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Bayer put the bottle down and grinned, widely. There had been almost a liter left in the bottom. Now there was barely half a cup.
“Sure,” he said.
“Listen to me.” Conor’s voice was calm, but deadly, and it made a shiver run down my spine. “I am giving you three strikes, Bayer, and you’ve had two of them. But if you try something like that again, you’re out.”
“Out?” Bayer gave a guffawing laugh. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, mate, but there is no out. There’s nowhere to fucking go.”
Conor had stood up, towering over Bayer, and now Bayer stood up too, putting them nose to nose. The air crackled with testosterone, and beside me I heard Joel swallow nervously.
“Guys—” he tried, but neither of the other two men even acknowledged him.
“You think you could take me?” Bayer was asking. Conor just shrugged.
“I can hold my own.”
Bayer laughed, scoffingly, as if he doubted that, but looking at the two of them, I wasn’t so sure. True, Bayer was the more muscled, he must have had a good stone on Conor, and he looked like he wouldn’t mind fighting dirty. But he also had the beefed-up bulk of someone who’s spent a long time pumping iron, but not much time on cardio—and his dislocated left shoulder definitely wouldn’t help. Conor, on the other hand, looked fit. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, and his muscles were hard, with tendons like whipcords. And there was something in his stance that told me this wasn’t the first time he’d been in this situation—and that he wasn’t scared.
I swallowed too, my throat suddenly dry in spite of the coconut water.
“Bayer,” Angel said now, standing up. “Bayer, stop being a dickhead. Conor, look, Bayer should not have done that, he knows this, but it was one time. He will respect the ration from now. Won’t you?” She glared at Bayer. “Won’t you.”
“Respect has to be earned,” Bayer said, his lip curling. But he turned away from Conor’s pale, unflinching gaze and began walking into the night. “Come on, babe.”
Angel gave a look back at the group as if to say, what can I do? Then she followed Bayer into the gathering darkness.
There was an audible exhalation of breath from around the circle, and a feeling like a balloon had been pricked with a slow puncture, a dissipating tension. Conor flexed his fingers and shoulders, and I heard his neck crack. Maybe he had been more tense than he had been letting on.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. Santana shook her head.
“It’s okay. Someone had to say something.”
Dan nodded.
“Yeah, I’m glad you put a line in the sand. Fuck knows, I wasn’t about to fight him, but we couldn’t let him keep getting away with flouting the rules, could we. Right? I’m not wrong, am I?” He glanced around the circle, looking for agreement, and I found myself nodding, though I didn’t like the them and us mentality that was developing. Every reality TV show I’d ever watched, there was the pack, and the outsiders. And both could be a dangerous place to find yourself.
I remembered Conor’s words on the boat—every show needs a villain. And I remembered, too, Joel saying, these things have a formula… there’s always the alpha males, the ones who’re duking it out for the prize…
We were falling into the reality TV tropes I’d seen play out on-screen. And the implications of that unsettled me in a way I couldn’t quite articulate. Because the stakes here were so much higher than a trophy or a cash prize. The stakes here were life and death.
“I’m going to bed,” I said at last, standing up and draining the last of the coconut water in my cup. Somewhere over the course of the evening, a raging headache had set in, maybe thanks to the heat and dehydration, or perhaps triggered by the argument between Bayer and Conor.
“I’ll come too,” Santana said, and Dan nodded.
“Coming, Joel?”
“I’ll follow up,” Joel said. “Give Conor and Zana a hand clearing up.”
I nodded.
“Thanks, Joel. Will you guys be okay?”
“We’ll be fine,” Conor said. “Won’t we, Zana?”
“Yes,” Zana said, almost inaudibly. I bit my lip. I had to say something.
“Zana, listen, are you sure you’ll be okay getting out to the water villa? Because if you’re not—”
“She’ll be fine,” Conor said reassuringly. “Won’t you, Zana?”
