Chapter Nine #2
Seven other heads looked their way. Valerie opened her mouth, hoping an excuse would miraculously pop into her head, but then Adrienne answered without missing a beat.
“Got stuck on the other side of the island looking for wild mint and thyme.” In fact, she said it with such conviction, Valerie was surprised neither of them was holding sprigs of the green bounty.
“The tide came up and we couldn’t get back over the rocks. ”
Niko turned toward the ocean and, wondrously, the tide had crept higher up the beach.
The waves were now crashing closer to the fire pit than they had been earlier.
“How did you manage then?” she asked, and suddenly Valerie found Niko to be the most annoying woman in the entire universe.
Which was big, considering that an hour ago Adrienne had held that title.
“I mean, I’m just trying to paint a picture here. You two have been gone for ages.”
“Nearly two hours,” Hallie said, picking at a blister on her heel.
Sienna, who had just poked a charred stick into a few embers, frowned. “That long?”
“Valerie,” Adrienne said, tilting her head toward her.
But instead of giving an explanation as to how Valerie had managed to get them out of the situation, Adrienne walked right past the fire, sat down on an overturned log, and then glanced up at Valerie with a tilt of her head.
Worse than that, she was smiling. And a smug smile at that.
Valerie considered giving Adrienne her title of most annoying person on the island back but couldn’t. Not after what Adrienne had done with her tongue.
“Umm...,” Valerie muttered, buying time. “It wasn’t anything drastic. I just found a higher ledge that we managed to scramble onto and over.”
“She pulled me up by my waist,” Adrienne chirped. Were her eyes flirty, or was Valerie just imagining it? Did it matter? “She’s basically Iron Woman.”
There was a moment of pause, followed by an even bigger moment of panic. What if Niko didn’t believe them? Was Valerie hauling Adrienne up by her waist even plausible? Did she have enough upper-body strength? Would Niko make her do push-ups to demonstrate?
And why the hell was Adrienne making things worse?
Or, more importantly, why was Adrienne’s smug face such a turn-on?
But then Niko gave one accepting nod before gesturing toward the other side of the beach.
“Well, you’re just in time. Eden and Isla are back from their reward.
The boat dropped them off a minute ago.” It quickly became apparent that while Eden, Valerie, and Adrienne were gone, Niko had taken the place of alpha female.
Valerie followed her finger and spotted Eden and Isla walking toward them.
Judging by the dreamy, complacent looks on their faces, they’d both clearly stuffed themselves full of food.
Valerie would expect nothing less. To this very day she could remember her first-ever reward, consisting of tire-sized margaritas and the way the tequila had hit her bloodstream after days of rice and beans.
Her brain had turned into a fuzzy, floating soap bubble.
And the shower where Valerie had caked herself in bergamot oil and stood with her face in the spray, wishing it would never end.
“How was the feast?” Sienna asked when both Isla and Eden had taken up an empty space around the circle.
It appeared none of them had any chores to do, and everyone was starved for details.
The camera crew included. There were three in total, with shoulder-mounted cameras directed straight at the circle.
“Amazing,” Eden sang. Valerie was sure this was a mirage of sorts, but even Eden’s tattoos looked brighter and more radiant. “The boat dropped us at this hidden cove with a waterfall. We both stood under it for ages before the food arrived.”
“How was the food?” Niko asked, half drooling. Her shaggy wolf cut looked more like a sad, wet dog than anything else. “And do not spare any details.”
Eden laughed a singsong laugh. “Let’s just say I’ve never eaten so well in my life.
” She inhaled, dragging out the details.
“The fish was swimming in lemon juice, with skin so crispy I’m sure I’m going to hear the crackle in my dreams tonight.
And the saganaki... I love cheese, but that took cheese to a whole new level.
And they kept bringing us warm pita baskets. ”
A collective, physically pained ache ripped right through camp. Valerie felt it deep in her gut. It appeared Adrienne had too. She was chewing on her lip as if it were freshly baked bread.
Valerie tried to catch her eye, but Adrienne was staring at the fire, at the flames licking the blackened rice pot.
Valerie willed Adrienne to look her way, but then caught herself.
This wasn’t a love story. Hooking up didn’t magically turn Adrienne into someone Valerie liked. Or at least it shouldn’t have.
Did it?
“There was too much food,” Isla said dreamily. She leaned back against a stump and patted her stomach, which once upon a time was as flat as a pancake. “We got through half.”
“What was your favorite part?” Tamera asked, sitting with her chin on her bent knees. Her blonde hair was in two French braids, and her faded Yeah Nah shirt was torn at the collar.
Isla laughed out loud. Then, almost immediately, her smile turned guilty. But what exactly could she be guilty of? “Would it be criminal if I said it was eating food without interruption?”
Valerie frowned.
Amy laughed. “My sister has twins as well. They’re four now, but for the first two years of their lives, Tina and Andrew never did anything in the evenings. No date nights. They couldn’t even curl up on the sofa and binge on TV. It was always witching hour after five.”
Twins? What? Did Isla have twins? Like human twins?
Valerie glanced around the circle, at Carmen, at Tamera, and Safiya.
Even Adrienne. But none of them looked even remotely surprised that Isla was quite possibly a mother.
Apparently taking a break from social media, until the whole Adrienne stalking thing of course, meant missing out on other people’s big milestones.
“They keep us busy,” Isla said. “Especially Francis. She’s got a will of her own.”
Valerie had a few follow-up questions. Who had carried?
Had they done IUI or reciprocal IVF? How did the whole two-mom family dynamic work for them?
Valerie would be lying if she said she hadn’t pictured a little dark-haired toddler with a milk moustache, stained fingers from picking wild salmonberries, and the sound of little rubber boots splashing furiously in rainwater puddles on the deck of a boat.
One day, when she was all grown up, she wanted that.
She wanted a family. She wanted Harriet to get the chance to be a grandmother.
But she didn’t ask Isla about her family because Eden, who looked seemingly appalled that the subject had drifted onto children, cleared her throat.
“We have some bad news, though,” she said.
Then, without missing a beat, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out an old, weathered-looking envelope.
Valerie’s stomach dropped to the sand. Every cell within her body filled with a sense of dread.
The Sending. Already? The thought of voting someone out tonight suddenly felt horrible.
Real. And frankly, Adrienne was the obvious choice.
Which would’ve been fine yesterday, or even this morning.
Valerie would’ve voted for Adrienne herself if she could have.
She even would’ve convinced everyone around camp that she didn’t deserve to stay.
But now...
Now things were complicated. The idea of Adrienne leaving the island made something unpleasant twist in Valerie’s stomach.
Not just because of what had happened on the rocks.
Wait, that was a lie. Of course, it was all about what happened on those rocks, and in that small cluster of pine trees.
It would take hours, maybe even days, for Valerie to shake the feeling of Adrienne’s hands sliding along her thighs or the raspiness in Adrienne’s breathing as she whispered, ‘how badly do you want me?’ Valerie swallowed hard, but it appeared her twisty intestines weren’t going anywhere.
Ugh! This was exactly why hooking up with people in this game was stupid.
“Tonight,” Eden read, her eyes flicking down to the piece of parchment she’d slipped out of the envelope.
“You will all attend your first Sending. There, beneath the light of the island, loyalties will be tested, whispers will become votes, and new alliances may prove as fragile as the footprints in the tide.”
Valerie ignored the icy chill sliding down her spine and glanced across the fire pit. She expected Adrienne to be looking anywhere else. But she wasn’t. She was staring directly at Valerie and for the first time ever, Adrienne looked genuinely scared.