Bedroom Games
Page 38

The outside world seemed like a distant, unpleasant place full of worry and stress. At least here in this house, the biggest concern was whether or not someone was going to nominate you. Things like bills and paying the rent and parents on a destructive path didn’t matter.
And in here? I had delicious, sexy, confident Brodie who said he had my back until the end and loved making out with me.
Even if this wasn’t reality, it was enough for me, for now.
 
 
~~ * ~~
 
 
The next morning, Brodie wasn’t weird about our little make-out session. He simply winked at me over breakfast, as if we were sharing a secret. Then, he treated me like he always had—a bit of flirting, a bit of teasing, and just our normal partnership. I could deal with that. It made things easier.
And if I wanted to hold his hand every now and then when we were all curled up on one of the lounges, just chatting? That was my problem, not his.
We were curled up in the sun on the lounge chairs that the smokers had claimed as their own, when the intercom chimed, announcing an incoming message. “All contestants please proceed to the challenge area for your final reward challenge of the season!”
The other contestants and I exchanged a glance. “Last reward challenge of the season?” I asked, curious. “Isn’t this kind of early?” I counted heads, thinking. We still had seven contestants in the house out of twelve. That meant at least five more weeks in the house, right? Unless they were planning on switching things up.
“Maybe they ran out of challenge ideas,” Marla suggested and stubbed out her cigarette before getting to her feet.
Maybe so.
We headed to the challenge area that had been roped off and curtained. Since Brodie had Power, he’d be running the challenge. And since we were singles now, I could compete. I lined up with the others and waited for the curtains to be pulled back.
Brodie grabbed the card that dangled from a rope and began to read. “Hello, contestants. This is your last reward challenge of the season, so we’ve decided to make this one truly worth your while. Today, you’ll participate in a zombie party. It’s kind of like musical chairs, but with a twist.” He put down the card and grabbed the cord to the immense challenge-area curtain, dragging it backward and revealing the challenge area.
I blinked. It looked like a giant ball pit. Well, sort of. If ball-pits were a swimming pool filled with reddish water and small pink and green balls. More of the foggy mist from nearby smoke machines covered the area.
Brodie pulled out the card again. “This pit is filled to the brim with balls. Some have been weighted so they’ll sink, and some will float. The pit is once again filled with blood—”
We all groaned, remembering the goopy ‘blood’ from the first challenge.
“—and when I say go,” Brodie continued reading, “you’ll all dive in and look for a ball shaped like a brain. Grab one and proceed to one of the chairs on the sidelines.” He pointed at the row of pink and green chairs on the edge of the tank. Only five were lined up. “The last person to arrive with a brain will not have a chair, and they will be out. Once that round is completed, five will fight, and four will move on to the next round. We’ll continue the challenge in such a fashion until we get down to two people. The last person to win a chair gets the ultimate reward—twenty-five thousand dollars.”
I sucked in a breath so loudly that the others turned to look at me. I didn’t care.
Twenty-five thousand dollars would go a really long way towards helping Mom. It meant that even if I didn’t win, I’d have a little bit of security for a time. Maybe we could figure out what to do about her mortgages and her gambling issues.
I needed to win this. I trembled at the thought of twenty five grand. Twenty-five grand would pay off the most pressing credit card debt and allow my mom to catch up on her two mortgages. It’d be gone in a flash, but it was a start, and one I desperately needed.
“Does everyone understand the rules?” Brodie looked down the line, and his gaze seemed to linger on me for a moment. “Ready? Go!”
We raced across the challenge area and stumbled our way into the pool. The challenge pool was only about three feet deep, but the balls—and the goo covering everything—made it hard to move around. I settled for slowly mucking through, grabbing at each ball. They were all the size of a fist, and upon closer inspection, not all of them were regularly shaped. Some were footballs, some were shaped like eggs, and some just looked as if they’d been half-deflated and shoved into the water. More balls—weighted ones—smacked against my legs in the syrupy goo. Trying to find a ‘brain’ in this was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.
At my side, Sunnie squealed and held something aloft and then began to slowly trudge her way out of the pool. Well, shit. If she could find one, surely I could. I began to grab at the shifting, squirming balls under the water, looking for ridges or irregular shapes. A brain would have something like that, right?
I spotted one a few feet from me by sheer chance, and I dove for it. I plowed into the muck face-first but was successful in grabbing it. As I dripped my way out of the pool, I thumped into a seat with a whoop, soaked from head to toe in red goop.
A few moments later, Jendan was out of the pool and slamming into a seat. Fido and Jayme were next, and Marla was still in the pool. She threw her hands up in disgust as the buzzer sounded.
“Marla is out,” Brodie announced. “Everybody stand up again.”
We did, and he took one of the chairs away. When we deposited the ‘brain’ balls in a bucket at his feet, we headed back to the starting area. At his call, we dove in for the next round.
This time, I was the first one to slosh out of the pit with my prize. One by one, the others emerged until only Fido was left. He wiped goop off his cheek and shook his head as he moved to go sit next to Marla.
Jendan won the next round, and the two after it. I hung with him, though, and when the final round began, it was just Jendan and me. I practically danced with excitement. I was nervous, of course, and exhausted from slogging through the muck back and forth, but I wanted that money so bad I could taste it at this point. I’d endure for a bit longer if it meant I’d get that safety net of twenty-five thousand dollars.
The other girls cheered for me when I got in place for the final round. “You just give up now, Jendan,” I called out. “That money’s mine.”
“Kandis wants that money bad,” Sunnie called. “Better not get in her way.”
Jendan just looked over at me and grinned, his face smeared with red. His teeth seemed unnaturally white in his face. “That so? You need the money?”
“More than you know,” I said, and I gave a small laugh to take the seriousness out of my words.
“Final round,” Brodie called from his place at the sidelines, where the final chair remained. “Ready? Go!”
Jendan and I tore back into the pool, splashing through the thick, murky red water and dragging our hands through the myriad balls. My breathing was shallow with anxiety. I had to find one before he did. Had to. Minutes passed and I couldn’t find one on the surface, so I dragged my hands through the water, looking for the ones that bobbed below. My stomach was in hard knots—I needed this so bad. Just one brain! Just one! Surely I could find one. At my side, Jendan dragged his hands through the water, having no more luck than me.