When I get back to my room, I hand-wash my Team Revenge T-shirt in the tiny bathroom sink and hang it over the shower rail to dry. Then I lie awake for eight hours, staring at the cracks in the ceiling and thinking about everything that’s happened with Will and Miranda. Around midnight, I consider getting up, systematically knocking on every door in the hotel until I find my sister’s room, and forcing her to let me explain myself. But that seems like a less-than-stellar plan, unless I want to get yelled at by a lot of angry Greek people. I’ll just have to hope that my actions tomorrow speak loudly enough to show Miranda that I finally understand what she’s been trying to tell me.

By the time my alarm goes off for my 3:15 a.m. departure with Samir, I haven’t slept at all. I guess I’ll have to get through today on coffee and adrenaline. My shirt is still a little damp, but I put it on anyway, hoping it’ll give me strength.

Samir is waiting for me in the lobby, marking up a copy of Backstage magazine with a red pen. “Hey,” I say.

He doesn’t even look up. “I know you hate me,” he says. “I thought that was the whole reason you came on the show. So why did you pick me as your partner?”

“I don’t hate you. Miranda hates you. And Miranda and I are fighting right now. I mean, no offense or anything, but I mostly picked you ’cause I thought it would piss her off. It seemed like a good way to show her that she and I aren’t allies anymore.”

For a minute I’m not sure he’s going to buy it, but then he shrugs. “Whatever,” he says. “Honestly, I don’t really care if you do hate me, as long as you race well. It’s not like we have to be friends. I just want to win.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”

He gestures at my shirt. “So, is that supposed to be ironic or something, now that we’re on the same side?”

“I still want revenge,” I say. “I just have a different target today.”

I spend the whole ride to the checkpoint taking deep, steadying breaths and promising myself that today I will be totally focused, totally in control. I won’t let anything shake me or mess with my emotions. I won’t even look at Will. I won’t think about the fury in Miranda’s eyes as she accused me of being selfish. Over and over, I tell myself that I’m strong and clever and that everything’s going to turn out okay. If I think it enough times, maybe I’ll actually start believing it.

We meet our new crew—Robby on camera, Kanesha on sound—and Robby gives me a secretive smile as he shakes my hand. The producers have probably told him all about my plans for today so he’ll be sure to film the right things. I smile back, and I must be showing more than I intended on my face, because Isis says, “Claire, you look ready to race this morning.”

“Never been readier,” I say. “Bring it on.”

“Well, may the forces of love and luck be with you.” She hands me our first envelope, and I rip it open and read the instructions out loud.

Fly to Glasgow, Scotland, then choose an Around the World car at the airport and drive yourselves to Glasgow Green. Once you arrive, find the world’s largest terra-cotta fountain, where you will receive your next instructions.

All the way to the airport, Samir monologues about an idea he has for a new screenplay, which would star him as a mysterious, tortured model/spy/assassin who’s living a triple life with three hot wives who are all played by the same actress. At first I try to listen, but as he delves into the “nuanced psychological aspects” of the story, I quickly discover that he just wants to hear himself talk and doesn’t require actual input from me. When we finally arrive, we buy tickets for a British Airways flight leaving at seven in the morning. Martin, Zora, Will, and Janine are already at the gate, and when Will smiles at me, all the emotions I’m holding at bay threaten to flood back into my chest. I take a deep breath and turn away.

When Miranda shows up, I desperately want to run over and explain everything, but I can’t very well do that without blowing my cover with Samir. I’m hoping she’ll put the pieces together on her own when she sees me wearing my Team Revenge shirt, but she just shoots me a look full of anger and hurt from across the gate, and I know she doesn’t get it. I tug twice on my right earlobe and once on my left, the sign we always used at family functions to mean I need a break, meet me in the bathroom. But after ten minutes of waiting by the automatic sinks, I’m forced to admit that she isn’t coming. I guess Ken wasn’t kidding when he said she didn’t want to see me. I know I can knock Samir out of the race alone, but Miranda and I were supposed to do this together. It hurts to know that she thinks I’ve sided with the enemy when I’m really just trying to get rid of him for good.

When we get on the plane, I put my earbuds in so Samir won’t try to talk to me again. Somehow, I totally forgot about the motivational playlist Natalie made me before I left for the race, and I listen to it on repeat for most of the trip, even the techno-ballad by Refried Death that I know she included just to annoy me. The songs make me feel like my best friend is cheering me on from a distance, like I still have an ally somewhere in the world, and by the time we arrive in Glasgow around two in the afternoon, I’m feeling pumped up and ready.

Samir and I make our way through passport control, then out to the parking garage, where we spot a row of Around the World cars. I slide into the driver’s seat before he can get there, then spend several minutes meticulously adjusting the mirrors. When I can tell he’s gotten good and antsy, I finally say, “Oh no. Is this car a manual? I don’t know how to drive stick. Do you?”

Samir heaves an exasperated sigh. “Oh my God, Claire, are you serious? How did you not notice that the second you sat down? Look at the freaking gear shift!” Miranda and Steve pull out in front of us and zoom off, and Samir punches the back of the seat. “Crap, they’re already ahead of us! Get in the back! How did you do so well on the last leg of the race when you don’t pay attention?”

I shrug and switch places with him as slowly as I can. “Sorry, I’m really spacey today. I didn’t sleep very well.”

“Well, pull it together. Do you think you can manage to navigate, or am I going to have to do that, too?”

“No problem,” I say, unfurling the map. “I’m great with directions.” The moment we get to the highway, I call out a wrong turn.

We’re one of the last couples to arrive at Glasgow Green. As Samir sprints toward the terra-cotta fountain, I lag behind, making exaggerated panting sounds. “I can’t keep up with you,” I complain. “Your legs are, like, twice as long as mine, and my pack is way too big for me. It makes it really hard to run.”

“God, just give it to me,” he snaps. Samir’s not a big guy, and it delights me to see him struggle to run with both our packs. It’s pretty cool outside for July, but by the time we locate the kilt-clad local who has our next instructions, his forehead is dripping with sweat.

I take a look at the world’s largest terra-cotta fountain, but I can’t figure out what’s special about it. I mean, it’s ornate and everything, but when it comes down to it, it’s just a big, orangey-red fountain. Who even keeps track of the sizes of various terra-cotta fountains? Probably the same people who try to get in the Guinness World Records books for stuff like skateboarding while holding a goat for the longest distance.

I tear open our envelope.

It’s time for Cupid’s Questions, the game that tests how much you know about your date! You’ve had hours in the air to bond, and if you’ve hit it off and gotten close, you deserve a reward! Enter one of our pink tents, where your Cupid will ask you a series of questions. You will both write down your answers, and if they match, you will earn a point. Rack up ten points to receive your next instructions!

This should be pretty easy to drag out—Samir and I haven’t talked at all since we were paired up, so he hasn’t learned a thing about me. I head toward the row of small pink tents across the field, but Samir grabs my arm. “Memorize this, okay? I was born in Santa Barbara, but we moved to Hartford when I was two. My mom’s name is Shalini and my dad’s is Dev, and they’re computer programmers, and I have two older sisters and one older brother, and all of them are doctors. I’m allergic to cats and peaches, and my favorite color is red, and my favorite film is Fellini’s 8½, and I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little, but now—”

I hold up my hand to stop him. “Samir, I’m not going to remember any of this. You can’t cram hours of bonding time into two minutes.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing, isn’t it? Tell me about yourself really quickly.”

“We’re wasting time. Let’s just go in there and do the best we can, okay?”

“The best we can isn’t going to cut it if we don’t know anything about each other, Claire! God, it’s like you want us to lose!”

I try not to smile. “I’m sure they won’t ask us anything that hard.”

“What’s your favorite food? What’s your favorite band?”

It would look suspicious if I refused to tell him, so I’ll just have to hope they don’t ask those questions. “My favorite food is coffee ice cream, and my favorite band is Rhetorical Impasse, okay? Now come on!” I push into a tent before he can stop me.

Our “Cupid,” a blond woman in her twenties, is wearing feathered wings and a white polyester robe that ends midthigh. She’s also carrying a quiver of plastic arrows, which snags on the fabric of the tent every time she moves and makes her scowl in a very uncherubic way. Samir and I sit down in a matching pair of red vinyl armchairs, and our Cupid hands us red dry-erase pens and mini whiteboards with little hearts around the borders. This is almost as cheesy as the Love Shack. Robby positions himself across from us with his camera, next to Cupid.

“Question one,” she says with a thick Scottish accent that makes me want to laugh. “How many siblings does Claire have?”

Crap—Samir obviously knows the answer to this question. When our Cupid dings a little bell after fifteen seconds, we both hold up our boards. Mine says, “One.” Samir’s says, “One sister: Miranda Henderson.” He’s clearly angling for extra credit. What a suck-up.

“Correct!” our Cupid says. “One point. Question two: what is Samir’s hometown?” I write “Santa Barbara,” assuming he’ll write “Hartford.” He does, and we miss the point. Samir glares at me.

I do my best to get all the answers wrong—I even write that Samir has a cat named Peaches—but I’m not able to slow down the process that much. Dating Miranda for a year has given Samir a surprisingly large cache of information about me. He knows what year I was born, the name of my high school, and the name of the bookstore my dad owns. Somehow, he even knows that otters are my favorite animal. The only question he gets wrong, in fact, is my favorite color. I had always assumed Miranda never even thought about me while she was at Middlebury, but it seems like she actually talked about me a fair amount. I wish I’d known that sooner and that I hadn’t found out like this.

It only takes Samir fifteen minutes to earn us our next pink envelope. We have to wait a few minutes before opening it—Robby has to refilm our Cupid asking all her questions from the front—and in that time, we see several other teams dash off to the next challenge, including Will and Janine. I wonder if they played the Question Game on the plane or if they slept snuggled together. I wonder if he’s making her feel like she’s the only girl in the world who matters. Does she know this is all a game to him, or is she falling for his act, just like I did?

Finally, Robby lets us open our envelope.

Shortly before her wedding day, it is traditional for a Scottish woman and her friends to perform a ritual called “blackening the bride.” The bride dresses all in white, and her friends take turns throwing anything they want at her, such as molasses, tar, feathers, manure, and rotten eggs. Walk north to the middle of the field marked with an Around the World flag, where the female team member must change into the white clothes provided. Then the male team member must completely blacken her from the neck down using only his hands and the available sticky substances. The female team member may not assist him. You will receive your next instructions when no white fabric is visible!

I know I need to stop thinking about Will, but for the briefest of moments, I consider what this challenge would’ve been like with him as my partner. I gladly would have suffered through tar and rotten eggs if it meant he’d have to touch every tingling, eager inch of my body. But that’s just the thing—he’d have to, and that’s not the same as wanting to. Touching me would be another task to complete, and any other body would do just as well. I’m sure he’ll be very happy with Janine’s.

“Ew,” Samir says as he stares at the instructions. “I have to touch manure and tar with my bare hands?” I can’t believe he’s complaining about his hands when I’m going to be coated from neck to toe, but I swallow my annoyance. I can’t let him start to doubt that I’m on his side.

There are makeshift dressing rooms set up along the edge of the field, and I take my time swapping out my clothes for a white T-shirt and white scrub pants that are several inches too long. My bra is bright green and my underwear is black, and both show right through the fabric, but after the pool challenge in Java, I’m past caring about that. When I make my way out onto the field, I see that Martin and Steve are almost done blackening Zora and Miranda. Will and Janine are only about half done, and she squeals like a three-year-old as he dips his hands into a bucket and lovingly rubs something sticky onto her flat stomach.

I find a spot as far from them as possible, and Samir joins me, lugging two heavy buckets of brown goo. “I’m pretty sure this one is chocolate syrup and this one is pudding,” he says. “I wasn’t sure which would be easier to spread. Are you ready?”

“I’m as ready as a person can be to have her sister’s ex paint her with pudding,” I say. “Do what you have to do.”

It’s kind of funny to see Samir grimace as he cups his hands and scoops up some chocolate syrup, trying not to drip on his perfectly creased jeans. But it becomes less amusing very quickly when he tips the cold syrup down my back and drops of it crawl inside my collar like curious insects. I hold my arms out to my sides, close my eyes, and wait for it to be over. To distract myself, I think about being back home on the couch with Natalie, watching Speed Breed and eating banana muffins and regaling her with stories about all the absurd things I’ve done on this show. I just need to get through today, and then it’ll all be over. But it’s hard to think anything but ew, ew, ew when someone you hate is massaging chocolate pudding onto your butt.

Samir is a meticulous worker, and Tawny and Troy have arrived by the time he covers my last patch of ankle. He calls another kilt-clad guy over to check his work, and I spin around slowly, causing my chocolate-covered clothing to stick to my skin in new and horrible ways. Half my hair has come loose from my ponytail and is plastered to my neck, and I can’t lower my arms without making horrible squishing noises with my armpits.

“Jolly good,” proclaims our inspector. Do people actually say that in the UK, or is he just doing it for the benefit of the cameras? He hands me a tiny towel, barely larger than my mom’s dish towels, and sends me back to the dressing room to change.

I can’t figure out a way to pull the gooey shirt over my head without smearing chocolate pudding all over my face and hair, so I find my nail clippers, hack through the collar, and rip the T-shirt all the way down the front like The Hulk. I rub as much of the pudding off my arms as possible, but the towel is saturated in seconds, so I resort to lying down on the ground and wiping my arms on the grass. I can barely stand to put my normal clothes back on over my sticky skin, but I can’t very well do the rest of this leg of the race topless, even if that might win me some sort of special award from Isis.

Samir is waiting with our next pink envelope when I come out, literally tapping his foot with impatience. “What took you so long?”

I hold out my arms, which are still streaked with pudding. “Um, this?”

“God, Claire, now is not the time for preening. We’re in a race, not a beauty contest. I thought you wanted to beat your sister.”

“I do,” I say, pleased that he still believes that’s my goal.

“Well, so far you suck at it. She’s been gone almost ten minutes. If you really want to get ahead, you have to make some sacrifices, okay?”

I bite back all the retorts that spring to mind and give him my best penitent smile. “Sorry, I’ll try to go faster.”

“You better.” He rips open the envelope and reads aloud:

Make your way to the Chimney Sweep, a famous Glasgow pub. Chimney sweeps are thought to bring good luck at weddings in the UK, and they are sometimes hired to kiss the bride. In the back room of the pub, you will find several replica chimneys much like the ones real chimney sweeps face daily. Both team members must enter a chimney together and search for the loose brick on the inside of the walls, behind which lie your next instructions.

I hope none of the other teams are claustrophobic, or this challenge is really going to slow them down, and it’ll be impossible to stay at the back of the pack. I mean, it’s not like I’m a huge fan of tiny spaces, but at least I’m not going to have a panic attack or anything.

Wait a minute. A panic attack.

I picture the way Will acted that first day on the plane, sweating and shaking and hyperventilating, and I’m struck with a brilliant idea. I must be grinning unintentionally, because Samir says, “God, why do you look so creepily happy? Is squeezing yourself inside a filthy, sooty chimney your freakish idea of fun?”

I just smile at him. “The soot won’t bother me,” I say. “I don’t mind playing dirty at all.”