Chapter 10: The Vote

I read the letter in the helicopter wind.

November first.

Less than three weeks after the show wrapped, if the network paid on time.

If we won.

"I didn't know it would do that," Mom said. "I swear to God, Laramie. I just wanted you home."

"I know, Mom."

I folded the letter and put it in my shirt pocket.

Then I went and found Huck at the creek, and I showed him, and he read it standing next to his father.

At four the helicopters took the families out again.

Mom hugged me at the step, stiffly, one arm.

Roy hugged me with both and said, "Win it, kid," again, like a spell.

Two days later we stood around the fire ring at sunrise for the first elimination.

Day ten.

Eleven days left on a show that now felt like the only thing between me and losing everything.

Kip had a podium.

Somebody had carried a podium up a mountain.

He stood behind it in his network fleece with his coffee and a tablet, and he waited until every handheld had a red light on.

"America has voted," he said, slow and deep. "The team with the fewest votes goes home today. No second chances."

He tapped the tablet, and a crew member held up a big screen on a pole.

Ten bars came up, one by one.

The Butte sisters, eighteen percent.

Tulsa, twenty-one.

Spokane, fifteen.

Boise, nine.

Tent 9 came up last.

Three percent.

A sound went through the families.

"That's not right," the older Butte sister said. "Everybody loves them. My cousin texted production twice."

"America has spoken," Kip said.

I reached for the wooden token still on its cord around my neck.

Immunity, first vote.

Kip smiled before I'd even pulled it out.

"That covered the first vote, Laramie. The tent vote, on day five. It's spent."

"That wasn't an elimination."

"It was a vote." He spread his hands. "Read the rules."

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