Chapter 10
I wake up just after sunrise the next morning, my eyes bleary and my mind feeling like it’s full of fog.
Careful not to rouse my tribemates, I make my way out of the shelter and sit by the fire, or what remains of it after I banked it last night, and make myself a cup of tea.
I sip it as I look out over the ocean, focusing on the sound of the waves rolling in.
Normally, I wouldn’t be up this early, but I slept even more poorly than usual.
I couldn’t stop thinking about my conversation with my tribemates last night, and sleep was the furthest thing from my mind until the wee hours of the morning.
I knew that Katie and Marina had personal issues outside of the game, but I didn’t know the depths of them until last night.
I’m glad that they were willing to open up to me, but part of me is afraid that’ll just make it all the more painful when and if I have to get rid of them.
I mean, I barely knew Joe or Ashley, and I didn’t enjoy voting them out.
How much will it hurt if I eventually have to stab Katie in the back, or Marina or Rhonda?
The problem is that I need my alliance to stick together for at least the next few votes.
If we don’t, the Sikas will outnumber us at the merge, and none of us Merus will have a shot at winning.
I need my alliance to trust each other, and that means we need to know each other, to like each other.
I just wish the idea wasn’t so enticing, particularly when it comes to Cole.
The truth is that ever since my parents died, I’ve had trouble getting close to people, and Arielle’s recent troubles have only made it harder.
What’s the point in opening myself up to someone if they’re going to be taken away from me?
And this time it’ll be even worse, because there will be someone to blame—either my alliance will be mad at me for voting them out, or vice versa.
As much as I like the three women, I think they’d understand if I were to vote them out.
But Cole just seems so easy-going, so ready to accept what the world has to throw at him, in a way that almost perfectly complements my own anxious nature.
If he got voted out, maybe he’d accept it with grace and a grin, or maybe he’d take it even harder than the others would.
All I know is that the closer I get to him, the less I want to find out which it would be, for my own sake as much as his.
And that scares me, because the only way I can avoid sending him home and still have a chance at winning the game is to sit next to him at the final two, and I don’t think I can beat him, not if the others are feeling even half of the effect that he has on me.
I’m so caught up in my own thoughts that when I hear someone clear their throat behind me, I almost jump ten feet into the air.
“Sorry if I startled you, chile,” Rhonda says, sitting down across from me. She busies herself with making coffee before glancing up at me, a light frown creasing her face. “You all right, honey? You look like somethin’s botherin’ you.”
I shake my head, as if I can make all my worries fly away. “I’m fine,” I tell her. “I guess I was just thinking, and I got distracted.”
“Oh?” she says, one eyebrow raised. “Anythin’ I can help with?”
I open my mouth to respond, then pause to consider my words.
I may hate it, but this is a game, and anything I say can and will be used against me later.
“Does it ever get to you?” I finally ask.
“The fact that we have to get to know each other and then vote each other out, I mean. It feels … wrong, in so many ways, but that’s what we have to do if we want to win, right? ”
Her quizzical expression fades to a sympathetic one, and she leans forward.
“Of course it bothers me,” she says gently.
“I think it’d get to anyone, except maybe for someone who’s truly heartless, and that definitely ain’t you.
” She sighs deeply. “You may not believe it, but I could barely sleep the night Ashley went home. I just kept thinkin’ about the fact that she went home because of me.
Sure, it was five of us that wrote her name down, but I was the one to suggest it, wasn’t I?
” She shakes her head. “I tell myself that we all knew what we signed up for when we came out here, and that deep down all of us want the same thing: to make life easier for the ones we love. You got your sister, Cole has his momma, I’ve got my son.
Even if we ain’t always perfect along the way …
well, we’re doing it for the right reasons.
And if that ain’t enough, then I don’t know what is. ”
We sit in silence for a few moments after that while I ruminate on what she said. “Thank you for putting it into perspective,” I say eventually, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. “Do you actually tell yourself that? Or were you just being rhetorical?”
“Oh, I most certainly do,” she replies, her voice firm. She gives me a wink, the corners of her mouth turned up slightly. “And sometimes, I even believe it.”
Day 15
Our seventh immunity challenge, on day fifteen, isn’t held in the same place as the others.
Instead, the motorboat takes us to a large rectangular platform floating about a hundred feet from shore.
The platform has purple and blue mats, as well as a podium, so I’m guessing this is where the challenge will begin.
Also in the ocean, perhaps ten feet away from us, float two smaller platforms, each holding something that looks like a hollow cylinder topped by a funnel.
The cylinders are made of rings connected by struts, so we can see through them to the shore.
Like the mats, one is painted purple, and the other is blue.
The platforms they’re standing on must be tethered to the seafloor because they don’t move with the waves.
Beyond those, about halfway to the beach, there are two markers, about the size of basketballs, bobbing on the surface of the water.
There are also a few other rafts, but I assume they won’t be part of the challenge because they have cameras set up on them.
As usual, we’re all silent during the motorboat ride from our beach, but this time I think we’d all be quiet even if we were allowed to talk.
We all know the merge—the end of the tribe phase and the beginning of the individual phase of the game—will come soon.
Unless there’s a twist, at that point all the remaining players will come together and live on the same beach, as one big tribe.
After that, all the challenges will be for individual immunity rather than tribal immunity, meaning that instead of one tribe being immune and the other going to tribal council, everyone who’s left in the game will go to tribal, with only one person having immunity at any given time.
That will continue until there are only two people left; at some point, the people who are voted out will join the jury, meaning they’ll be able to vote one of the two remaining people to win.
It’s a massive shift in the game, and getting all the way to the end will require correspondingly massive shifts in our thinking.
More importantly, this challenge could be our last chance to get an advantage over the other tribe.
Usually, but not always, the tribes merge when there are ten people remaining.
Assuming the pattern holds, that means we’ve got two more tribal challenges left.
Since the two tribes are even right now, if we win both challenges, we’ll be up six to four when we merge, and we can just get rid of the Sikas one by one.
But if we lose them both, then we’ll be the ones at a disadvantage.
We all know the stakes, and I don’t doubt the other tribe does too.
Alex is waiting for us when we arrive, with two burlap sacks next to him.
Once both tribes are on our respective mats, the cameras turn on, and he gives us his TV smile.
“Welcome to today’s immunity challenge,” he says.
“First things first: I’ll take back the idol.
” He takes the wooden idol from Cole and places it on the podium.
“You are once again playing for immunity. However, before we get to today’s challenge, there’s a twist.”
I hear collected groans, as well as a few cheers, from both tribes. I don’t say anything, but my heart begins to speed up, and my mouth goes dry.
Outwardly ignoring our reactions, Alex bends down and picks up one of the sacks at his feet.
“Inside this bag are six rocks: four purple and two blue,” he says, hefting the sack.
“Meru, each of you will reach into the bag, without looking, and draw one of the rocks. Those of you who draw a purple rock will remain on Meru, while the other two will join Sika immediately.” He points to the sack at his feet.
“Sika, your bag holds four blue rocks and two purple rocks. As with the other tribe, the two of you who draw the purple rocks will join Meru. We’re going to do this before the immunity challenge, so you will compete with your new tribemates. ”
He pauses to let it sink in, and I frown as my mind runs through the implications.
Based on the numbers, I’m guaranteed to lose at least one of my alliance members, and possibly two.
If it’s the latter, Jing might take the opportunity to team up with the newcomers, making it three on three against me and whoever else is left.
And that’s if I don’t switch to Sika myself, which is a one in three chance—if that happens, I’d be going into a situation where it’s four against two at best. Either way, I’m going to have my work cut out for me.