Next to me, Alys shifted uncomfortably. “It seemed like the right decision to make.”
“But why?” Kissy asked.
“I don’t know,” Alys mumbled. “I just thought…it would be a bad idea to take you.” She looked over at me helplessly, and as she did, I felt a twinge of guilt for her. Was Alys always this indecisive? I knew I could use that to nail her to the wall at this vote, but something about that seemed cruel. But she was floundering, and it was only the first question.
“Can I step in?” I asked Alys.
She nodded quickly.
I looked at Kissy. “Alys and I discussed it. You’re an older lady. You’re a mom. You’re a hard-worker. You’re likable.” I ticked these all off on my fingers. “You have a husband on the jury that can influence votes in your direction. All of those stack the deck in your direction.”
She seemed to preen a bit, then looked at Alys, her eyes shrewd. “You guys discussed it?”
“We did.”
“Or did Annabelle tell you this?” Kissy looked at me. “Was it really a discussion or more of Annabelle’s suggestion?”
I remained silent. I’d let Alys hang herself if she wanted to.
After a too-long, uncomfortable moment, Alys answered. “It…might have been Annabelle.”
“Thank you,” Kissy said, and turned to sit back down.
The rest of the questions went along those lines. The jury tore into our game play and tried to pick us apart. Leslie made some cruel, nasty comments that left Alys teary, and me irritated. Kip asked some long, annoying question about dating and reality and how both Alys and I were losers. I dismissed it. Sour grapes. Saul was a dick and a chauvinist. Emilio wanted to know who we regretted kicking out of the game. Alys said Saul.
I said no one, because it had to be done.
I mean, I regretted the loss of Jendan, but that was purely emotional, and those emotions had no place in the game itself. I knew that if he was still in the game, things might not have gone as well as they did.
Still, when Jendan stood to ask his questions, I got a nervous flutter in my stomach. I wrapped my arms around my waist and leaned in, hugging myself as he walked to the center of the small stage. Then he turned and looked at Alys and me. “Ladies.”
“Hi,” we said, our voices weak.
“Alys, I just want you to name a big move that you did in this game.”
She thought for a moment, then answered, “I voted with the women.”
Jendan shook his head, and his voice was sterner than I’d ever heard it. “That wasn’t your move, though, was it? That was Annabelle’s move. It sounds like she was the one that orchestrated the women voting together. Is that correct?”
“We all had a say in it—“
“But it was Annabelle that pulled it together, right? You just went along with it?”
“I guess so, yes,” she snapped, annoyed.
“Thank you.” He turned those heavenly gray eyes on me. “Annabelle.”
“Hi,” I murmured again, inwardly wincing at the husky note in my voice. God, could I be more obvious how I felt about him?
But Jendan was all business. “It’s obvious that you’re a methodical thinker, Annabelle. I just have a quick question for you. When did you find Pandora’s Box?”
That…wasn’t what I was expecting. What did he want to hear? I bit my lip, and then answered truthfully. “The first week we got on the island.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“No.”
“And did we know each other at that point?”
Ouch. I sighed. “We did. But it didn’t change anything. I wanted that to get rid of Kip. It was just misfortune that you ended up as my partner.”
“Misfortune, huh?”
God, my choice of words was going to come back and haunt me, wasn’t it? “Yeah. Sorry.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
Then Rusty was up, and he smiled at us. “Just wanted to know who you ladies thought was the biggest threat out of all of us on the jury.”
The kiss-ass question. Of course.
Alys answered first. “Kip, I think. He was the guy we had to get rid of first, because he was leading the other men.”
That was a perfectly fine answer with me, since I knew I’d never get Kip’s vote in a million years. “Kissy,” I said, and didn’t miss the pleased look on her face - or her husband’s. “Because she always gave two hundred percent and she did a hell of a lot better than anyone expected.”
“Thank you,” Rusty said, and sat down.
Then, it was time for the vote.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Vote was a no-brainer. I mean, come on. Who else would I ever vote for? She deserves the money.” — Jendan Abercrombie, Jury Member, Endurance Island: Power Players
“That’s a wrap,” someone said once the last person to vote had exited the booth. “Save the rest for the finale.”
“Thank f**king god,” Chip said, yawning. “I want a Long Island and a back-rub, in that order.” He stepped away from his podium and didn’t look back. “Was it just me, or was this season longer than f**king ever?”
“Not longer, sir,” a production assistant said as she trotted behind him, holding the box of slates that contained the votes.
“Fucking feels it,” Chip said as he headed down the path.
We were left with just me and Alys sitting in front of the jury. A long, tense moment passed, and I’m pretty sure no one knew what to do.
“Okay, guys,” said a familiar voice, and I looked up to see the head of production. She’d been a familiar face during filming. Even as she moved to the center of the stage area, someone doused the fire and the men began to break their camera tripods down for the night. “Since you’re all returning players, you know the drill. You signed a non-disclosure so you can’t reveal who you voted for until finale night in about six months.” She waved to the jury members. “You guys file out over there. These two need to go to medical and get checked out before they can head back to the loser lodge.”
The jury hesitated, then began to shuffle out, heading down the path and talking quietly amongst each other. Alys and I watched them leave, and then the production head turned to look at us.
“All right, off you two go to medical to make sure you’re not dehydrated.” She waved her clipboard at us.
Two hours, several vein-pokings, and a bevy of medical tests later, we were released back to the loser lodge for our last evening of the ‘game.’ Tomorrow, we’d be on flights back home. Maybe I should have felt nostalgic that our time in Fiji was coming to an end, or mentally tabulating votes to see if I was the million dollar winner.