Kalpana wakes early and finds Araminta posing on the beach, spandex stretching over taut muscles as a drone hovers nearby.
“I want Valerie off the island,” Kalpana says.
Araminta lowers her foot slowly, giving herself time. Her first thought is that she’s lying, that it’s a clear effort to manipulate her even more than Valerie being on this island already has. But what if it’s not? Could it be possible that Kalpana’s and Rhys’s interests align? And what does that mean for her if they do? Rhys would never be happy with her talking to Kalpana, let alone colluding with her.
She should go back to the house immediately and tell Rhys she spoke to her before he can hear it from someone else.
“No you don’t,” Araminta says, snatching up her water bottle like she’s about to walk away.
“I think this whole situation was messy enough without her,” Kalpana says. “It’s not her fault, but she’s made everything worse.”
“Sure.” Araminta takes a step.
Kalpana: Valerie wants to expose Rhys and so do I. But I’m not keeping Araminta on here as some tool to reveal the worst of him. We do differ in one key way: I want Araminta to lose. I want her to go home tonight.
“And I don’t think it’s fair that someone could come into this competition so late in the game and potentially win.”
Araminta’s breath catches and she knows she should carry on walking away, knows she should not entertain this.
But her heel drags, her reluctance palpable. Finally, she shuts her eyes and says, “I’m listening.”
While Kalpana distracts Araminta, Valerie goes to Rhys. He’s on the patio, rubbing tanning lotion into his calves, skin glinting in the sun. When he looks up, there’s a split second where her gut does not remember all the hurt, where her brain misfires on old signals that have her attentive and aching.
When his lip curls, her mind rights itself in a painful lurch.
Valerie: The thing you have to bear in mind is that up until two weeks ago, I was Araminta.
“You’re still here then. I’d half hoped it was a nightmare.”
“Rhys, please,” she says, letting that hurt seep in. All the pain she replaced with anger she dredges back up. “I…I’m sorry.”
Rhys huffs derisively. “For what? Your behavior? For coming on the show at all?”
“For whatever I did that made you leave me.”
He perks up at this, though he tries to hide it by rubbing lotion into his arm. “I made it perfectly clear what I expected in a partner. You always pushed it to its limit. And then to come on here and yell at me in front of everyone? It’s pathetic.”
“I know I shouldn’t have done that.” She nods, voice small. She crosses to sit beside him. He doesn’t tell her not to. “I didn’t realize how much it would hurt me to see you with her.”
“So you reacted like a child throwing a tantrum? Congratulations, Val. You would have struggled to find someone who treated you as well as I did and who loved you as much as I did anyway. After that little performance you’ve just ensured no decent man will ever look twice at you.”
“Maybe the only decent man I care about is looking at me right now,” she says, making her eyes big and wide and pleading. She’s going to throw herself at this man’s feet, knowing he’ll trample her.
Rhys hesitates at that, and something shifts in his gaze—cold rage to pity and, as she expected, a hint of desire. Rhys loves broken things; it’s why he creates them.
“I’m with Araminta,” he says. “I love Araminta.”
“I think you love me too,” she says, reaching for him, trailing her fingers along his arm, and when he does not swat her hands away, she reaches for his face, strokes the smooth planes of his cheek, and leans in. “I came here to win you back.”
He leans in too, barely a breath apart. “And why would I dig through the trash for scraps I discarded weeks ago?”
Valerie: Which means no matter how much I hate him, no matter how much I wish I could become some femme fatale vigilante, he’s always going to have the upper hand. He’s always going to be able to hurt me.
She wasn’t aware she had anything still standing in her heart to crumble until it falls.
“If you didn’t love me, you wouldn’t enjoy upsetting me so much. That’s what you always said, right? That I ignited some extreme passion in you, that everything was so intense with me?”
“Those fires have died.”
She lets her hand fall and stands abruptly. “Fine. I’ll see if Jerome cares for my affections instead then, shall I?”
Rhys catches her wrist and spins her back to him. “Don’t you dare,” he warns, voice low and smooth.
He notices the goose bumps that shiver across her skin.
“Rhys!” Araminta is on the deck, arms folded, glare murderous and voice terse. “Can I have a word?”
Behind her, Kalpana stares, horrified, like this was not always the plan.
Alone with him, Araminta unleashes her tirade in a sweeping tide. “I can’t believe you! Why would you give her the time of day, let alone do whatever that was. I—”
“Araminta, Araminta.” Rhys repeats her name in a breathy laugh. “My love, I was using her!”
“She was flirting with you!”
“Yes, she was trying to manipulate me. She was just playing the game—you can’t let her get to you like this.” He holds Araminta’s arms like he would reassure her, but she breaks out of them, nearly slipping on the sand in her haste to step away.
“She’s not the one getting to me!”
“I was humoring her! Trying to find out what she wanted, why she was here. Stop overreacting.”
“I’m not overreacting; I’m reacting!”
“What about how I’m reacting? Have you once thought to ask me how I am with all of this? I told you how deeply triggering Valerie is for me and how much she’s scarred me. Yet all I’ve done from the moment they blindsided me with my worst trauma is make sure you’re okay.”
Araminta presses her lips together to stop from crying. “God, you’re right. I’m so sorry, Rhys. If we were on the outside of course I wouldn’t care, but this place is too small, these challenges too enormous. I’m not sure I’ll cope if she stays. What if she wins the vote tonight and is here until the end? I…I just want her gone.”
“Okay.” Rhys closes the distance again, and this time when he holds Araminta, she doesn’t push back. “If you want her gone, then we’ll make that happen.”
All seven of them lounge on the beach, Valerie locked in conversation with Jerome in a way that straddles her position: leading him on enough to make him believe he stands a chance but not so much Rhys thinks she genuinely wants him. It is clear he is always the goal.
She tries with the others too, but Isko doesn’t care. He might vote himself out—after all, he cannot win anyway, not with Rhys still dangling that leverage, and Theo is already sold on her over nearly everyone else.
Theo: Honestly, the only one I wouldn’t trade Valerie for is Kalpana.
It is not relaxing; they are just pretending it is. The tension is palpable, the number wrong, and everyone wants to speed to the end of this challenge for the world to right itself.
Araminta and Rhys are so wholly absorbed in each other that it takes everyone by surprise when Araminta surfaces to say, “Anyone in the mood for a game?”
Maybe it will be a way to expel this energy, or to at least remind them that it is not that serious, just a competition—just entertainment. Or maybe it will allow them some small taste of the victory they crave.
In their hunt to invent activities, Jerome presents flag football, or the variation of it they can concoct on this island. Suit ties tucked at the edges of their shorts and bikini briefs, and teams assigned, a simple task: Try to get the other ties without losing yours. First team to get all three of their opponent’s ties wins.
Rhys runs his finger around the edge of Araminta’s bikini, drawing her tight. “I know who I’m trying to get first.”
Then they are separated: Kalpana, Araminta, and Valerie versus Jerome, Rhys, and Theo.
Isko referees.
The game is ridiculous, full of loud squealing and yelping as people duck and weave. In the edit, they overlay it with upbeat music that makes the whole thing comedic—but the reality is vicious. When lunges miss, they bristle—when someone gets too close, they could bite.
Kalpana is out first, Theo reaching her before she can react.
Then Jerome, Valerie laughing as she draws the tie from him, winking at him like the whole thing is flirtatious.
Back in the game and they are running, panting, desperate for the win.
It happens quickly—Rhys running for Valerie, feinting toward Araminta and turning back at the last moment, losing his balance and colliding into her.
They both go down hard.
Valerie screams.
Rhys rolls off her, apologies falling from his lips, crouching down to help her.
He’s shoved aside by Kalpana, who turns on him even as she tries to help Valerie to her feet.
“You fucking arsehole, you did that on purpose!”
Valerie’s shock is wearing off and the pain is blistering to the surface.
“Of course it wasn’t on purpose!” Rhys protests. “My foot sank in the sand.”
“It looked pretty intentional to me,” Theo spits.
Valerie is sobbing now, clutching her shoulder. Theo tries to examine the wound, poking carefully at swollen flesh, and Valerie howls.
“Old…injury,” she chokes out.
Kalpana turns back on Rhys, nostrils flaring, fists curling.
Kalpana: Of course it was intentional—he lunged at her. He knew she had a problem with her shoulder, and he did it knowing she’d go down on that side.
A tender is already approaching from one of those AHX ships.
When it arrives, a handful of people jump out—the medic who examined Araminta, the driver, and a man with a clipboard who calls for them all to go back up to the villa or the pool and wait for AHX’s clearance before returning to the beach.
They leave Valerie crying in the sand.
The moment Kalpana steps from the rough dirt path onto the tiles of the patio, she rounds on Rhys.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“You tackled her on purpose.”
Rhys shakes his head and moves past her. “I’m not dignifying that with—”
“Yes you are,” Theo snaps. “You hurt her.”
“Yes, and I feel awful about it, Newman! Dear god, what is wrong with you all? Do you really care so much about this competition that you think someone would injure another contestant over it? Let alone…” He glances at Araminta almost nervously. “Look, Valerie and I are messy, but that history between us? It means something to me. I don’t want her harmed!”
“I don’t know, guys,” Jerome says nervously, glancing from Rhys to the beach. “I really doubt he did that on purpose.”
“I’m sure that’s what he’d love us to think,” Kalpana says, seething, her nails piercing her arms in her fury.
“Isko, you’re the referee; what do you think?” Rhys asks.
Isko meets Rhys’s eye with something like a challenge. Does he truly want to keep pushing him like this?
But then Isko checks out, no longer caring much at all and happy to let Rhys pull the strings.
“Of course it was an accident. Pull yourselves together. Is this whole thing not dramatic enough without you writing in more melodrama? Now can we please do what we do best and go get a drink?”
But it’s not enough to stop the wary glances, or the suspicion taking root that maybe everything Rhys does is intentional. And maybe the people who stand in his way get hurt.
Araminta and Rhys collapse into one of those wide, shaded sun beds and spend the whole afternoon fully entwined and vacillating between soft, gentle caresses and passionate grasping.
Araminta: Of course Rhys didn’t hurt Valerie on purpose. He wouldn’t do that. Besides, even if he knew about the injury, you have to be quite specific to hit a shoulder, right? Besides, what does it achieve except for Valerie losing an hour or two to convince us to keep her. And even if—no, no, of course he didn’t do it intentionally. He said he didn’t.
But an hour later and Valerie hasn’t returned, and two hours later when they check the edges of the beach there’s no one to be found.
“They might have taken her somewhere for tests, but I’m sure she’ll be back,” Theo assures Kalpana, who cannot settle without knowing what’s happened.
By the time they sit down to dine, there’s still no sign of her.
Rhys’s arm stretches across Araminta’s shoulders, and she leans against him unconvincingly.
Araminta: I hope she stays gone, but I also feel guilty about that and am terrified for whatever the next challenge is, given what the last one brought. Honestly, I’m just so, so tired.
Rhys is lost in a story—the worst audition he ever had, a role he so richly deserved.
Kalpana stabs a piece of lettuce with such force it scratches the enamel off the plate.
Rhys arches a deliberate eyebrow. “My dear, if it offends you so much, don’t eat it.”
“The salad isn’t really what’s offending me,” she mutters. “Though I’m sure I’m thankful for your concern.”
Rhys rolls his eyes. “Alright then, Kalpana. Why don’t you tell us what is offending you.”
“You mean beyond you shoving your ex-girlfriend and winding your current one even further around your finger? Oh, you mean in that story? Sure, let’s recap—you turned up fifteen minutes late to an audition and asked the female director to get you a coffee. But somehow holding that against you is unprofessional because it has nothing to do with the art. Which she probably didn’t anyway—you just weren’t good enough, but you think you’re entitled to everything and not giving it to you is a disgrace.”
“And what are you basing that assessment of my character on? Or is this where you call me a Libra?”
“No, it’s where I call you a self-entitled prick.” She doesn’t miss a beat.
Rhys grips the table. “Why are you such a bitch all the damn time?”
Kalpana shrugs. “Entertainment? And I can’t fucking stand you, so that helps.”
“Stop it,” Araminta says quietly.
Kalpana rolls her eyes. “Oh, don’t you start. Just because he’s got you to shut up and sit pretty doesn’t mean he gets the rest of us to do it.”
Araminta doesn’t even blink.
“Don’t turn it to this again,” Jerome groans.
Isko takes a long sip of wine and leans back in his chair.
“Go on, Kalpana. Do you have something to say?” Rhys asks.
“I have several things to say,” she snaps.
“So I’ve heard—and so has half the island, right?”
“You know what your problem is?”
Rhys gives a bored sigh that doesn’t erase the contempt lingering in his voice. “No, why don’t you tell me what my problem is?”
“That you’re a deeply boring person and you can’t bear it, so you create all this turmoil to appear interesting because you’re terrified of being normal or anything less than the center of attention.”
Rhys’s expression is calm, but his eyes are so intently livid that Theo’s skin prickles in anticipation. “Sutton,” he warns, tone careful, like he’s approaching a feral dog.
Rhys turns that glare on him and speaks like his very name is a sneer: “I should have known you’d take her side on this, Newman.”
Theo sighs. “Why is everything a fight with you?”
“Because someone here has to have a backbone,” Rhys says. “And I’m not sure you’d know one if it was arched on your bed screaming your name.”
“How’s this for backbone: fuck off.”
“Inventive.”
Isko pours more wine, his eyes dancing with joy.
“Rhys,” Araminta says at the same time Kalpana says: “Theo.”
Their eyes meet.
The alarm rings.
“Good evening, contestants,” Eloise says, greeting them in solemn tones. “I’m afraid I have to deliver the sad news that Valerie has had to step back from the competition for now to seek further medical treatment. She’s all right, and wishes you the best of luck, but needs some time to rest and heal. She wanted to say that she hopes to see you all very, very soon.”
Kalpana: Rhys looked so fucking smug.
Araminta: Kalpana spent over an hour this morning telling me how much she wanted Valerie gone. And here she is, seething about it. I’m so sick and tired of everyone but Rhys trying to manipulate me.
“That does mean that we’re having to call this challenge short. While we do still want your rankings of each other, we think we’ll save it for tomorrow when we challenge you in our most exciting contest yet. Enjoy your evening—it might be your last before you’re all out for blood!”
They stare as the screen flashes black. At this point, they can only assume Eloise has a sick sense of humor.
Kalpana turns to Rhys, and when she speaks her voice is dark and furious. “I assume you’re happy.”
He doesn’t answer, just stands and grabs Araminta’s hand to pull her with him, pausing only to snatch up his glass before they disappear.
“He’s taking this ridiculously personally,” Jerome says with a shake of his head. “I should be the one storming off—the girl I was growing to really like just got kicked off.”
“Yeah, must be hard to have your five minutes of fame vanish,” Isko says, his voice quiet but carrying, like he doesn’t care one way or another if Jerome actually hears him.
“I don’t need a girl to get screen time, Isko.”
“Please, this show is about them. It is about Araminta and it is about Rhys. We are all incidental. I gave up on hoping for fame or even the prize long ago. I suggest you all do the same.” Isko finishes his drink and stands to get another.
Theo and Kalpana don’t really care. Kalpana doesn’t need to win—she needs to salvage what she could lose, and Theo is sure he’s had enough screen time to survive.
But Jerome could throttle him. Worse, that rational, analytical part of his brain recognizes that Isko’s right. He hadn’t thought it mattered all that much—that the people he needs to impress will gravitate toward him. And maybe it would have if the lawsuit weren’t happening. He’s not going to get followers like that; he needs to be so wildly successful that no one cares about his faults—a Musk-like figure who can bleed failure without his fans detecting a drop.
And that means he needs this competition to have a lasting impact—for himself, even on the periphery, to be eternal, not wiped out with the latest season. He needs a scandal, the type that will go down in history.
He just needs to figure out when and how.
And who.
Rhys leads Araminta through the house and out to the garden on the other side of the kitchen, the trees tall, dark tombs in the shadows.
He takes a long swig of whisky before he speaks. “If I’m near Kalpana for one more fucking minute I’m going to kill her.”
“Just ignore her.” Araminta tries not to sound weary.
“Ignore her? When she’s always attacking me for no good reason?”
Araminta knows it’s a losing battle, so she stays quiet, just walks up to him and wraps her arms around him. After a beat he sighs and leans into her as he strokes her hair.
“You’re the only thing keeping me sane here,” he says quietly.
They’ve spent so much time wrapped in each other today that she can still feel his hands on her, his lips trailing her skin, his leg pressing hers wide. Now, with his fingers in her hair, words whispered in her ear, she tilts her head back in surrender.
He kisses her tenderly, none of the desperation of earlier, none of the desire, just the need for something deeper. His thumb brushes the pulse jumping on her neck, and she pulls him closer.
“God, I love you,” he breathes.
“You should,” she says, smiling against him. “I’m pretty fantastic.”
He laughs and they break apart.
And then his smile falls. He looks toward the house. Only Jerome is visible, scouring the fridge for leftovers.
“They’re really getting under my skin tonight. All of them,” he says.
“Yeah,” Araminta admits. “I’ve actually been feeling kind of…oh, never mind.”
“What?” he asks, coiling a strand of her hair around his finger.
She shrugs. “I don’t know—lonely? I feel like I can’t talk to anyone here.”
Displeasure flashes across his face before it settles into concern. “You can talk to me.”
“Of course,” she hurries. “But the others—Isko hates me, Kalpana’s a bitch, Theo is a prick, and Jerome is a creep. The way they all sided with Valerie, didn’t even try to—”
“Am I not enough?” he asks, pulling away from her.
“Of course you are,” she says, clutching at his hand, trying to draw him back. “But we’re stuck on an island with them, and the fact this dynamic is so twisted is hard.”
Rhys rolls his eyes. “Yes, but you’ll make a big deal out of anything.”
“It’s not a big deal; I was just saying. Forget it, don’t worry.”
Rhys sighs. “Can you just, I don’t know, be there for me without making this about yourself? You took Valerie being here so personally you didn’t even stop to think about how I felt. Add to that the fact Kalpana has spent weeks tearing me apart and you’re making this about you.”
“I’m not.” Araminta pushes his arm off her and steps away. “I’m telling you I feel isolated and alone, and you’re telling me I’m making a big deal out of nothing?”
“I never said that,” he growls. “Fucking hell, Araminta. There’s not enough shit going on here without you making things up?”
“I’m not making things up.” Araminta crosses her arms, but every second she spends staring at him feels a colossal struggle.
“Yes, you are. Why? Does it make you look better if you turn me into a villain?”
“I’m not saying—”
“We both know you’re not exactly in the right headspace to see things as they really are.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You literally have an anxiety disorder. So what does this look like in your head? Poor Araminta with her cruel boyfriend who never listens to her? The whole world out to get her and none more so than me?”
Araminta shakes her head, nostrils flaring. “You’ve been a real arsehole lately, you know that?”
“Incredible, you can’t prove a point so you’re resorting to swearing. It’s not cute, Araminta, acting like a spoiled brat all the damn time.”
“I am a spoiled brat.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Haven’t you heard?”
“Oh, go cry me a fucking river, or better yet run off to Kalpana and cry in her arms. She’ll love that. Were you even going to tell me what she said to you this morning? Yeah, don’t think I didn’t catch that while I was talking to Valerie you were speaking with her. What were you doing, planning your next hook-up?”
“I don’t want to be with her,” Araminta snaps. “And I don’t know how many bloody times I have to tell you that.”
“Don’t you dare speak to me that way.” Everyone must be able to hear him now.
“And right now, I’m not sure I want to be with you either.” Now she’s shouting too.
“Is that right?” His eyes flash and his voice falls to a deathly quiet.
She swallows. “Maybe.”
They stare at each other, for the first time in all of this feeling like the only two people on the planet, no drones, no cameras, no microphones digging into their hips.
“I’m going to give you one chance to apologize right now.” His words are low, slicing through the close, humid air.
Isko opens the door, he and Kalpana walking out with packets of tobacco and cigarettes clutched in their hands that suggest they weren’t planning on being in frame right now, and from the way they look at Rhys and Araminta it’s clear they weren’t expecting them to be out here either.
“Arguing again? You two need to chill out,” Isko says.
“Go,” Rhys says, barking at him. They don’t have to be told twice.
He watches them leave, and Araminta can feel every step they take even if she can’t see it, something in her tightening with every inch away from her they get. Rhys turns to her, anger twisting still but something colder too, something cruel.
“I’m waiting,” he snarls.
Araminta fights it, that desperate urge to appease him. A tear escapes from the corner of her eye, and she rubs it away before he can use it against her.
He sees it anyway and laughs. “You’re fucking pathetic. You know why you’re not going to break up with me? Because no one else on this island can stand you. If you didn’t have me, you’d have no one.”
She risks a glance over her shoulder and sees that Kalpana and Isko have stilled on their walk, have turned to watch them.
Rhys watches her.
“What?” His anger swarms back and there’s no room for her out here, where his fury takes up all the space. “Why don’t you run after her then?”
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, and she’d like to shrink into herself, to disappear, but still there is relief at saying the words, at finally having them out there. “But I can’t do this right now.”
“What the hell does that mean? You—” She is turning, moving away. The glass is in his hand and then it is not; it is smashing against the wall.
Araminta screams and jumps, drops of his whisky clinging on her skin.
“Don’t fucking walk away from me when I’m talking to you!”
Araminta stares at him, just stares and stares, and he is looking at her, chest heaving.
Kalpana practically tackles into her. “Are you okay?” she asks, glaring at Rhys like it’s taking all she has not to kill him right now, not to grab one of those shards and tear into him. Araminta’s skin is icy, and Kalpana doesn’t know what she’s expecting—Araminta to lean against her for support or to push her away in disgust, but she doesn’t even flinch, might not even know she’s being held.
“It was only a fucking drink,” Rhys growls.
“Don’t talk to me again,” Araminta says. She wants it to sound strong, inflexible, stable at last. It’s sturdy like glass—cold and capable but threatening to shatter at any minute. “Don’t touch me. Don’t even look at me. Get your things out of my room and leave me alone—we’re done here.”
She shakes Kalpana off too, and this time when she turns no one stops her.
Rhys practically runs and Isko follows him. When Rhys reaches the beach he sinks to his knees in the sand, and Isko hovers behind him.
“You’re an idiot,” he says coldly, simply.
“I know,” Rhys exhales, staring out at the ocean. After a moment, he speaks again: “Do you think I’ve destroyed my chances?”
Isko considers. “No, I’m sure she’ll take you back once she calms down.”
“That’s not what I—never mind.” Rhys stands and turns to face him. He seems…Isko isn’t even sure. Whatever this expression is, it’s not one he’s seen before. “What do I do now?”
“Damage control, you mean?”
“I can’t believe she did that,” Rhys says, and it’s almost like Isko isn’t here, like he’s talking to himself but he’s staring at him so intently the entire time.
“What, broke up with you? Are we really going to talk about what she did and not what you did? What on earth were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” he says, rising to his feet.
“Well, I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.”
“It was a theatrical moment. You know how we all get swept up in feeling.”
“No.”
“Well, I do, Isko.” Rhys takes a step closer. “Everything always—a performance of emotions but it’s not faking it, it’s recalling it—you feign crying by thinking of something sad, elation the same, every emotion a memory. Sometimes, I just get swallowed whole by a feeling and it’s so intense, and this time it was anger.”
Isko stares at him.
Isko: I know how it sounds but…well, it’s true. That is what he’s like—a thousand emotions all at once and it’s a lot, but it’s intoxicating. He draws you into it.
“You don’t throw glasses at girls—”
“I didn’t throw it at her; I threw it at the wall. Christ, is that what everyone’s going to think? That I tried to hurt her? I was angry. I wanted the glass to smash for god’s sake, that’s all.”
Isko arches an eyebrow. “Well, I know that—I saw what happened—but don’t smash things when there’s a camera on you, regardless of the depth of your emotions.”
“Fuck the cameras, fuck all of this,” Rhys says. “I didn’t date her for the cameras, and we didn’t break up for them either. I feel the way I feel and I’m so fucking sick of considering an observer.”
“And us?” Isko can’t help but bring himself to ask. “I’m comforting you, Rhys, and how many times have you screwed me over in the name of an observer.”
Rhys stills and the calmness makes every second slow, like they’re both lingering in this moment. “I’m not sorry.”
“I know.”
“But I’d like to know you without concern for an audience,” Rhys says, and this time when Rhys looks at him, he feels more like he is being seen. He feels, possibly, like no one has ever seen him until now. Rhys looks at him like he’s the answer.
“Without the game?” Isko asks.
Rhys swallows and Isko watches as his throat lifts and falls. There’s something about him, something that goes far beyond attraction. Something Isko is almost afraid of.
“Without the game,” Rhys confirms, voice quiet, breathy.
Isko: I didn’t even consider it. It wasn’t a decision. It was just instant.
Isko grasps Rhys’s T-shirt and pulls him closer.
Rhys collides with him like it is the last thing he will ever do.
Which it isn’t—he has another twenty-two hours of life left.
@HenryHarrett
Me, every time Rhys does anything: huh, I wonder if this will be the final straw
AHX: this is fine
Like what’s it going to take for them to intervene? He’s a gaslighting, manipulative, ABUSIVE arsehole and it’s disgraceful that he still has a platform on the show. Petition below -sign and share! #Iconic
@ZoeTheWriter
Hey it’s actually possible to feel sorry for Araminta and ecstatic at Rhysko being canon again at the same time. #Iconic
@QuinnSimmons
⚠ PSA ⚠ The editing on that episode was REALLY misleading. Rhys was telling the truth, look at the footage on website! He didn’t throw that glass anywhere near Araminta. It was an expression of anger, not a threat!!! #Iconic
@ElMarsha
@QuinnSimmons you know that’s not the point, right? Every time a man is violent even if not in direct violation of you it’s a threat—every time a man punches a wall in anger or yes, throws a glass, it’s a way of saying look at what I could do to you
@QuinnSimmons
@ElMarsha lmao you are not serious right? HE BROKE A GLASS!!! It is not that deep!
@AngelaMarks
Damn this is so good!! #Iconic is the best show on TV!
The press has stopped calling them witnesses or suspects and started calling them the survivors. Worse, they surround the precinct, making it impossible to get them out, to let them go. Now that AHX has heard Isko has been released, that the charge fell through as soon as it was made, they’re furious—emails stream through that say the contestants were expected at the hotel an hour ago, that between the accommodation and the lawyers they’ve spent enough funding their case, that there is a line that has been crossed when it comes to their “good will.” It all ends with a thank you for the free publicity.
The suspects don’t talk as they wait in the foyer. They don’t even meet each other’s eyes. Jerome reads the posters, Theo draws up his hood to block them all out, Kalpana chews on a mint, and Alex, rushing through the doors after a series of interconnected flights, throws his arms around Isko and doesn’t let go.
They’ve been kept separate even at their hotel, police outside every door. The sight of them together now is almost anticlimactic.
And then all at once, they’re gone.
In the break room, Maes finds Cloutier and Kennard packing up their belongings.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t solve it.” She doesn’t need to say more. They’ve lost enough without her berating them further.
Kennard nods. “Thank you.”
Her phone buzzes—a notification, set to pull her away from work so she could enjoy that nightly episode with her daughters. Iconic, five minutes.
“Well,” she says, “do you want to?”
Kennard takes a shaky breath. “Yeah, might as well see this through.”
They pull kitchen chairs around the small, boxy TV. Cloutier takes Kennard’s hand. Kennard rests his head on the other man’s shoulder.
And like millions of other people around the world, they wait for the final episode to begin.
The contestants go to their hotel rooms and seal themselves off from the world and from each other. They haven’t said a word to one another since they left that island.
And they have an episode to watch.
Araminta makes it fifteen minutes before she abandons the screen. It’s a cement block of a hotel, near the airport, a whole floor secured for them so they won’t encounter the public, security at the doors to the stairs. She can’t go down so she goes up, a brick kicked against the door to the roof, and suddenly it’s a perfectly good smoking area.
She lights her cigarette while leaning so far over the railings she’s not sure falling would even be a choice; it’s simply up to fate. She watches the lights of homes in the distance and wonders how many people are watching her right now, not the version of her smoking on a rooftop but the version she was there, the version she will always be to the people who will forever wonder if maybe there was something more to Rhys’s death.
Isko doesn’t see her until it’s too late to turn around and pretend he wasn’t there. She looks up, meets his eyes, and neither says a word as he heads to a different spot on the roof. He sits on a vent and flicks the lighter.
They smoke in silence, marveling at how it still feels like they’re on that island—all this humid air, the scorching metal beneath their fingers.
“So did you do it?” Isko asks after fifteen minutes, so quietly he doesn’t expect Araminta to hear.
But she does, and to both their surprise, she laughs. “No,” she says, still not turning to him, still staring off at the planes taking flight in the distance, at the cars whizzing past below. “I wish I did it.”
Isko exhales sharply. It’s exactly the answer he should have expected, but it catches him off guard nonetheless.
Jerome arrives then, nodding awkwardly and skirting to the side. Araminta should go back inside, back to her hotel room. But she doesn’t want to. So she lights another, just for the excuse.
Jerome takes his time. He has to roll his first, and he thinks of how many he rolled on that island, in that little box of a smoking area.
Theo nearly turns around when he sees the others out there—seeing them gathered makes him think of a beach and desperation.
But he can’t bear the hotel room either, so he steps out onto the roof thinking that he hopes he never sees them again and also wondering whether there will be a reunion show.
Kalpana joins soon after.
“So none of us could take it then?” she asks but no one answers. She takes the remaining corner, doesn’t even want to look at the others, keeps her head down.
She’d thought it was over, had clung to that relief as she left the station. But then she switched on the TV and realized it will never be over—this will always mark her, she’ll always be a suspect, and if the police don’t reopen the case one day, the public will put them all on trial in other ways.
The thought has her struggling with her lighter, and her fumbling fingers send it flying. If she squints, she can see the green dot on the ground below.
“Fuck,” she says. The others look up, can only guess what happened.
“Here.” Isko tosses his and she just manages to catch it, brings the flame to the edge of her cigarette before going to throw it back.
“Keep it; Alex will have one. Besides, hopefully that’s my screen time over with,” he says, heading back inside before anyone can say anything else.
Kalpana’s eyes trace the horizon, so much farther than she could see on the island, where blue just merged with more blue. But her eyes are drawn back to that dot of green on the ground again.
It’s an awfully long way to fall.