The Nile was shimmering under the scorching sun, reflecting a heat so intense it felt like the air itself was boiling. But for Team Victory, the view wasn't just hot—it was nightmare fuel. They were stranded in the reeds, their boat creaking, surrounded by eyes peering just above the waterline. Prehistoric, hungry eyes.
"Hit it with the stick, Ezekiel! Hit it!" Harold sang-screamed at the top of his lungs. He was trying to maintain some semblance of a rhythmic beat to keep their rowing synchronized, but panic had sharpened his voice into a piercing whistle. "Beat the beast, don't let it feast! Protect the flank, or we're gonna sank!"
"That doesn't even rhyme properly, Harold!" Leshawna shouted, splashing her oar desperately at a scaly snout.
Ezekiel was trembling. His homeschooled brain was firing at maximum capacity, trying to process the adrenaline. He wanted to be the hero. He wanted to prove that he wasn't just the "sexist kid" from season one or the "loser" everyone expected him to be. He saw a shadow darting toward the side of the boat—a massive crocodile, jaws open, ready to tip them into the muddy river.
"I got it, eh! For the team! For victory!" Zeke yelled.
In a blind panic, he reached for the most solid-looking wooden object within reach. His fingers curled around the polished, gold-tipped ceremonial stick—the very artifact they had spent the last three hours risking their lives to retrieve from the pyramid.
With a grunt of pure, uncoordinated effort, he swung it like a baseball bat.
CRACK.
The wood connected with the crocodile's snout. For a split second, Ezekiel felt a surge of triumph. Then, the reptile's lightning-fast reflexes took over. The crocodile didn't recoil; it clamped its jaws shut. With a powerful twist of its neck, it ripped the golden artifact clean out of Ezekiel's hands.
Splash.
The crocodile vanished into the murky depths, taking Team Victory's hopes of winning with it.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the distant sound of Owen laughing on the other side of the river.
"The stick..." Bridgette whispered, her face turning pale. "Zeke... that was the win stick. That was the artifact. That was the only reason we were out here!"
"Harold told me to hit it!" Ezekiel protested, his voice cracking as he looked at his empty, shaking palms. "He said hit the beast with the stick! I hit the beast!"
"I didn't mean that stick, you donkey!" Harold groaned, burying his face in his hands. "We had spare oars! We had branches! Why would you use the one thing made of solid gold?!"
Leshawna sighed, a sound of pure exhaustion. "Well, pack it up, y'all. We might as well start walking to the elimination ceremony. I'll start practicing my 'goodbye' speech for Zeke right now."
Ezekiel slumped down, the weight of the entire team's disappointment crushing his shoulders. He was done. He knew it.
The Elimination Ceremony
An hour later, the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, painting the Egyptian sky in bruised purples and oranges. Team Victory sat on the hollowed-out logs, the air thick with gloom. They looked like a group of people waiting for a firing squad. Ezekiel sat at the very end, staring intensely at his dirt-caked boots. He could feel Leshawna's side-eye and Courtney's muffled rants from the winner's circle.
On the plush benches across the sand, Team Amazon was already basking in their glory. They had won First Class. They had sparkling cider and tiny appetizers waiting for them on the plane. Sierra, however, wasn't cheering. she was unusually quiet, swaying slightly and rubbing her temples as the lack of her usual "focus" medication began to manifest as a pounding migraine.
Heather sat with her arms crossed, her eyes narrowed. She wasn't looking at her teammates. She was watching Chris McLean. Something was off. Usually, by this point, Chris would have made at least three jokes about how pathetic they were. He would have played a montage of Ezekiel's failure set to circus music.
But Chris was standing on the podium, staring at a ringing smartphone in his hand. His knuckles were white.
Suddenly, Chris pressed a button and held the phone up to his face. "Listen to me, you corporate, soul-sucking piece of filth!" he roared, his voice echoing across the desert. "I don't give a flying rat's ass about the 'demographic reach' of a love triangle! Duncan is gone! He's f***ing gone because he has more balls than you do, sitting in your air-conditioned office while I'm out here sweating my metaphorical nuts off!"
The contestants gasped. Chris had never snapped like this in public.
"Oh, you'll fire me?" Chris laughed, a jagged, manic sound. "Go ahead! Fire the face of the franchise! See how your stocks look when the 'McLean Factor' is gone! And another thing—those challenges you sent for Japan? They're garbage! They're sadistic, boring, uninspired sh*t! I'm rewriting them! Eat my shorts!"
He slammed the phone onto the sand and ground it into the dirt with the heel of his boot. He took a long, shuddering breath, smoothed his hair, and turned to the contestants. His face was a strange mask of calm.
"Welcome, Team Victory," Chris said, his voice eerily steady. "Usually, I'd spend the next ten minutes mocking the absolute sh*t out of Ezekiel for being the most incompetent human being to ever breathe air. I'd talk about how he threw away a golden artifact like a total moron."
Ezekiel flinched, waiting for the blow.
"But honestly?" Chris looked at the camera, then directly at the horizon. "I'm fucking bored of the script. The producers are back in New York screaming that I should kick Zeke off to 'teach a lesson' and keep the tension high. They want me to be a dick because it sells laundry detergent. Well, newsflash: I'm the one with the tan, I'm the one with the Emmy, and I'm the one who decides who leaves my island—or my plane."
Chef Hatchet, standing by the campfire with the plate of marshmallows, wiped sweat from his brow. He looked at Chris with a mixture of terror and profound respect. He actually told them, Chef thought. He finally snapped, and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"Duncan quit today," Chris continued, pacing the podium. "He walked away because he was fed up with the bullshit. He was a quitter, yeah, but he saved me the trouble of an elimination. So, because that mohawked punk decided to go find a career in a garage somewhere, I have some news for the homeschooler."
Chris reached into a special bag at his side. He didn't pull out the usual stale, peanut-infused snacks.
"I know you're allergic to the cheap crap we usually serve, Zeke. And quite frankly, I don't feel like filling out the insurance paperwork for an anaphylactic shock today. So, I went into my private stash. These are organic, Madagascar vanilla marshmallows. They cost more than your house."
He tossed a marshmallow to every member of Team Victory. Ezekiel caught his with trembling hands, staring at the fluffy white square as if it were a miracle.
"No one is going home tonight!" Chris announced, his voice booming with a genuine, albeit slightly crazed, cheerfulness. "Team Victory, you're safe by the grace of Duncan's cowardice. Now, get your asses on the plane. I have a date with a very large bottle of expensive water and a nap that's going to last until we hit European airspace. Chef! If those bastards call the cockpit, tell them I'm dead. Or in a meeting. Actually, tell them I'm in a meeting with their mothers. Whatever makes them hang up!"
Chef Hatchet let out a low whistle, a grin finally breaking across his face. "That was... something else, Chris. Bold moves. Very bold moves."
"The boldest, Chef," Chris whispered, his shoulders finally dropping from their defensive hunch. "Let's get out of this sun. It's making me too honest."
As the teams began to shuffle toward the Total Jumbo Jet, Ezekiel stayed behind for a second. He looked at the marshmallow, then at Chris's retreating back. He was supposed to be the first one out. He was supposed to be the joke. But he was still in the game.
"Hey, Mr. McLean!" Ezekiel called out.
Chris stopped, turning his head slightly. "What is it, Zeke? Don't make me regret it."
"Thanks, eh. Truly."
Chris didn't say anything. He just gave a sharp, curt nod and kept walking.
Nearby, Heather stood by the boarding ramp, watching the exchange with an intensity that could melt iron. She looked at Sierra, who was shivering from a cold sweat, then back at Chris.
"He didn't insult a single person's intelligence," Heather whispered to herself. "He defended a loser, he cursed out his bosses, and he actually considered someone's allergies."
She felt a strange, uncomfortable tug in her chest. For years, she had played the game by Chris's rules—the rules of cruelty, selfishness, and manipulation. But if the master of the game was throwing out the rulebook, where did that leave her?
"Something is changing," she murmured, her gaze softening just a fraction. "And for the first time... I don't think I want to sabotage it."