The clue indicated that our team task would start once Pompeii opened at seven in the morning. Until then, there was nothing to do but wait.
The nice thing about this leg, though, was that we were given two hundred dollars, which we carefully pocketed. We'd been almost broke up to this point, every dollar carefully spent on food and taxis. Two hundred dollars would be a total luxury.
With nothing else to do and hours to go before daylight, we sat down with the teams to wait for the others to arrive. There was an open spot between Dean/Abby and Brodie/Tesla, but Liam's hand tugged mine, indicating we should sit a short distance away, and so we did. We kept a flashlight out, pulled out our guide book, and began to plot.
"It's a team challenge," I told Liam as we re-read the clue. We could choose 'Apollo' or 'Jupiter' according to the clue, which didn't tell us too much. "The guidebook mentions a Temple of Apollo, and a Temple of Jupiter. That has to be it."
"Maybe we have to visit one of the temples?" Liam suggested.
Made sense. "I think there's a floor plan in this thing. We could figure out which one is simpler and go to that one—"
A shoe scuffed to my side, and then Brodie was squatting next to me. "Hey, sis."
Liam leaned in front of me protectively, glaring at my brother. “Buzz off.”
I closed the guidebook and gave Brodie a suspicious look. "I see you remembered that I exist?"
"Nice to see you too." Brodie smirked. "So I guess you're still mad at me?"
"You'd guess right. You ditched me, and you've been ignoring me to play tonsil hockey with the rock star. Like I'm supposed to be grateful that you're paying attention to me now?" I shifted, moving a little closer to Liam. "You made it quite clear that you're not in this for family, and that's just fine with me."
"Look, I said I was sorry, Katy."
"Actually, you didn't—"
"How was I supposed to know the Ace would split us up?"
"Why did you use it to save another team anyhow?" I looked over at Liam. "Sorry. No offense."
"It's okay," he told me, but his face was tight with dislike as he watched my brother.
"Cause it was Tesla Spooner," Brodie told me. "Fucking hottest rock chick ever."
"So you sold me out because you wanted to make out with a rock chick?"
"Well, yeah." And he grinned boyishly.
I wanted to kick him in the nuts. "You suck, Brodie."
"I'm sorry you're still mad, Katy. I just wanted to see if you two wanted to work with me and Tesla for the rest of the race. We can still make it to the end with both of our teams, you know. I think it'd be a good thing."
I stared at my brother. "Are you serious? You ditched me and now you want my help? Our help?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Makes sense to me. Now instead of just me and you, it's two teams. We can work off of each other and push to the end." His gaze moved to our guidebook. "And we can share information."
"Or," I said in a sarcastic voice, "we could share our information and you could use it to hose me again. Nice try, Brodie."
"Fine. If you're going to hold a grudge, I can't stop you." Brodie gave me a sad look that I didn't buy for a minute. "Can we borrow your guidebook for a few, at least?"
"No," Liam said. "Get your own."
"We didn't have the money on the last leg," Brodie said, talking to me and ignoring Liam. "It'd be really helpful if you could let us just see it for a few minutes—"
"No," I said this time. "There's plenty of time before seven am. Go get your own guidebook."
"But you've got one right here—"
"And we said no," Liam reminded him. "You've been a dick to your sister the whole time. You shouldn't be surprised that she doesn't want to help you."
"Fine. You don't want to help me?" Brodie reached over and plucked the guidebook out of Liam's hands, getting to his feet. "Then I'll just take it—"
Instantly, Liam was on his feet, going after Brodie, and grasped the guidebook. “That’s not yours.”
Brodie put a hand on Liam’s jaw, planting it and trying to shove him aside to keep the guide from him. The two men began to scuffle, and I screamed as they started to get a bit violent. What the hell was happening? "Stop it, Brodie," I yelled, leaping to my feet.
"Liam, quit it," Tesla bellowed off to the side.
"Hey, buzz off," I called at her, even as the men's struggles got more aggressive.
A ripping sound cut through the air.
Suddenly, Chip was there, pulling Brodie off, and Dean stepped in, blocking Liam. "What's going on here?" The host asked. Cameras hovered all around, catching every humiliating moment for TV.
"This ass**le stole what wasn't his," Liam said, waving what was now one half of a tourism guide to Italy. "And I'm tired of him walking all over my partner. Katy's been nothing but nice about this whole shit deal and her brother thinks he can just do whatever he wants."
My jaw dropped a little to hear Liam defend me like that - against my own brother. It was…really nice.
Chip frowned at the two men. He looked at Brodie. "Is it true that you stole from this team?"
Brodie gave a sigh of disgust and tossed the ripped half of the stolen guide onto the ground. "I didn't realize they were going to be such pussies about it."
"I'm sorry, but stealing is against the rules. Yellow team, you will have to take a two-hour penalty for rules violation at seven am, when the facilities open."
The look Brodie shot my way was withering. "Seriously?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Too bad," Liam said in a bland voice, then scooped up the discarded half of the guide.
"Careful," Chip said. "I can give you a penalty too."
Liam returned to my side and said nothing else. I could practically feel the tension vibrating off of him. I put an arm around his waist and steered him away from the tense little group. "Come on. Let's just go sit down."
The crowd dispersed, and a cameraman came to our side, filming as Liam and I sat down off to the side again. I barely noticed that another team came up to the mat, looking confused as everyone scattered. Summer and Polly. I looked at Liam, noticing that his lip was swollen on one side. My fingers brushed over it. "You okay?"