Fire & Flood (14 page)

My thoughts are shattered when I hear a high-pitched scream. I spin around and my stomach plummets.

Caroline is gone.

I stand on unsteady feet and search the river. The scream grows louder and I realize it’s coming from Dink. Next to me, I see Harper get to her feet and rock unsteadily. She moves to the side of the raft and I realize suddenly what she’s going to do.

“Harper, don’t,” I yell.

Above us, RX-13 screeches. Harper’s concentration breaks and she glances up. I do, too.

The eagle glides through the sky, beats her wings once, then
folds them against her body and dives down. The Pandora crashes into the river, vanishing beneath the surface.

“No,” Harper screams.

Though the water is murky and the sky is growing dark, I spot the eagle just beneath the surface. She’s flapping her wings as though it’s the most normal thing in the world — an eagle swimming. Seeing this, Harper pauses. But only for a moment. Then she readies herself to dive in.

The eagle breaks through the river and opens her great wings in front of Harper like a shield. Every time Harper tries to dive in, the eagle blocks her advance.

“Stand down, RX-13,” Harper cries.

But I know if the Pandora can help it, she won’t let that happen. Because her job is to protect Harper, and no one else.

I know what I have to do.

I close my eyes, pull in a breath — and jump.

The last thing I hear is Guy calling my name. Then there’s nothing but the river.

My body is pushed forward so quickly, it’s like I threw myself in front of a moving car. My legs and arms splay out in a panic and I wonder if maybe this wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had. But then I remember why I jumped. That Caroline is in the river, and that I have to help her.

I somehow gain control of my body and break the surface. Guy peers over the edge of the raft, a hand raised to his eyes. From the angle of his body, I can tell he wants to jump in, but he’s trying to determine where I am before he leaps. Maybe I should have done the same. Now I’m being dragged downstream, with no idea of where Caroline is.

Diving under the water, I search for her. My eyes fill with the murkiness, and I don’t see her anywhere. I come up for air and then dive back down. Underwater, I hear a sort of ringing in my ears and the dull
thump-thump-thump
of my heart. Though it’s chaotic above the surface, it’s strangely peaceful below it.

I swim in a circle — and see Caroline. She floats like a broken angel — long, dark hair forming a halo around her face. I yelp with surprise and bubbles burst from my mouth. Taking another breath from above the river, I dive down and swim toward her. How long has she been underwater? A minute? Two?

My fingers brush her skin. I’ve almost got a good hold on her when something large appears in the corner of my vision. My heart flies into my throat and I imagine this is it, that I’m going to spend the rest of my days in a crocodile’s gut. But when I look closer, I realize it’s Dink, swimming toward Caroline like he was born with fins. He wraps his arm across her chest and pulls her toward the surface with ease. I follow him, gasping for air. When his eyes find mine, I point toward the shore and he nods.

We swim hard toward the bank, Dink doing a far better job than me. The closer I get, the faster the river seems to go. I watch as Dink gets on dry land and drags Caroline behind him. My arms and legs grow heavy, and that’s when a new fear washes over me — one that says I’ll drown in this river. Behind me, I see the raft pulled up onto the bank. The other Contenders look like blurry dots in the rain. Closer to me, Dink is bending down over Caroline, breathing into her mouth. But even he is moving away much too quickly.

My head bobs above and below the surface, and each time I draw in a breath, I wonder if it’ll be my last. Everything is happening so fast. I have no idea how I went from hero to victim, and I’m not sure how I’ll ever get to shore when I can hardly use my legs.

I feel something break through the water behind me and then brush the top of my head. I glance up and almost cry with relief.
RX-13!
The bird latches her talons on to my shoulders. I bite down against the pain as her nails dig into my skin. The bird flaps her wings hard in the rain and moves toward shore. I do what I can to help the momentum, but I’m running out of energy.

Little by little, the eagle gets me closer to land until finally I feel the earth beneath me and am able to walk up the bank. I collapse onto the ground and breathe hard. When I turn to see the eagle drying her wings, I realize her eyes are bright green.

“Madox,” I croak, spitting up water.

Pain shoots through my ankle and I realize my foot must have caught on something in the river. I reach down and grasp it. The pain worsens beneath my touch. I have no idea how I’ll keep moving on a bad ankle, but there isn’t time to feel sorry for myself —

Because I hear something.

It’s a sound — careful, deliberate steps — that lets me know I’m being watched. Madox shifts into fox form and stands between me and the sound. A low growl erupts from his throat. The noise
causes a bolt of terror to strike through me. My gut says it isn’t the other Contenders from my group. But then, what could it be? It’s the strange men, I realize suddenly. They followed us.

New sounds crash around me, and I glance away.

Contenders.

Everywhere.

They’re running, sprinting toward something, with looks of horror twisted across their faces. Or maybe they’re running away from something. Not waiting to see what’s coming, I grab Madox and run in the direction the other Contenders are. Pain rips through me as I step down on my injured ankle, but I will myself to race through it. Pandoras of all shapes and sizes run beside their Contenders — and if it weren’t for their anxious howls, I’d be filled with awe.

I look over my shoulder and gasp. The strange men are chasing us. Each holds a long spear, and they’re making odd chanting noises. Nearby, I notice a girl a few years older than me. She’s running hard, her hands splicing the air. For one moment, our eyes connect. Then she hits the ground hard. I stop, thinking she fell and I’ll just pull her back up. But when I get closer, I spot the spear protruding from her back. Her head is turned sideways, and her face is vacant.

“Oh God.” My whole body begins to shake.

I hear my name being called, but I don’t look up. I can’t do anything but stare at the girl. Someone grabs my arm and yanks me forward. It’s Guy. He’s tugging me onward and screaming at me to move.

But the girl.

“Tella,” he yells, shaking my shoulders. “Run!”

Madox wriggles in my arms. It’s enough to bring me back to reality. I nod at Guy and we race forward. Beside us, I see Levi and Ransom and wonder where the others are. Maybe they’ve found a
safe place to hide. I tell myself this as I run, pain tearing through my ankle.

Up ahead, I see a flickering orange light. As we get closer, I discover that the light is coming from lit torches and that the torches form a massive circle.

“It’s base camp,” Guy yells through the rain, through the night. “It has to be.”

I run harder, but when I look over my shoulder, I realize the men are closing in. From this distance, the red stripes on their faces look more like blood than paint.

I concentrate on keeping my legs high so I don’t trip. It’s no use, though. Because the men are gaining on us, and I know it’s only a matter of seconds before they take one of us down.

I glance back one more time and scream when I see a man with green face paint reaching toward me. In the same moment, I feel Madox fight against my arms and fall to the ground. The second his body hits the wet earth, he begins to shift. The man slows enough to watch Madox transform into a lion, and he stops cold when my Pandora opens his mouth and roars. I try to stop, too, but Guy grabs my hand and pulls me along.

“Keep moving, Tella,” he growls.

I try to keep running, but when the man recovers his senses and aims his spear at Madox, I stop and cry out. Madox spins away from the man and races toward me. I think he’s going to barrel into me, but instead he digs his head beneath my legs. I realize what he’s trying to do — that he intends for me to ride him — so I grab on to his mane with my left hand. My right hand is still holding Guy’s, but when Madox launches forward, we’re ripped apart.

“Guy!” I yell.

He runs after me, but Madox is too quick, and it isn’t long before I can hardly see him. The camp ahead grows closer. When
I turn back, I can just spot Levi and Ransom running toward us. Behind them is the man with green face paint who almost grabbed me. He raises his spear — and throws.

Levi hits the ground.

I can still hear Ransom screaming when we fly between the torches and into base camp.

I scrabble off Madox’s back to rush to Levi, but my Pandora blocks my way. I’ve never been angry with him, but right now I’m so furious, my vision blurs.

“Move, Madox,” I scream. “That’s an order. Get out of my way.”

He either doesn’t understand or isn’t listening, because he continues to ensure I stay put. Moments later, I see Guy and M-4 race past the torches. He turns around to look behind him and gasps for air. Then he sees me.

“Are they here, too?” he asks. “Are the men inside the camp?”

I shake my head, but not because I know one way or another. But because I can’t speak, thinking about what happened.

“Tella, are you okay?” he asks, moving toward me. “Are you hurt?”

I shake my head again and begin to cry.

Over Guy’s shoulder, I see Harper, Caroline, and Dink cross into base camp. Minutes later, Titus arrives. Through my tears, I watch them catch their breaths and gather around Guy and me.

“Is she hurt?” Harper places a hand to her chest and rubs, like she’s willing her lungs to fill with air.

“I don’t know,” Guy answers.

I’m so relieved to see Caroline okay, but it does nothing to stop the things I feel after seeing Levi fall.

“Where are Levi and Ransom?” Harper asks, glancing around.

Everyone stops and looks for them. Everyone but me.

“They got him.” My voice breaks. “This man threw a —”

I can’t finish my sentence. It’s too hard. Especially when I see Ransom approaching base camp. His cheeks are streaked with tears, and his chest and arms are coated with blood that I know isn’t his own.

I rush forward to help him, but the others beat me there. Harper puts her arm around him, holding him up as best she can. Caroline gets the other side. Titus just stares at us. He doesn’t help, and he doesn’t say anything. He just watches.

Guy looks away from Ransom and back at me. His eyes run over my face, but he speaks to both of us. “You couldn’t have saved him.”

I cover my eyes and press them, but a sob still pours from my body. I feel someone’s arms around me. They lift me up and carry me somewhere warm. They lay me down and tuck a heavy blanket around my shoulders. I only know for sure that it’s him when he tells me to sleep, that he’ll be right here when I wake up.

When I open my eyes hours later, the first thing I see is Guy. He’s sleeping a few feet away on the floor. I glance around and spot several other Contenders, and a few Pandoras, sleeping, too. My heart skips a beat when I see Madox lying over my feet. I’m so relieved to find him there. Then I wonder
why
I’m so relieved.

When I remember what happened, I bolt upright. The girl lying in the jungle with lifeless eyes. Levi with a spear breaking through his chest. The men —

“Guy,” I whisper, shaking him. “Guy, wake up.”

He moans and then opens his eyes. They go from sleep laden to alert in a matter of seconds.

“Are the men here?” he asks.

“No. Or maybe. I’m not sure.” I gaze out a small window and see the same orange lights dancing in the night. The torches are still lit. “How long have I been asleep?”

“A while,” he answers. “Some people were already asleep when we got here.”

I look down at my hands. “Levi?”

Guy slowly shakes his head.

I expect to feel sadness or depression or even fury. But instead, I feel nothing. It’s like I’m empty inside. I came here to save my brother. But how many people have died trying to save one person? I wonder why we stay … if we could leave now if we chose to. But then I imagine returning home to watch my parents grieve and Cody die in his bed. And I know there’s no way I can stop if there’s a chance I can change that future.

“Our devices went off while you were sleeping,” Guy says. “We all listened already.” I start to dig into my chest pocket, but Guy holds out a white device. “It’s yours. I just checked to see if it was blinking.”

I feel my eyes glass over. “Can you just tell me what it says?”

He looks at me like I may suddenly break into a thousand pieces. Then he nods. “It was the woman. She congratulated us on completing the first leg of the race and for arriving at base camp.”

My face scrunches, and I turn away in disgust. People died in this jungle.
Congratulations,
she said.

“She said there will be a ceremony in four days when the first deadline passes. She called it Shevla.”

I hear what Guy is saying, but for some reason, I can’t absorb the information. I inspect the interior of where we are. It seems like a cabin, like something made of logs and mud from frontier days. It’s a single room with only six beds, which are more like cots. Everywhere I look, I see green-and-blue plaid blankets and fluffy white pillows. The cots remind me of home, of how secure I felt in my own bed with the cool of my pillow beneath my cheek.

I wonder how Guy secured me a bed when so many people are sleeping on the floor.

The cabin has two small windows and only one door. No bathroom, no kitchen … no electronics of any sort. Once again, we’re
completely barred from the outside world, without a clue as to where we are.

“Is this everyone?” I ask Guy.

He pauses, like he’s processing that I brushed past the ceremony tidbit. “No,” he says, finally. “There are nine more cabins like this one. Most are about half full. This one has more beds than the others.”

I glance down at the cot I’m lying on. Then I remember where Levi is lying — dead in the jungle — and I’m overtaken by a wave of dizziness.

Guy stands up and then sits along the side of my small bed. He places a hand on my shoulder and pushes me back down. I don’t fight him. I just let my head find the pillow and I squeeze my eyes shut. I hear him get up and walk away, and the sound rips my heart in two. I don’t want him to leave me. I know so little about him — about the person he was before this race — but I’ve come to think of him as a source of stability. With him, we are safe.

I wonder if Levi thought he was safe.

I stuff my mouth against the pillow and cry.

Then I feel someone slip into bed behind me. My head snaps around to see Guy’s blue eyes slide over my face. He holds my gaze for a few moments, then lies down and wraps his strong arms around me. He pulls me tight and buries his face in my neck. Madox hardly stirs.

All the fears I’ve held inside rush out. It’s like he’s asking for them, saying he’ll carry them for me. I press back against him and curl into a ball.

We lie like this for several minutes before I feel his words on my neck. “My cousin loves lemon,” he says. I can tell he’s trying to whisper, but the deepness of his voice makes it almost impossible. Over the past ten days, I haven’t learned many personal things
about Guy. But I have picked up on the way he operates. And so I know that if I say anything now, he’ll shut down. I stay quiet, and after what feels like ten minutes, he speaks again.

“He has lemon everything. Lemon soap, lemon shampoo, lemon tea. He even let his girlfriend paint his room yellow because the color was called Lemon Laughter.” I feel Guy shift behind me. “My brothers and I ragged on him pretty hard about it. But after he got sick, I spent months obsessing over that same lemon crap. Sometimes … I felt like if I could find something really great for him, something lemon scented or lemon flavored or whatever, that he’d be happy again.”

We lie in the silence, and eventually, I feel his breath on my neck deepen. Before I fall back asleep, I wonder where the strange men are and if they’ll enter the base camp. But inside Guy’s arms, I imagine it isn’t even possible.

For four days, we reside inside the camp. The two men from the start of the race are here, the same ones who helped unload us from the semis. They wear green, collared shirts and gold chains with serpent pendants. Contenders try to ask them questions, but when that happens, the men just glance past as if they aren’t even there. The only thing they
will
do is tend to the injured. Apparently, they’re part day laborer, part doctor. The men are an odd addition to an even odder situation.

The base camp is made up of ten small cabins, and the ground around and between them has been cleared so that it’s just soft dirt beneath our boots. I’m thankful for this, because even though my ankle is improving, I imagine it’d still hurt to walk on uneven terrain.

Torches circle the perimeter, and in the center of the camp is an enormous fire pit — though the men keep us from lighting it. In one
of the cabins, there are basic supplies: packs of dried fruits and meats, bottles of water, toothbrushes and toothpaste, deodorant, soap, and even TP. And across the base camp, where no windows face, are three outdoor showers that offer a bit of privacy. I don’t know where the water comes from, and I don’t care. It feels like heaven on earth.

During the day, we entertain ourselves as best we can — mostly by meeting other Contenders and gawking at their Pandoras — but at night the Contenders pull away into small clusters. Harper, Caroline, Dink, Guy, and I spend most of our time together. I keep an ever-watchful eye on Madox, who seems playful and carefree at times, and anxious at others.

Ransom has become reclusive, and though we try to include him in everything we do, he mostly stares off into space, his face shadowed with rage. It kills me to see him this way. I think the others are getting tired of me talking about it. But I can’t forget him, and I know he needs us now more than ever.

Titus also doesn’t hang around us anymore. This, on the other hand, is a relief. He seems to have found a new knot of Contenders to group with. They’re all guys, ranging from maybe early teens to midtwenties. The pack has swiftly formed an unsettling reputation, and most people stay out of their way as best they can.

Glancing around, I spot three women in their early fifties discussing something. Two of them laugh, while the third frowns. After a moment, the women disperse. Sitting close to where the women stood are a guy and girl pair a bit older than Guy. They stay close to each other, constructing something long and thin out of branches. They don’t speak; they just work. On the far side of the camp, children play. A girl Dink’s age chases a boy and girl, diving after them and kicking the ground in frustration when they narrowly avoid her grasp. Many of the Contenders have plum-colored bruises or shallow lashes across their extremities.
Others seem untouched by the jungle. But they are all here, seeking some sense of normalcy.

Since it’s the last day to locate base camp, I’d expected a constant stream of Contenders to trickle in. But no one has arrived since last night. When the sun nears the middle of the sky, all the Contenders hover around the perimeter, waiting to see who will make it in at the last minute. But as the sun crosses the sky and begins to set, we know it’s over. That this is everyone.

The horizon, or what I can see of it, is splashed with reds and pinks. It’s so beautiful, and in my stomach, I feel the first twinge of happiness after four days of fear and mourning. I knew Levi for only ten days, but I won’t ever forget him. And I’ll never forget that he died fighting for his sister’s life.

I feel someone standing near me and turn to see Guy watching me.

“Hey” is all I say. Then I turn back to the painted, darkening sky. Guy feels huge next to me, and I fight the urge to lean closer. I don’t know how to explain my feelings for him — if they’re circumstantial, or something more — but I know it’s hurt that he hasn’t slept in the bed with me since our first night at base camp. It was the only time I felt any true relief — and though he always sleeps close by, it isn’t close enough.