Then Things Went Dark, page 28
The suspects don’t talk as they wait in the foyer. They don’t even meet each other’s eyes. Jerome reads the posters, Theo draws up his hood to block them all out, Kalpana chews on a mint, and Alex, rushing through the doors after a series of interconnected flights, throws his arms around Isko and doesn’t let go.
They’ve been kept separate even at their hotel, police outside every door. The sight of them together now is almost anticlimactic.
And then all at once, they’re gone.
In the break room, Maes finds Cloutier and Kennard packing up their belongings.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t solve it.” She doesn’t need to say more. They’ve lost enough without her berating them further.
Kennard nods. “Thank you.”
Her phone buzzes—a notification, set to pull her away from work so she could enjoy that nightly episode with her daughters. Iconic, five minutes.
“Well,” she says, “do you want to?”
Kennard takes a shaky breath. “Yeah, might as well see this through.”
They pull kitchen chairs around the small, boxy TV. Cloutier takes Kennard’s hand. Kennard rests his head on the other man’s shoulder.
And like millions of other people around the world, they wait for the final episode to begin.
The contestants go to their hotel rooms and seal themselves off from the world and from each other. They haven’t said a word to one another since they left that island.
And they have an episode to watch.
Araminta makes it fifteen minutes before she abandons the screen. It’s a cement block of a hotel, near the airport, a whole floor secured for them so they won’t encounter the public, security at the doors to the stairs. She can’t go down so she goes up, a brick kicked against the door to the roof, and suddenly it’s a perfectly good smoking area.
She lights her cigarette while leaning so far over the railings she’s not sure falling would even be a choice; it’s simply up to fate. She watches the lights of homes in the distance and wonders how many people are watching her right now, not the version of her smoking on a rooftop but the version she was there, the version she will always be to the people who will forever wonder if maybe there was something more to Rhys’s death.
Isko doesn’t see her until it’s too late to turn around and pretend he wasn’t there. She looks up, meets his eyes, and neither says a word as he heads to a different spot on the roof. He sits on a vent and flicks the lighter.
They smoke in silence, marveling at how it still feels like they’re on that island—all this humid air, the scorching metal beneath their fingers.
“So did you do it?” Isko asks after fifteen minutes, so quietly he doesn’t expect Araminta to hear.
But she does, and to both their surprise, she laughs. “No,” she says, still not turning to him, still staring off at the planes taking flight in the distance, at the cars whizzing past below. “I wish I did it.”
Isko exhales sharply. It’s exactly the answer he should have expected, but it catches him off guard nonetheless.
Jerome arrives then, nodding awkwardly and skirting to the side. Araminta should go back inside, back to her hotel room. But she doesn’t want to. So she lights another, just for the excuse.
Jerome takes his time. He has to roll his first, and he thinks of how many he rolled on that island, in that little box of a smoking area.
Theo nearly turns around when he sees the others out there—seeing them gathered makes him think of a beach and desperation.
But he can’t bear the hotel room either, so he steps out onto the roof thinking that he hopes he never sees them again and also wondering whether there will be a reunion show.
Kalpana joins soon after.
“So none of us could take it then?” she asks but no one answers. She takes the remaining corner, doesn’t even want to look at the others, keeps her head down.
She’d thought it was over, had clung to that relief as she left the station. But then she switched on the TV and realized it will never be over—this will always mark her, she’ll always be a suspect, and if the police don’t reopen the case one day, the public will put them all on trial in other ways.
The thought has her struggling with her lighter, and her fumbling fingers send it flying. If she squints, she can see the green dot on the ground below.
“Fuck,” she says. The others look up, can only guess what happened.
“Here.” Isko tosses his and she just manages to catch it, brings the flame to the edge of her cigarette before going to throw it back.
“Keep it; Alex will have one. Besides, hopefully that’s my screen time over with,” he says, heading back inside before anyone can say anything else.
Kalpana’s eyes trace the horizon, so much farther than she could see on the island, where blue just merged with more blue. But her eyes are drawn back to that dot of green on the ground again.
It’s an awfully long way to fall.
The Finale
The scene opens on blurry, black-and-white footage of two figures—one moment pressed against a wall, lips together, hands clutching at whatever they can grasp, and then something moving beneath a sheet.
Chilling, eerie music plays—after all, everyone watching knows how this ends.
The Iconic logo appears.
It starts raining at midnight. By four, the lighter sleepers give up. There are several hours during which they toss and turn and contemplate rising, but they manage to do it together. In the hallway between their rooms, Isko collides with Araminta.
He has hastily thrown an unbuttoned shirt on, and his hair is disheveled as he emerges from Rhys’s room. Araminta’s eyes are red, her skin pallid. She stares at him like he’s crushed her.
“Araminta,” he says softly, but she’s already running down the stairs. He hesitates, just for a moment, contemplating letting her go. Then he runs after her.
He doesn’t know why he follows her other than to prove that he can, that he isn’t scared of her. He had sex with her ex-boyfriend just a few hours ago. He could run in the opposite direction, but he doesn’t; he follows her.
She stops in the kitchen, staring outside at the haze of rain, and he wonders if she will run out into it. It seems exactly the sort of thing she would do, to insist on more drama, always more drama, the perfect shot.
But she turns.
“Isko,” she says, nodding like nothing is wrong. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he says.
She watches him, waiting.
He goes to speak but can’t think of anything to say. He doesn’t want to apologize; he’s done nothing wrong. But he can’t bring himself to ask if she’s okay, because what if she’s not?
“Well?” he demands.
“Well, what?”
“Say something. I can’t stand this silence.”
She looked on the verge of falling apart but now she stands straighter. He has shocked her out of it, and now her outrage contorts and her lips twist and she folds her arms across her chest. “All right, how was it?”
He rolls his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Okay, how many times was it? Do you need me to find out what he thought again? Oh, should we maybe exchange contact details, you know, just so we can compare STI tests when we get home?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Isko says.
“Well, what did you want me to say, Isko?” she asks, feigning shock. “What exactly were you hoping for here?”
“I thought you were better than all this cattiness.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“You took him from me first, you know.”
“Seriously? You’re engaged!”
“I’m just saying you don’t get to be annoyed at me for sleeping with someone you slept with when you did the same thing.”
“You slept with the man I love so that he could avenge himself. Presumably mere minutes after we broke up.” Her eyes run over him, a quick look up and down, the perfect disgusted sneer.
Araminta: They literally hooked up when we were together! I’m not angry with Isko, but I’m not going to pretend he’s not twisting the knife Rhys stabbed me with.
“You didn’t break up because of me.”
“No, I broke up because of him. But if you’re looking for my blessing then you’re not going to find it here.”
“I slept with him because I wanted to,” Isko says. “I just…wanted to be clear it wasn’t about you. I didn’t do it to spite you.”
“No, that was all him.”
Isko laughs. “Well, not just that. I’m sure I hold some appeal. I don’t think us having sex is wholly about his revenge fantasy.”
Araminta just stares at him for a moment. And then the worst thing happens: he sees pity. “Oh, darling,” she says, “you know better than that.”
She struts from the room without another glance.
He watches her leave, trying to ignore that voice in his head saying she’s right.
Araminta: I…I don’t even think it’s just the heartbreak. It’s that I’m heartbroken again. And to realize the truth of all the things that I spent so long denying and fighting against, because of course that couldn’t be true, because that would never happen to a girl like me. Because I’d know better. God, I think maybe he really did intentionally hurt Valerie too…
Tears still run down her face when she leaves the confession booth and runs right into Rhys.
She squeezes past him, brushing against the wine bottles, racing toward the stairs with her head bowed low. Even down here she can hear the wind howling outside, and right now she wishes she were out in it.
“Wait,” Rhys calls.
“No!” she screams, slowing her steps, turning to him, waving her arms like they can force distance between them.
She is not crying but sobbing—messy, choking wails that shake her whole body.
“Araminta,” Rhys says softly, holding out his hands like he is surrendering.
She supposes this is it, what she has avoided for so long, breaking down in public. Her suffering projected to a nation.
And here he is to witness it.
“Are you happy now?” she demands. “Is this what you wanted to see?”
“No,” he says quickly, the word catching like the mere thought that this is something he wanted hurts him.
She laughs like a wounded animal. “If this isn’t it, then what is? You tore and you tore and you tore, for what?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says.
“Which part? The entirety of our relationship? The glass? Isko?” she asks, letting the tears flow freely now, but they are at least just tears; the full wracking sobs have dissipated.
Rhys shuts his eyes like a man trying to get his story straight. “I’m not saying I didn’t hurt you. I did. I know I did. I’m just deeply sorry about it.”
“Great. Can you leave me alone now?”
He nods. “If you want, I just…are you okay?”
“No.”
“And I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to make that better.”
“No.”
He sighs. “I can’t help, I know that. I caused this, but…Araminta, don’t be upset because of a man like me. I’m not worth it—especially not to someone like you. Someone who can do so much, who will be so much regardless of me.”
Her jaw tightens. His compliments have a way of slicing her when she isn’t looking.
“I’m sorry,” he says. His hand brushes her shoulder.
When did he come so close?
Using his words to creep nearer. That shouldn’t surprise her at this point.
“You were the best thing that ever happened to me. And I’m sorry I let you down. For what it’s worth, I still love you. I think part of me always will.”
She flinches away from the words. Suddenly, she sees what he’s doing—the way he’s using her, has used her from the start. Maybe he loves her too, in whatever way he can, whatever it means to him: some corrupted, twisted thing that wants to possess her, to use her talent to bolster his own, to take her reputation and use it to elevate his.
He wants her back to win this game.
Part of her wants to laugh. Part of her, something deeper than her heart, breaks.
The door at the top of the stairs opens, the other contestants appearing.
“We heard shouting,” Theo says, watching Araminta closely.
Theo: Kalpana told me what happened last night and I swear I could have murdered him. I can’t believe he threw a glass at her. But she said Araminta wouldn’t want me fighting on her behalf. Right now, I’m not so sure that matters—someone needs to clock Sutton, and I’m more than happy to take one for the team.
“It’s nothing,” Rhys says, watching her too.
Isko: We had sex a few hours ago and now he’s not even looking at me. If I had any lingering doubt that he had sex with me to use me, either as a distraction or as revenge, that’s vanished. [Pause] Maybe I’m mostly angry at myself for letting myself be used.
“I’d rather she told us that,” Isko snaps.
“Araminta,” Kalpana says stiffly. “Come join us.”
Araminta swallows, risks a glance at Rhys, who nods and steps back, and she hates it, hates that she still feels like she needs his permission.
She runs past them all, Kalpana following her quickly, the others still staring at Rhys like they don’t know what to do with him.
Jerome: I overheard Kalpana telling Theo last night. It’s horrendous.
He does not actually think it is. It was a broken glass, and they’re all acting like it was Rhys’s fist and her jaw.
But Jerome knows he needs a scandal if he wants this show to become legendary.
And now it’s obvious Rhys needs to be at the center of it.
Kalpana goes with Araminta to her room. Outside, the rain has become desperate, demanding, and all encompassing. It’s the kind of rain that hammers on the windows like it’s trying to break through, the sort of wind that rips up trees and blows from no one direction but from all around.
She expects Araminta to sob harder away from the others, but she catches her breath as she crosses the threshold and swallows the tears. She throws herself heavily down before her mirror and grabs a makeup wipe, ready to clean up the mess, like she could erase the pain just as easily.
Kalpana doesn’t know what to do. She feels like she’s intruding, but how could she be when this is being broadcast.
“I heard what he said last night,” she says after a long moment of silence. “About how you have no one. That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Araminta watches her, like she’s searching for something, and Kalpana doesn’t know what reassurance to give—a smile, a steady gaze, a nod. So she does nothing until Araminta looks back to her mirror.
“We didn’t speak for days. And yesterday when you approached me…you were using me, right? Saying you wanted Valerie off the island.”
“No, no, I wasn’t using you,” Kalpana rushes, and she perches herself on the edge of Araminta’s bed, wondering if she’ll be asked not to sit there again. “But I admit I was lying. I wanted you to go home.”
“Me?”
“Yes.” She doesn’t even attempt to sound apologetic, her voice as righteous and just as ever. “I didn’t see a world where you realized what Rhys was doing while you were both still on this island. I thought you needed to escape him. Get some distance and gain some perspective.”
“He’s the one who should leave this island,” Araminta snaps. “Not me.”
“Well, this was before we knew his danger was a physical kind. I can’t believe he’s still here.”
Kalpana: Seriously, what does he have to do to get kicked off the show? And Araminta…do you know when a woman in an abusive relationship is most at risk? When she tries to leave him.
“Did you think he would accept his loss and walk away?”
“He threw a glass at you.”
“I mean, not quite; he threw a glass near me.”
Kalpana: You could have licked the whisky off her. I’d say that’s pretty damn near.
“Then why did you break up with him?” Kalpana asks.
Araminta glares at her but she doesn’t drop her gaze. She needs to know: needs to know what support Araminta needs, needs to know what she’s dealing with—what the situation is.
“I broke up with him because I was scared,” she says at last, voice steadfast but cold. She reaches for her make-up bag so she can become polished once more. “Several times during that argument, actually, I was scared. I didn’t realize until the glass shattered. And I simply shouldn’t feel fear in a relationship with anyone, no matter how bad the argument.”
Kalpana nods. “Right, you shouldn’t. And no one should be stuck on an island with someone they’re afraid of. They can’t—”
The moment the liner touches her lid Araminta flinches, drawing a line across her face, and she throws it from her hand, swearing incessantly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“What?” Kalpana is up. Does she have a black eye? Or is it something else, is everything she’s holding back about to come spilling forth courtesy of a makeup error?
“I don’t even like that eyeliner.” Araminta waves her hand at it, her movements shaky and theatrical, tears already brimming over again. “He likes that eyeliner. You know it took me ten minutes just to pick an outfit this morning? I couldn’t look at a dress without seeing his reaction to it.”
Kalpana: I came up here to check she was okay, but I don’t think I was actually prepared for her not to be. I’m not exactly someone you go to for comfort.
