77
Thorun, Sona and I stand on the balcony of our room in the small, tacky palace we’ve been housed in for this stretch of the Game, and stare at the coloured lights illuminating the pyramids.
We have three days in Egypt in this Pharaonic-glamour meets modern Mediterranean hotch-potch of a building.
I knew as soon as we stepped through the neoclassical facade with its portico supported by columns inspired by the Temple of Luxor, that this was going to be something else.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.
I expected better accommodation now that there are only nine of us, Aditi having come last in the baby challenge and one of the twins having drowned.
“I’ve always wanted to visit here,” I murmur. “I just never imagined I’d be staying in something like this.”
“I’ve read about it,” Thorun says quietly, “but the real thing is so much better.”
“I’ve visited several times,” Sona shrugs. “The men here have a penchant for glass tables and excrement.”
“What?” Thorun’s eyes widen.
“No,” I shake my head, “Thorun, don’t ask, please.”
I roll my eyes and walk away as Sona begins to explain, and Thorun gasps in astonishment. Her story just reminds me that Miranda is dating the bachelor tonight as a reward for winning the baby challenge, and that her plan is to secure her future as his bride by “fucking the living shit out of him.”
When she’d announced this on the flight over, Vasiliki had attacked her.
The catfight that ensued had made for an amusing but chaotic flight, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was secretly rooting for the Greek.
Comments like Miranda’s had washed right over me at the start of the competition, but picturing her with him now had me fantasising about the numerous ways I might kill her myself during the next challenge.
Stomping down the stairs towards my room I shake my head at my idiocy.
Miranda isn’t my concern. My biggest concern is the other twin, since she’d somehow learned I was the one responsible for putting enough sleeping tablets in her water bottle to sedate a horse.
It had caused her to nearly drown, and she was unable to do anything but watch as her sister sank like a stone.
Ever since the challenge she’s stared at me in such a way that if looks could kill, I’d be dead.
In terms of the others who remain, she’s definitely the one I have to immediately look out for, not Miranda.
‘And why do I even care if Miranda sleeps with the bachelor? It’s nothing to do with me. Then why does it make me crazy thinking about it?’
I put my fingers to my lips as I recall how his had felt when they’d left my throat and met mine.
How he’d pulled back, his eyes dark and hungry, asking an unvoiced question before he’d leant in and captured my mouth with his bloodied lips.
And I hadn’t felt revulsion, or terror, or any of the other feelings the attention of a man usually gives me.
Still high and trembling in pleasure from his bite, I’d felt only desire and a tenderness I didn’t expect, but now crave.
I hadn’t stopped reliving that kiss since it happened, and I wish I could.