"So you are going to help us?" Cody asked as we followed Alice out of the room and down the hallway.

"Yeah, why not? I haven't got anything better to do." At the end of the hallway was a door, which led to the gigantic hotel laundry room. Alice went over to the third washing machine, opened the door, and pulled out a surprisingly high quality paintball gun. She passed it and a handful of ammo to Eva, who inspected the gun and then held it properly.

Alice also pulled out some pieces of shoddy-looking armor made from cardboard and duct tape. There were three chest-plates, so Eva, Cody, and I split them amongst ourselves. Alice passed a smaller paintball gun to me, but I passed it over to Cody. Neither of us were very good at aiming on the fly, but at least if I gave it to Cody no one could blame me for missing an easy shot.

"Well, that's all of it." Alice slammed the door of the machine shut and turned to face it. "That's all I can help you with. Actually winning is up to you." She placed one hand on her hip and made a shooing motion with the other, indicating for us to go back out the way that we came.

We headed back out through the lobby, Alice trailing behind us. I threw open the door that led back outside -

and immediately a paintball hit me square in the face.

I cried out and stumbled backwards, cracking my head on the door frame as I collapsed on the ground. Behind me I heard Alice trying to choke back a giggle, which came out as a snort instead.

"Oh, come on," Eva fumed. I was busy wiping paint out of my eyes, so I didn't see, but I heard her fire a couple of shots and then a shrill and frustrated cry.

"You big ape!" It sounded like Heather's voice. "This was my favorite top!"

The speaker near the back entrance of the building crackled to life. "Heather and Noah are out," came Abe's slightly garbled voice.

"Well thanks so much for the help, string bean." Eva's voice was laden with sarcasm. She helped me off the ground and then motioned for Cody to follow her around the front of the building. Cody looked over his shoulder at me as they walked off and gave me an apologetic smile and waved. Heather had disappeared as well. I'd gotten most of the paint out of my eyes but my vision was still blurry for some reason.

I felt Alice's hand on my shoulder. "That's a nice shiner, dude."

Reaching up for my left eye, it definitely felt raw and puffy. It must've taken the brunt of the shot. "Great," I droned.

She was smiling at me crookedly again, looking very amused. Then her eyes fell on the back of my head and I saw her face fall. "Oh, Noah, you're bleeding!"

I reached up a second time and felt around the back of my head. Something was definitely stinging. I looked at my hand, and sure enough, there was a bit of blood on my fingers.

"Oh no," she murmured, suddenly sounding disturbingly motherly. "Let me see it." She moved behind me, tiled my head down, and suddenly she was moving my hair out of the way to get a better look at my wound.

I started to turn around to stop her, but stopped myself instead. As embarrassing as it was to have her doting on me, I guess I did need my wound treated, and I couldn't see the back of my own head.

"It doesn't look too bad, but we should clean it up at least, and put some ice on that eye. Come on," she said, taking my hand and leading me through the back entrance.

We made our way into the lounge next to the lobby and into a staff room off to the side. She rummaged around in the drawers until she found a first aid kit, and then we headed off again to the bathroom. She turned the faucet on and started tending to my cut.

I bent my head down slightly so that she could better see the wound. It was uncomfortably silent for a while, with nothing but the sound of the water running.

After a while, she had my head all wrapped up. "Alright. Let's get something for your eye now."

We traveled through the lounge to the resort mess hall and then to the kitchen. She fished a sack of peas out of one of the large freezers and held it to my eye until I placed my own hand over it.

"Thanks," I said, a little begrudgingly. I didn't need someone to take care of me. Coming from a large family like mine, you learn to take care of yourself very quickly.

She smiled and turned away, looking a little unsure of what she should do now. Something had been bothering me for a while, though. When she'd been talking about how she, Riley, Seth, and Abe were friends "before" the show, she said it in a way that made me wonder if they were still friends. They'd seemed to be on decent terms with each other earlier, and it wasn't any of my business, but...

"Hey," I started, to get her attention. "Earlier you said you and the other interns were friends before you got here."

"Oh, yeah," she replied, "we were."

"Were. You're not anymore?"

"Well, no - I mean, yes. I don't know. Sort of." She turned her face away again, hoisting herself up onto one of the counters.

I leaned back against the opposite counter and raised my visible eyebrow at her - the other was still hidden behind the frozen peas - but stayed silent. I had to admit I was a little curious about the inner drama of our new torturers, but I wasn't going to press the issue if she didn't feel like telling me. It seemed I was on her good side so far, and I wasn't willing to risk it.

She looked back at me, chewing on her bottom lip as though she was trying to decide whether or not she should talk to me about it. "I guess we're still friends, but not as good as we used to be," she started, quietly, as though she were testing the words out for the first time. "Seth's gotten really caught up in being the next Chris McClean, and Abe's taken to cutting himself off from all of us. I mean, he was always quiet, but now he never seems to want to hang out. Riley and I are still good friends, but she and Seth fight almost constantly now."

"You know," I said, while readjusting the bag of peas on my eye, "not to insult your former friend or anything, but Seth seems like a real ass. Oh, wait, no, never mind, I definitely mean to insult him."

She laughed weakly. "Yeah, he sort of is. Honestly, even I don't like spending time with him anymore. He's been such a huge dingus since we started working for Chris."

"Chris generally does have that effect on people. He's a real dingus-maker."

She laughed again, but it was more genuine this time. "Yeah, but I mean - he's just a suck up. Whenever he would catch us slacking off even a little, he'd run off and tattle on us to Chris. And another time, he was complaining to Chris that I spend too much time on my paintings, even though it's during our free time, and Chris joked that he should toss them in the lake - and he actually did! He gathered up as many of my paintings as he could hold and went to the dock and tossed them all in the water." She was sounding horribly bitter now, getting angry for the first time since I'd met her.

"Like I said, he sounds like a dick." I caught her gaze finally - she'd been looking around the room until now - and she shrugged.

"Yeah, I guess he is."

It was silent again for a while. In the distance, a speaker crackled. It was impossible to tell what or how many names were being said, but someone must have been eliminated from the game. I'd almost forgotten about it.

She was looking down at her feet hanging of the edge of the counter. I guess I didn't really have much else to do until the game was over but make small talk.

"You paint?" I asked.

"Something like that!" She seemed to perk up a little. "I mean, I'm not particularly good, but it's fun. It's a hobby, I guess."

I had to admit, I was a little curious. I bet she was better than she thought she was. She seemed like the type to be hard on her own work. I wondered what she painted. Nauseatingly trite scenes of rainbows and unicorns, maybe?

"Do you have any of your paintings here?" I asked.

"Yeah!" She was looking excited now. "Do you... d'you want to see them?"