Wicked Games (Games #1)(5)
Author: Jessica Clare

“There’s no paint on your brush,” he barked into my ear. “You need paint for the turtle! Green paint!”

I was starting to see why this was a teamwork challenge and not just for kicks. Irritated, I touched the ends of the brush bristles. Dry as a bone. “So where’s the paint?”

“To your side,” he said. “Left, left, left,” he chanted as my hand reached for the paint. There was nothing for long, long seconds and then I found a big cup of something wet. I picked up my brush and started to dip it in.

“Wrong color,” Dean barked. “That’s red!”

“You’re supposed to tell me where to go, you idiot,” I yelled back at him. “I’m blindfolded—I can’t see the colors!”

“You need to ask, then!”

“I’m asking now!”

“And I’m telling you, not that one! Move up two pots!”

Oh sure! Easy for him to say. Gritting my teeth, I brushed my knuckles along the edges of the pots until I felt like I’d picked the right one and moved the brush inside again.

“I said green! That’s blue! You’re over too far! Two pots, not three.”

Argh. Clenching my hand tightly around the brush, I shoved it into the paint. “You’re slopping it everywhere,” Dean complained in a rather impatient voice. “They’re going to count off for that.”

“I’m trying,” I said, and drew a circle on the fabric. “What is the turtle doing in the picture?”

“It has waves over its head, so you’ll need blue paint… no, not yet, you haven’t finished the turtle. Draw the legs, and draw the mouth open… open… I said open… Abby, the mouth is open…”

“—I’m drawing it open—”

“No, you’re not—”

“You have one minute left, teams,” Chip broke in, yelling over the constant murmur. “Work fast!”

The fabric ripped out from under my brush. “Move on,” Dean said irritably. “Go to the next one.”

I felt him lay down a new flag of fabric and patted it flat. “What do I draw for this one?”

“A red fish. Come on Abby, draw fast. A red fish—”

“Where’s the red—”

“Abby, hurry up and draw—”

“I can’t draw if you don’t tell me—”

“ABBY, DRAW,” Dean shouted, blasting my ears. “PICK RED AND DRAW. QUIT ASKING SO MANY QUESTIONS AND JUST DRAW.”

I threw down my brush, grabbed the closest pot of paint, and lobbed it over the table at my partner. I didn’t hear it connect, so I grabbed the next one, and the next one, and heard the satisfying thwacks as they hit Dean (I hoped).

“Time!” Chip shouted.

I ripped off my blindfold and glared at my partner. Mister Perfect Jock was covered in yellow and red paint—quickly dripping to orange. A streak of blue covered half the table and our flag looked as if the paint had thrown up on it. He was glaring at me with utter disgust.

“If you yell at me again,” I screamed back, “I’m going to shove that f**king brush down your throat. Understand?”

He glared at me and wiped paint off of his face, saying nothing. A muscle twitched in his jaw but to my relief he didn’t say anything back to me. Instead, he turned and faced Chip, awaiting further instructions.

The others were staring at the two of us in shock, the cameramen buzzing around. They were having a field day—no wonder. Dean and I were a classic example of how not to work together.

“Everyone please sit down with your partners, and we’ll have the judges brought in,” Chip said in a calm voice. In pairs, the contestants began to move over to the crude wooden benches nearby and I followed. Dean stalked behind me, his paint-covered clothing slapping against his body. As we walked over to the designated area, my fury gave way to embarrassment.

We were acting like children.

The chagrin grew worse when the native judges were brought in, and the flags were held up for each one to see. The other teams hadn’t done so badly—one even managed to paint all four designs, though in a very haphazard fashion. When they got to our table, the judges looked over at the two of us sitting on the edge of our bench, turned away from each other, my partner dripping yellow paint, and began to whisper. They held up our first flag—a green circle with a big line slashed through it from where Dean had jerked the fabric out while I was still painting—and shook their heads. The next flag they held up was just a series of red and yellow and blue blotches. Shook their heads again. Snickers arose from the other contestants.

My cheeks flushed with embarrassment again. I glanced over at Dean.

He looked over at me, too, wiped a handful of paint off of his shirt and then smeared it all over my arm.

Jerk.

“The judges have decided upon the worst teams and have picked two. Please stand up and move forward with your partner if I call your team’s number.” Chip turned and looked directly at me. “Team Eleven, you have been nominated for Judgment.”

Well, no surprise there. I got to my feet and approached the small area designated as ‘Judgment.’ I stood in front of a coconut-decorated podium, and Dean did the same.

“Team number Four, you have been nominated for Judgment.”

I hadn’t even paid attention to the other teams’ flags. All were equally bad in my opinion, though none to the grand level that ours was. The other team moved forward, looking surprised and a little bit ashamed that their entry was judged almost as bad as ours.

Heck, I would be too.

They moved to the other podiums across from us, and Chip took a seat on the high stool in the middle, as some sort of bizarre island court. The rest of the teams were arranged in a semicircle surrounding us, and a chalkboard and chalk was handed to each team.

“Welcome to our first Judgment Day,” Chip announced in a bombastic voice. “Today, we will decide the fate of one of these two teams. We will hear from each team and then the ‘safe’ teams that make up our jury will vote for the team they wish to continue. Remember that for now, you are voting to keep a team ‘IN.’ Later, you will be voting individuals out. Does everyone follow?”

The others nodded enthusiastically.

“Let’s start with Team Eleven,” Chip said and swung his gaze over to my podium and then Dean’s. “Do you have any idea of why you two performed so poorly in the challenge?”

“It’s his fault—” I began.

“She’s impossible—” he started to say at exactly the same moment.

A snicker arose from our audience, and I turned to glare at Dean again. He was giving me the same clenched-jaw look as before. After a moment I began to speak, still facing him. “We cannot seem to agree on anything, Chip. That’s it, pure and simple.”

Dean added, “We don’t even have camp set up yet.”

“Don’t tell them that,” I snapped. “That’s no one’s business but ours.”

Dean just gave me a quelling look.

Chip seemed surprised. Okay, perhaps a little gleeful that we were self-destructing so abominably. “Did you two manage to get fire yet?”

“Haven’t tried,” Dean said.

“Food?”

“Nope,” I said, and turned to glare at Dean again. If he mentioned my peanut butter in front of the others, I’d kill him. It was my ace in the hole at the moment.

He remained silent.

“Is that why you threw paint on Dean, Abby?” He definitely sounded smug now.

I gave the host a bared-teeth smile. “He was yelling at me and being unhelpful, Chip. That’s why I threw paint on him.”

“She was asking too many questions,” Dean butted in. “She wouldn’t just shut up and paint—”

“How am I supposed to paint when I’m not getting instructions from my partner?”

“What did I tell you, Chip? Impossible.” Dean just gave me his winningest smile, as if that would warm me to his argument. “I try my best, but she doesn’t want to listen.”

Chip put his hands in the air. “Okay, okay, thank you, Team Eleven, but I think we’ve heard enough.”

Over in the audience, Shanna was casting meaningful looks at Dean. She wasn’t the only one, either. The other girls looked at him as if they wanted to save him from me. No one was giving me the same kind of look, of course. I was just an extra, an obstacle preventing them from having six weeks of unfettered bliss with good ol’ Dean. And I had no doubt that they’d take me out as soon as they could.

The host turned to the other team, Vera the gymnast and Sidney that I hadn’t had the chance to meet yet. Sidney seemed nice enough, with warm brown hair and a bright smile. Vera too. “So tell me,” Chip began, “Is your team having trouble like Team Eleven is?”

“Oh no,” Vera said hastily. “We’re doing just fine. Sid and I get along great.”

As if to prove this point, Sid nodded and put his hand on his partner’s shoulder to show their solidarity.

I made a face at that, and Dean snorted behind me.

“So why is it that you’re here for this round of eliminations?” Chip asked, trying to make his question as serious as possible. He even put his hand under his chin, as if considering a matter of grave importance.

Sid shrugged his shoulders and glanced down at Vera. “I think we just got unlucky. That’s all.”

“And how is life back at camp?”

“We’re doing good,” Sid continued, and his smile widened. “We have fire, and Vera was able to find us some coconuts last night. We’re doing all right.”

I rolled my eyes. Impossible to believe that everyone was getting along well except for myself and Dean. We were put into these kinds of situations deliberately to self-destruct, I imagined. No one was going to get along as blissfully as Vera and Sid were playing up.

Chip chatted with them for a moment more, then turned to the teams in the audience. “It’s now decision time. We’re going to have each team move to the voting booth and cast their ballot for the team that they wish to vote off Endurance Island.” He gestured at the far end of the row. “Team Number One, you’re up first.”

Shanna and Leon hopped to their feet, slate in hand, and disappeared into a small curtained-off booth in the background. I squinted at the sun, high overhead, and wondered how much longer this would take.

I mean, it was obvious that they’d be writing our number down. We were a complete and total train wreck of a team. There was no way Dean and I would get anywhere if we didn’t learn to get along, and so far, we weren’t learning.

A pair at a time, the others went up to vote until no one was left. Chip disappeared off to the side and returned with a box decorated to look as if it were a missing crate of supplies to go with the shipwreck theme. Very clever. He scanned us again—participants and people on the hot seat—and then pulled the lid off.

“First vote…”

I closed my eyes. My book deal, my job, everything. I could smell it going down the drain.