Authors: Ashlynn Monroe
The women happily snatched up the picnic baskets she’d ordered catered for this event. Dina knew all of Zane’s favorite foods and what he didn’t like. He was in for a surprise. Each basket had a few things he loved and a few things he hated. The challenge on the date was to guess what he would like and avoid what he wouldn’t eat. For each correct guess, the contestant would get one point. The girl with the most points was immune from the next day’s elimination.
Dina led the group down to five checkered blankets, artfully arranged and anchored by the lake. Umbrellas shaded the blankets, and each area was decorated interestingly to create a unique and comfortable picnic oasis. Dina was happy with the result. She’d have to give Sarah, the props girl, props, she thought, smiling at her little play on words. She’d been too busy to check it out before, but she was glad the competent woman had done so well.
Each pair of cabin mates would have a basket and work out an order and strategy between themselves. Drama would soon ensue. Ervin would crown her queen once again, her shunning would end, and everyone would live happily-ever-after. If she could keep her jealousy under control, at least on camera, this would be the greatest show in the history of the network.
They took their places, and Dina directed Zane to go to the first blanket. He lay down on his side; his dark blue spandex was glimmering in the sun. He grinned and seemed completely at one with the universe. It was a sight Dina never thought she’d see. Zane appeared positively delighted to be the center of these women’s attention.
Dina wanted to hit him with the coconut cream pie on display, even if it was his favorite desert. Moving to stand in front of a giant, white dry erase board, she motioned to the cameraman. She held herself proudly and used her most theatrical voice.
“It is now time for the contest to begin. The girl with the most points is safe from elimination tomorrow. Each team has divided the items in the basket and Mind Man will give me the thumbs up if he likes what you are offering him. If you’ve made a bad choice, he’ll give the thumbs down.”
Susan and Candy were the first to go. Susan gave him a bite of mango. She scored a point. Candy offered him a piece of toffee. She whispered, “Candy from Candy.” Her flirting didn’t help. Zane held his thumb down.
Susan gave him a bite of banana dipped in chocolate. She scored another point. Candy offered him a strawberry dipped in chocolate. She didn’t score a point. The camera zoomed in on her huffy pout. Susan offered him a bite of Swiss cheese; she scored a point. Candy refused a third try, already defeated and pouting.
“Thank you, Mind Man. Ladies, that round goes to Susan. Well played.”
Dina directed him to go to Amber and Purity’s blanket. She noticed the way he looked at Purity, and it made her want to throw the girl in the lake. Forcing herself to calm down, she smiled sweetly and began the point tally anew under Susan’s winning score. Amber went first and offered him a bite of celery. She should’ve scored a point, but Zane gave her the thumbs down. Purity offered him a bite of carrot. He gave the thumbs up. Dina paused. She’d just about been ready to mark it as a no pointer. Looking at him, she called out, “I couldn’t tell. Was that a thumbs down?”
“No. Give Purity a point, I love carrots.” He smiled a very sexy bedroom smile at Purity. Dina almost snapped her chalk in half. He was lying.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
He did the first un-noble thing she’d ever seen him do—cheat. Zane could control minds, but he wouldn’t even cheat at Monopoly. How could he do this? He’d obviously started to mark his preferences.
Gritting her teeth, she marked it as a point for Purity. Amber offered him a bit of watermelon. This was his all-time favorite food. He gave her the thumbs down. Dina was really getting mad. But she certainly couldn’t call him out as a liar without admitting how intimately they knew each other.
She took away poor Amber’s rightfully earned point. Obviously, she could play this game too, and she’d remember which girls he cheated on, so to speak. Purity offered him a bite of soft goat cheese. He gave the thumbs up, and Dina relished the look on his face as he tried not to vomit. She gave the girl another undeserved point. Amber offered him a bite of fried chicken. Giving her another, undeserved, thumbs down he didn’t even look remorseful. The fact she’d ordered the chicken from his favorite restaurant only added insult to the emotional injury. He always raved about how much he liked the fried chicken from the place. They were one of the sponsors too, this wasn’t going to make them happy.
The man was
so
not playing fair. Amber offered him a chocolate truffle. He gave her an incorrect thumbs down. The poor girl tied with Susan, and didn’t even know it. Purity offered him a bite of caviar. He slurped it down as if he loved it, but Dina could see his throat working convulsively as he tried to swallow the food.
Begrudgingly, Dina updated Purity’s to score to tie her with Susan. He did everything entirely fair at all the other blankets, and that irritated Dina even more. He was trying to send her a message, she could tell. He knew she knew his preferences. And he knew that she knew he cheated. Glancing over at Purity, she tried not to roll her eyes. Mr. Noble decided to break his code of honor for a silly girl he didn’t even know. Dina never thought about it before, but Zane’s honor was a big part of what made him a real hero. It wasn’t just that he had amazing abilities, but he was careful to be a man worthy of being called hero. The fact he’d been willing to ignore his responsibility to his image for the girl really irked her.
It was time to announce the winner, and there was a three-way tie between Susan, Purity, and Nelly. They each had one opportunity to impress him with creating a food combination from the remainder of the picnic. To prove he liked the winner’s “cooking”, he had to devour her entire creation. Dina was suddenly starting to enjoy the game. She watched the three women work. They only had two minutes.
“Ready…set…go,” Dina called as she pressed the button on her stopwatch. It was on.
The contestants scrambled between the blankets to get what they wanted and what he’d liked. Everyone else was out of the way. It was going smoothly until Nelly ran into Susan and the pair ended up in a tangle of limbs and food. Dina could see her Emmy award now, just in sight, almost in reach.
Nelly shouted and began to wrestle with Susan. Susan’s bio said she was a black belt. Nelly found out the hard way as Susan took her out with a kick. Purity kept working fiercely. The stopwatch called time loudly. The others had nothing to show for their effort.
“I win!” Purity called happily, assuming she was the winner. Dina stopped her from congratulating herself as she spoke to Zane.
“You must eat her hard work to make her the winner. If you don’t like her work, then we’ll have to select the one that is free from elimination by a random drawing.”
Zane looked angry, but he was hiding it well—the only way that Dina knew was the tick in his handsome jaw line. She smiled sweetly at him. He appeared genuinely happy. Purity’s creation looked completely inedible, and to make it worse, it was large and contained almost all of the foods he hated. Zane tried to smile as he shocked Dina by devouring the mess. She could see he didn’t look well, and for a moment, she regretted what she’d forced him to do it.
Then he pressed Purity into the most impure lip-lock she’d ever witnessed. Dina’s mouth fell open. Her sympathy evaporated.
I wish I’d made you eat two of those.
He’d professed his love to Dina the night before, but now, with ten beautiful women lavishing attention on him, he tossed the love spiel right out the window. He was doing everything a producer could’ve hoped he’d do. She should be elated instead of feeling rejected and deflated. Yet, all she wanted to do was run to her personal space and hide from what she saw.
Her career was on the line so she stood her ground, wearing the best fake smile she could manage. Their eyes met and the challenge she saw in his made her smile falter slightly. Was he trying to show her how bad she’d feel if he was with another woman? If so, it totally worked. She wanted to kick the sneaky man, but knew it wouldn’t be good for the show.
“As this first meeting wraps to a close, I’d like to ask Mind Man if he would like to give each of you a farewell kiss.”
Trying not to cringe, she looked right at him as she said the words. As this was unscripted, much more so than the first day’s production had been, her crew looked uncertain. The cameras circled like piranhas, all hoping to get the best angle. His eyes never left her as he grabbed the closest woman and bent her backward with the force of his passionate kiss. He released her quickly as he swung the next contestant into a similar embrace. Zane’s eyes never left Dina’s as he kissed all ten women thoroughly. Heat burned her cheeks by the time he’d finished.
Then he poofed away—definitely not in her script. He was supposed to give a farewell speech. His actions only annoyed her further. She wrapped up the taping without his dialogue.
“Mind Man will select two more women, and as Purity is the winner of the competition, she is automatically going. You three lucky ladies will be spending some quality time with him. He’ll also select one woman who’ll have to say goodbye and go home.”
The loser would actually go to a luxury hotel where she would stay guarded from the media, but Dina didn’t think the viewers needed to know about that. She tried not to stutter when she said her last words to the camera. “Well, those were some pretty spectacular goodnight kisses. I think this group will certainly up the ante now that they know what they’re competing to win. Tune in next week, when one woman will leave and one special lady will get that much closer to being the woman behind the man with the amazing mind.”
* * * *
Zane arrived in Dina’s temporary residence feeling ill. He’d managed to hold it together for the camera. He was going to give that woman exactly what she wanted, but he could see she didn’t like it. Dina never had a great poker face. The whole time, she’d looked like she was smelling something unpleasant. His act had gotten to her. Good. She deserved to suffer as he had. She still loved him. She might not want to be in love with a freak, but she was.
He went back to the small bathroom. He always felt a little ill, feverish even, after teleporting, but he’d never done it after eating the most disgusting pile of goo ever created. He coughed, then took in a big gulp of air. He sat down on the floor, trying to make his stomach settle.
Zane looked down at Dina. Her face was so pale and she hadn’t opened her eyes in hours. Her breathing was shallow.
“Maybe we should take her to the hospital,” Ella whispered.
“If we do that, they’ll ask questions. They’ll put us back in the system. I’m not letting those son-of-a-bitches get their hands on me again,” Aaron said coldly. “Hey, she’s my friend, but she’s better off dead then back there.”
“She’s not better off dead!” Ian spat the words out as if they left a bad taste in his mouth. “Dina won’t die.”
“How do you know?” Bridget asked.
“Because she won’t. She’s strong. They put her through more often than they did us. Anyone notice that? All those kids that died went in as often as she did, but she always hung on. She won’t die.”
Zane hadn’t let her sister take her from him. He’d held her the whole time. For years, he’d wanted to feel her next to him, more than just her hand, and now he had her. Looking into her still face, he wanted to scream. It wasn’t fair. She’d made it out, she deserved to live.
“Why did they put her in the lab so often?” Bridget asked.
“Me. It was my fault. I started to change first. She’s my sister—twin sister. They’d assume she’d change too. I did.”
“We’ve all changed in the last month. Why hasn’t she?” Aaron looked curiously at Dina as he asked the question.
“She’s stubborn, always has been. I don’t know. Maybe that was why,” Ella replied, also looking at her sister.
“She’s strong, not stubborn, there’s a difference,” Ian said. “But she’s physically weak, still normal. She might have a strong will, but if she makes it, she’ll need us to look after her.”
Zane glared at him. If anyone would “look after” Dina, it would be him.
The large drainage tunnel was cold. They’d picked a bad hiding spot, it was damp. They all wore thin hospital gowns. “We need to find some clothing, and a better place to help Dina,” Zane said as he met each set of their eyes for a second. “They aren’t getting us back. I’m not letting anything hurt me again.” He gazed at Dina and added softly, “Or you.”
Zane shook off the memory. He had to do the show, for her sake, but he didn’t have to make it easy for her to watch.