Blackout (Darkness Trilogy) (11 page)

“Mal
e players, exit the Box immediately,” Mr. Chauncer says. “Return to your rooms. I repeat: Exit the players’ Box and return to your rooms.”

Blaze turns to
face the half circle of players behind him—including Star and me. Oh no. He puffs his chest beneath a navy suit, stretching his vest across his broad frame, and the round buttons look at risk of popping off under the pressure. His brown eyes flit across us quickly, not dwelling long enough to recognize Star and me behind our makeovers. And suddenly it hits me: If he remembers our faces from Dark DC, he could expose our relationship. He could end once and for all any chance we have to win a prize. I gulp and feel my hair stand on end. I have to get out of here because Blaze is an even bigger danger than I thought.

“
Hazel is mine,” Blaze declares. He steps forward and rips his knife out of the boy’s thigh. The boy cries out in agony, but Blaze ignores the wailing and wipes the blood callously on his own sleeve. “And I’ll fight anyone who gets between us.”

A rat-face
d player pushes past Star and runs toward Blaze with clenched fists. Blaze swings a heavy punch and knocks him out instantly. Less than a second later, five more DZs rush toward Blaze to take on his challenge for Hazel. Now’s my chance to leave. I say good-bye to Star with my eyes and join the throng of frightened DZs jogging to the exit. I duck and stay low to the ground, weaving through the crowd and into the first elevator that opens. It’s crammed with quivering DZs who look much better suited for Flora. As soon as the doors shut, I notice Tinder in the corner.

And h
e’s smiling.

I
can only stare. Shallow breaths fill the elevator, which deepen the lower we drop. Everyone else’s face is blank with fear, but Tinder has not stopped grinning. When the doors open to the lobby, I wriggle toward him and grab his arm, hard.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I bark.

“Nothing,”
he says, but he still looks happy.

“
That!” I say, pointing at his mouth. “Why are you smiling?”

“Am I?” he says. “It’s nothing. I just like this Carnival thing.”

We pause outside the elevator. I get it now: Tinder likes one of the prizes. Actually likes her.
Jesus.
I pull him by the collar toward Tower One. He must be thinking of Flora because I can’t imagine him with Hazel. Photographers snap our pictures callously as we step through the glass tunnel, but I ignore them all to think: Only one player per suite can play each prize. That’s what the schedule told us on our phones. So, between Tinder and me, only one of us will be able to play Flora. The other will have to risk his life fighting Blaze for Hazel. It looks like Tinder’s going to try for Flora, but I can’t be thrown into that ring of DZs against Blaze. He still could recognize me—or worse. I grind my teeth in frustration.

I need to talk to Star about this.

Tinder and I rise in an elevator to our room. He still has that stupid grin on his face. When the number above the door flashes past 30, I hit the 31 button quickly, and the elevator stops. I step out onto Star’s floor. Tinder looks confused as the doors shut, but I don’t explain. The truth is I like someone here too. The only girl I’ll ever be able to love is another player in the Carnival, and I’m waiting for her now so we can plan who we each will play.               

I wait an hour before anyone arrives. Now the elevator doors are opening, and I bolt upright from my spot on the floor between suites. Star stands alone in the center of the elevator, wrapped in her own arms for comfort. Star looks up and gasps when she sees me. One hand rises to hold her chest.

“You scared me,” she whispers.

“I had to see you.”

She smiles nervously and exits the elevator with small steps. I
nod my head to tell her that we’re alone, and she reaches for my hand to guide me into her suite. I grip her fingers harder than I intend to, but I just don’t want to let her go. Inside, her foyer looks exactly like mine: white. Round. Beaming. Enormous. Two boys our age sit beyond the columns in reclining chairs reading
Spotlight
and
Zig-Zag.
Walking lightly so they don’t hear us, Star and I creep toward her lavender bedroom and lock the door without being seen.

New York City
glows outside her floor-length window. I can see miles of yellow windows from here, but I don’t want to think about Easies right now. I just want to be with Star. I draw the thick purple curtains shut to block out most of the glare, leaving one vertical slit between them. With the lights off in Star’s bedroom, this slit casts a stark rectangle of brightness through the air and across the floor. We stand to face each other in the one section of light. Everything around us is darkness.

“Oh, Phoenix,” she cries. She falls into me, and I cradle the back of her head.

I know, Star.

“Who was the las
t prize?” I whisper.

She points to her arm
where she wrote: Wesley Parker. The rest of her notes run across her forearm in swerving print:

17
yrsold                           

Takes care of older sister’s children after she passed away
             

Pennsylvania Family member

Wants someone who will put “family first”

Nice smile
             

Nice smile?

I stare in horror at the words. Without thinking, I grab Star by the elbow and pull her close. She stumbles forward as I lick my thumb and rub it across the phrase. As fast as I can. Right goddamn now. Before I can smudge anything, Star yanks herself out of my grasp and cradles her forearm across her chest. She’s panting slightly from the effort and now she’s stepping cautiously away, her eyes wide and her eyebrows high with fear. I take a bold step toward her. Get back here.

“
Let me see your arm,” I demand.

“No,” she whispers
timorously.

“Why not?
Are you hiding something?”

“I’m not hiding anything,
” she pleas.

“Then what the hell do you mean by ‘nice smile’?”

“Phoenix, please,” she begs. “
He
wants a
girl
with a nice smile. It’s not that
I
think
he
has a nice smile. It’s the other way around.”

“What?” I snap. The words haven’t hit me yet. I process them slowly and realize the depth of my error. Star didn’t betray me at all. This sh
ould calm me down, but I’m still tense. I feel it in my neck. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?”

Star
has retreated all the way to the wall, out of the oasis of light. Her black cap-sleeve dress is almost invisible, but I can see her pale shoulders turn away from me to hide her precious notes. She’s cradling her arm as if it’s Wick himself. I rub my neck and look back through the vertical slit left between the curtains. They did this to us. For every yellow window, there’s at least one wretched Easy, and they are all letting Star and me go through hell. I turn back toward her. She’s cowering.

“Just let’s forget it,” I
snap. “We should plan our plays.”

“I think you should leave,” she whispers.

“
What
?” I ask.

“You’re changing,” she says
. “You’re…angry. Listen to yourself.”

“Of course I’m angry,” I
spit. “I have to hunt one of those prizes!” I watch her cringe and realize my mistake. “No, not
hunt
,”
I clarify. “I mean seduce. I’m not going to hurt anyone, I’m just thinking about the Carnival as a hunt, okay?”

But I want to kick myself for slipping up the words
in front of her. They echo in my mind—
I have to hunt one of those prizes—
and realize Star is right: I do sound different. Meaner. And I really should calm down. The whole point of crossing the Frontier was to keep Star and me together, and now I’m pushing her away with my anger. I sit in darkness on the edge of her bed and stare at the faint outlines of my hands. Just stare at them and breathe. Think of Star, I remind myself. Take care of her.

“
I’m sorry,” I try again.

She
walks tentatively toward me.

“
I came here to plan who we’ll play,” I explain. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” she says softly.
She sits next to me in the light and takes my hand. I gaze tenderly at her small fingers. “Who are you playing?”

“Flora,” I say without hesitating. I decided that while I was waiting for Star.
I don’t know how I’ll convince Tinder to play Hazel, but I’ll have to find a way. Star is silent now, and I raise my head to see she looks hurt by my certainty. I add quickly, “But only because of Blaze’s challenge. I can’t throw myself into that. Starlight, that’s not good for
us.
”

“Do you think
Flora is pretty?” Star asks.

“She’s an Easy
, Star,” I spit.

“Okay, fine, p
lay her,” she says. She stands up again and walks toward the window, crossing her arms and looking out at the city. I sigh and follow her, gently resting my chin on her shoulder. She lets me wrap my arms around her.

“You’re the only one in my heart, Star,” I say. “I swear it. The only reason I’m here is for
us. The only reason I’m brainwashing myself and trying to win
this thing is to get Wick that electricity so that you
can be happy, so that
we
can finally be together again. Can you please try to see that?”

She nods and squeezes my hands back. 

“You’re warm,” she says.

“I’d be so cold without you,” I say,
hugging her tightly. “Just do me a favor?”

She nods.

“If you play Wesley, don’t look at his smile,” I say.

Star
laughs, and I melt a little bit. She turns around to face me until our noses are just a breath apart. I always get the idea to kiss her at the worst times, but I cannot lean in now. She is not happy yet, or safe. Instead, we hold each other until Star is convinced that I am still Phoenix from Dark DC. I close my eyes and cradle her body gently, and when she finally trusts me again, I leave her suite and take the elevator up to my floor.

I should be focusing on Flora, but my mind is distracted
by Star. Less than one day in this place, and we’ve already fought. The elevator arrives, and I exit absorbed in my own mind. Ever since I got here, I’ve done nothing but burden Star. Scare her. Push us apart. Hell, we might have been closer to each other this morning when I left Silk and we thought we’d never see each other again…But my shoulders twitch to shake off the thought.

I wake up to a buzzing
Schedule Alert
. Welcome to day two. From under my navy-blue cotton pillow, I pull out my phone.

SCHEDULE

**ALERT: 15 M
inute Warning before Next Event**

08:00
a.m.–11:30 a.m. PROFILES.

Location: Your suite on floor 33
. Description: Make your Carnival profile. This will be the only public part of the event. Computers will be provided.

I wipe the sleep off my face with my hand and roll out of bed. The alert doesn’t make any sense, but it’s early. I kick aside the fabric chairs I wedged against my door handle last night and wander toward the lazy noises of my suitemates. They’re in the living room reading magazines. Tinder looks up at me, chipper as ever.

“Morning,” I grumble.

Tinder holds up today’s edition of
Zig-Zag.
I’m on the cover.

Now I’m awake. I grab the magazine out of his hands and
scan it. A picture of me on the red carpet glaring at one of the cameras. My lean face is smeared with patches of brown dirt, and only the whites of my focused eyes are shining. Small snowflakes frozen in time surround me, and a few stick to my thick eyebrows, pulled together in a rage. I remember that moment and grimace. I wanted to destroy every Easy in the crowd.

“Congratulations,” Elektra says without looking up.

I flip quickly through the magazine. The opening blurb tells me that the names of the prizes are kept secret, but
Zig-Zag
’s
“sources” confirm that Flora Chauncer is one. The same “sources” also confirm that Suzanna-Marie Ett is a prize this year. Nope. Nice reporting,
Zig-Zag.
I keep skimming until I reach the Hot List, a spread of good-looking DZs. Including Elektra. Her glossy photo shows her blowing a kiss from inside the glass tunnel. I didn’t make the list, and neither did Star, but at least we’re not on the Not List. This slew of pictures shows strange-looking DZs caught off guard.

The collage
right after the Not List is titled Best Butt. Star has made this list. My eyes widen to take in the picture of her bending over to pick up her phone. She hinges at the waist to graze the carpet with her fingers. From the side, her arms and legs form two sides of a triangle, with her black dress snug around her butt at the top. What
Easies.
My thumbs dig into the magazine so hard that its surface bends in a wave. I imagine Bing and Tristan pointing at the picture and nudging each other in the ribs. The thought makes my skin crawl. I slam
Zig-Zag
on the floor. As I glare at it, the doorbell to our suite rings.

Elektra springs toward the door and passes me before I even take my first step.
Her pink silk robe is short, and its hem flaps to reveal her thighs as she moves. She climbs lithely over the furniture barricade and opens the door a crack, slipping effortlessly into the hallway.

“Goddamn,” I mutter.

“Watch your language,” Tinder says.

He’s serious.

Elektra emerges carrying a familiar white box. It looks heavy, but just as deftly as before, she scrambles over the furniture. She lays the Carnival box on the layer of magazines over the glass table. Without wasting a second—as the queen of efficiency—she pulls a dangling earring out from her left earlobe and uses its sharp edge to cut through the black ribbon. She works so fast that I can barely see her hands as she tosses the severed ties to the side. Taking a deep breath, she lifts the box top.

“
Laptops!” Tinder exclaims.

From the sofa, he reaches for one of the three
silver devices. Tinder unfolds it and rests it on his lap. Elektra takes the second one, and I lift the last one slowly from the bottom of the heap. I unfold it just like Elektra and Tinder did and wriggle onto the sofa between them. Like the old ones I saw in the Dark Zone, the bottom surface of this laptop is covered in black buttons. The top is a thin screen. Suddenly, this screen turns white, except for a message that both Elektra and Tinder are avidly reading:

Welcome.

Use this computer to create your profile. Your profile will include everything the prizes want to know about you: pictures, updates, and personal information. Your profile will be seen by the prizes, other players, and the world as part of www.TheCarnival2082.com.

The screen changes to show a grid o
f players’ names below rectangular frames. All of the frames are outlined thinly in black and filled with empty white space—except for one. This unusual box displays a picture of some DZ sitting on a piano bench. I check the name beneath: Ray. He smiles harmlessly at the camera and rests his hands on the keys. Judging by how sweet he looks, I can tell he’s playing Flora.

I touch the screen and
notice it moves with my fingers. Using my fingertips, I search the grid until I find my name. When I thumb my name, it enlarges and drifts to the top of the screen. My empty rectangle drifts to the left, and everything else disappears. Instead, questions drop down the center and right sides of the screen beneath the headline
Personal Information
.

A dotted line runs across the middle
of the screen. A small text box tells me that everything above this line is public, and everything below is for prize eyes only. Under the line, a square map shows a pattern of overlapping roads and skyscrapers viewed from above. A golden circle glows brightly in the center. I hold my hand in front of my face and gaze at my ring. This map must show exactly where I am. Finally, the last part of the profile below the dotted line lists which prize I will play:

I, P
hoenix, Commit to Play
:
_____________

Right now, that part is blank. There are two options for me in a drop-down men
u: Flora M. Chauncer and Hazel K. Smith. Next to the options, a
submit
button seems to allow us to save our choice. I lean toward Tinder and eye his profile to make sure ours look the same. He has already entered who he wants to play:

I, T
inder, Commit to Play:
Flora M. Chauncer

“Tinder,” I
snap, “aren’t we going to talk about that first?”

“He’s p
laying Flora,” Elektra says. “If you have a problem, talk to me.”

“Elektra,” I say, “let’s talk.”

“Oh, just look at him,” she says. She outlines Tinder vaguely with her palm. “He doesn’t have a shot with Hazel.
You
do.”

This is
infuriating. Look at
him
?
No, look at
me
! Elektra hasn’t met my eyes once all morning, and she’s already decided who we each will play. Her black nails tap expertly on the buttons of her computer in a flurry of heartless clicks. A few more clicks, and I’m going to rip that laptop out of her hands.

“Elektra,” I say
, gripping my computer, “if I play Hazel, Blaze will try to kill me.”

“I’m sorry, Phoenix,” Tinder says tearfully. “But I think I love Flora.”

“No, you don’t,” I retort.

“I felt the True Love at First Sight,” he says.

“That’s not real!” I shout. “Don’t you understand anything?”

I slam my laptop shut and punch
down on the glass of the table before me. It shatters instantly, and Tinder screams. All of the magazines fall onto the plush cream carpet, and my fist emerges from the mess covered in blood. I turn to face Elektra. Maybe now
she’ll listen to me. She reaches quickly for her phone, and the next thing I know, it’s flashing like a camera.

“Perfect,
” she says. “I think we have a prof pic.”

She spins her phone around and shows me the picture. My bare chest is flexed in anger. My fist is still clenched a
nd dripping blood. I look mean—like the kind of person who would throw a beer bottle at a police officer—but I look good. Suddenly, I realize what she means. It kills me, but Elektra is right. Not only is my best shot with Hazel, but I wouldn’t stand a chance in the pool for Flora. My rage is too obvious.

“Fine,” I say. “And who are
you playing, Elektra?”

“Wesley,” she says.

“Yeah, you and everyone else,” I mutter spitefully.

“Half,” Tinder corrects me. “Only half of the girls ca
n play Wesley. Remember what our phones said on Prize Night. ”

Shut up, Tinder.

“I’d rather marry him than Bing,” she says, shrugging.

Of course. She’s so confident that
she’s
doing the choosing. And I put my life on the line just to have a shot. I wipe my fist against the white cushion behind me, leaving a red streak in the shape of Blaze’s Swiss army knife.

Enough blood fo
r now. It’s time to finish the profiles.

*

In Elektra’s profile picture, she lies on her stomach on her lavender bed with her head cradled in her hands. Her feet are crossed in the background holding a small pink pillow between them. She looks relaxed, but it took fifty shots to get the one she wanted. She had to have the perfect amount of collar bone peeking over the top of her cardigan. Tinder took every picture. He ran around her bed flashing his phone camera for half an hour while she worked on looking “natural.” He even crawled on the carpet toward her when she wanted to try different angles. I stood in the corner and nodded, but I was no help at all.

Tinder’s p
rofile picture was much easier. Elektra layered two sweaters over his bony chest and thrust a book in his hands. That was it. In the shot, he’s looking up at her from where he’s seated on the floor. His smile came out right the first time: embarrassed but sweet. Without even trying, he might be right for Flora.

And I’m
braced to fight for my life.

I, Phoenix
, Commit to Play:
Hazel K. Smith

“Are you done yet?” Elektra asks.

I haven’t even started the rest.

“Almost,” I lie.

“Here, let’s switch,” she says. “I’ll read yours and you read mine.”

From her seat next to me on the sofa, she shoves her computer in my hand and takes mine before I can protest. I might as well do what she
says. She hasn’t been wrong yet.

ELEKTRA [Click to Edit]

AGE: 16

FAITH: Christian

HEIGHT
: 5’8”

BODY: Healthy

DRINKING/DRUGS: Never

A
BOUT ME:

Hi, there.
Well, I don’t talk that often about myself, but...I guess I could start by talking about my family. My two sisters Dawn and Summer are my best friends. Our parents raised us to believe that family is the most important part of being human. I consented for myself to get them the power that they needed, and now that I’m here, I’d like to start a family of my own.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE?
             

I was in love o
nce, and my heart was broken. I don’t want to reveal all of the details, but I will say that I’m grateful to have healed. I feel ready to move on andshare my life with someone new and kin
d


WHAT ARE YOU GOOD AT?

I’ve been told that I’m good at listening. It’s important to me that others feel heard, especially young people. Minds seem to grow best when they are given lots of attention.

WHAT CAN’T YOU LIVE WITHOUT?

I can’t live without feeling connected to other people. DZs have a strong sense of community, and I’d like to find that in America.

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM THE CARNIVAL?
                                         

Someone whom I can love deeply
, and who will love me in return and treat my heart with care.I think that someone is Wesle
y

“Any suggestions?” Elektra asks.

“Honestly?” I say. “I wouldn’t change a thing. You nailed it.”

She lets a smile flicker across her face for a second. Then it’s gone.

“Here,” she says, handing my computer back to me. “I filled out yours.”

I gulp. Right now, I can only bear to skim it.

PHOENIX

AGE: 18

FAITH: Atheist

HEIGHT
: 6’0”

BODY: Strong enough

DRINKING/DRUGS: Sometimes

ABOUT ME:

I grew up in the dark. Not all DZs really do—some have fire all the time. They have enough to burn that they can do that. But there’s not much where I’m from. I’ve never had enough. So I’ve spent my days hungry and cold. Not going to recover from that quickly.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE?