Chapter Twenty #2
Her palms were pressed flat against the end of the beam. Her arms trembled like a tree in the wind as she fought to maintain the exact amount of pressure to keep a stupid wooden beam level while standing on a pedestal the size of a dinner plate.
I am dying, Savannah thought, her teeth clamped together so hard her molars were grinding into dust. She would not only need a physical therapist when she got back to New York, but a dentist too.
My head is going to fall right off my neck, and my ghost is going to haunt this island for all eternity.
She always assumed that if she were going to end up as an earthbound spirit, she’d haunt Abi.
She glanced up at Amy through her sweaty eyelashes and huffed. “If we win this challenge, you’re spending the night massaging my neck. And my back and every muscle in my arms.”
Amy chuckled, but it sounded hollower than a Russell Stover chocolate bunny. “I’ll dig my knuckles into your shoulders until you scream, I promise.”
Savannah snorted and rolled her shoulders a fraction.
She would need more than just knuckles to get these knots out.
But even so, being up here, in pain, was a whole lot better than being out of the game.
She glimpsed Ezra and Maya on the beach.
They were both sitting under an umbrella, looking utterly gutted.
And no wonder. Their game had just been blown up by an advantage so powerful that Outlast Her Unpacked would have to dedicate several episodes just to break it down.
“As soon as this game ends, I’m ordering a double gin and tonic and swallowing three prescription-strength anti-inflammatories,” Savannah muttered, focusing back on the beam and on that candy red ceramic ball in the center of it.
“Sounds like a treat,” Amy said.
It would be heavenly. And then Savannah suddenly imagined them sitting on a first-class flight back to the States because, of course, the final pair deserved to be treated.
She imagined them clinking glasses of chilled Dom Pérignon, while the flight attendant offered them sweet prosciutto-wrapped figs over aged Gruyère and warm, scented towels.
But would they act so lovingly with each other when only one of them won?
Would Savannah be truly happy for Amy if she walked away with the title?
Or would resentment eat her alive, and vice versa?
Because didn’t everything come back to that?
And hadn’t they spent the last few weeks brushing that little fact completely aside?
“You know only one of us is winning this game, right?” Savannah said without any prompting. She blamed the heat, the humidity, and the white-hot poker digging into her neck. There was no sugarcoating today. “And what if it’s me? What if it’s you?”
Amy didn’t reply, but then again, she didn’t get the chance.
Her hand slipped. The beam lurched upward, and the next moment that red ball wobbled, teetering right on the rim of the disk.
Savannah, whose heart couldn’t race any faster, reacted on pure instinct.
She eased off her end just enough to tilt the beam back before the ball could drop.
Phew.
They were safe.
“I’m sorry,” Amy muttered, looking shell-shocked. No. She looked worse than shell-shocked. Her expression was that of pure agony. “I don’t know what happened. It’s like my hand just acted without me.”
“It’s fine,” Savannah replied, her voice softer than she had intended.
Because seriously, how could anyone be angry at a curly-haired, blue-eyed cutie whose sunburned shoulders shone pink?
“We’re good.” Then Savannah glanced to her left, where Kate and Luna were standing like literal stone statues.
Since when had those two performed well in challenges?
Their ball was still perfectly in the center.
It hadn’t moved even an inch. “We just can’t lose to them,” she added, looking back at Amy.
“I don’t think I can read another one of Luna’s books without feelin—”
A sudden yelp tore through the air, cutting her off mid-sentence.
Savannah snapped her head toward the neighboring platform just as Kate and Luna’s beam tipped.
The red ball shot toward the edge of the disk like a bullet.
Luna gasped. Then a few frantic, unintelligible curses flew out of her mouth, though they did rhyme suspiciously with duck and funt.
Kate threw her shoulders forward, her hands trying desperately to even the beam.
Honestly, Savannah couldn’t be happier.
“They’re going to drop,” Amy muttered. “We’re going to win this.”
Savannah agreed, but she was too scared to say it out loud.
Plop.
The sound was so tiny and so delicate that Savannah didn’t even pay it any attention. It was like a soft pocket of air bubbling up from the ocean. A noise so simple and ordinary that it couldn’t mean anything important.
“AND THAT’S IT!” Naomi’s voice boomed across the way. “SAVANNAH AND AMY, YOUR BALL HAS HIT THE WATER. LUNA AND KATE WIN!”
What?!
Savannah’s gaze whipped toward the ball.
But there was no ball. Just an empty disk staring mockingly at them. She opened her mouth to speak, to scream, to ask how two seconds of petty distraction had wiped out their entire chance of winning this game. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t speak. What the hell had just happened?
“No,” Amy muttered, shaking her head. “No. No. No.”
But the truth was right there.
They were out. They had lost.