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“Can I help you with something?”

I realized that I had been stupid: if I revealed to Tom that I knew that they were going to vote me out, and instead was planning on voting Ryan out, he would tell the others. I didn’t need to talk to Tom; I needed to talk to Sam.

“Go on,” he said. “If you ask nicely, I might think about saving you.”

I left without another word and I saw the look of surprise on his facebefore I turned my back on him. I went from room to room. Sam. Where was Sam? I couldn’t trust Becca to convince him to keep me: in a way, it would be against her best interests. I saw Jacintha in the living room with Carlos, and she nodded at me as I passed. Carlos was accounted for, then. The swelling in my chest eased a little, but adrenaline pumped through my veins, urging me to move faster. Sam. Find Sam.

I found him by the back of the house. He was mending a part of the fence that was broken. Outdoor maintenance was technically Ryan’s jurisdiction, but when something went wrong people usually asked Sam or Jacintha to fix it. When I got to him I was panting. He turned and sawme.

“What is it?” he said. “Are you okay?”

“Did Becca find you? Did she tell you?”

“Tell me what? What’s happened?”

Silently, I cursed her. “They’re going to vote me out,” I said. “The boys are going to get rid of me. I don’t want to go. Please, Sam. I don’t want to go back.” Without warning, I burst into tears. He pulled me into his arms at once, my head tucked under his chin, and I let him murmur soothing words in my ear. I might have stayed where I was, but the sun was moving, and the shadows grew longer. I pulled away and looked up into his face.

“It’s okay, Lily,” he said, and wiped the tears from my face. “Of course. I’ll vote for Ryan; of course I will.” He pressed his lips against my forehead. “You have no idea how glad I’ll be to see him gone.”

There was more I wanted to say to him, and more, I think, that he wanted to say to me, but the whistle shrilled, and I jumped.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I promise.” I felt relief, but also a sense of vindication, of triumph: he wanted me there. It meant something; it had to mean something.

We went to the northern circle together, and Ryan looked at us and shook his head, as though I had done something disgusting.

“All right,” Tom said. “We all know how this works. We’ll make it quick and painless.”

“We don’t want to say goodbye to anyone. But we have to be practical here,” Andrew said. “We have to consider the value we can bring to this place—and our lives here—by doing tasks.”

We went to the barren, dusty plain to cast our votes. I looked at everyone scratching the initial on their rock, my eyes settling on Becca, whose head was bent, working away at her rock. I had been a fool to kiss Sam like I had yesterday; I hadn’t thought of Becca, watching on. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

We placed our stones in the pile. Crouching down, with a rock labeled R in my hand, I prayed that there were enough people there who liked me enough to keepme.

Andrew and Tom bent down and read the initials on the rocks. After counting, Andrew lookedup.

“Ryan,” he said.

Beside me, Candice squeezed my hand—not a supportive squeeze, or a gentle caress: she took my hand in victory.

I hated Ryan for what he had done to me, but when I saw the look on his face, it didn’t please me as much as I thought that it might. I saw Tom looking over the stones again, double-checking. The boys all looked at each other. I knew that Ryan must have asked them all to vote for me, and probably Vanessa too. I wondered if he’d thought to ask the other girls. I knew what they were thinking: which of the boys had turned on Ryan, and why? We all went forward to look at the stones: six Rs, and four Ls. I saw Becca look at the stones, then walk away from the group, keeping her back tous.

Ryan was staring at the pile, unmoving.

“Better get going before it gets dark, Ryan,” Candice said. She walked past him and into the house.

We usually gave the person space to gather their things in private, but when we reached the house, Ryan said, “Lily, can I talk to you?”

I went into the bedroom with him, but he just stood there and looked at me, and I began to gather up his things. The boys’ dressing room was to the left of the bedroom, and I had been in only once, before the boys had arrived. It was disgusting now, with clothes all over the floor, shaving cream and toothpaste on the sink. I opened Ryan’s wardrobe and started to cram everything into a bag, the same one he had come with, that he had traveled with across the desert. He appeared besideme.

“Please,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

“Would you still want to talk if I had lost the vote? You’d be watching me go out into the desert without a word.”

“That’s not true,” he said. “It’s not. It’s not true.”

I looked at him. He was incredibly, undeniably gorgeous. I could see why I had gravitated toward him at the beginning—I liked beautiful things—but there was a part of me that was ashamed by the shallowness I had shown in betting on him with so little thought.

“Wrap up,” I said. “The desert is cold at night.”