made in the grass. I hear Jake padding behind me and that helps, but my heart is still beating much too fast.
    The others are all together in the shade of a clump of tall trees. I’m breathing hard by the time I reach them. “Trip, the dude in the khaki’s,” I pant, “asked if anyone wants to help locate the cargo bags.”
    I turn to show them where Trip and Mark are. My foot hooks on something and I crash to the ground and bite the dust, hard. This is the kind of dumb thing I always seem to do when I’m with people.

Chapter 3
    “You okay?”
    Billy Murphy is peering into my face. He has a worried look on his, and he grabs my arm. “Let me help you up,” he says. Jake is standing over me, whining. “It’s okay, buddy,” Billy says to him, and pats him on his head, and then cocks an eyebrow at me.
    “I’m fine,” I scramble to my feet with Billy’s help, and feel my face going red. Billy is still holding onto my arm and everyone is staring at me and I want to shrivel up and crawl into a hole. “Really, I’m just clumsy.” I dust off my clothes and bend forward to check out what’s making my knee sting.
    Billy lets go of my arm and crouches down to examine my knee more closely. He touches me, and I jerk away.
    “Ouch!”
    He glances up at me. “Sorry. It’s a scrape. There’s a little blood. It made a hole in your jeans. If I had something to clean it with, I would. Hold on.” He takes his bandanna off from around his neck and spits on it, and before I know what he’s planning, he wipes it gently over where it hurts. He looks up into my eyes again. “That’s the best I can do.”
    “Th—Thank you.” I’m going red again. I can feel the heat in my face. “I’ll be fine. Someone needs to go search for the supplies.” There’s something sexy about the way he did that. I squint at his face while he’s not looking. He’s really cute.
    “I’ll go. Name’s Andy Riggs.” The other cute guy bends to stroke Jake. His perfectly fitting navy blue lightweight suit and a long sleeve, fancy striped cream and gold shirt are totally out of place. I glance down at his shiny black leather shoes and wonder how long they’ll stay like that.
    “Me too,” Billy says.
    They both stare at me and I realize they expect me to show them the way. Me . The one who has panic attacks just thinking about making a move out of my one-bedroom apartment in the city. I take a deep breath, grab Jake’s collar, and head down the trail, hoping I won’t lose it. As long as I keep that hill in sight I should be able to find my way. My knee is still stinging a little, but not enough to make me limp or anything like that.
    I let go of Jake once I’m sure he’s gonna stay with me, and I think about the Old Man while I walk. I can hear Andy and Billy talking softly to each other behind me. I’ve always known the Old Man’s a little crazy, so I why did I expect anything to be ‘normal’ with this reality show? I was dumb to think he would be here with the crew, and instruct them to set up some tents, a little ways away from the contestants, that would be our headquarters. I even believed a cook would prepare our meals, and they would build some sort of ablution places, with a shower. I knew there wouldn’t be flush toilets, but I figured they would bring chemical potties or something like that. For someone like me, who has never, ever been camping, that would be roughing it, and I was proud of myself for daring to even think about joining the crew on this shoot.
    I should have known something wasn’t right. No other crew members came with us on the long flight in the jumbo from Washington DC all the way to Africa, and I didn’t see any of them at the airport before we boarded the small airplane that we jumped out of. What did the pilot say