Alys and Chris were the last team to go, and the rotation started again. They were paired up against the firefighters, and then one by one, each team was called up for a second round.
When it was time for Kip and I to go, I was pleased to see that we were paired against Sunnie and Jendan. “We’ve gotta keep the big guy distracted,” I murmured to Kip. “She’s not a threat.”
“Ok,” Kip said. “I’ll go for her, you go for him.”
“Wait, me? Why me?” How on earth was I supposed to keep a guy like that busy?
“Ready,” Chip called before Kip could answer. “And…go!”
We took off, heading for the water. We made it in advance of Sunnie and Jendan, who seemed to be holding back. That struck me as odd, but I dove for the buoy…
Only to be tackled and sent underwater. The big guy had found me. His big hands hauled me backward and one rubbed hard down my back. It dragged against my sunburn, and my screech of protest was muffled by the water. I pushed myself to the surface, grabbing at one of his legs and trying to dump him backward. I’d swam with rough cousins as a kid and knew how to pick a fight in a pool, at least. This wasn’t much different.
But Jendan’s size gave him the advantage. He grabbed me by the torso and pushed me down into the water again. Again, his hand went down my back, rubbing.
When I came up for air again, sputtering, his big arm wrapped around my shoulders and he pinned me in the water and then sank down, pulling both of us in to our chins.
“Your back,” he murmured in my ear. “I’m trying to clean it off.”
“What?” Disoriented, I looked around. Sunnie was flailing near the buoy and Kip’s feet disappeared into the water, my partner diving down to get the ring.
“He wrote something on your back,” Jendan said in my ear, and rubbed my back again under the water. “I’m trying to get rid of it.”
“My name?” Everyone had their names written on them every day.
“Not your name.”
“What?” I stopped struggling, wincing when Jendan’s hand pressed against my sensitive skin. “What did he write?” I whispered, forgetting about the challenge.
“You don’t want to know—“
“Yes, I do,” I insisted. “Just tell me.”
“Lousy lay. He wrote that instead of your name. At least, I assume he’s the one that wrote on your back.” His cool eyes met mine, sympathetic. “I was trying to help.”
Even now, Kip was sprinting out of the water, ignoring Sunnie’s feeble cries. I was too stunned to do anything, and when Jendan’s hand swiped across my back once more, I let him.
Lousy lay?
And here I thought Kip and I were doing better today. What a fucking prick. No wonder everyone was laughing when I turned around. I felt my face go hot with anger. That little son of a bitch—
“Team eight wins again,” Chip said, throwing his hands in the air as Kip trotted to the finish line with the ring again. Pleased with himself, Kip did a little ‘Rocky’ bounce and then threw his hands in the air.
Jendan gave my back a final rub and then released me.
“You two okay in the water?” Chip asked, his attention turning toward Jendan and me.
“Just twisted my ankle a little,” I said, hauling out of the water and faking a limp. I was boiling mad as I went back to the line-up, unable to look over at my partner. My back stung, but my pride hurt worse. Of all the awful things to do…
I could teach Kip a lesson. Deliberately throw the challenge and see if I could get Kip ousted. It’d be risky, but did I want to play next to a guy that wrote Lousy Lay on my back just to try and humiliate me in public? All because I wouldn’t fuck him this time around?
“Jendan, looks like you didn’t even try very hard that time,” Chip commented, breaking into my stream of thoughts. “Are you and Sunnie struggling with the challenge?”
“Just lost my bearings,” Jendan said easily, and I glanced down the line at him. He shot me a secretive look, and I realized that he had no intention on telling anyone that he’d deliberately tackled me just to wipe my back off. They might notice that the words were no longer there, but maybe not that he did it on purpose to help me.
He’d thrown that round just to save me a little humiliation? I owed the guy. I felt a rush of gratitude that doused my fury. At least I had someone looking out for me on the beach.
The urge to throw the challenge fizzled. Jendan had deliberately lost so he could help me out. The least I could do was give it my all and try to return the favor somehow.
The afternoon wore on, and round after round of the challenge continued. The first team to get to three points was, not surprisingly, Summer and Polly. We lost to them in the next round. Once they had their three, they sat down on a nearby bench, out of the challenge and secure for another three days. Jendan and Sunnie won their next round and then lost another. We won our round against Leslie and Emilio, and finally got to sit down on the bench next to the girls. After that, Kissy and Rusty were safe, then Jerry and Saul.
The two teams in last place were Alys and Chris, and Jendan and Sunnie, who only won the one round. Alys and Chris had narrowly been beaten by the two firefighters, who weren’t that good at swimming, it seemed. Chip wore a somber look as he strode forward. “Jendan and Sunnie.” He turned to the other team. “Alys and Chris. You have all been nominated for Judgment. It’s time for us to go to the Judgment Hall.”
~~ *** ~~
An hour later, we were assembled in the so-called Judgment Hall. It was another boat-ride away, and on another island. The set that had been built was a magnificent one, designed to resemble a Fijian bungalow with no sides. There was a thick, layered, thatched roof, and rows of benches off to the side. An ornate wooden podium stood in the center (Chip’s place of honor) and there was a bench on each side of him. We were instructed to file in quietly and take a seat on one of the benches across from the podium.
Alys and Chris sat to the left of Chip, Jendan and Sunnie to the right. Both teams looked incredibly displeased to be there.
Chip gave us all a somber look. “Welcome to Judgment. Here, the remaining players will vote who will stay, and who will leave. Your votes will determine which team will remain. The team that loses Judgment will then proceed to a challenge round, where they will compete against each other. The person that loses will exit the game. The person that wins the challenge will play on as a team of one. Should you lose Judgment again, that single person will be automatically eliminated. Does everyone understand?”
We nodded.
The host turned toward Jendan and Sunnie. “Do you have anything to say in your team’s defense? You’re one of the stronger men in the competition, Jendan. Shouldn’t you have theoretically done better in the challenge?”
I watched Jendan’s face flush uncomfortably and he rubbed his neck, glancing at his partner. I knew what he was thinking. We were all thinking it. It wasn’t Jendan’s fault that he’d lost. But Sunnie’s big blue eyes were already spilling with tears that she was wiping away, and he reached over and hugged her shoulders awkwardly. “It just wasn’t our day, Chip.”
“That’s your excuse?”
“That’s our excuse. We’ll do better next time,” he said firmly, and gave Sunnie’s shoulders another little squeeze.
Poor Jendan. He was too nice for this game. People like Kip were going to eat him alive. It suddenly occurred to me — was that how Kip had viewed me last time? Nice, sweet, and naive…and used that to his advantage? Endurance Island was a vicious game. Maybe he’d just wanted to play vicious.
Or…maybe he was just vicious. I thought of Lousy Lay written across my back and felt another surge of loathing for my partner.
“What about you, Alys? Chris?” Chip turned to look at them.
“We’re a little dehydrated and not at full strength,” Alys said slowly. “It took us some time to get a fire at camp, and I think that affected our gameplay. We almost had Kissy and Rusty beat,” she said, sm
iling at the older couple. “We’ll catch them next time.”
“Do you have anything to say to the jury of your peers to persuade them to vote to keep you?”
Alys and Chris exchanged a glance. Chris cleared his throat. “Just that we’re hoping to have a second chance on Endurance Island, and neither of us is ready to go yet.”
“What about you, Sunnie and Jendan?”
Jendan looked over at me and I felt my face flush with heat.
“We’ve never played Endurance Island before,” Sunnie said tearfully, wiping at her eyes in a pitiful fashion. “If we’re not as good at living on the beach and making fires as everyone else, it’s because we haven’t had chance to practice yet. I just think we deserve that chance.”
Jendan squeezed her knee, a move that seemed oddly intimate given that they were both naked. Hell, we were all naked, but I hated seeing that affectionate gesture. “No one wants to leave,” Jendan said. “I think I speak for everyone when I say we’re all here to play.”
“Fair enough,” Chip said. He turned to us, seated on our benches across from them. “For the vote, each team will go to the voting booth. You will write on the slate which team you are choosing to save. The team with the least amount of votes will then go to the challenge round. We’ll go straight down the line. Team number three, you’re up.”
I studied the faces of both Sunnie and Jendan, then looked over at Alys and Chris. If I wanted to be a strong, take-no-prisoners bitch on wheels this game, I needed to vote to keep Alys and Chris. They were both returning players from an earlier season of Endurance Island, and if they didn’t have fire, they clearly weren’t paying much attention the first time around. Without fire, they’d be easier to beat, so it was smarter to keep them.
Still…Jendan had put his neck out for me. He’d rubbed the awful message off my back when everyone else had just laughed at me. And it had cost him. I wasn’t sure that I could vote him off, knowing that he had my back.
But how would it look that Annabelle the Slut was going to vote to save the hot guy on the island? I didn’t trust the cameras.
I didn’t know what to do.
When it came our time to vote, I walked to the booth with Kip. The ‘booth’ was actually just a curtained off area, the curtain a waterfall of beads and cowrie shells. On the table in front of us sat a basket of slates, and nearby, pieces of chalk were left in a coconut bowl.
Now we needed to make a team decision. I looked over at Kip, whispering. “Do you know who you want to save?”
“Do you?”
I bit my lip. Strategy or kindness? In the end, I couldn’t hang Jendan out to dry. Not when he was the only one to help me. “I think I want to keep Jendan and Sunnie.”
“Okay.”
I frowned at Kip. “Okay? You don’t want to discuss strategy or anything?”
“Nah. Sunnie’s hot. I don’t mind keeping her around. Plus, they sucked at the challenge.”
I must have been blinded by Kip’s flowing black curls the last time we were here. How had I fallen for this man? Or was I seeing the real side of Kip now that I refused to be impressed by him? Either way, at least we weren’t going to argue. I shrugged and gestured for him to take the chalk. He did so gleefully, writing down our vote, and then chucked the slate into the voting basket.
When the votes were tallied and read, I bit my lip the entire time, anxious. Team six — Alys and Chris. Team two — Sunnie and Jendan. Team six. Team two. The vote seesawed back and forth, and still our vote wasn’t read.
Jendan shifted on the bench, tense, and his gaze flicked to me.
I gave him a quick, almost imperceptible nod as Chip lifted the final slate. “The team that will be staying is…” He turned the slate, revealing Kip’s handwriting. “Sunnie and Jendan.”
Sunnie squealed and threw her arms around a relieved Jendan’s neck. Alys and Chris looked crushed.
Jendan’s mouth pulled up in an almost imperceptible smile as he looked over at me.
“Now,” Chip said, turning to the losing team. “It’s time for the Judgment challenge. Did either of you find Pandora’s Box?”
Ooo, now that was interesting. So Pandora’s Box was something to do for after the votes? I mentally filed that tidbit away.
Both Alys and Chris shook their heads.
“All right, then. On with the challenge. This will be a fire-making challenge. The first one to build a fire and snap a rope, stays!”
I looked over at Jendan as we got up from our benches to make room for the fire-making challenge. As I did, he looked over at me and smiled, the relief evident on his face. He knew like I did that I’d saved his butt just then.
And for some reason, I was absurdly pleased by that smile.
Chapter Seven
“I feel like Annabelle’s a kindred spirit here in the game. Neither one of us is particularly cut-throat. It’s rather refreshing.” — Jendan Abercrombie, Day 5, Endurance Island: Power Players
“We’re out of water again,” I complained to Kip. “And you’re lying on my bed.”
“Didn’t realize everything on this beach belonged to you,” he told me, but he didn’t get up.
It was day five of the game and I’d just about hit my limit with Kip. He did nothing around camp, and if I protested, he’d tell me that he was ‘saving his strength for the next challenge.’ Which drove me crazy. We wouldn’t win if I was exhausted and he was fresh, right? There had to be a little give and take.
Except one partner in this duo was doing a lot more ‘taking.’ Kip didn’t lift a finger to help. The only shelter we had was mine - I’d managed to erect a vague lean-to against a pair of trees growing close together, and used the box (that I’d now disassembled) as flooring. Along with some woven palm fronds, it…well, it sucked. It didn’t keep me warm, didn’t keep out the rain, but I didn’t wake up with sand in my hoo-ha, so that was a plus.
Of course, now that I’d made a shelter, Kip was determined to hog it at every turn. Right now he was lounging, eating a coconut that I’d put at camp for myself.
“I made the bed,” I told him. “Therefore, it’s mine.”
“Look, Annabelle,” he said in that dismissive tone of his that set my teeth on edge. “We both know that we’re due for a reward challenge of some kind. You need me in fighting shape for the challenge, because we both know that you won’t be able to handle anything athletic.”
“Is that so?”
“Yep,” he said, obviously missing my sarcasm. “So let me rest. And fill up my canteen while you’re getting water, will you?”
I seethed, and then I plucked his canteen from his hand and stomped into the jungle. I hated Kip - hated him fiercely - but I took the canteen anyhow. It wasn’t that I wanted to keep him hydrated so he could be strong in challenges - I didn’t care if he was or not. If we lost, I was counting on beating him in the loser challenge so I could boot his ass and be a team of one, like Alys had done to Chris.
But if I didn’t fill his canteen, he’d follow me into the jungle, and I wanted to be alone in the jungle, because I needed to find that forked tree.
The moment I had whatever was in Pandora’s Box, I’d feel safer. Chip had mentioned it when the team had been voted off, which told me that it had something to do with whoever lost Judgment. If it was some sort of ‘get out of jail free,’ I wanted to have it before I started throwing challenges to get rid of Kip.
Because I definitely intended on getting rid of Kip.
Heading to the well, I filled the canteens, and then put the lid back on again and sat down on top of it. The carved lid was bumpy and hard, but there weren’t any sand crabs on it, so I didn’t mind. Sitting here gave me a chance to think, and I tried to consider anywhere that the forked tree might have been that I’d missed.
Plus, there was no Kip at the well. Bonus.
As I relaxed, I had a thought. Maybe I hadn’t gone out far enough? I’d assumed the clue meant that the tree was near the well. What if there was other water
on the island and I simply hadn’t explored far enough? With that thought in mind, I tucked the canteens under my arm, hopped off the lid, and headed deeper into the trees. I supposed if there was a reward challenge, they’d just have to wait for me to come back.
I hadn’t done much island exploring, mostly because it was frowned on by the production crew, who had to follow us, toting cameras, and because the island was hot, the interior stifling. Within the trees, there was no breeze coming off the water, and I constantly sweated…which meant I needed more water to drink, which meant that I needed to boil more water. It was an ugly, never-ending cycle.
But if the Pandora’s Box clue was further out…it wouldn’t hurt to do a little exploring.
I walked slowly through the dense growth, studying each tree. A cameraman had tailed me, filming a short distance away. I figured he’d have stopped me if I wasn’t supposed to head in this direction, so I continued on. The island wasn’t that big from what I could tell. The beach went around for a fair distance, but I could see bigger islands in the distance. Considering this was someone’s private island, my guess was that it was teeny tiny and just looked bigger because I happened to be living on the beach at the moment. Still, I bet I could cross even a small island and see what was on the other side.
After walking for about fifteen minutes, I heard a rustling noise. Curious, I paused and looked back at the camera man, but he was standing in place and the rustling continued. I tilted my head to hear better and…gasped. It sounded like water.
I pushed through the ferns, heading for the source of the water-sounds. Past a couple more trees, I got a glimpse of a rocky outcropping and what looked like a tiny waterfall. That might have been the island version of a shower, and it sounded awesome to me.
When I pushed into the small clearing where the water was, though, another sight awaited me.
Jendan was there, naked, muscles flexed as he raised his hands and dragged his fingers through his hair. His stomach was taut and tanned, and everything was perfect and, um, protruding.