Chapter 14: Ruse

I didn't have any time to listen to Topher's riddles. I simply wanted an answer. Despite today not being that bad, it was still exhausting. I mean, I had to face Sky, who was mad about Scarlett trying to cheat, or, something. That wasn't really wrong to be mad, but she didn't have to be so fussy about it. "Look," I muttered, "did you get the votes or not?"

"You're not in much of a mood to talk," Topher teased, "but I did, three votes sealed Sky's fate."

I perked up when he said three. "You got three votes?" I asked. "I thought we were going to try with two, since Sugar was wasting her vote." I didn't like that he went further than I would have. It wasn't a pride thing, it was the fact that my game was in danger if he messed up. Plus, Topher's normal bravado wasn't here as he explained it. He definitely did something that was going to affect how I approach the next few days. I let out a sigh. "Just...who was the third vote?"

Topher hesitated before responding, which meant that it was probably Sugar. Ugh, I hope she didn't notice anything weird. "It was...Shawn," he said slowly. Wait...Shawn was even worse. The whole reason I was avoiding Shawn was because he'd blab to Jasmine about the votes, and I'd then lose my oversized puppet. At least Scarlett was sort of on my side now, and by association, Max was too. If I really needed to, I could rid the team of Jasmine.

Regardless, this was not the result I was expecting at all, and it sort of made me mad. "I hope you have a good reason to do that," I told him, "because now we're in trouble if he says anything to Jasmine!"

"Funny you should mention 'we'," Topher said slowly. "You see, I had to find a way to become buddies with Shawn so I could earn his vote." Uh-huh... "And, the best way to do that is to find something that we had in common, and I'm no zombie expert." I kept listening, a bit more wary. "So, I thought, 'what else do I know about him?'"

Actually, I didn't know much else about Shawn either, except for the fact that he was trying to get with Jasmine...oh. "Please don't tell me..." I started to say, before I got cut off again.

"Just...try and stay closer to me from now on," he admitted. "In his eyes only, we're something of an item." Well, that was the worst case scenario. I now was dating the psycho McLean boy. In his defense, I didn't know anything else about Shawn either, but he should have just dodged him all together. "The truth challenge already happened, so lying about this should be easy."

I was actually mad at him for this. "Do you realize what this means?" I asked him. Topher shook his head. "The next time they get together, we have to act that way around Jasmine too." I let out a loud groan. "I don't want to have to put that ruse up all day long, and I won't do it."

"Even for a million bucks?" Topher reminded me. That was pretty convincing, but I was going to be in an even worse spot by the end of this. With a million dollars I would be able to fix any issues I created during this game, and still have some left over. I could move to an apartment far away and do whatever I wanted for the rest of my life.

I let out a sigh after considering his words. "Fine," I agreed. "but nothing over the top. I don't want to tear my hair out trying to do this."

Topher nodded. "Of course." He turned to me. "Oh, by the way, Leonard was upset that his...oracle, or something was not there for him."

I chuckled. That boy was hopeless. "Oh, I'm surprised he even made it this far," I told Topher, "but the further he can get, the better." I wanted this finale to be a joke, and that meant I had to tear down both teams before they had the chance to take me down. The only threats left to me were Jasmine and Shawn. Jasmine would be easy...Shawn, not so much. Luckily, he only played for himself. As long as I kept him that way, it'd be fine.

This entire ordeal just became much more annoying. Honestly, I could easily have played it off as Topher reading the situation wrong, but then I'd probably lose an ally. It was reassuring that I had options, though. This team was very gullible, and I was willing to take advantage of that as much as I needed to.

After hearing that disgusting chunk of news, I went to bed. The longer I could avoid people, the longer I could go without having to keep up with this new ruse. I didn't even mind having to pretend to like Topher. My issue was that it was just something new I had to think about now. One more thing on my plate that if I accidentally forget about I could be dropped off this show instantly.

What a pain.

When I woke up, I started off by heading down to meet up with Jasmine. Hopefully she didn't meet up with Shawn the night before. As far as I was concerned, only he knew...oh. I could tell him this morning that we didn't want it to be public. Oh yeah. I guess I could tell Topher before I left.

I climbed back up to wake him up. We was on his way out of bed as I got there. "Morning, idiot," I greeted him.

"That's not very nice," he told me, "you ought to be nicer to someone you're dating." I took a look around really quickly to see who else was here. "No one else is up here," he told me, "Scarlett and Max got up early to go do...something." Huh. I needed to figure out where he takes her. I'm sure Scarlett would tell me if I just asked.

"Here's what I'm thinking," I told him, leaning against the wall. "Only Shawn knows about our...thing, right?" He nodded. Perfect. Because he was so aversive to his team, there's no way he told anyone else. "Let's say we want to keep this on the down low," I told him. "That way, we can still go about our normal business as much as possible." I turned to him more intently. "Plus, if Sugar finds out, then you might be in trouble for your removal of Sky."

Topher put his hand up to his chin. "Hm...that could work, but you should head out now to find Jasmine." I nodded to show I understood and then jumped back down the fort to meet up with the giant in question. I hated manipulating in the morning, just because of how tired I was, but I wasn't about to let that get in the way of my success.

Once I met up with Jasmine, we went out to the woods to start getting our supplies for breakfast. However, the forest still seemed a bit out of place, and I wasn't sure why. Every time I went in there it felt different, but when I looked around closely, I couldn't find what those differences were. I stuck to myself today, only watching for when Shawn showed up, which happened to be nowhere. I was surprised that he wasn't coming today. "Where's your boyfriend?" I asked Jasmine nonchalantly, "doesn't he normally come to this thing?"

"He does," she mentioned, trying not to sound too upset by that fact, "b-but he's not my boyfriend! We're just friends!" Well, that was a lie. Honestly, I expected better from her than to lie to the illustrious team leader. Upsetting.

"Well, it doesn't matter," I eventually decided. I was actually a little upset that the one day that I needed him here, he wasn't. But, I couldn't let her know that. By the time I had given up looking for Shawn, we were pretty much ready to head back. If I was lucky, I'd be able to find him during the challenge. Even better, I could make Topher do it during the challenge. As leader, delegation was one of my best aspects.

We got back to the team, and everyone was in pretty high spirits, mostly because we absolutely crushed it the day before. Hopefully we could keep that ball rolling today, but I wasn't ready to put all my eggs in that basket just yet, especially with our weakest link still here.

"You should consider more variety in meals," said weakest link spoke up, some of the fruit he barbarically grabbed landing in his dumb purple hair. "It'd do us some good in challenges."

"We're fine in terms of challenges," I shot back at him. "We've lost two, they've lost three, and I should remind you that we're going to win again today, unless you mess something up again." The purple boy huffed, and went back to his berries. It felt good to shoot him down like that. He should have just been a good subordinate like the rest of them.

Scarlett seemed interested at my newfound confidence. "You seem very intent on that," she noted. "Care to elaborate?"

Topher stepped in to take this one for me. As far as he was concerned, I spoke with Shawn this morning, so he shouldn't blab. "Didn't you hear?" he offered, "last night, Sky got eliminated, and she was one of their best."

Scarlett raised an eyebrow when she heard that news. "Oh? Then as long as we can remove Shawn from the game, then I would think it's safe to put us all in a merge position." Ew. Team strategy. I'm still hoping to dump the giant before the merge, and I think Scarlett wanted to also. Perhaps this was her way of making me slip, but why? We've been in good standing so far.

"We can always revisit that," Jasmine admitted nervously, trying to steer the target away from Shawn. "He'd be a good ally to have against Sugar."

I let out a scoff, in the ultimate play to keep myself 'out of the loop'. "Please," I snarked, "do you really think Sugar's a threat?"

Jasmine shrugged. "She's made it this far. I think it's a reasonable thought."

Any of our conversation was cut off by the screeching of the dreaded speakers. "Hey team!" McLean told us condescendingly, "Proceed to the meeting area! It's time for me to laugh at your pain. There will also be a challenge." Well, that was anything but reassuring. However, I wasn't about to let that get to me. McLean's been all talk, no bite this season. I wasn't really worried about what he had to offer.

Our walk over was pretty quiet until Topher grabbed my arm, and pulled me behind the others. "How'd the talk go?" he asked me.

"He...wasn't there," I eventually admitted. "Not sure why, either." I sighed. "And, before you ask about how to topple McLean, play that low as well."

"Why's that?" Topher asked me, clearly upset I didn't come up with a real plan.

I sighed. "He will take you out if you try too hard. If I lose you, then I'm in big trouble."

"Uh-huh," Topher said dryly, "but isn't not doing anything at all still getting me nowhere?"

I shrugged. "Maybe this is an afterward thing you do," I told him. "If you reach the finale with me, then you'll get your fair share of publicity. I'd use that to your advantage."

"So, your plan for me is to win the game?"

"Pretty much."

Topher let out a sigh. "But, your plan is also to win the game."

"Yep," I told him. "So, that's why I said you'd make the finale! Worst comes to worst, we just have to play it out evenly once we get there."

Topher rolled his eyes as we got to the meeting area's entrance. "I guess that works for now," he muttered, "but if I think of something-"

"You'll run it by me first," I said in a harsh tone. Ugh, he really never learns. He rolled his eyes, but at least I knew he did it. I did really mean what I said. If I lost him, it would be a huge hit to my game plan, not to mention that he'd be super lost without me.

When we sat down, I could instantly notice that something was off. Not only did the area feel darker, but just the general environment seemed different. But, I was going to stick to my typical plan, and let some other schmuck say something dumb before I do. And, as always, someone did. "Hey," Jasmine said to everyone, "something's weird with this island." She pointed at the trees behind Maskwak. "Those trees were closer yesterday, and that mountain wasn't there before."

McLean rolled his eyes at her. "And I am one hundred percent sure you are a few koalas short of a swarm." Jasmine seemed very perplexed by what he said to her. I didn't pay too much attention in school, but I knew for sure that what he said wasn't right. I nudged Topher, trying to make him figure that out.

Surprisingly enough, that narcissist actually understood what I wanted. "You know Chris," he told the host, "your production crew is really lacking on your facts. A group of koalas is a cling, right?" He turned to the native Australian for confirmation, to which she nodded.

McLean did not like that. "It's clear that your generation lacks comedic prowess," he told all of us, but specifically Topher. I snickered a bit when he said that, because it was simply so ridiculous. He gave me the evil eye, but I was used to that at this point. During all of this time, Maskwak had just been staring at us, causing the host misery. I could tell they appreciated it. Eventually, McLean gave up on us, getting to the challenge. "Today's challenge is called Snack Attack." Lame.

He pointed at the vending machine next to him. "This vending machine only takes gold coins. The first team to put their coin in the machine wins, and gets something to eat." Wow, I was right, these challenges were actually getting lamer. Last season was always hyped up because they all nearly died. Here, I felt no danger at all.

I knew that couldn't be it, especially with Chef looming over that wooden crate like he was. "But, we're going to be shaking things up. Chef?" The huge cook opened the crate, and monkeys popped out of it. "I'm giving the coins to Alfonse and Betty here, who are now going to run away." Well, that was annoying. That means we had to actually catch those monkeys.

"No time to waste!" Jasmine shouted, trying to pretend like she was the leader. It was a bit sad to watch.

What made it even more sad was that McLean stopped her. "Nice try, but the monkeys get a head start." His attention was then shifted to Sugar, who was leaning on the machine. "Sugar, step away from the vending machine," he ordered. After a bit of time, he sent us off to go find this dumb monkey.

After running for a bit in our direction, I turned back, only to find Jasmine and Topher, no one else. "Where's Max?" I asked them, very much wanting an answer.

Jasmine sighed. "He started yelling at me, so I hoisted him in a tree. I'm sorry for letting anger get the best of me."

I did my absolute best not to snicker, because that was actually really funny. But, eventually, I found my composure when I realized that we just left my new potential threat, Scarlett, to start messing with me behind everyone's back. It angered me a bit, but I knew that there wasn't actually that much I could do about it. "Fine," I muttered, "let's keep going. The longer we wait, the further away that monkey gets."

We ran a few more feet, and that didn't do us any better. We eventually stopped at a clearing in the forest. Jasmine had noticed the monkey's necklace on the ground. "This isn't as bad as it looks," she told us confidently. "We just know our monkey is the one without a-"

"Without a what?" I snapped. Confused, she turned her head to what Topher and I saw. It was a giant tree, and every single branch on it had a monkey. Our monkey was somewhere with them, not wearing a necklace at all. It was perfectly blended in, and there was no way to figure which one was ours.

Jasmine didn't like the sight of it either. "Shoot," she muttered. "If we didn't slow down, maybe we would have found it in time." She sighed. "Sorry, again."

"Whatever," I muttered. At least she actually owned her mistakes. All Samey ever did was just sigh and groan when I called her mistakes out. She never learned.

Unfortunately, Samey had no reason to be in my head right now. It was now my job as the leader to pick out this monkey and get that coin.