Page 115 of Forsaking All Others

“Please, Cat, do this thing for me.”

“I want more.”

“Pardon?”

I take a deep breath.

“If I do this, and I still somehow win. I want more.”

“More what?”

“You know.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “We’ve been over this. I’d be the world’s biggest fucking hypocrite. I’ll never do that to my wife.”

“Then I guess,” I rise and look down at him, “that if you won’t offer immortality, you don’t want to save Thorun after all.”

“Cat…”

“The ball’s in your court, Viscount. We leave in the morning for the next challenge. I don’t need to tell you that this one involves guns and a whole lot of dead people. You wouldn’t be asking for this deal if you thought Thorun could make it out alive by herself. If I don’t hear from you I’ll play my way.”

His expression darkens but I don’t back down, instead nodding perfunctorily at him, I rise, spin on my heel, and leave.

He doesn’t call out for me to stop, but he should have, because right now I’m furiously switching my game plan for tomorrow.

And the first person I’m going to kill is Thorun.

84

I shake my head as the director outlines the next challenge and what he wants me to do as part of it. The whole time he’s been talking I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of something, anything, I can offer Cat to have her agree to protect Thorun.

‘She fears I’m going to choose Thorun. All along she’s been determined to win. She won’t be satisfied unless she wins because she’s determined that her enemy must be destroyed. But maybe, just maybe I can swing that in my favour.’

85

“I have a deal for you.”

“This ought to be good.”

I shift my weight from foot to foot and frown at Jaguar where we stand off-camera. He’d pulled me aside as soon as we arrived at the starting point of our challenge, which pisses me off. Any kind of attention from him at this late stage of the Game draws unwanted ire from my fellow competitors.

‘And I’m still angry that he told me he didn’t care who wins, but clearly favours Thorun.’

Right now everyone else is strapping on parachutes ready for the first stage of our next trial. But the usual Starlen showmanship and competition build-up for the audience has been stalled due to Cherry hyperventilating and Thorun asking a million and one questions, despite being berated by the director.

Once again we’re wearing the ridiculous skin-tight, zip-up catsuits that we’ve worn in every challenge except the first. Only they don’t make much sense now, because they were colour-coded for our rooms and hardly anyone is sticking to those alliances now that we’re not being forced to. Consequently, while Thorun, Sona and I are still wearing Khaki, Vasiliki and Miranda are in orange, Silke and Claire are in black, the twin is in yellow, and Cherry is in pink. It’s a salient reminder to us all, though, that there are some rooms now sleeping only one, and none of us should be complacent about our safety.

I try to concentrate on what Jag’s saying, but I didn’t get much sleep today because my conversation with him had played over and over in my mind.

I don’t know why, but despite him favouring her over me it doesn’t sit well with me to eliminate Thorun, even though I know I must. I had no idea he was developing feelings for her, especially since he’d told me he only wanted a marriage of convenience. And when she’d confided in me that she felt incompatible with him I was sure that must be mutual.

‘Was it all a ruse to keep me concentrating on eliminating other people so she could be furthered in the Game?’

If I was a lesser woman I’d recount the conversation I’d had with her to him. But I’m not. I’m going to continue playing the game as intended, with as much honour as I can, with my eye on the prize.

‘And I came in knowing I had to be totally dispassionate about eliminating rivals. I HAVE to stick to that game plan.’

“Cat, are you listening?”