The Contestant. Stephanie Doyle

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СКАЧАТЬ her left, the group was pulling Nancy out of the water. Not surprisingly, she had broken into tears as soon as she realized she was safe. Both boats pulled up to the beach to make sure everyone was okay. Or to watch a hysterical Nancy do a bad interpretation from a Jaws movie. It was hard to tell.

      Talia had other concerns. She scanned the water looking for Reuben and saw him a few yards down the beach crawling on hands and knees, his chest visibly heaving with effort as he sucked in lungfuls of air. She ran to him.

      “You okay?” she asked as soon as she reached him.

      “I was moving fast,” he puffed, but after a few breaths he seemed to recover.

      “You splashed deliberately? With a shark in the water? Not the brightest idea.” Even though it had given her the time she needed to get Nancy loose and moving, it had still been a crazy move.

      He smirked. “Yeah, well, I’m a city boy and it was the best I could come up with. So much for our protection.” He pointed down the beach where Joe and Dino were both hovering while Evan knelt beside Nancy, patting her hand. Either the host was really rattled by what could have happened or he was a pretty good actor because he seemed truly shaken.

      As well he should be, Talia thought. “These waters are dangerous. These people think it’s a game, but—”

      “But there be sharks in the water,” he quoted in a bad imitation of a pirate. “Hell, I wouldn’t be shocked if the damn thing was some toothless trained animal sent to drum up a reaction.”

      She gave him a doubtful look, but she could tell by his expression that even he didn’t buy it.

      “Guess it turns out you’re a hero, after all.”

      “Don’t get any ideas,” he warned her. “I just figured if something was going to take a bite out of your ass it was going to be me.”

      He wiggled his eyebrows and she was forced to smile at his outrageousness.

      Just like a predator. “There are tastier fish in the sea,” she murmured, echoing her earlier thoughts.

      “Somehow, I doubt that.”

      Talia ignored that and the fact that, for the first time, he was making his intentions known. Instead she concentrated on the personality revelation.

      “You’re not fooling me. I don’t know why, given your surly attitude, but I had a hunch you weren’t one of the bad guys.”

      A weak hunch, but a hunch nonetheless. And in a weird way, the role fit him better. He was still a hard-ass, but now she knew he was something else, too.

      “Don’t give me that much credit,” he growled even as he got to his feet. “Once I saw Tommy and Marlie finish first I figured I would wait it out and take my chances with team two, even if it meant tangling with a big fish. Those two talk too damn much.”

      Chapter 2

      “You okay?”

      Reuben asked the question of Nancy as he and Talia approached the group. Almost in unison the rest of the pack turned their heads as if just realizing that there had been other people in the water with the shark. There were looks of guilt from some, but not from all.

      Nancy bobbed her head in answer to his question and Talia crouched down so she could check the pupils of her eyes. A blanket from one of the boats had been wrapped around her in an attempt to prevent shock. Given that her eyes weren’t dilated and she was no longer shaking, Talia reasoned that the woman was in pretty good condition, all things considered.

      “It was really a shark, wasn’t it?”

      This time it was Talia’s turn to nod her head in reply. There was no point hiding the truth from her now that it was over.

      “I was in the water with it. I was swimming with…wow,” Nancy sighed. Then something akin to excitement lit her eyes. “Well, that was certainly dangerous and adventurous, wasn’t it? And I got out of the water on my own. Wait until my husband and kids see that!”

      Talia glanced over her shoulder at Reuben at the comment that Nancy had gotten out of the water alone. He merely shrugged and then fell into the sand butt first, his arms resting casually on his knees. He was in a T-shirt and bathing trunks, and the T-shirt was clinging to his skin showing off firm pecks and hardened little nipples.

      She recalled his remark about biting her ass, and her body shivered a little. Not because of him, she told herself, just…because.

      “Okay, if we are all recovered from our first adventure—” Evan began to say.

      “Our adventure? I don’t remember seeing you in the water, Evan,” Reuben stated.

      “Yes, well, I would have jumped in to rescue you all of course…had that been necessary. Thankfully, it wasn’t. So let me explain the next phase of the game,” he said quickly.

      “As I mentioned, for some of the early contests, we will be pitting team against team. Team one—Tommy, Marlie, Gus and Sam—against team two—Iris, Nancy, Talia and Reuben. You all will be sharing one camp, but for the team that wins a game, each member of that team will receive one of the items you chose and ranked in order of necessity before the show began. The losing team will receive nothing.

      “Remember, this isn’t about politics. It’s about Darwinism. Anyone on the losing team will have the opportunity to pull themselves out of the game citing that they are a weak link. If no one chooses to leave, then as a group you will vote to decide who the strongest member of the team is. Then that person, and that person alone, can choose to eject who he or she considers the weakest link. Or not. It’s that person’s call. It’s a game of attrition, folks. Eventually, most of you will be broken to the point where leaving will be your only choice until there is only—”

      “Hold it,” Joe called out. “I’m low on juice.” He lowered the camera off his shoulder and took a look at the battery gauge on the pack that was hooked around his waist. “Dino, focus in on Evan so we can get this last shot, will you?”

      Dino, who had been circling the group trying to catch the riveted faces of the contestants, Talia assumed, steered his camera in the direction of Evan.

      “We need that last line again,” Joe told the host.

      “Eventually, most of you will be broken to the point where leaving will be your only choice…until there is only one person left.”

      “Got it,” Dino called. Then he also lowered the bulky camera from his shoulder.

      Seeing both cameras turned off, Talia breathed a sigh of relief, then chastised herself. She was going to have to get used to this if she planned on sticking it out for the next few weeks. Or months.

      Could it go that long?

      She turned and saw Reuben leaning back on his elbows, his face toward the sun, almost ridiculously relaxed considering what they just had been through. He certainly looked comfortable in this element despite being a city boy. If he was telling the truth about that. In a game like this it was hard to know.

      “Okay, let’s head out,” Evan suggested.

      “To СКАЧАТЬ