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“I mean… he’s pretty controlling,” Santana said. “Don’t you think? And not just over her.”
There was a long silence. No one had discussed Conor’s increasing autocracy, and the decreasing willingness of the group to stand up to him. It wasn’t just his grip over the food and water. It wasn’t just the brutal efficiency with which he had taken out Bayer. It was everything. In the beginning I think we’d all been grateful for his willingness to take charge, set the rules, make us all feel safe, but day by day, inch by inch, Conor had slowly eased himself more and more into a position of control. Now, somehow, we had found ourselves in a situation where he was dictating not only how much we ate and drank, but when, and even if. His remark to Angel, that he was letting her eat, had been an admission of something that none of us had wanted to face up to—but now Conor had put it into words, and I felt a cold, chill certainty coalesce in the pit of my stomach. Zana was not okay. None of us were. And we were too scared to challenge him.
“She’s frightened of him,” I said. It felt like a realization, but as I said the words, I knew that it wasn’t, not really. It was an admission of something I’d suspected almost since the first day on the island.
“What?” Joel sounded nonplussed. “How do you make that out? I’ve never seen them exchange a cross word.”
“You’ve never seen them exchange a cross word because she never stands up to him,” Santana said tartly. I nodded.
“That argument tonight, about Angel’s food—that was literally the first time I’ve seen her push back at anything—even though she’s terrified of that bloody water villa. And she’s a completely different person when she’s not around him. I spent all day trying to rig up a rain catcher with her, and it was like being with another girl.”
“What do you mean?” Joel asked.
“It’s like…” I struggled to put it into words. “Well, for one thing, she’s got a personality when she’s not looking over her shoulder and worrying about what he’s thinking. She’ll argue back, she’ll make her point. She had this genius idea about sinking the bottles into the sand to minimize evaporation. But when she’s around him…” I trailed off.
“When she’s around him, she seems scared,” Santana finished my sentence for me, and I nodded, though I knew no one could see me in the darkness. On his mattress on the other side of the double bed, I could hear Joel shifting uncomfortably, as if he didn’t know what to say.
“I should have known from the start,” Dan said bitterly. “It was all right there in his videos. But he seemed so nice in person.”
“Videos?” I was puzzled. “You mean his YouTube channel? How did you manage to access that without a phone?”
“He was on the list they posted round to everyone’s houses.” Dan said. “The first thing I did when we got the info pack was google everyone on it. He’s… well, he’s quite a piece of work.”
I frowned. What info pack? But Dan was still speaking, sounding like he was trying to marshall his thoughts.
“He’s… he’s one of those I’m just asking the question guys, you know? The kind it’s really hard to pin down, because they never actually say the racist stuff themselves, they’re just like, hey, thought experiment here, but what if racism wasn’t so bad? He’ll have someone incredibly shitty on his channel and he’ll be like well, now, I’m not endorsing Andrew Tate, obviously, but I am interested in his point of view on… and the end result is that you find you’ve sat through twenty minutes of some men’s-rights nut not being challenged about his views, because Conor’s just quote, unquote asking questions.”
“Yeah, but…” Joel sounded like he was struggling. “I have to say, I’ve seen some of his stuff—”
“Wait, you’ve seen it?” I don’t know why, but the news shocked me. Then I remembered Joel’s words to Conor on the boat, the day we met. I know who you are of course. At the time I’d assumed he’d simply come across him in the press. Now, the remark had a very different slant. “Are you one of his subscribers?”
“I’m not a Co-bro if that’s what you mean,” Joel said a little defensively, and Dan burst out laughing.
“Co-bro? Is that what his fans call themselves?”
Joel carried on, doggedly, as though Dan hadn’t interrupted.
“In fact, if you want to know the truth, I came across him because he had a run-in with Romi. So I’m hardly some kind of uncritical admirer.”
“What?” This was all getting more and more confusing. “I’m sorry, did Romi know him?”
“No, but he called her out on his channel. She was absolutely furious about it. He did this whole segment on beauty influencers and body image, and he called out a load of TikTokers he felt had damaging messages. Romi wasn’t the target, but she was one of the channels he quoted. Anyway, she was mad as hell, but when I watched it…” He shrugged helplessly. “Honestly… I thought he had a point. Some of the stuff she says—” He swallowed painfully, and I saw him correct himself. “Said, was… kind of toxic, when you really thought about it.”
“Let me guess,” Santana’s voice was unimpressed, “all the toxic people he called out were young women, yes? And his 10.4 million followers probably descended on their feeds and made their lives miserable? So much for standing up for women. If it looks like a misogynist and barks like a misogynist—”
“Can we not just go by what he’s actually said?” Joel broke in. He sounded like he was becoming frustrated. “Okay, he’s had the odd controversial guest on, and okay, his followers don’t always behave perfectly. But unless you can point me to where he’s said or done something wrong, this feels a bit guilt by association.”
“Look, you’ve clearly watched his channel more than me,” Dan said. His voice was placating, though beneath it he didn’t sound convinced by Joel’s point. “So I’ll take your word on that. But for someone who claims he’s not a racist, homophobic piece of shit, he sure attracts a lot of racist, homophobic piece-of-shit followers.” Joel made an unhappy noise, and Dan waved his hand, dismissing the point of Conor’s YouTube. “Let’s put that aside though—I wasn’t even talking about YouTube originally. It was the food and water situation I wanted to discuss. Is no one else bloody uncomfortable about all this?”
“Yes,” Santana and I both said, at the same time as Joel said, “But it makes sense.”
“What makes sense?” Santana demanded. “Him hoarding all the supplies over at his villa? How does that make sense, Joel? Help me understand, because at the moment, all I’m seeing is some animals are more equal than others.”
“What?” Dan sounded puzzled, and Santana made an impatient noise. “Animal Farm, Dan. We were in a tutorial together at uni. Did you pay any attention that year? But regardless, it doesn’t make sense, Joel, and you know it. All that stuff about rats getting at the food was just an excuse.”
“How was it an excuse?” Joel said. His voice had risen and he sounded more than a little aggrieved. I guessed he was feeling got at by implication, because of the way he’d fallen into trying to defend Conor’s YouTube channel, and now his complicity in helping to move the food. “He wasn’t making that up. I saw it—there’d been rats at the cardboard boxes, and there were trails of ants all over the place. None of that’s a problem out at the water villa.”
“So what’s the excuse with the water? I can’t see rats getting at the water.”
