A pretty, brown-skinned girl raised her hand. “What’s with all the ticking contraptions in the dormitory? Greta and Roxy and I can’t sleep properly.”
“You mean the metronomes, Yolanda?” replied Brother Vito. “They’re there to help reframe your minds. Allow them to lull you. You’ll get used to them.” He smiled. “Now, why don’t you all relax and get to know each other?”
With that, the mentors left the garden and returned to the monastery interior.
Richard’s jaw pulled tight beneath his beard. “I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not going to play this calm. I’m here to win. Right to the end.”
Poppy high-fived him. “You and me, baby-chin. All the way.”
He snatched his hand away from the hi-five. “Sorry, popsicle. I’m a lone cowboy. I walk this life alone.”
“Awww, you can’t mean that.” She giggled. “Look, we already have cute names for each other. Baby-chin and popsicle.”
Richard’s lips formed a thin smile, his eyes remaining intent.
Poppy fiddled with her wristband. “They wouldn’t even give us the smallest clue about the challenges. This is bad. God, I’m freaking. Seriously freaking.”
Her anxiety rushed directly into my veins, replacing my blood with fear. “They wouldn’t set us super-hard challenges, right? We’re supposed to get through this. Just the people who slack off would be eliminated . . . right? But I hate it that we can’t all get through to the end.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t it work better if they made it so that all of us got to the end?” agreed Cormack. “It’d look like a more successful program.”
“That’s not how business works,” Richard scoffed. “And if they’re smart, they’ll be running this like a well-oiled business. They’ll be weeding out the weak and only rewarding the winners. Because the winners’d be the ones most likely to kick their addiction, and the mentors know that. That would make the mentors look good. They get a higher success rate than they otherwise would. They’re not gonna want to hand over sixty thousand to people who’re gonna blow it all on drugs and end up killing themselves. How’s that going to look?”
Ruth angled her head around and eyed our table, her expression haughty and suspicious. She seemed to have already gathered some kind of alliance at her table—Harrington and two others. With hunched shoulders, they spoke in conspiratorial whispers.
Ignoring her, Richard pulled himself to his feet and stepped across to the chalkboard. Richard rubbed out what Sister Dawn had written with the palm of his hand and started writing with a piece of chalk: Challenge 1: 28 = 4 groups of 7
?4
Challenge 2: 24 = 4 groups of 6
?4
Challenge 3: 20 = 4 groups of 5
?4
Challenge 4: 16 = 4 groups of 4
?4
Challenge 5: 12 = 4 groups of 3
?4
Challenge 6: 8 = 4 groups of 2
?2 = The final 6
“This is it, people,” Richard boomed. “You heard what Brother Sage said. Here’s the math. All you have to do is not get into the bottom four each night. What I want to know is what’s involved in these challenges. If anyone knows anything, bring it to me. I’ll pay part of my winnings for any snippets that are worth my while.”
Richard had everyone’s attention. I could sense the tension ticking in the air. We all wanted the end prize.
“Don’t tell him anything,” Ruth warned. “You’ll never see him again after this. You won’t see any of us for dust after this. And I know his type.”
“And what’s that?” Richard asked her, his mouth dropping open in mock indignation.
“You’re a shyster,” Ruth told him.
“And you’re not?” Richard retorted.
“You don’t know the first thing about me, and you’re going to leave here not knowing any more than that.” Ruth eyed him directly, raising her eyebrows snarkily as if challenging him to a debate he couldn’t win.
A blonde girl with her hood low over her face rose to her feet. I thought she was going to jump into the fray between Ruth and Richard, but instead she headed off into the garden, hands clutching her crossed arms. I realized she was the same girl who’d been in the bed nearest to mine. I decided to go after her and check if she was okay. Maybe she’d had an even rougher morning than me.
Yolanda and two women walked down to a sunny spot in the garden, stripped off down to their underwear and commenced sunbathing. The other two women were blondes, with botoxed, puffy-lipped faces. All three shot me bored looks when I asked if they’d seen which way the girl went.