Chapter 1

Vy

SHE LEFT THE BLACK ROSES IN HER CAR. She had asked about them, but the people at the club only knew they came from Magnifique. The Magnifique website was stunningly beautiful and head-spinningly expensive. That took Philippe off the list of suspects. Most likely they were from Carter, and he probably waited for her to talk about it.

She told Carter everything, but she never mentioned the roses.

Half an hour after leaving Dusk, she sauntered into Carter's control room, and flopped onto her favorite chair, without greeting him. He wouldn't reply anyway. She spun around a few times, idly scrolling through social media on her phone, until she got dizzy. She arranged and rearranged the height of the chair, knowing that it was going to screech loudly.

No reaction from Carter.

She ordered pizza from her favorite all-night takeaway place, saying aloud all the ingredients Carter hated. She rolled her chair all the way next to him. She craned her neck and shoved her face as close as possible, short of smushing it into his arm. She watched the hairs on his arm move with her breath.

"I have a new project for you," he said, without turning his head.

He sounded sickeningly faint. Vy's heart shrunk. She hadn't heard him sing in weeks. The Waves kept working on their new album behind closed doors. She was booked all across Illyria thanks to Carter's agent. Always alone. The Waves hadn't had a live gig since New Year's. Two months to the day.

She hoped this was the beginning of another mind game. She couldn't accept anything being wrong with Carter. Hating him was too much fun.

She pushed her chair back until it hit the wall.

"I want you to sing with the Waves in Viaverde. At the Summer Festival."

"The one in July?"

"It's the only one," he said without the bite of derision she expected for her stupid question.

"Why?"

"Because no one expects it. I talked to the band already."

"Wait, what? You're serious?!"

He handed her a music sheet. "This song, I want us to sing this one together."

She recognized the song immediately. "The one who got away". One of his earliest hits. A difficult song that Carter hadn't sung in years. She knew it and hated it. The lyrics were uncomfortable in their honesty.

She wanted to make fun of him for being so serious. She scrambled for a joke that would break the tension. She had no idea what had happened to him, but the impulse to hug him overcame any other ideas. She rolled her chair back to him and put her arms around his bony shoulders.

He pushed her away gently. "Don't get mushy on me."

She didn't have a clue what was going on, but she knew his voice as well as she knew her own. And something was definitely wrong there, but for once, she didn't want to know.

"And since it's a long way until July," he said. "This should occupy your time until we start practice."

He handed her a printed email. The IBC logo made her cringe. What now?

"Celebrity Jungle?" she exclaimed. "You want me to go on Celebrity Jungle?"

"Don't tell me you're afraid."

She snorted loudly, not even deigning that slur with a reply.

"I can't think of a single person more suitable to be on that show," he said. He watched her with that intense gaze that drilled all the way into her soul. "Do you have anyone more pressing to do?"

"You're such an asshole," she said.

"It takes one to know one."

"I am a perfectly nice person, thank you very much," she said tartly.

"Sure you are," he said, irony dripping off his venomous tongue. "The show starts on Monday and filming is only four weeks. You won't even have time to miss me."

"I wouldn't have time to miss you on a trip to Mars."

He pressed his hands over his heart, pretending he'd been pierced by an arrow.

She felt better to see him clowning around. His offer to sing with the Waves had shaken her deeply. Flying to some godforsaken place where IBC filmed that crazy show, eating insects and sleeping in tents could make for a nice vacation compared to life as Carter's apprentice.

#

Two days into the shoot, she realized that Carter had been wrong about one thing. She already missed him. She missed listening to him talk about music. She missed the sound of Dirty Thursday on her phone when he called her to the studio in the middle of the night. She even missed the disappointment in his eyes when she didn't sing the way he wanted.

Three weeks into the shoot, she was the only one out of the ten contestants who seemed to enjoy living in the tropical hell hole. She was getting adept at skewering cockroaches and spiders with cutlery, and hitting annoyingly loud nocturnal birds with stones until they flew away.

Late one evening, Melinda Wilmotte, the weather girl from the morning show, was peeling the potatoes from the last box of provisions dropped by the production company. Vy was across from her, dicing them, when she saw the snake slithering toward Melinda.

She could shoo the creature away, but she decided it was a good time to try the technique they learned during the basic preparation. They hadn't had animal protein in a long time, and as far as she knew most snakes were edible. She stood up slowly, and took a few slow steps toward the snake.

"What the hell are you doing?" Melinda asked.

Vy ignored her, and focused on the snake. When Melinda followed her gaze, she yelped, dropped the knife and ran. The snake got spooked and slithered through the grass like a ribbon of black quicksilver. Vy's hand darted and caught its tail. She immediately started to drag it backwards slowly, then gently put her foot a few inches behind its head.

On the far side of the clearing, she was aware of people gathering, but she focused on the little creature. She bent at the waist and in a smooth move she caught its head in a light but firm grip. It was cold and slimy to the touch but it wasn't disgust that changed her mind. The creepy little thing seemed scared and vulnerable.

She walked to the edge of the clearing that served as their base camp, and released the snake back into the woods.

"There you go, Mister Snake," she whispered. "Stay away from us humans from now on."

A round of applause greeted her when she walked back into the campsite. She took off her straw hat and executed a perfect courtly bow. When she straightened up, she noticed that apart from her fellow contestants, Randall Storm, the show's presenter, was also there, with a film crew.

"That's a hell of a welcome," Storm said, still applauding. 

"What's wrong?" she asked immediately.

They still had another full day of isolation until Storm was supposed to show up in person. Until then, they got their tasks through the PA system, and they were filmed by the fixed cameras.

"Nothing's wrong," Storm said. "Come on, gather around the fire everyone."

Vy wiped her palms on her cargo pants and sat down cross-legged on the grass, with her face away from the cameras. Storm was going to have another surprise for them, and she hated getting her first reactions on camera. She'd seen the last few seasons of Celebrity Jungle as preparation for the show, and she was sure that there were more cameras than the ones they could see. She'd "accidentally" stepped on a couple of them.

"You have five more days, and it's still all to play for," Storm said.

Vy tried not to smirk. On points alone, she was way in front of the others. She'd scored more points than anyone else, taking on the toughest tasks, and volunteering for all the bonus challenges. But she'd learned enough about how IBC needed to inject drama in their shows to know that they were about to mess with the ranking.

"We brought a very special guest, who will stay with you for the rest of the competition. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Celebrity Jungle, rock royalty, Mr. Andrew King."

The man stepped from the shadow of the thick forest and sat on the chair next to Storm.

Un-freaking-believable! They had brought the one person who could mess up her concentration. She wondered if Carter knew about it. She shook herself. Carter couldn't know that Andrew King was her kryptonite.

She glanced at him, and his head immediately turned, catching her eyes before she could pretend she was looking at Storm.