41
My chest feels like it’s on fire, and vomit spurts from my mouth in torrents as I lie heaving on the paved riverbank.
“You’ll live,” Evelyn says matter-of-factly, “get up.”
Gasping, I turn my head to the side to vomit some more and notice the bachelor staring at me from just metres away. His eyes, when they meet mine, are so intense I can’t look away.
‘What? Why is he looking at me that way? Is he concerned I’ll die? Surely not; he almost killed me himself just a few days ago.’
“Get up!” Evelyn repeats, giving me a swift kick in the side and forcing me to pull my eyes away from the Viscount.
“Ugh, fuck, Evelyn,” I groan.
“Give her a moment,” Sona laughs, hopefully in relief that I’m alive and not at the fact I’m a vomit volcano on international television. “We’re still way ahead of the pack.”
Struggling to a sitting position I look around and realise she’s right. Some people are still trying to solve the puzzle on the platforms, despite knowing their teammates are most likely drowned. Others are still coming out of the water, and still others are being revived, just as I had been.
“Where’s Thorun?”
Sona and Evelyn look around wildly before turning to look to the bottom of the river.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Evelyn screams, grabbing a startled Sona by the arm and pulling her into the water.
Gasping and still coughing up water, I crawl to the river’s edge and look down to where Thorun is now receiving aid from my other two teammates to bring up the French contestant Valérie.
I don’t know her well, and I hadn’t been aware that Thorun did either.
All I know about her is that she’s a professional ballet dancer with a tendency towards overly emotional arguments with fellow competitors, mostly about who the bachelor favoured and why a French wife is going to be his natural choice.
“Why?” I groan as the three haul the girl up and begin, at Thorun’s command, to revive her as they had me.
When she wakes, vomiting nowhere near as much as I had, Thorun pushes her towards her teammates, the very ones who had left her to die, and turns back to help me to my feet.
“I got Mahsa too,” she says, turning to spit out some mud, “but she’s beyond help, I’m afraid.”
“You are something else,” I cough, staggering to my feet. “You should have left her to the fishes.”
“Don’t you realise that you just gave up our lead?” Evelyn screeches. “The time you took saving them might have cost us the competition.”
“No,” Thorun smiles, pointing to where Sona is crouched on the pavement studying not two, but four, clues. “I don’t think so.”