99
“I’m going to be completely guided on this by you, Thorun, so don’t fuck up.”
“Camping is my jam,” she says quietly, “you don’t need to worry.”
We’re sitting in the ‘great room,’ a jaw-dropping space in what can only be described as an Alaskan ultra-luxury mega-chalet. It’s the fanciest place we’ve stayed in yet, and it’s hard to pull my eyes away from the towering triple-glazed windows overlooking the mountains, and beyond.
Mountains we’ll soon be trying to survive in.
I turn my attention from the windows and the heated wrap-around observation deck, where several contestants sit, and focus on reading back over the challenge description.
Obviously I’d only seen final challenges on television, but ours seems unusual in that for the first time in Bachelor history we’re not allowed weapons.
It’s as though they want us to kill our food, and one another, with our bare hands.
‘Surely that can’t be right. Maybe they have a selection of weapons when we get there?’
I overhear Claire and Miranda discussing the same thing, Claire telling the Australian that a ‘wight man never wanted a weapon’ and then explaining she meant, ‘where there’s a will there’s a way.’
“Why not just fucking say that then?” Miranda snaps.
“Because we’re not all the uneducated spawn of convicts,” Claire retorts, “some of us have true culture and vocabularies.”
I focus once more on the task at hand and try to zone out the low bickering in the background. One thing is for sure, Jag wasn’t wrong when he said we’d be competing in a cold climate.
“So,” Thorun says quietly as she watches me read, her voice low enough that no one around us can hear our discussion, “you know the bachelor and I watched the Northern Lights the night before last.”
I try not to let my emotions show on my face as I answer.
I’d been eaten up with rage when I first learned about her secret date, rage I’d soon identified as jealousy and quickly realised was just stupidity. But once I’d settled down and considered their date from all angles I’d had an unwelcome epiphany — one I’m still grappling with.
At the last ceremony, when only two remain, I’ll bet anything Jaguar’s been told he has to bite the one he doesn’t choose.
That ceremony can’t be fudged. Starlen can’t suck the loser.
The bachelor must bite to the death the one he doesn’t want to marry.
And who, of all the contestants, has he bitten twice because he loves the taste of her blood?
Me.
I’ve come to the realisation that he wants both Thorun and I at the final ceremony because he’s going to kill me.
The problem is, I don’t think it really matters if it is Thorun in the final two.
No matter what contestant is standing beside me, I think he’s going to only want to drink from me.
I’ve struggled to find any other scenario, any other strategy that might fit with him keeping his honour, keeping his vow not to bite women, and I can’t.
He’d told me that sometimes he has to kill women, not for food, but for other reasons.
And he’d said that not every woman was good.
I’m not good, I know that. And then there’s the fact he’d already bitten me and liked it so much that both times he struggled to stop. The third time is the charm.
‘There’s no doubt about it. He’s going to kill me.’
I focus back on Thorun now as she calls my name.
“Cat.”
“Yes?”
“I wanted you to know that he asked me something, to do something, when we were together.”
“Thorun,” I growl and hold my hand up, “I’m not Sona. I don’t want to know.”
“No, stupid,” she laughs, “nothing like that. My God, who do you think I am?”
I frown and say nothing as she goes on.
“He asked me to protect you.”
“You?” I snort, “protect me?”
“Yes,” she shrugs and rolls her eyes, “and I thought that was very strange. But I thought I’d just pass that on since you, well, you know.”
“What?” I scowl.
“Since you’ve accepted we’re friends now, and you and he…”
“Thorun, you’re moving me to violence,” I throw my hands into the air in agitation, “what are you getting at?”
“I just,” she shrugs, “I think you have feelings for him and he does for you, too.”
“Bullshit,” I snap. “I don’t have any feelings for him.”
‘Do I? Why was I so jealous about his date? Why can’t I stop thinking about that kiss? Why does it hurt to know he’s chosen someone else and probably plans to murder me when I know that’s all part of the Game?’
“Well,” Thorun shrugs, “You both have an awful lot in common.”
“Like what?”
“Like you both like sailing, you both like cooking, you obviously have a similar sense of humour. And, well, the obvious one; you both kill people.”
“I don’t like killing people, Thorun,” I scowl.
“Neither does he.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I shrug, turning away to end the conversation. “None of it matters.”
“It does if you came here for love,” she says quietly.
“I didn’t,” I snap, “now let’s get packing.”
Frustratingly, she sits down and shakes her head.
“Why did you come into the Games, Cat? You’ve never said.”
“Basta cosi! Why the sudden urge to share? I’m starting to wish I’d kept Sona around just so I don’t have to have these bizarre heart-to-hearts with you.”
She shrugs.
“We’re two friends about to spend a long winter together and we probably won’t survive this last challenge unless we trust each other and know more about each other.”
“You know all you need to know,” I snap.
“Why?” She asks again, the inference obvious.
“You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”
“No,” she grins.
‘Ah, where’s the harm in telling her? Even if the cameras are rolling, it’s something I’m sure the crew have already worked out. This late in the Game I don’t even care if the audience at home knows, although probably the producers will edit out my conversation anyway.’
“I entered the Games because I was running from someone. I wanted a protector, I wanted immortality, ‘although that’s apparently not on offer,’ and I wanted to be in a position of power to exact my vengeance upon someone who hurt me.”
“Your best friend?”
“No. I already killed her, I told you that.”
“Then who?”
“A man.”
I expect her to wax lyrical about something wise her grandmother once said, or try and hug me, or any number of things, but instead she rises and picks up the list I’d thrown on the coffee table.
“We can each take three of the listed items.” She purses her lips as I shake my head at her contrary ways.
“Yes,” I frown, “but no weapons. It’s a new twist on the Game, and it’s worrying.”
“You’ll be without your bra,” she laughs.
“Pardon?”
“Oh, it’s just how I think of you.”
“Thorun,” I sigh, “half of me doesn’t want to ask you this, but I know I’m going to.”
She giggles and waves the list at me.
“It’s a grandmother story.”
“God save me,” I groan, “go on.”
“My grandmother and I used to go to town once a week to shop and visit friends, but then she stopped, and she wouldn’t tell me why.
She’s very popular on the island, and people look up to her, and I guess she’s kind of an unofficial leader of the community.
So it was weird that she would suddenly not want to go out.
It took me ages to find out why, but eventually she told me it was because she couldn’t get her bra on; the arthritis in her fingers prevented her from doing up the catch.
I told her not to be so silly; no one would notice with our big heavy coats if she was wearing a bra, but she insisted she couldn’t go to town without it.
She couldn’t deal with seeing or talking to people, couldn’t be confident and at her best if she didn’t have it on.
Each week after that, before we went to town, I helped her put it on, and I came to kind of think of it as her armour.
She didn’t need it, because people would respect her regardless, but she believed she did, and it gave her the confidence she needed to go out. ”
“How the fuck does that relate to me?” I shake my head, frowning.
“You think you’re at your best and you’re most confident, when you have weapons. But just like my grandmother, you don’t really need them. People will still respect you, regardless. Weapons and keeping people at arm’s distance are your armour, but you’re strong without either of those things.”
“Thorun,” I sigh heavily, “you’ve lived a very sheltered life.
I envy you that. When you talk about your family and your island and how your community all care for one another, it’s like you’ve come from another planet, one that I could only dream of growing up on.
But it’s made you very naive. People respect power.
Power comes with strength, and strength must be demonstrated.
My bra, my weapons, are just a part of that, but for me, they’re a big part.
I don’t need them to be respected. I grew up in a very different world from yours. I need them to be safe.”
‘I don’t bother mentioning her ‘arm’s distance’ comment. If that’s my armour, then so be it. That too had kept me safe.’
“If you say so,” she shrugs.
“I can’t believe I just called weapons a bra,” I roll my eyes. “You and your grandmother are rotting my brain. Can we please just get back to choosing our camping gear?”
She giggles and nods.
“I’ll take a tomahawk, a shovel and a tarpaulin. You’ll take a flint, a pot and a knife.”
“That’s it?” I frown. “No sleeping bag, no tent, no fishing items? I know Miranda selected fishing gear. She said anyone who didn’t was a fucking idiot.”
“Cat, we don’t need those things. If we’re going to survive in the snowy wilderness for months we need items to help us build a shelter and cook food.
Everything we take needs to be light enough for us to pack up quickly and move easily.
And I mean technically you could probably kill someone with some of these items. Right? ”
“Yes, if I was in a hand-to-hand situation, but we also have to survive the elements.”
“And we will,” she says firmly. “Trust me as I’ve trusted you these past weeks.”
“Right,” I nod. “You'd better hope we don’t get separated; my three items look like a Girl Scout weekend gone wrong.”
She sniggers, and I shake my head, adding quietly, “don’t let anyone else know what we’re taking.”
“Why?” She murmurs, keeping her head low so her expression is hidden from the others in the room.
“Because people will target those with items they desire even before they target the people they truly want to eliminate. We’re not all Bear Grylls.”
“OK,” She says quietly, before winking and saying loudly, “but I need my pillow, Cat. It’s not a want, it’s a need.”
I play along, trying not to laugh.
“You can’t take your fucking pillow, Thorun, for Christ’s sake.”
The others in the room snort and shake their head.
Silke gives us a contemplative look, but everyone else seems to buy Thorun’s idiocy, which is exactly what we want.
Underestimating us hopefully will get us through to the end, although how Thorun is going to claim a kill, I have no idea.
And just how I’m going to survive the wild long enough to murder Silke is also still unclear.
“A sleeping bag, then?” Thorun whines
“Yes, you can take that, now please, let me think!”
I turn from her, quickly slip the three small items she told me to pack into my bag, and leave the room.