The scene opens on blurry, black-and-white footage of two figures—one moment pressed against a wall, lips together, hands clutching at whatever they can grasp, and then something moving beneath a sheet.
Chilling, eerie music plays—after all, everyone watching knows how this ends.
The Iconic logo appears.
It starts raining at midnight. By four, the lighter sleepers give up. There are several hours during which they toss and turn and contemplate rising, but they manage to do it together. In the hallway between their rooms, Isko collides with Araminta.
He has hastily thrown an unbuttoned shirt on, and his hair is disheveled as he emerges from Rhys’s room. Araminta’s eyes are red, her skin pallid. She stares at him like he’s crushed her.
“Araminta,” he says softly, but she’s already running down the stairs. He hesitates, just for a moment, contemplating letting her go. Then he runs after her.
He doesn’t know why he follows her other than to prove that he can, that he isn’t scared of her. He had sex with her ex-boyfriend just a few hours ago. He could run in the opposite direction, but he doesn’t; he follows her.
She stops in the kitchen, staring outside at the haze of rain, and he wonders if she will run out into it. It seems exactly the sort of thing she would do, to insist on more drama, always more drama, the perfect shot.
But she turns.
“Isko,” she says, nodding like nothing is wrong. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he says.
She watches him, waiting.
He goes to speak but can’t think of anything to say. He doesn’t want to apologize; he’s done nothing wrong. But he can’t bring himself to ask if she’s okay, because what if she’s not?
“Well?” he demands.
“Well, what?”
“Say something. I can’t stand this silence.”
She looked on the verge of falling apart but now she stands straighter. He has shocked her out of it, and now her outrage contorts and her lips twist and she folds her arms across her chest. “All right, how was it?”
He rolls his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Okay, how many times was it? Do you need me to find out what he thought again? Oh, should we maybe exchange contact details, you know, just so we can compare STI tests when we get home?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Isko says.
“Well, what did you want me to say, Isko?” she asks, feigning shock. “What exactly were you hoping for here?”
“I thought you were better than all this cattiness.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“You took him from me first, you know.”
“Seriously? You’re engaged!”
“I’m just saying you don’t get to be annoyed at me for sleeping with someone you slept with when you did the same thing.”
“You slept with the man I love so that he could avenge himself. Presumably mere minutes after we broke up.” Her eyes run over him, a quick look up and down, the perfect disgusted sneer.
Araminta: They literally hooked up when we were together! I’m not angry with Isko, but I’m not going to pretend he’s not twisting the knife Rhys stabbed me with.
“You didn’t break up because of me.”
“No, I broke up because of him. But if you’re looking for my blessing then you’re not going to find it here.”
“I slept with him because I wanted to,” Isko says. “I just…wanted to be clear it wasn’t about you. I didn’t do it to spite you.”
“No, that was all him.”
Isko laughs. “Well, not just that. I’m sure I hold some appeal. I don’t think us having sex is wholly about his revenge fantasy.”
Araminta just stares at him for a moment. And then the worst thing happens: he sees pity. “Oh, darling,” she says, “you know better than that.”
She struts from the room without another glance.
He watches her leave, trying to ignore that voice in his head saying she’s right.
Araminta: I…I don’t even think it’s just the heartbreak. It’s that I’m heartbroken again. And to realize the truth of all the things that I spent so long denying and fighting against, because of course that couldn’t be true, because that would never happen to a girl like me. Because I’d know better. God, I think maybe he really did intentionally hurt Valerie too…
Tears still run down her face when she leaves the confession booth and runs right into Rhys.
She squeezes past him, brushing against the wine bottles, racing toward the stairs with her head bowed low. Even down here she can hear the wind howling outside, and right now she wishes she were out in it.
“Wait,” Rhys calls.
“No!” she screams, slowing her steps, turning to him, waving her arms like they can force distance between them.
She is not crying but sobbing—messy, choking wails that shake her whole body.
“Araminta,” Rhys says softly, holding out his hands like he is surrendering.
She supposes this is it, what she has avoided for so long, breaking down in public. Her suffering projected to a nation.
And here he is to witness it.
“Are you happy now?” she demands. “Is this what you wanted to see?”
“No,” he says quickly, the word catching like the mere thought that this is something he wanted hurts him.
She laughs like a wounded animal. “If this isn’t it, then what is? You tore and you tore and you tore, for what?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says.
“Which part? The entirety of our relationship? The glass? Isko?” she asks, letting the tears flow freely now, but they are at least just tears; the full wracking sobs have dissipated.
Rhys shuts his eyes like a man trying to get his story straight. “I’m not saying I didn’t hurt you. I did. I know I did. I’m just deeply sorry about it.”
“Great. Can you leave me alone now?”
He nods. “If you want, I just…are you okay?”
“No.”
“And I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to make that better.”
“No.”
He sighs. “I can’t help, I know that. I caused this, but…Araminta, don’t be upset because of a man like me. I’m not worth it—especially not to someone like you. Someone who can do so much, who will be so much regardless of me.”
Her jaw tightens. His compliments have a way of slicing her when she isn’t looking.
“I’m sorry,” he says. His hand brushes her shoulder.
When did he come so close?
Using his words to creep nearer. That shouldn’t surprise her at this point.
“You were the best thing that ever happened to me. And I’m sorry I let you down. For what it’s worth, I still love you. I think part of me always will.”
She flinches away from the words. Suddenly, she sees what he’s doing—the way he’s using her, has used her from the start. Maybe he loves her too, in whatever way he can, whatever it means to him: some corrupted, twisted thing that wants to possess her, to use her talent to bolster his own, to take her reputation and use it to elevate his.
He wants her back to win this game.
Part of her wants to laugh. Part of her, something deeper than her heart, breaks.
The door at the top of the stairs opens, the other contestants appearing.
“We heard shouting,” Theo says, watching Araminta closely.
Theo: Kalpana told me what happened last night and I swear I could have murdered him. I can’t believe he threw a glass at her. But she said Araminta wouldn’t want me fighting on her behalf. Right now, I’m not so sure that matters—someone needs to clock Sutton, and I’m more than happy to take one for the team.
“It’s nothing,” Rhys says, watching her too.
Isko: We had sex a few hours ago and now he’s not even looking at me. If I had any lingering doubt that he had sex with me to use me, either as a distraction or as revenge, that’s vanished. [Pause] Maybe I’m mostly angry at myself for letting myself be used.
“I’d rather she told us that,” Isko snaps.
“Araminta,” Kalpana says stiffly. “Come join us.”
Araminta swallows, risks a glance at Rhys, who nods and steps back, and she hates it, hates that she still feels like she needs his permission.
She runs past them all, Kalpana following her quickly, the others still staring at Rhys like they don’t know what to do with him.
Jerome: I overheard Kalpana telling Theo last night. It’s horrendous.
He does not actually think it is. It was a broken glass, and they’re all acting like it was Rhys’s fist and her jaw.
But Jerome knows he needs a scandal if he wants this show to become legendary.
And now it’s obvious Rhys needs to be at the center of it.
Kalpana goes with Araminta to her room. Outside, the rain has become desperate, demanding, and all encompassing. It’s the kind of rain that hammers on the windows like it’s trying to break through, the sort of wind that rips up trees and blows from no one direction but from all around.
She expects Araminta to sob harder away from the others, but she catches her breath as she crosses the threshold and swallows the tears. She throws herself heavily down before her mirror and grabs a makeup wipe, ready to clean up the mess, like she could erase the pain just as easily.
Kalpana doesn’t know what to do. She feels like she’s intruding, but how could she be when this is being broadcast.
“I heard what he said last night,” she says after a long moment of silence. “About how you have no one. That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Araminta watches her, like she’s searching for something, and Kalpana doesn’t know what reassurance to give—a smile, a steady gaze, a nod. So she does nothing until Araminta looks back to her mirror.
“We didn’t speak for days. And yesterday when you approached me…you were using me, right? Saying you wanted Valerie off the island.”
“No, no, I wasn’t using you,” Kalpana rushes, and she perches herself on the edge of Araminta’s bed, wondering if she’ll be asked not to sit there again. “But I admit I was lying. I wanted you to go home.”
“Me?”
“Yes.” She doesn’t even attempt to sound apologetic, her voice as righteous and just as ever. “I didn’t see a world where you realized what Rhys was doing while you were both still on this island. I thought you needed to escape him. Get some distance and gain some perspective.”
“He’s the one who should leave this island,” Araminta snaps. “Not me.”
“Well, this was before we knew his danger was a physical kind. I can’t believe he’s still here.”
Kalpana: Seriously, what does he have to do to get kicked off the show? And Araminta…do you know when a woman in an abusive relationship is most at risk? When she tries to leave him.
“Did you think he would accept his loss and walk away?”
“He threw a glass at you.”
“I mean, not quite; he threw a glass near me.”
Kalpana: You could have licked the whisky off her. I’d say that’s pretty damn near.
“Then why did you break up with him?” Kalpana asks.
Araminta glares at her but she doesn’t drop her gaze. She needs to know: needs to know what support Araminta needs, needs to know what she’s dealing with—what the situation is.
“I broke up with him because I was scared,” she says at last, voice steadfast but cold. She reaches for her make-up bag so she can become polished once more. “Several times during that argument, actually, I was scared. I didn’t realize until the glass shattered. And I simply shouldn’t feel fear in a relationship with anyone, no matter how bad the argument.”
Kalpana nods. “Right, you shouldn’t. And no one should be stuck on an island with someone they’re afraid of. They can’t—”
The moment the liner touches her lid Araminta flinches, drawing a line across her face, and she throws it from her hand, swearing incessantly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“What?” Kalpana is up. Does she have a black eye? Or is it something else, is everything she’s holding back about to come spilling forth courtesy of a makeup error?
“I don’t even like that eyeliner.” Araminta waves her hand at it, her movements shaky and theatrical, tears already brimming over again. “He likes that eyeliner. You know it took me ten minutes just to pick an outfit this morning? I couldn’t look at a dress without seeing his reaction to it.”
Kalpana: I came up here to check she was okay, but I don’t think I was actually prepared for her not to be. I’m not exactly someone you go to for comfort.
It seems to do more for Araminta than the glass did, realizing the depths of his infiltration.
As their eyes meet in the mirror, Araminta’s reddening once more, Kalpana sees her opportunity.
She wants to launch into a speech about how she can do so much better, about men in general. To use Araminta as a launch pad for something greater—something that can resonate. Kalpana could be a voice for downtrodden women everywhere.
They’ll remember her for this, not her gilded upbringing. All those other movements will pale in comparison.
But actions speak louder than words.
“If AHX won’t kick him off the island, maybe we can,” Kalpana proposes.
“How?” Araminta asks, tossing the eyeliner in the trash.
“Ice him out, make him want to leave. Or give the show an ultimatum—all of us or him. Maybe someone knows something too. I’ll speak to Theo. I’m sure even three of us taking a stand would be enough. Imagine, a protest on the very show itself.”
Araminta’s enthusiasm pales. After so long spent evading the way everyone was using her, she seems to be seeing it everywhere.
But she nods and Kalpana rises to her feet, excited in a way Araminta has never seen in her. She’s practically bubbly. And when she leaves to speak to Theo, Araminta stays, staring at her reflection in the mirror and the eyeliner streak cutting across her face, trying to reconcile all that she is with the image before her.
She sees evidence of Rhys, reflected in the mirror.
He never collected his things. If she looks up she can see his towel, his deodorant, his medication, his clothes, and even a pair of underwear screwed up on the floor.
She wants him gone.
It’s only another week, but that suddenly seems insurmountable, such a long stretch of time. Is her relationship with Rhys not testament to how much can happen in a place like this in so few days?
Kalpana’s protest will take time. AHX will probably spin a distraction—a challenge or a secret that will shift their course, dissolve their solidarity, and by then she might cave again, because she knows how close she came this morning, how sweet his apology sounded…
And didn’t Rhys himself show her just how to get rid of someone on this island?
An accident. An injury.
She rises to her feet and steps over to her bed, to where so many of his belongings are scattered, and starts throwing them together, so he can come grab them and leave without lingering long.
She tosses a sweater onto the pile and it slips off, taking his deodorant and medication with it.
She falls to her knees to gather it up.
When she replaces the pills, no camera can see that his antidepressants are now farther under the bed, her aspirin in its place, though many people will realize in years to come that the boy who said he was allergic to aspirin should not have had any in his system at the autopsy.
One allergic reaction—that’s all she needs, and they’ll send a ship. She doesn’t know how allergic he is. She doesn’t know what his reaction might be. She hopes it’s unsightly and painful. She hopes he leaves here in agony.
Hell, she hopes he might leave here in a body bag.
No one treats a Yaxley-Carter like this.
She makes sure the orange jar is right at the top of the pile, like he might walk in and immediately realize he hasn’t taken his meds today.
“Et in Arcadia ego,” she mutters.
Because if that doesn’t work, there are plenty more ways to try.
She might never stop thinking of ways to hurt him.
While Araminta and Kalpana talk, the others brave the smoking area. It’s sheltered, but as soon as they step outside, they realize the short walk has become a dangerous one, the wind howling, grass slippery, and even though it’s mere yards away it is a journey deserving of its own epic.
Audio from the smoking area rarely makes it into the edited episode, but this time it does, even though it’s bland, to imply with that cold black screen and crackling audio that there are aspects of this island we do not fully know.
Theo hovers at the entrance, craning his neck toward the horizon.
“I can’t see far enough to say. It’s all mist. I can hardly tell what’s rain and what’s ocean.”
“They have to be gone,” Jerome says. “There’s no way a boat could be on that ocean right now. Especially not one that’s part of something like this. AHX would be sued for putting employees at risk.”
“So we truly are alone for the first time in all of this and trapped on this island together? Fuck, with this rain, trapped in the house?” Isko asks.
“I guess so,” Theo says. “Right. I’m going back. I’m too bloody freezing.”
They are all drenched from their run—the rain so cold it lashes where it strikes. But they’ll be back repeatedly, to escape the house, for a moment of peace.
“Me too,” Isko says.
“Yeah, I’ll come,” Rhys adds.
He has said nothing the whole time they have been out there, just drawing smoke into his lungs and staring at the heavy rain. At first, Jerome thinks he’s forgotten there is no camera on them. But then he thinks it is simply that Rhys is performing foremost for them.
The clip ends with the three racing back to the house.
But Jerome stays, claiming he wants another.
The moment they leave he withdraws the little sachet of coke from the lining of his pocket and taps out a thin stripe that he swiftly leans down to inhale.
As he pulls his head back, he clocks a battered pack of cigarettes in the corner, right where Rhys was sitting. Even if he hadn’t been there, Jerome would know they were his. A singular pack, all hand-rolled but prepared in advance. Jerome frequents this place the most, and by now he knows Araminta and Theo smoke manufactured cigarettes that come in cartons, Kalpana uses menthol papers, and Isko takes care rolling each one before he drags it to his lips.
At first Jerome ignores it and smokes two cigarettes while he thinks. Nothing to pick up on the mic, just him despairing over his forgetability, his inevitable erasure from the public consciousness.
The issue isn’t just him; it’s the show.
He’s spent too much time on this island wrapped up in drama with Kalpana, and he has so much more to think of—the empire he’s trying to build, the investors he’ll have to sweet-talk if, and only if, Soltek goes under.
He needs something that will simultaneously distract and focus—draw them away from the problem and give them something to care about even more. Throwing a glass at Araminta on TV, that’s great. But it’s not enough. He needs something no one will forget, something that will make this show legendary.
The cameras don’t show Jerome pouring yet another line of white powder onto the bench, don’t see him snort it up or the way his eyes catch on those cigarettes as he does.
Oh, perfect.
He could wait, of course. He’s sure the others will do something ridiculous and noteworthy soon.
But why do that when he can control the narrative. In fact, he’s pretty fucking sick of letting AHX take the reins. He’s the genius here. Time to give them a show they’ll be thanking him on bended knee for.
And no reporter will ask him about his legal woes if they’re too interested in what it was really like on the island with someone as unhinged as Rhys.
Sorry Rhys, you don’t deserve this, but you do what you’ve gotta do.
It takes nearly twenty minutes that are laden with constant twitching glances toward the entrance, his heart hammering with every second he spends there, none of it helped by the cocaine racing through his veins.
But he leaves the cigarettes exactly where he found them, each one replaced with his own, not only lined with the coke but mixed into the tobacco itself. He’s just spent a small fortune.
But it’s done.
“I had no idea he had a problem. I was his best friend on that island and I didn’t know he was struggling with addiction.” He can see himself now, chatting on a morning television show.
He could develop something too, leverage it—augmented reality treatment or AI therapists, inspired by, to raise awareness of…
He’ll get everything he’s ever wanted.
And the cameras will never know.
The contestants sit in the living room, clutching mugs of coffee in their cold hands. They can’t work out where the heating for the house is, if such a thing even exists, and the bedrooms are too cold for Araminta to hide in for long, so they’re all forced together by necessity. The rain drums on the windows, echoing through the house, and the whole thing feels fragile, suddenly, like it could collapse under nature’s fury.
Soon, nearly everyone is drinking, which helps, because no one is talking.
Araminta: Imagine that agonizing, can’t-catch-your-breath, can’t-think-straight pain of a break-up where you’re convinced deep in your gut that you’ve made a terrible mistake. And all that time he’s right there, watching you, practically begging for another chance. Of course I started drinking.
Jerome doesn’t, though once again he pretends. And Rhys only manages a few sips before he goes out for a cigarette, and afterward the whole world feels slanted. He doesn’t touch his drink, just clutches at the arms of his chair like they might steady him.
Kalpana heads to the kitchen to speak to Theo, and it doesn’t take her long to convince him to take a stand against Rhys. He would have been ready to do that from the first day.
But like Araminta, he doesn’t think a quiet protest will be enough to get rid of him.
Theo: Rhys is conniving. And manipulative. And worst of all clever. I think the only way to get rid of him is to surprise him, to bring in something he couldn’t possibly plan for.
And he keeps thinking about those boxes in the basement—the preparation for future challenges and the tools of their former tasks.
He doesn’t know what he’s hoping for—a camera or recording device maybe, to let Rhys think he’s out of range or in a blind spot and catch him saying something he shouldn’t, or a phone that could access the internet so they can confront him with something that will push him over the edge, let him show his true colors once and for all. Jerome could access the internet, of course, but Theo doesn’t know that, and even if he did, he doubts Jerome would use that power against Rhys. They’re too close. Even Valerie couldn’t successfully come between them.
So when he goes back into that ice-cold room with those solemn, silent people, it’s an easy thing to suggest.
“God, we need to liven this up. There’s a guitar downstairs, right?” He’d had to put it back in the box after their task swap challenge was complete. “Jerome, do you think you can open them? There might be other things too that could make this more fun.”
Jerome’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”
He cannot believe what Theo is daring to ask—and under any other circumstances, he’d say no, absolutely not.
But today it’s perfect. Rhys is jumpy, his fingers tapping on the chair, and he’s only smoked a single cigarette—Jerome needs to amp this up. As he sits in a chair, saying nothing, people might not realize he’s on something. He needs a show, an opportunity, a party for Rhys to smoke more, say more, make himself undeniably the star of the show.
And if, in the process, Jerome can prove that he can code well too, that he is not some charismatic schmoozer who swindled his computer scientist co-founder out of millions but an educated innovator in his own right, then all the better.
“Yeah, come on, it’ll be worth it, right?”
Jerome heads to the confession booth and slides the panels back to bring out what he needs.
The boxes are just outside, ten of them for various different challenges and rewards. Each one is digitally locked and remotely signaled to open or close. It’s easy—they’re hardly high-tech pieces of kit.
But AHX must have learned from their mistakes last time—the walls are tighter to get past, the access limited.
Worse, they’re actively fighting back.
This is ridiculous—they can’t have hired a hacker. This must just be a bog-standard IT technician on the other end of their computer, trying to stop him.
So they know, which means there will be consequences, but fuck it, he was never going to win this competition anyway, and taking down the defenses of a company as big as AHX will do more for his investment potential than half a million dollars ever could.
He shuts them out. Completely.
Oh, the cameras are still streaming, mics still pushing their voices across oceans; everything is still feeding out of this island. But nothing is coming in.
And past that—he finds more than he was ever looking for.
It’s ridiculous, not hidden at all, just in an easy little tab on a browser: history.
Oh, this is perfect. This is better than he could have hoped for. Why take one of them down when he can have a scandal that ricochets?
So he sets up a code, the simplest he could manage, the thing everyone learns: If. Then.
If Eloise appears on the screens.
Then reveal it all.
It’s a little more complicated than that—full of ways that AHX might try to push the stream through to the TVs, their access routes, how they connect themselves to all these remote devices. But the gist is that tonight’s challenge is his to set.
He feels like god. He needs to snort less coke.
And before he can forget, he taps a few buttons and every box springs open.
They haul the boxes upstairs and spread them out. Some offer tantalizing suggestions of fun to their bored minds: jump ropes, pads of paper, paints—even a karaoke machine. But none offer the solution Theo is looking for—not unless they want to tie him up with the rope and take the hammer they once nailed secrets with to his skull.
It’s clear Kalpana and Araminta wouldn’t necessarily rule that out.
They rush to the smoking area together, discussing strategy. When Eloise appears, they decide. That’s when they’ll make their stand—declare that they won’t be participating anymore unless Rhys is removed.
Araminta: I’m not sure if they were just humoring me. But yeah, having Kalpana and Theo really helped.
“I wish we could get one more person,” Kalpana says. “So it’s a clear majority. Are you sure Isko wouldn’t?”
“He slept with Rhys this morning,” Araminta snaps.
“Oh, yeah.”
Araminta: But then again, I’m not really sure they were there for me at all.
No one much feels like karaoke, and Theo’s efforts on the guitar are lukewarm. They alternate between drinking and smoking cigarettes and sneaking away to swallow pills or snort lines. Any conversation is clipped and tense and silenced altogether by their efforts to spend the day numb.
When the rain finally lets up, they take their haul outside, like they can reset the energy and maybe find something in those boxes that interest them after all.
It’s still overcast, still gray. It’s hard to tell how much time has passed.
But when the light darkens and there’s no glint of sun on the horizon, it’s difficult to believe something isn’t wrong.
“Do you think the storm cut out communications?” Kalpana asks, staring at that TV where Eloise should have appeared by now.
Didn’t she promise a big challenge tonight?
“Do you think anything is working?” Jerome asks. “You know, are the cameras still feeding out?”
“I don’t see how we’d ever know,” Theo says.
They fall silent, the idea that they might be alone having never occurred to them. If they’re not even being watched, what do they do? Who do they become?
“Shots?” Isko proposes.
Shots, they agree, and it’s only when they tap their glasses together, even Rhys, long past the point of caring about the erratic way he feels because it feels good too, that the alarm blares.
Jerome: Finally fixed it, eh?
Rhys is so startled he drops his shot glass before it can reach his lips, and Araminta jolts back at the sound of it shattering.
“Hello, contestants—sorry about that, we had an issue with the—”
Eloise cuts off, the screen momentarily black—and then filled with…they squint—what is that? A screenshot of a web browser. A long list of search terms. And it doesn’t make sense until Araminta gasps: “The date!”
RiotParade party
RiotParade photos
RiotParade underage
Theo’s search history from the honesty challenge. Where he’d won access to the internet and done the most cursory of searches to check whether the news had broken.
“You knew,” Kalpana says quietly. Ironic that, after all of these challenges and heartbreaks, this is her first betrayal.
“Is that why you came on here, Newman?” Isko says, his grin growing wider with every second. “Distance yourself from the band so that when the news broke, you wouldn’t go down for their mistakes?”
“That’s low,” Rhys says before hysterically laughing, and it’s that laughter, that careening cackle that strikes right at Theo’s heart. It’s Rhys thinking that Theo is lower down even than he, that he is something to laugh at.
“You know what, Sutton, you smashed the wrong fucking glass.”
That hammer is in his hand, and then it is swinging into the screen.
Shards spray outward, and contestants shriek as they race to shield themselves.
But Rhys laughs harder. “Yes, Newman! Come on, you can do better than that!” He grabs the hammer from Theo’s hand and hurls it at the nearest camera. The metal screeches and the falling camera smashes to the ground, louder than the thunder still crashing on the horizon.
Around them, the lights flicker. Then everything goes dark.
“Rhys!” Araminta calls, almost instinctively, into the pitch-black night.
A second later and the whir of a generator can be heard, the lanterns flickering back on, dimmer than they were but enough to see by. The light dances in the reflections of the broken glass.
Rhys rushes to Araminta’s side, where she has crouched and covered her skin from the spraying shards.
“Are you all right? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
Araminta stares at him, lips fumbling for words she doesn’t know how to say.
“Araminta,” he says, reaching his hand out. Hesitantly she takes it and rises back to her feet. Rhys seems to take this as permission to speak, and as erratically as his frenzy appeared, it vanishes. “Araminta, I don’t really know what to say. I know I messed up, I know I’m hard to love, but god, please, I couldn’t live with myself if you believed for one moment I didn’t love you as much as I do. To be honest, I’ll struggle to live with myself without you anyway, but I need you to know: I love you. You’re all that I’ve ever wanted. You’re incredible, you’re iconic. You deserve everything.”
His words are fierce and slurring; he’s leaning ever closer. Everything he ever was is made clumsy and crystal clear.
But it doesn’t stop the fear in Araminta’s chest.
She should have shoved him in the dark, thrown him onto those glass shards and hoped it hurt like hell.
Why didn’t she think to do that?
“That’s enough,” Isko says, stepping closer, placing his hand on Rhys’s shoulder. “You’ve made your point.”
“I can’t do this,” Araminta says, stepping back—then turning and bolting.
Araminta: I’m packing. Send a boat. Send the quickest one you have because I’m getting out of here. I quit.
Kalpana hesitates a moment, glancing between Isko and Rhys, then swears and goes chasing after her.
Rhys laughs, though there’s something sour about it. Isko doesn’t know what sort of performance Rhys is aiming for, but he’s sick of it already. “Enough of what, Isko—just jealous I’m flattering her instead of you?”
“I don’t need your fucking love bombing, and neither does she.”
Rhys grabs him as he goes to move past him, sloppily pulling at his arm.
“How drunk are you?” Isko hisses, pulling free of his grip. “You know, you nearly had me fooled. That the glass was an accident, but it wasn’t, was it. You—”
“Stop, stop,” Rhys says, shushing him. He even puts his finger over Isko’s lips, and Isko could kill him.
Isko shoves him off, hard.
“Isko.” Theo takes a hesitant step forward, hands raised to either side like he might have to intervene.
Rhys’s face falls, his nostrils flaring, and this, this must have been what Araminta saw. He staggers forward, straightening up to his full height.
“You’re an idiot, Isko,” Rhys shouts. “That’s what you’re angry about. You don’t hate me for playing the game; you’re angry at yourself because you thought I wasn’t.” He punctuates his words with sharp taps to Isko’s chest.
“Rhys!” Theo shouts, taking another step forward but not sure how to help. Jerome just watches, sipping his drink and unable to stop a grin from slipping onto his face.
“Don’t try to physically intimidate me, Rhys,” Isko says, struggling to stay calm. This is all too familiar. He has never been in a fight before, but he’s been here, at its precipice. He’s just always managed to stop the situation from escalating.
“And if I do? You’re pathetic. What are you going to do about it?” Rhys asks, giving his shoulder another shove. “Glare from a corner? Go crying off to Alex? Your dodgy little account—”
Isko hits him. He’s not sure he even decided to. His hand just reaches out and strikes his chest.
Rhys laughs and that grin falls back into place. “Oh, you do fight back. Tired of being walked all over? Some people are just meant to be used, Isko.”
And this time he does decide to, because there’s nothing he can say right now that will feel better than his hand colliding with Rhys’s face.
Isko flinches as sharp pain lances up his arm from the fist he didn’t know how to curl.
Rhys’s head cracks to the side, and Isko isn’t even sure he’s hurt him because this is all so theatrical.
But then Rhys turns and his eyebrow is slit, caught on Isko’s engagement ring, and even in the dim torchlight, Isko can see the crooked lilt of his nose, the blood trickling in a thick swell, and the bruise blossoming beneath his eye. It’ll be black within the hour.
Rhys’s pupils are huge, staring at him in shock.
Isko gasps, pulls his hands to his mouth. He can’t believe he did that. Nor can Theo or Jerome, stunned into silence.
Rhys touches his face, pulls his fingers away, sticky with blood that he stares at with amazement. There’s not a lot of it, but it’s enough.
He looks up at him and grins. Why does he always smile? Is it just to unnerve them all? Or is it simply a reflex?
“You know,” he says, “I never actually hit Araminta.”
“You need to shut the fuck up, Sutton,” Theo says, fuming, stepping in front of Isko as though he were the one hurt.
“Going to hit me too, Newman?”
“I should.”
“Go on then.” Rhys opens his arms out wide.
Theo could. It would be so easy. He’s never been in a fight before—arguments, yes, many of those, but not a fight.
“Whoa, this is a bit much,” Jerome protests, feeling like he should probably say something before he becomes complicit.
Theo plows on. “You need to leave this island.”
Rhys’s expression darkens. “No.”
“This competition isn’t more important than all you’ve done.”
“And you really want to finish this competition without me?” he says, cocking an eyebrow and staring him down.
And Theo’s anger rises because no, he doesn’t. He’s not even the biggest threat, nowhere near, but he’s the one Theo wants to beat.
“This isn’t about the fucking competition,” Isko shouts, staring up from his bruised hands. “You think we still care about that?”
“I think Newman does,” Rhys says, smiling, and there’s blood on his teeth. “I think he’s the most malicious person here. He came onto this competition to deflect, isn’t that right? You’re conniving. Selfish.”
Theo grabs him by the collar, fist curling into his shirt, and steps forward with menace.
He’s shocked to find himself in such a position.
But Rhys isn’t—he just smiles. “That’s exactly what I thought.”
Theo stares at his own hand like he doesn’t recognize it.
He lets go.
“Doesn’t fit with your image, does it? You’re supposed to be the nice one of the band,” Rhys smiles, his eyebrow arched. “But you know what I think?”
They’re just words, but they’re lacking the usual hollow bravado—they’re heavy and firm and solid. Theo’s hair stands on end, and he doesn’t want to know, though he already does.
“I don’t give a shit what you think,” he says, turning to walk away.
Rhys can’t stand that, someone walking away from him. His face falls and it’s livid, eyebrows drawn, eyes hateful. This is what he has always wanted from Theo: his attention. And he’ll go to any lengths to get it.
“I think you were at that party, Newman.”
Theo freezes and Rhys laughs.
“Oh shit,” Isko says, glancing between the two of them.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You didn’t just come on here to avoid the scandal but to slice your name from it. You were at that party with the rest of the band, but unlike them, you didn’t get caught. Underage girls, Newman? Now that I think about it, I’d say you’re even worse than I am.”
“Children, Theo?” Jerome asks, aiming for aghast and ending up at elated. “Children?” he repeats, like he was not the one making jokes about fifteen-year-olds mere days ago.
“Of course not,” Theo snarls. “I wasn’t there.”
There is no evidence.
But that doesn’t matter. The seeds have been planted.
Rumor can kill a career before it even starts.
Rhys turns to Jerome. “Do you want to get a hit in too, or am I free to go look for my girlfriend?”
Jerome arches an eyebrow. “I think you’d better have another cigarette first, think things over.”
Rhys points at Jerome, shirt crooked, eye rapidly swelling. Blood splattered. “I knew you were the only one here with a lick of sense.”
Rhys does not bother with the smoking area. He heads to the beach instead, where the waves hurl loud and angry onto the sand, the waters rough and turbulent. The wind whips with a ferocity that has the skies themselves roiling, clouds tumbling tumultuously like the slightest whim might entice them to storm again. It all feels too close, the deafening noise, the resentful waves and bitter sky pressing nearer, trapping them on this tiny rock in its center.
The camera shows a dim red speck in the harsh darkness. Slowly it fades and another takes its place, Rhys lighting a new cigarette whenever the last one burns away.
He makes it through two and a half before he sees Kalpana, up by the cliffs.
She’d been planning on following Araminta. But when she ran into the confession booths, slamming the door so firmly behind her, Kalpana had needed a moment to herself.
And the sharp edge of the island seemed like the perfect place, at once violent and peaceful, like the raging anger and aching sorrow inside her.
He stomps heavily up behind her and she scrambles to her feet, confused more than scared until the moment he opens his mouth.
“You! You’re a fucking bitch.”
She’s so confused by the outright anger that it throws her. She has no comeback, though later she’ll think of several. She is too shocked to respond, does not do anything other than turn to face him.
“A fucking bitch,” he repeats. “You’ve been trying to take Araminta from me for weeks.”
“I didn’t take her, Rhys. She left you because you scared her. Because you’ve spent weeks hurting her. And now she’s leaving the competition.”
“Things were fine with us before you got involved. You kept trying to stick your nose where it didn’t belong. You turned her against me.”
His words roll into each other, and she doesn’t think he’s blinked this entire time.
“Rhys, you’re drunk,” she says, biting back the tirade she wants to give. She can berate him later, when he’s sober. “Let’s go back inside.”
She eyes the edge of the cliffs warily. They aren’t close, and they’re lit up more than other parts of the path. They’ll be fine. Then she eyes the darkness on her other side, the thicket of trees between her and the house. The fact she’s stuck out here in the dark with an angry man.
Her pulse jumps, eyes locked on the camera hovering nearby in a desperate plea for help. The lights of the boats have never looked so distant.
“You had it out for me from the start,” he snarls, staggering toward her, and she takes an instinctive step back, closer to that edge. She realizes it’s not a shadow clinging to his face but blood arcing down it.
“We can discuss this inside,” she says firmly.
The light catches him and she clocks his red eyes, the manic gleam.
He’s high.
Which means he’s not rational. Which means he’s even more dangerous.
He points an accusatory finger at her, his other hand clutching at something she can’t see on his chest.
A drone hovers nearby, a moth to a light.
“You’re just a bitch.”
“Guys!” she screams, terrified, and now even more so, scared her shouts might startle Rhys into doing something stupid. “Theo!”
The waves are so loud, she doesn’t know how anyone will hear.
“Oh, are you scared of me, Kalpana? Does that fit your fucking narrative that I’m some terrifying, abusive monster? And not a man so fucking in love it hurts—a love you fucking fucked you…” He trails off with more mumbling insults. He takes a breath and tries again. “Araminta is just confused. She thinks you—”
“I am not the reason your relationship fell apart. And frankly, Rhys, I don’t think you actually care about that at all. You’re just upset it fell apart on television, and you weren’t even the one to do the dumping. You’re angry the world knows exactly what you are: a horrible, cruel little boy.”
Rhys staggers forward again. “You need to stay away from me.”
“You came to me.”
“You need to stay away or I’ll…”
“What, throw a glass at me?”
He stares at her, eyes catching the flame of the lanterns driven into the edges of the island.
“Rhys! Mate, can you come here a second!” Theo appears from somewhere and Kalpana can’t even see him, but she’s so relieved she could cry.
Rhys scowls and looks around, and the rage seems to fall from him. “She hates me. They all hate me. Everyone in the world.”
“Probably,” Kalpana confirms. She has no sympathy for this.
“Maybe I should just step off the edge.” He nods to the cliff.
“I don’t think that’s going to solve anything,” Kalpana says, something tightening in her stomach. Would she stop him if he tried?
“Hey, Rhys, come on—let’s talk,” Theo comes into view, walking slowly like he’s approaching a wild animal.
“How far down do you think it is?” Rhys takes a step closer to it, his movements jerky, and he careens forward, like he has no idea just how close he is.
“Rhys, get away from there.”
She can barely see the edge, where the sharp line of cliff meets the night. Rhys staggers like it does not exist at all, like the sudden drop is luring him closer with siren song.
“Relax,” he shouts again. “God, you’re always so uptight.”
“Rhys, please,” Kalpana screeches as he takes yet another step. He’s so close.
She does nothing, reaches out an instinctive hand to steady him.
He flinches back.
He’s still a step from the edge, but he’s high out of his detestable mind, his movements are too much, too big, too off kilter.
He doesn’t even need something to trip over.
Kalpana leaps forward as he tips, manages to clasp her hand onto his and it’s hot and slippery with sweat.
Everything happens so quickly. Isn’t time supposed to slow?
A stumble, a lurch, a clasped hand, wide eyes locked onto hers.
And a decision to let go.
The slightest movement as her hand opens and he slips free.
Rhys falls.
He doesn’t make a noise at all. That’s the worst part. Maybe he didn’t even know he was falling. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he thought it was funny, thought he was invulnerable, and this would all be a story to tell one day.
That hand in hers, and she does not think of it as a self-righteous good or as a sacrifice she makes for the rest of the world. As she uncurls her fingers, she thinks that if she’s going down then so is he.
But when he hits the water, the horror of it all washes over her and she screams.
She leans as close as she dares, ripping the torch from the ground. She can’t see a thing.
She turns to Theo but he’s already gone, running down the cliffs, pulling his shoes off.
“You can’t go down there!” Kalpana shouts, her voice panicky like it’s never been before. “It’s too dangerous—you could drown.”
“But he will if I don’t!”
He runs.
Theo gets halfway down the cliffs before he dives into the water. It’s freezing, so cold that it calms his heart, which began racing the moment he heard Kalpana scream.
He pulls himself through the water, rough waves hitting his face, rocks catching at his legs.
He can hardly see at all. Once or twice, he finds the cliff edge worryingly close, has to propel himself farther. The water is always dangerous—heavy waves and turbulent currents, and now it’s churning all the more from the earlier storm.
Rhys.
Rhys could die, might already be dead.
He could die too.
He glances up, hoping to see Kalpana standing at the point where he fell, but he can’t see the land, just straight up the rocky edge to the indifferent stars.
He can barely see his own hands pulling him through the water. The cameras can’t even make them out. How is he going to find a body—Rhys, find Rhys in this?
But then the moonlight hits something pale and Theo springs toward it.
He clutches Rhys without thinking, starts to sink beneath the waves, and has to let go and hold him again.
He finds his face, his eyes closed, a nasty cut down one side of his head and the barest traces of blood. That’s good, right? He can’t be that hurt if there is that little blood.
Unless he’s already dead. Do dead men bleed?
He’s struggling with him in the water, needs to get him out, but there’s no way he can do that here. So he cups his chin and starts swimming, positioning himself beneath him to pull him through the water toward the beach.
He can’t die. Men like Rhys don’t die. The world would be too kind a place if they did.
Theo’s teeth start chattering, and his limbs feel so heavy as he kicks through the water.
“If I die for you…” he says angrily.
“Theo.”
He freezes. Did he hear that right—is Rhys alive? It was the barest whisper; maybe he imagined it? The microphones certainly don’t pick it up.
All at once, it flashes through his mind. All the sympathy Rhys will get from this, enough to move past what he’s done to Araminta, what he’s done to all of them. The times he made Theo doubt himself, told him he was nothing special. The constant barrage of it all.
Hate. So much hate.
Not least because there’s something else lingering there, something he hates more than anything. Something about how forgivable it all is, how he’s willing to let it all go, all of Rhys’s worst behavior, for the right line in a song.
That feeling of kinship he’s never been able to shake. Like he might be just as awful. Everything Theo has been trying to save—his passion, his career, his future. And Rhys destroyed it all with a single line: “I think you were at that party, Newman.”
He hears a glass shattering. A screen. A camera.
He doesn’t realize he’s holding him under the waves. At least, that’s what he’ll mutter to himself over whisky at 4 a.m. That he didn’t know. That he didn’t mean to do it. That he wasn’t as bad as Rhys, wasn’t as bad as his bandmates, who knew how old those girls were when he didn’t because he was already in a room with one of them before anyone thought to ask. He was in a room when they took photos. In a room before they could even see him there. It was just a mistake. He’s still a good person. Rhys’s body going still in his arms. He didn’t know.
When he does realize, he’s not sure whether it’s too late.
But he holds on for a moment, just in case.
For Araminta, and all the women like her, all the ones waiting for Rhys to hurt them. At least, that’s what he’ll cling to when he’s sober and trying to hold it together. Nothing about him, nothing about the anger he’s harbored for weeks.
Because he’s a good fucking person.
The world is a better place without Rhys Sutton in it. That’s the thought he can’t shake, even as he drags his body closer to shore.
Isko comes first after hearing the screaming, sprints back to the garden for more torches, and soon they are all there. Araminta is crying, her gasps somehow echoing and silenced by the nothingness around them. Jerome stares blankly at the horizon. Isko and Kalpana try to provide Theo some light.
They’ve got the solar torches and begin throwing them into the water, where they bob for a few moments before suffocating beneath the waves, so much angrier at night, so much darker too.
“I think he’s got him,” Kalpana says.
Araminta continues to cry.
“He’s taking him to the beach,” Isko says.
They run, hoping to help.
When he appears minutes later, Araminta hurls herself into the water, Isko following after, and together they help pull Rhys onto the sand.
Theo throws himself onto him, slamming onto his chest, pressing his lips to his though he knows you’re not supposed to do that anymore, only how can he say he did everything to save him if he doesn’t?
Araminta breaks down again.
“He’s dead,” she says. “Look at him—he’s dead.”
One little pill—a swollen throat, maybe, or dizziness that got him off the cliff. Something that made it easier to drown, something that turned an accident into something so much darker.
“Theo,” Isko says gently, minutes later, when he still presses himself onto Rhys’s chest. “He’s gone.”
He won’t even realize the role he might have played until the police thrust it in his face. Who knows what bleeding on the brain can do? Get someone off a cliff edge, certainly. Maybe even stop them from swimming for the surface. He might not realize that now, but his knuckles sting as the water trickles into his open cuts.
Theo shakes him off, pushes back to Rhys. He tastes salt, and he can’t tell if it’s the seawater on Rhys’s lips or his own tears.
His conviction is gone, some deeper awareness taking root, a truth he’s been denying. If he were actually a good person, he would regret this or, rather, would see reviving Rhys as the priority, not making it look believable. But he’s not a good person. None of them are.
Kalpana pulls Theo back and he staggers, staring at the corpse on the beach. Aren’t dead bodies supposed to look like they’re just sleeping? Aren’t they supposed to look at peace?
“You did all you could,” Kalpana says reassuringly.
All she had to do was hold on; all she had to do was try. And shouldn’t she feel guiltier than this? Shouldn’t she be looking at him and thinking anything other than good riddance?
Jerome stares at the horizon, unable to believe the sun isn’t rising, that this night isn’t over yet.
Unable to shake the feeling that this scandal isn’t the one he wanted, but god, no one will forget them now, will they?
“Look.” Araminta nods at the ocean.
They turn. The ships are enormous, closer than they’ve ever been and racing toward them. Other people, watching the show live, and too late—far, far too late.
The contestants shuffle closer to one another and this tiny island, clinging to it, hoping that despite all its cruelty, all its reckless abandon, it might keep them safe.
They do nothing but watch as the impending world crashes toward them.