SOL - Under pressure

Tiff is as freaked out as Riley is, and her mistrust of you makes it clear that she knows the whole story about you getting sent away. She doesn’t trust you. You think that she wants to, but she can’t. It’s not that you blame her, but airing that mistrust in front of your teammates isn’t helpful. Now they’re worried about you too.

Maybe you’re reading too much into it. You always had a reputation as a hothead. Maybe that’s all this is.

Tuesday’s event is a new level of exploitative. Nothing is less helpful for building a successful team than competing against your teammates wearing revealing costumes. Riley is a mess. She’s acting normal, but it’s an event that rewards natural athleticism. She’s clumsy and careless, and one of the first to be eliminated.

Back at the cabin, you’re relieved to see Max, Aki, and Rebecca staying close to her, but Riley’s not opening up. It would be embarrassing for her to admit that she’s gotten her heart broken by a girl that she’s been dating for what? Two weeks? Three? Especially when she’s starting to realize that the things that she didn’t pick up on were obvious to everyone else. And she’s probably just as worried about her performance as captain as about Lara.

Riley is not built for this kind of pressure. No amount of support from Pink Team’s sweetest, most sensitive girls can fix that. But at least she’s not alone.

Tomorrow will be better; Wednesday will be a recovery day with nothing too challenging. But then Thursday there will be another event, and then it’s straight into the game on Friday. It’s hard to prepare; you won’t know who you’re playing against until Friday morning. This is a nightmare scenario: the team losing important players while the team’s structure also crumbles.

But as you stand in the shower Tuesday night, washing your hair, you know that you won’t get a better chance to take control of the team. Tiff was bluffing. She can’t bench you if you’re captain, and becoming captain is out of her hands. She might say that’ll do it, but she won’t: if you go rogue during the game and it works, she’ll leave you in. She wants the win.

But it’ll be a big gamble. If you take control, you get the team back on track, and maybe your life too. But if you try and fail, that will just hurt the team more, and your return to FUTA will be a disaster. The third option is to make no move at all, and see if Tiff, Sheva, and Elena have what it takes to salvage this.

You notice Sam, soaping up in the shower stall across from yours, sneaking a look at you over her shoulder. With her red hair, tanned skin, and smooth body, you could almost mistake her for Riley from behind. No, not really. Riley’s a bit… perkier. Sam’s been trying to flirt with you since you came back to FUTA, but this just isn’t a good time.