Body Games (Games #5)(41)
Author: Jessica Clare

I shrugged, letting her draw the conclusion she wanted. “Kip pulled me aside and let me know about his plan for the vote.”

I watched Leslie’s eyes narrow. “Do tell,” she said bluntly. “It’s me, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Apparently Kip and Saul are working together, and if you’re gone, I’m guessing they’re pulling in Emilio. Three guys and four girls right now. They’re definitely going to get rid of a woman, and I’m safe at the moment.” I patted my medallion. Thank god for it. “I was told Saul wants to keep Alys for a vote, which means you’re next, Kissy, once they get rid of Leslie. He assured me I’d get to the final four, but no further. Then we’ll see those three men dominate all the way to the end of the game.”

So I might have thrown a little fiction in there to make things seem more dire. I didn’t know for sure that Kissy’s number was up, but the shocked look on her face told me I’d made the right call in pointing it out.

“Those f**king cock-suckers,” Leslie swore. “I should f**king burn down that goddamn shelter around them—“

“Or…we could turn the tables on them,” I said. “None of them are safe tonight. And like I said, we have four women and three guys. We can make a women’s alliance and go to the final four together. They’d be sitting ducks.”

“I like the way you think,” Leslie said. She looked at Kissy, who still looked ready to cry. She nodded.

“We just need Alys, though,” I pointed out. “Right now, all we’d do is force a tie.” And I didn’t trust Kissy enough not to flip if we got down to a tie, because a tie-breaker would probably put everyone in danger. They tended to be random and no one liked to force a tie.

Plus, if we didn’t pull in Alys somehow, the guys would.

“Do you think she’ll vote with us?” Kissy asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll talk to her. I’m sure we can figure something out.”

“So then, who are we voting for tonight?” Leslie asked.

My smile was utterly gleeful. “The ringleader. Kip.”

~~ *** ~~

It turned out that Alys was on board. Or rather, she didn’t care about the vote. As long as it wasn’t her, she was game for voting whoever off. Sneezing and sniffling through my cold, I regrouped with all the ladies before Judgment and made sure we were on the same page. Kip was going tonight. If something miraculous happened and we needed to vote off someone else, we’d get rid of Saul. I hoped it didn’t come to that, because I didn’t trust Alys to vote against Saul just yet.

And I didn’t trust Kip not to scramble if he lasted three more days. This had to work tonight. It had to.

The speedboat arrived to pick us up from the beach. “As a reminder, no talking,” a production assistant droned as we filed onto the boat. Kip winked at me as if we were sharing a secret, and I winked back. Enjoy your last night here, jackass.

Oh, tonight was going to be fun.

Once we got to the merge, the Judgment council area was a little more dramatic than before. Lit tiki torches lined the beach, and we each had our own tiny carved stools to sit upon. Across from Chip’s podium was a long bench for the jury, and I felt a funny little quiver of excitement in my belly at the prospect of seeing Jendan again, even though I was pretty sure he hated me at the moment.

We sat in our designated spots, and Chip nodded slowly. “I’ll bring in our jury members. Rusty, and Jendan, come in please.”

The two men walked in and sat down. Immediately, Kissy began to sob. I heard Kip give a snort of disgust, but I ignored him. I had eyes only for Jendan.

God, he looked good. Clean and fresh-scrubbed, Jendan wore a gray vee-neck t-shirt and a pair of weather-beaten jeans. His hair was trimmed down to his scalp, nothing but a dark shadow covering his head. His eyes looked incredibly gray against his tan. He looked healthy, too, like he’d put on a few pounds. I remembered running my hands over his chest and feeling his ribs the last time.

Just seeing him sitting there made me feel a little weepy, too. I smiled in his direction but his face was carefully blank. My own smile faded. Okay, I guess I deserved that.

“Welcome to tonight’s Judgment,” Chip said once everyone was settled in. “Tonight, we are voting for the third member of the jury. And tonight, you can vote for anyone except Annabelle.”

My nose tickled; I sneezed. All eyes turned to look at me. “Sorry,” I said with a sniffle.

“Do you have a cold, Annabelle?” Chip asked.

“Bit of one. It’s no problem.” I sounded horribly stuffed up, though.

“You were out there on that perch for five hours,” Chip continued. “You outlasted everyone. You didn’t come down for food, for drink, for anything. How long do you think you could have stayed up there?”

I gave a tiny shrug. “As long as it took to win.”

“Why is that?”

Because I’m pretty sure I was going home if I didn’t. But I didn’t want to remind my fragile alliance that I was playing without a partner here, when I expected them all to turn on theirs. “I guess I just wanted to prove to everyone that I’m here to play.”

“I think you did that last time with Pandora’s Box.”

I smiled tightly. “I guess so.”

Thankfully, Chip moved on to someone else and began grilling them. What did Alys think of the new camp? Was anyone not pulling their weight? What was it like to live with so many people on the beach? All the answers were totally cagy, and it was clear no one wanted to show their hand right away. I kept looking over at Jendan, but whenever I did, he was never looking at me, and my heart ached a little. He was probably mad and feeling used.

And I really couldn’t blame him. I’d planned on pushing out my partner as soon as I’d opened Pandora’s Box. I’d just never imagined that he’d be the partner.

After conversing with each of us, it came time to vote. One by one, contestants headed into the voting booth. When it was my turn, I picked up a slate and some chalk and sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. Please, please let everyone be on the same page as me. In big, bold letters, I wrote down my vote.

KIP.

“Screw you,” I whispered to the cameras. “This was the entire reason I got back in the game – so I could vote your ass off.” Then, I pushed my slate into the vote box and turned around and sat back down. My legs were trembling, and my nose was running, but I couldn’t think about anything but the potential of Kip being voted off.