Season 20, Episode 3 Cave of Blunders
“Cave of Blunders”
It’s because I’m gay, isn’t it?! That’s why they voted me in!” Shawn cried.
I was unclear how to manage this crisis. Shawn’s current meltdown made the night Greta demolished his suitcase look like a kindergarten picnic. “Angels? That’s a fucking joke! They’re all so full of shit.” His voice cracked. “I saved their asses today, then they do this?!”
“Dude, grow up,” PB interjected from the corner where he stood with Melange.
We’d spirited Shawn to our room once he’d learned the bad news, Troy tailing us with a cameraman.
“Why would your team piss off Fortune by selecting him? It didn’t matter if you sprouted wings and flew them out of that cave. ”
Episode 3’s “Chain Gang” Tribulation had been Shawn’s showcase.
Each team chose one person as their runner.
The rest of us were imprisoned in various chambers within a dank and earthy-smelling cave.
The runner would unlock their teammates using a byzantine collection of keys with only a headlamp for guidance.
It was the runner’s game to win or lose, and the Angels had won—entirely thanks to Shawn’s work as runner—then put him on the block immediately after.
Mercifully I wasn’t his opponent; the Angels instead selected the Devils’ resident illustrated asshole/supermodel, Chase.
“This can’t be happening again. Last season my Trial was a disaster,” Shawn said, anxiously sitting on my bed, so close our thighs touched. I patted his shoulder, the red recording light of the camera burning into me. Just friends, I reminded myself.
“Then sack up and learn from before,” Melange insisted. “Beat that hipster catalog model tonight so you can help us blow the damn game up, because now we’ve all got clocks to clean.” She leaned over to Troy. “I liked that take. Was the sound clear?”
“Better than the St. Crispin’s Day Speech,” he replied before what sounded like the cry of a grief-stricken mother erupted down the hall. Greta. Troy rolled his eyes and dutifully directed the cameraman out. No rest for the wicked.
Imogen appeared in the doorway seconds later, eyes only for Shawn. “There you are.”
“The queen descends from her throne,” PB said, earning a withering look from Imogen.
Erika burst in next, and I almost gasped. Her expression was so mischievous, it was like Arjun had joined us in the room. “It’s done,” she breathlessly told Imogen.
Shawn eyed them suspiciously. “What is?”
“Imogen had me hide Greta’s moisturizer,” Erika answered, glancing quickly down the hall. “She’ll be raging at least twenty minutes, so the cameras should be occupied.”
“Why no cameras?” I asked.
Imogen focused on Shawn, clearly disregarding me. “Because I don’t want you thinking this is fake damage control to make me look good.”
“You voted me in,” Shawn said sharply. “The meaning’s pretty clear.”
“The votes were already against you. Nothing I did was changing that,” Imogen said, the warmest I’d seen her since arriving in Cortona. “I pushed for Chase because you can beat him. We need you here, Shawn, so if I tell you something at the Trial, please trust I’m trying to help.”
Shawn brooded, too freshly burned to appreciate what she was offering, and I had to intervene. “Shawn, did Imogen ever promise not to vote for you?”
He frowned but eventually shook his head.
“So she’s never broken her word. She won’t start with nothing to gain,” I said. “And you trust me, right? So just listen to us both, because I bet we’ll be telling you the same thing.”
“Sounds like good advice to me,” Erika added from the doorway. The certainty in her voice made me blossom with pride, even if Imogen looked nauseous.
Everyone trooped out to the bus soon after, but Imogen lingered, blocking the door so I couldn’t leave. This didn’t bode well. “What’d I do now?”
“Shawn’s a good guy, no matter what Greta screeches from the rafters,” she said lowly.
“Obviously,” I whispered back. “I wouldn’t trust Greta with a dog I didn’t like.”
“So don’t be an idiot. If he stays, this business will end badly for you both.”
“What business?” I raised an eyebrow. “Besides, I thought you didn’t care about me.”
“I don’t, but that boy’s been ripped apart in the press as a homewrecker. You want to gift wrap the headline that now he’s fucking the husband of a neo-con senator? Or let Barnes tell your kids that Daddy’s gallivanting in Italy with a porn star barely twenty years older than them?”
I bristled, patience fading. “Nothing has happened. We’re just friends.”
“Once they’ve edited enough scenes of you giving him those puppy dog eyes, it won’t matter if all you’ve done is shake his hand,” she said. “You want to prove you’re not a spineless coward? Leave that poor kid alone.”
Before I could respond, she was already out the door.
Unsurprisingly, Greta cornered me on camera the second we disembarked the bus outside the Arena. “So, Brutus, I hear you’re stabbing me in the back to protect that himbo whore.”
“Greta, he’s got nobody. He needs someone to look out for him tonight,” I said tightly.
“I thought we were looking out for each other, but I should have expected this, given how close Barnes and I are… It’s such a shame how divorce brings out the worst in people.”
I inhaled through clenched teeth, refusing to battle her for the last word.
As the cast trooped into the Arena, we passed a collection of low-hanging green lanterns, arranged in a grid out in the brush. Inside, Ecklund stood dead center by a monolithic seven-foot-tall purple block with a human-shaped impression.
“Okay, time for some old-fashioned tomb raiding, fam! Each lantern out there marks a grave containing pieces of a skeleton you’ll insert here.
” Ecklund gestured toward the purple block, each bone’s individual indentation clear.
“Once a piece is placed, it’s locked and can’t be removed.
If you aren’t digging, you need to shuttle between those graves.
No dawdling! And lastly, no matter how many pieces you retrieve, whoever puts in the final piece wins.
If your opponent stands between you and that final bone, do what you have to do to take it. ”
“Oooh, ready to take my final bone, Pornhub?” Chase graphically thrust his pelvis in Shawn’s direction, prompting Imogen to give him the death glare usually reserved for me.
I ignored Chase, embracing Shawn before Troy summoned him.
He sank into my chest with a sigh of relief, but anxiety was what scorched my stomach.
Shawn was maybe the kindest person I’d met in ages.
I didn’t want to lose him. “Remember it’s not about getting the most pieces.
Save your energy, make Chase do the work. ”
“I’ll still never beat him in a fight.”
“But you’re faster. Get the last piece, juke him when he comes at you, then sprint for the puzzle,” I instructed, trying to keep hope alive for us both.
Soon enough the boys were in position, though Shawn was only growing more ashen.
Melange sighed, watching him. “That boy’s about to get fucked straight up the ass.”
“That would imply he knows what he’s doing,” PB replied grimly.
The horn droned, and both guys sprinted toward the graves, digging like feral dogs in the Tuscan night. “Come on, Shawn!” I shouted, no reservations about cheering for the other team.
Chase sprinted back to shove a golden rib cage into the mold. Shawn quickly followed with a chunk of spine, and Imogen beat me to the punch: “Save your energy!”
By the time only three bones remained, both guys were dusted in dry clay, sweat cutting rivers across their skin. Chase placed another piece and thrust his fist high, convinced victory was nigh. His arrogance infuriated me, then I realized…
“It’s Turks and Caicos, the Trial on the beach,” I whispered urgently to Imogen.
“What do you mean? Every Trial was on the beach.”
“The sandcastle.” Imogen’s eyes grew wide, memory soaring to the Trial that marked what I considered her finest moment of Season 2.
She’d needed to run back and forth across a quarter mile of beach, unearthing pieces of a plastic toy castle that were hidden beneath the sand at various markers.
She’d competed against another Medals of Honor alum, the supremely cocky Olympic hurdler Dory, who’d almost beat her. Almost.
As Shawn ran to insert a femur, Imogen and I shouted in unison: “STOP! Don’t put it in!”
He gaped at us, out of breath. “You want him to wrestle me once it’s the last piece?”
“Did Dory have the last piece?” I subtly nodded my head toward Imogen, praying he knew this show as well as he claimed, and Imogen intently stretched her arms behind her back. Eyes lighting up, he shoved his drenched bangs out of his eyes and galloped toward the graves.
“Who the fuck is Dory?” Greta demanded venomously.
My throat went dry as I remembered that Imogen and I weren’t the only ones who’d been on that beach. “His favorite Pixar movie.”
“So typical,” she sneered, rolling her eyes. Thank God my kids loved that amnesiac fish.
Chase returned with the dirt-stained skull. His ropy arms slammed it in, and he whipped around hungrily. “We dragging this out? You want my hands on you that bad?”
On cue, Shawn emerged into the sear of the lights, arms behind his back.
With a guttural laugh, Chase lunged exactly when Shawn launched the long straight object in his right hand back into the brush.
Chase shot after it, a hyena chasing scraps, as Shawn bolted for the puzzle…
revealing the actual bone held against his left arm, just as Imogen had hidden her castle’s final section before throwing a piece of driftwood to distract Dory.
The horn confirmed Shawn’s triumph, and Imogen suddenly—excitedly—gripped my wrist. A tiny exhale escaped her, and she quickly let me go as Chase jogged in, branch in hand. “Hey, why does the last piece look like a fucking stick?”
Shawn’s hands were moths fluttering around his face in his post-match OTF interview with Troy, victory churning through him.
I was so proud watching him, relishing how it felt to know I’d helped someone who actually deserved it.
Plus, it had been fun… Addictive, even. When was the last time I’d truly savored something like that?
A faint nudge grazed the back of my arm, and I discovered Imogen there. “Good call earlier. I’d forgotten the sandcastle.”
A half-smile broke my cheek. “You would have remembered eventually.”
“I doubt it, seventeen seasons blend together.” I almost asked why she’d missed three of the twenty iterations, but she changed course. “We bought Shawn time, but they’ll vote him in again.”
“Really hope I’m not opposite him.”
“That won’t happen if our side wins. The Medals boys want to save you.”
“For what?” And then I realized. “Fortune.”
“You’re the only Devil with any hope of beating him. They’re worried he’ll gas out and sink us since the finale’s always such a marathon. Plus, one less to share the cash.”
“But if I take out Fortune, wouldn’t I theoretically beat them next?”
“They’re banking on you being so broken afterward you’ll barely hobble down a garden path, much less win the game. Do with that what you will.”
“You aren’t worried about them ditching you too?”
“They know I’ll beat any girl here,” she sighed. “I’m a barnacle.”
She moved toward the bus, where most of the cast was already asleep.
“Hey, Imogen?” I called. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
Her head slightly trembled, like one magnet resisting the polar force of another. “You know it doesn’t change anything, right?”
I managed a nod and silently followed her, trying to make sure my increasingly weary gait left just enough space between us.