New Year Island (34 page)

“What are you two doing?” Veronica was staring at the gifts in Camilla’s hands now, reading the names on them. Her eyes widened, and she sucked in her breath. “Oh, shit.”

Heads swung toward them.

Veronica’s voice rose. “I want the gifts with my name. All of them. Right now.”

“Aw, fuck me!” JT got it, too.

Before anyone could move, Julian reappeared on the monitor. “Time’s up. No more trading. Now we begin.”

Panicky faces stared at Camilla from all around the room. Expressions darkened. At her side, Mason laughed.

“Here’s how this works,” Julian said. “I’ll call you up to the screen, one by one. You have an opportunity to say whatever you want to the audience and to your fellow contestants. Tell them how much they’ve come to mean to you, make promises for the future—whatever you like. Anyone else is welcome to share, too, if they have something to say about you. Then you will receive your gifts.”

On the screen, Julian held up a small teddy bear.

Anyone that holds a gift with your name will present it to you. But first they must make a choice.” He turned over the bear, flipping the switch on the attached LED light to demonstrate. “A green gift will increase your score by five points. Red will reduce it by five points.”

His smile turned mocking, contemptuous.

“Your fates are in each other’s hands. If you find the outcome of this contest not to your liking, you have only yourself to blame for the impression you’ve made on your fellow contestants.” Julian’s image faded away, replaced by the scoreboard.

Alarm bells clanged through Camilla as she realized how ugly this was likely to get.

Julian’s voice called the first name. “Jordan.”

Camilla’s eyes narrowed. Fist tightening around the friendship bracelet she held, she watched Jordan walk to the front of the room. Jordan’s “53” dominated the scoreboard behind her. She had cheated to get it. She didn’t deserve it. Camilla stared at the woman she had naively considered a friend. Right now Jordan was about to learn that what goes around comes around.

A deep voice rumbled in her ear. “Don’t play into Julian’s hands. This is meant to turn us against each other.”

Camilla looked up at Brent in surprise. She had been so focused on Jordan, she hadn’t noticed him joining her. “
She’s
the one who turned on us,” Camilla said. “Julian had nothing to do with it.”

“Then don’t give him the satisfaction of making us behave like animals for the cameras.” Brent’s swollen mouth made him slur a little. There was something new in his eyes: a glitteriness she didn’t like. She turned her back to him and concentrated on Jordan’s performance.

Jordan attempted a smile, but it died quickly when her eyes met Camilla’s. She looked at her feet instead, holding her hands together before her, fingers laced—a cartoon picture of demureness. Her voice was soft and tentative.

“I’m not going to apologize for what we… what
I
did,” she said. “All of us knew going in that this was a reality show, and we’ve seen enough of those shows to know it’s the surprises that keep them interesting.” Her eyes moved from person to person around the room.

She was
still
trying to manipulate them, Camilla realized. Bitterness rose like bile in her throat.

“When Juan and I met on the ship,” Jordan said, “we both thought a secret alliance would give us an advantage. We knew it would make us entertaining to the audience, too. Even if other contestants were eliminated, we figured Julian would keep us in the running until the end, because of our secret. Instead, he outed us.

“But he’s not sending anyone home, so it looks like we’re all in this together until the end. I can understand if you’re a little mad at me, but I hope you can see it from my perspective, too. It’s just a game. We all want to win. Any of you probably would have done the same thing if you had thought of it.”

Jordan bowed her head.

Camilla stepped forward with the friendship bracelet. “You were our team leader, Jordan. I looked up to you.” Her throat was tight, making it an effort to speak. “We counted on you, and you betrayed us.”

Jordan wouldn’t look up from the floor. Her reply was a whisper. “I’m sorry, sister.”

Sister?
Camilla forced her fingers into motion, and red light splashed across her hands. The scoreboard behind them flickered as Jordan’s score dropped to 48.

Camilla held out the bracelet. “This is for you…
sister
.”

Jordan took it from her without looking up.

A minute later, three other red-lit gifts lay at Jordan’s feet, surrounding one lonely green one from Juan. Her score was now 38; she was no longer the lead player.

Julian called the next name: “Juan.”

Juan stood before them all and shrugged. “Jordan said everything that needed to be said. You might not be happy about what I did. But if you were on the red team yesterday, you benefited from it.”

He accepted a green gift from Jordan but drew reds from everyone else. His score stayed at 43, though. Camilla was momentarily puzzled, and then she remembered the security the red team had won yesterday.

JT was next. He rubbed a hand across the top of his head, meeting their eyes. “I guess y’all know I compete hard. It’s what I was raised to do, and what the Corps trained me to do. But I play fair.”

He stared hard at Juan. “Honor means something to me, compadre.
Semper fidelis
—always faithful—”

Veronica snorted. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but that’s enough bullshit for me.” Marching up to JT, she snapped her gift to red and dropped it at his feet. Lauren and Natalie gave him green gifts, and Jordan gave him a red gift. Travis tossed a red at JT’s feet. His points remained unchanged at 34—third place now—protected by the red team’s security.

Brent didn’t say anything when Julian called him up to the scoreboard. His injured face looked painful, like he had a mouthful of walnuts under those bulging purple lips. He accepted his gifts with a quiet dignity that gave Camilla hope. Maybe they could get through this game without further ugliness.

It was her turn next. How would the others react to what she had done?

Mason winked at her from the sidelines as she stood in front of the monitor and cleared her throat.

“I don’t know if this is going to work,” she said. “But Julian didn’t actually
say
we had to get rid of our own gifts. I think he was being tricky. So…” Looking over her shoulder at the scoreboard, she flicked the switch on the London Bridge souvenir to light it green. Her score climbed to 31. Grinning, she moved on to her next gift, and the one after that. A moment later, her score was 46—the highest on the board.

It dropped to 41 almost immediately as something soft bounced off her knees and fell to the floor. She looked down at a plush otter—another stuffed children’s toy. Red light spilled across the floorboards from a soft starfish held in its paws.

Someone had thrown it at her.

“Cheatin’ little whore.” Travis’s dull monotone carried across the room from the wall where he leaned, sneering at her. “Making no end of trouble for yourself.”

Camilla was more shocked that no one had come to her defense. No one would meet her eyes. But she hadn’t cheated—she had just played smart.

Julian’s voice called the next contestant’s name.

Clapping her on the shoulder as he took her place with an armful of gifts, Mason addressed them all.

“Dot-com bust, subprime meltdown, government bailout—in the finance industry, we never let any of it interfere with the bonuses that we paid ourselves. So doing this feels quite natural…” He flipped four of his own gifts to green.

Veronica had the bad luck to draw gifts mostly from the red team. Her score plunged to 5. The scoreboard now read:

Veronica’s icy gaze swept the monitor and then, bright with dislike, fixed on Camilla.

Lauren didn’t say anything when it was her turn, accepting her gifts—mostly red—without comment. Because she was a member of the red team, her score was also secure and didn’t change. She seemed relieved to retreat to her spot next to JT again. Camilla was eager to talk to her, to find out what was wrong.

“Travis,” Julian called out.

Sauntering up to the monitor, Travis rubbed the triangle of beard on his chin. He looked over his shoulder at his score and nodded. “I guess what I say about myself right now don’t really matter overmuch. My score can’t go down—there’s really not all that much room for it to go down, besides. And I’m betting you good people ain’t exactly looking to help me push it up. So there it is.”

His flat gaze slid over Camilla and Mason to stop on Natalie.

“So instead I’ll talk about someone else,” he said. “Blondie and
el capitan
, they weren’t the only two that betrayed their teammates yesterday. What those two did, sure, it’s sneaky as hell, but I can get myself past it. I don’t blame ‘em for it, really. Maybe any of us woulda’ done the same. But what do y’all say about somebody who sucker-punches a teammate from behind with a stun gun and hands ‘em over to the other team? Leaves ‘em tied up, hurt, and in pain all day without saying anything?”

He pointed an accusing finger at Natalie.

“This one here’s a little scorpion, a poisonous spider. Don’t let her quiet act fool you—she’s a vicious, coldhearted, nasty little cunt. I even offered to help her out earlier, and that’s how she repaid me—”

“You piece of shit!” Natalie shouted. She took three steps forward, arms straight at her sides, hands clenched into fists. “I know what you are, Travis. I saw it right away.” She drew a gulping breath. “I’ll kill you if you even come near me again.” Natalie’s whole body was trembling now. “I’ll
kill
you!”

“Whoa!” Brent stepped between her and Travis, holding up his hand. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“I’ll tell you.” Lauren pushed off the wall and strode forward. “Travis here is a child molester. He’s a convicted rapist who just got out of prison.”

Without taking her eyes off Travis, Camilla reached back and grabbed Mason’s wrist. They were in
way
over their heads here. She squeezed hard, willing him to be silent and not make things worse.

Travis spun on Lauren. “Someone’s been lying to you, you f—”

“Fuck you.” She stepped up into his face. “I want you off my team, and I want you off this island—right now, you fucking dirtbag.”

Mason’s laughter rang out, loud and gleeful in the sudden silence.

Travis froze.

Oh god, here we go.
Camilla tried to block Mason with her body, but he slipped his wrist free and stepped closer.

“This is so Jerry Springer of us,” he said. “Sharing our feelings—I’m getting all warm and fuzzy inside. I do have a quick question, though—”

“Mason, stop.” Camilla grabbed his arm again.

“I’ve always wondered…” He was grinning at Travis now. “I’ve heard child abusers have a rough time in prison, that they usually get a dose of their own medicine from the other inmates. On the
receiving
end. Can you comment on that, Travis? Is it true?”

Travis’s face went white.

Camilla pulled a laughing Mason away, shoving him behind her, as Travis launched himself toward them.

Her vision blurred for a moment; then she realized she was sitting on the floorboards. Feet moved around her, scuffling. Shouts rose above her. She raised a hand to her face, where the sensory memory of a dull thud was just registering, and her eyes widened in shock as red wetness doused her fingers. A sharp ache spread through her cheekbones, concentrated in the center of her face. Her nose.

Arms and legs thrashed against the floor in front of her: Travis and Mason on the ground, Travis on top, elbows flailing as he drove punch after punch into Mason’s face. Mason cowered, trying to ward off the blows with his forearms. His glasses flew off and smashed against the wall.

All around them, people crowded forward to intervene.

Camilla rolled onto her hands and knees. Blood pattered onto the weathered floorboards beneath her face. Pushing forward, she squeezed through the forest of legs in front of her and grabbed one of Travis’s arms. She threw her weight against his shoulder, shoving him off Mason, who scrambled clear.

“Off me, you little whore,” Travis grunted, whipping his other hand behind him to yank something out of his belt. He pulled Camilla off balance, and she fell to her knees in front of him. The panicked shouts took a moment to register.

“Knife!”

“He’s got a—!”

“Watch out…!”

Travis’s arm whipped forward, and something shiny flashed toward Camilla’s belly.

Suddenly, no one was moving anymore. Silence fell over the room.

She looked up, meeting Lauren’s eyes. Lauren stared back at her, face ashen with shock—the same shock Camilla saw in the other blurry faces all around her.

Oh god, did he just stab me?

Camilla looked down.

Tuesday: December 25, 2012

A
jagged spur of sharpened metal trembled in midair, less than an inch from Camilla’s stomach, clutched in Travis’s fist. But it wasn’t coming any closer. A large, dark hand gripped Travis’s wrist, holding it in place, preventing the improvised blade from plunging into her belly.