I counted in my head. Eleven jury members and five contestants left...that was everyone still in the game. "So...wait. Everyone left gets to be on the jury?" Jury members got twice as much money as the other losers and they were sequestered from everyone else, which meant even nicer digs.
"Yep," Kitty said, and flicked her zipper up again. Then down. Then up. She wasn't looking me in the eye. "So, the base of operations is heading over to the Jury lodge. I'm going to come here daily to make sure that you guys have everything you need, but for the most part...you guys are it for the Loser Lodge."
I stared at her in horror. "You've got to be kidding me."
"I wish I was," she said in a small voice. "I'm sorry."
I sucked in a deep breath. Let it whistle back out. "So...wait. For the next month, everyone's going to be over at the other lodge, partying it up and building the jury? What about the camera crew that films us?" At least we'd have them to talk to, right?
Kitty wrinkled her nose. Toyed with her zipper some more. "Well, since we only have two loser lodge members, they decided to nix that footage and just go with extended juror footage. Sorry."
"So we're not even going to be filmed for the website?" I blinked.
She bit her lip and zip zip zipped again. "Remember the part I said about punishment?"
I remembered.
"So, in other words, because we misbehaved, the producers are punishing us by forcing us to stay in this lodge with no company except each other for the next three weeks," Owen said. "Is that right?"
"In a nutshell." Zip zip.
I was going to jerk that damn zipper out of her hands in the next minute if she didn't stop it. Hell, it wasn't Kitty's fault, though. She was an assistant. She was just doing whatever they told her to do. I rubbed my forehead. "This sucks."
"I'm sorry," Kitty said in a small voice. "If you need something, though, you just let me know and I'll get it for you. Otherwise, I'm not supposed to stay for long. Boss's orders."
"It's okay," I said, and patted her shoulder. "Thank you."
"I brought some groceries," she said timidly. "If you make a list I can bring you some other stuff over the next few days, okay?"
"Thank you," Owen said. His voice was so flat that it didn't sound polite at all.
"Okay," Kitty said, and gave me a faint smile. "See you guys tomorrow." She turned and headed for the door. “Happy holidays!”
I watched her go, and shut the front door of the lodge behind her. There went my only hope for company for the next three weeks.
Eleven damn jurors and a final five. It was unbelievable. The producers were bending the rules just to punish us. We wouldn't be let out of our 'jail' until the show stopped filming, which was around New Year's.
If we left, we'd not only forfeit our money for being on the show, but we'd be in breach of contract to the tune of a million dollars.
We were trapped and they knew it.
This was some punishment.
I looked over at Owen, but his arms were crossed. He slouched against the counter and stared out the windows, his expression bleak.
I knew just how he felt. We'd been sentenced to a month of sheer torture.
Happy holidays, indeed.
I FULLY ADMIT THAT I sulked for a few hours. I avoided Owen, too. If he was in the living room, I was in my room. If he was in his room, I headed down to the living room. I did some yoga to center myself, worked on my horror movie script, and spent a lot of time staring out at the snow.
I was pretty effing bored by the end of the day, too.
I liked having people to talk to. I was a social creature. That was why I went to the coffee shop to do my writing instead of hanging out at home. Being a writer was a lonely sort of thing. I didn't do so good with lonely. I got my best ideas when I chatted with other people. I'd start talking, and they'd start talking, and my brain would suddenly start pinging all these different ideas to me and I'd have to scramble to write them all down.
When it was just me? I had nothing but an empty piece of paper.
The idyllic lodge was starting to suck, too. There were no phones, because we were supposed to be in seclusion. No TVs either, for the same reason. No computers. Nada. There were magazines, a few books, and a crossword puzzle book that I'd done most of on my first day here.
So I sat with my notepad in hand and stared out the snowy window, bored out of my mind. The fire crackled and blazed, and I occasionally got up to toss another log on.
Around sunset, I was watching the orange and purple skies light up and trying to think of a way to get my serial killer, nicknamed ‘the Termite,’ all the way to Alaska for the new setting. I had nothing. Ugh.
Above me, the floorboards creaked. (I wrote that down, because a good creaking floorboard was a staple in a horror movie). Then, I heard the heavy, rhythmic thump of Owen's feet coming down the stairs. Mentally, I braced myself. I was cozy on the couch, a blanket over my legs, my grilled cheese sandwich on a nearby plate, and my notepad in front of me. I'd just built the fire up to a roaring blaze, and now he was going to come down here and force me out. I clenched my jaw, irritated.
Sure enough, Owen came down to the living room and threw himself down on the couch across from me.
I waited.
He said nothing for a long minute, and then locked his hands and leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees. "Truce?"