Fire & Flood

  Below me, I can hear Madox whining. He must have changed back into his fox form. I know he wants to do something to help, but he must realize how risky it’d be to try anything while there’s a knife pressed against my back.

  Titus talks to me the entire way, though I don’t start listening until now.

  “I know you understand what I’m saying,” he coos. “This will only work if we’re alone. Those morons wouldn’t know how to find the Cure if someone sewed it to their foreheads.”

  His free hand brushes the back of my neck, and I shudder.

  “You’ll see that this is for the best. Just you and me, Tella. Just me and my girl.”

  I hear something. It’s a rhythmic sound. The sound of something hitting the ground over and over. Footsteps!

  Titus’s knife pulls away from my back. I spin around and my arms flail. Then fire floods my vision. In that moment, I see three things. A lion. A sociopath flat on his back.

  And Guy, vengeance burning in his eyes.

  The flames vanish and I hear the unmistakable sound of fist meeting muscle and tissue and bone. Titus screams and calls out for his Pandora to help. Another bolt of fire shatters the night and I see Madox biting into Titus’s flesh, releasing built-up fury. I grab my fox around the middle and pull him away. Before the light vanishes for the second time, I also see Titus’s bear swiping his enormous paw at M-4. In the pitch-dark, I hear the bear’s roar.

  What I don’t hear is Titus.

  “Guy?” I ask, setting Madox down.

  Two strong arms pull me into an embrace. He says quickly, “Tella, you have to run. Base camp is on the other side of the rocks. I know it.” He pauses. “Have you killed one yet? A Pandora?”

  “Why would I do that?” But as soon as I say it, I know. My teeth snap together.

  “It’s a requirement to get into base camp. To continue the race.” Guy sucks in a sharp breath. “We’ll figure out something for you. But for now I need you to go. The Triggers are following Titus. And I have to hold them off.”

  “I won’t leave you,” I say, tears breaking my voice.

  “Yes, you will. If you stay, I’ll be too busy worrying about you to defend myself. And I’ll get hurt. Do you want that?”

  I shake my head.

  “Tella, you have to answer aloud. I can’t see you well enough.”

  “No,” I say through my tears. “I don’t want you to get hurt. But I don’t want to be away from you again.”

  That’s not all I’m thinking, though. I’m also thinking, This is a race. What if Guy is making choices based on saving his cousin, and this is one of those choices? And then I think, Cody. I don’t know what to do. My head is spinning and I don’t know what to do. Stay or go, stay or go?!

  And then —

  Guy pulls my face close and searches for my lips. When our mouths find each other, my body explodes with pleasure. I don’t ever want him to stop kissing me. I don’t ever want him to let go. But he pulls away. And I soon learn why. I can hear the sounds of approaching footsteps. The same sound I heard when Guy was closing in, but this time, it’s louder. There are more of them — five of them — and two of us.

  “Go,” Guy says. “Go now.”

  “Promise I’ll see you at base camp.” I grab his hand. “Swear it.”

  “You will see me. Now run. Hurry!”

  I turn and race into the desert with Madox at my side, my heart breaking with every step. Behind me, I can still hear the sounds of a lion and grizzly in battle.

  When I wake up, my body feels broken. Like maybe I swallowed glass, lit myself on fire, and leapt off a bridge. Though not necessarily in that order. Reaching a hand out, I find Madox and pull him against me. His body wiggles side to side and his ears press against his head.

  Pulling myself up, I realize Guy would be disappointed in how I slept — sprawled out in the middle of the sand. No fire. No foliage bedding. But last night, I couldn’t help it. When Guy told me to run — I ran. I ran until I couldn’t feel my legs. Until I was sure my lungs would implode. And then I collapsed.

  My eyes burn as I think about Guy. About how he saved me from Titus. And how he took on the rest of the Triggers once I fled. Though I know he’s right, that I may have gotten in the way, I feel disgusted with myself for leaving him, even if it was for Cody. When I think about how he may be back there, hurt, it’s all I can do not to scream.

  “Maybe we should go back,” I tell Madox.

  Though I know he doesn’t understand me, my fox grunts like I’m crazy. And maybe I am, because I’m seeing a flashing light that can’t be real. Pressing a flat hand against my forehead to shield my eyes, I look closer. There it is again. A quick flash — flash, flash — flash.

  When Madox cocks his head in the direction of the light, I know it’s not a mirage. Standing up — and nearly buckling from pain and dehydration — I move in the direction of the sparkle. I try to imagine what I’m seeing and decide it must be a Contender. That perhaps it’s the glint of a knife in the sun. Or even a canteen.

  Finding someone with a canteen is more than enough motivation to start hiking, but then I remember something else. Something Olivia said at the start of the desert race:

  This canteen could be used as a signal to each other. Wouldn’t that be cool?

  Once the seed of hope is planted, it starts to grow. And grow. And grow, until the legs beneath me begin moving faster. Could it be one of the Contenders from my group? Do they remember what Olivia said, like I do? Soon, I’m running toward the glinting light, my boots kicking up clouds of sand. Madox trots beside me, jaw hanging open as he pants.

  Please don’t stop, I pray. Keep showing me where you are.

  At last, after running for what feels like half an hour, I come upon a tree. It’s one of the largest I’ve seen in the desert. And it actually has leaves that grow green in the blistering sun. Beneath the tree’s bough, I spot someone leaning against the trunk. I slow my pace and creep closer. I’m out in the open and there’s no way I’ll see them — hidden by the shade — before they see me. But I can’t be afraid. So I take a breath, stand tall, and walk toward them.

  While I can’t make out what the person looks like, I can pinpoint the moment they turn in my direction and straighten.

  “I’ll be damned,” a female voice croaks. “It’s Dorothy and her little dog, too.”

  I don’t need to hear more than that. And I don’t need to see the person. I know exactly who this is.

  “This girl and her dog are coming to save your rear,” I tell Harper.

  “Thank God you’re okay.” She hangs her head and sighs heavily. “I didn’t know what Titus would do to you.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. And Titus didn’t do much,” I tell her as I plop down. “Just psychoed out a few times before Guy got there.” I refrain from telling her about Nick, about the fact that Titus moved from creeper category to killer.

  “So Guy made it.” There’s a look of regret in her eyes, and I want to tell her it’s fine. But I don’t. Because the truth is I’m a little curious as to why they didn’t all come. So I just look her in the eye and nod. “And Titus?” she asks. “Is he still —”

  “Yeah,” I answer, glancing over my shoulder. “I think that freak’s still out there.”

  She leans toward me, a new look on her face. “Do you have any water?”

  I shake my head. “Guessing you don’t, either.”

  Harper presses her lips together in frustration. I take that as a no.

  I look her up and down and decide it’s time to confront the obvious. That she’s not wearing a shirt. Just sitting beneath the tree in her pink bra. “Going streaking later?” I’m joking with her, but all I want to do is squeeze her into a hug and never let go. Titus made it seem like she was dead. But I was sure she wasn’t. Not Harper. Not the girl I saw fight like a gladiator. Finding her here, however impossible it feels, is a stroke of good luck I’m not about to question.

  My friend pulls her arm up and I
notice a white shirt wrapped around her right forearm. It’s spotted with blood. I gasp, and then reach to inspect her wound. She pulls her arm back against her before I can try and help.

  “From when the Triggers attacked us?” I ask.

  She nods. “From the night Dink died.”

  A lump forms in my throat. One I can’t quite swallow down. “He was a Pandora. The whole time, he was a Pandora.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “Guy told us what he did. I don’t blame him. Something was wrong with the boy. The Creators went too far. Trying to make a Pandora that looked and worked like a human? It’s disgusting.”

  “Caroline?” I ask.

  “After we fought off the Triggers, and she saw him …” Harper shakes her head. “She was inconsolable. I mean, we could tell she knew he was a Pandora. He must have hatched from the egg she chose, for crying out loud. But I think she started to think of him as her son or something. Maybe it’s why she never told us.”

  I run a hand over my curls, which have grown longer since the start of the race. “Where is she? Where is everyone?”

  “Caroline took off. Wouldn’t let anyone follow her. Then Guy left, saying he was going to find you, that he couldn’t have the rest of us slowing him down.” Harper licks her dry, cracked lips. “Guess he really meant Olivia. But that’s okay. She has Jaxon, who acts like her friggin’ father. That’s why I had to leave. I couldn’t be around that. Not alone.”

  I zero in on the fact that Guy wanted to find me on his own. Insisted on it. That makes me feel better about the others’ not coming for me. I mean, I know we’re here for our families and friends back home, but thinking they’d left me with the Triggers hurt. I watch Harper pull into herself. She doesn’t want me to ask what she means about not traveling with Jaxon. So I don’t. Instead, I ready myself to ask why she’s here, under this tree. But she beats me to the punch.

  “Tella, do you think …” She pauses. “Do you think you could help me?”

  “Of course. I’m not going to leave you. I’d never do that.” Not like I did to Guy is what I think to myself. I go to slide my arm beneath her, but she stops me.

  “That’s not what I mean.” Harper scoots away and points at the rock formations, which are now only a few hundred yards away. “My Pandora is up there. I heard her last night, screeching. I know that sound. I know her sound. She’s caught up there somehow and I can’t climb up and get her.” She raises her injured arm as proof. Then she looks at me with such desperation that my stomach churns. “Could you go and get her for me? Please, Tella?”

  I listen to Harper as she begs me to rescue her eagle. As she explains that she won’t have a chance to win without her. And that I’m not so stupid for naming my Pandora, because RX-13 is pretty awesome.

  Guy said base camp was right on the other side of the rock formations. I have no idea how he knows that, but I trust him. And that means base camp is so close that I could have a chance at arriving first. I can’t know for sure, but I haven’t seen any other Contenders passing us. Not like I did in the jungle.

  Five years.

  I could give Cody five healthy years.

  If I tell Harper no — that I’m here for my brother — I could keep him alive. But then I remember something else Guy told me — that I have to kill a Pandora to continue the race. My stomach sinks just thinking about completing the task.

  I quickly decide to help Harper, because I can’t not help her. And because her strength will help when it comes time for me to … destroy … a Pandora. Part of me wants to ask if she’s already killed one. But right now she’s staring at me, waiting for an answer.

  Nodding, I wrap my hands around her upper arms. “I’ll go and get your eagle. You walk with me to the formations and then wait while I go up.”

  Harper’s face pulls together like she’s going to cry. But, of course, she doesn’t. She just waves me away like, How dare you make me emotional, and drags herself to her feet. I loop my arm around her waist and again she shoves me off. “I’m not crippled,” she says. And then quieter, “Thank you, Tella.”

  Though the formations are close, it takes a while to get there. We both have to stop often; Harper because of the pain in her arm, and me because I feel damaged all over. But eventually, at snail’s pace, we arrive.

  Harper humphs, and I ask what she’s humphing about.

  She pats her hand against the stone. “It’s not so big up close. You’d think as we got nearer, it’d get bigger. But turns out, it’s not that high.”

  “Maybe they looked so big from afar because there was nothing else to look at,” I say. She nods like this is true, but I can tell she’s distracted. “It’s okay, Harper. I’ll be up and down in no time.”

  Looking up, I imagine I believe what I’m saying. The closest formation can’t be any more than forty feet high — about the equivalent of a four-story building. And I’ve become quite the athlete over the last several weeks. Climbing up should be no problem. But glancing at Madox, I realize I’ll have to leave him behind. I know I won’t be long, but it still makes me nervous to go anywhere without him.

  “Will you watch him?” I ask.

  Harper wraps her arms around her slender waist. “Of course. Just be careful.”

  “Nah, I’m gonna intentionally try to get myself killed.” I grab hold of a rock and bring my boot up onto the first flat surface I find. Behind me, I feel Harper slip something into my back pocket. “Harper?”

  “That’s my switchblade,” she says. “I sharpened it while I was sitting there all night. I’ll bet yours is about as dull as a butter knife.”

  I don’t tell her the truth. That I lost my knife to Titus. I just reach out again, and pull myself up.

  “Tella,” Harper says suddenly, loudly.

  “Harper,” I mimic. “I’m scaling a mountainesque object, so can you not scream my name?”

  “I hardly screamed it.” Though I can’t see her, I know she’s rolling her eyes. “And anyway, all I was going to say was that while you climb that thing, I’m going to trek around it. Then you can come down the opposite side and we’ll save time.”

  “But you don’t know how thick this thing is.” I grunt like Braun’s pig as I find another handhold and ascend higher. “What if we get separated?”

  “I can’t just stand here all day.” Harper doesn’t say anything for a minute. When she finally speaks again, she says, “I’m going to do it. See you on the other side.”

  At this point, I’m not about to argue. Or explain how I haven’t killed a Pandora. I’m about five feet off the ground. I need to cease talking and start focusing. So I do just that. I look up the side of the formation. I fill my lungs.

  And I climb.

  I’ve almost gone into cardiac arrest by the time I near the top of the formation. Heights have never been an issue for me. But I guess that was before I decided to go rock climbing with no training, little sleep, and severe dehydration.

  Running my hands over the ledge, I grab hold of a fist-sized stone and flip myself over the side. Then I lie on my back and wheeze like a pack-a-day smoker. I decide I might take up smoking after this thing is over. And any other recreational drug that’ll help me forget the things I’ve seen. On second thought, drugs make you ugly. Scratch that. I pledge to get weekly massages instead.

  After catching my breath, I get to my feet and realize the formation isn’t all that wide. It’s maybe five football fields long, but only about thirty feet across. Overhead, the sky is a crisp shade of blue. And from here, the sun seems even bigger, like it’s preparing to swallow me whole. I smell fresh soil and the faint scent of metal. It’s refreshing, considering the only thing I’ve smelled in days is BO. Plenty of it mine. Superhot.

  Carefully, I cross the distance to the other side of the formation, and look out across the desert. A tidal wave of excitement rushes through my body. There, on the horizon, is base camp. Torches are lit in a circle and small huts dot the interior. My eyes widen when I notice green grass
growing within and around the camp. But that can’t be possible unless …

  And then I spot it.

  Water.

  A thin stream runs between the huts and past the circle of torches. My throat tightens just thinking about having a taste. For the past twenty-four hours, it’s felt like I’ve had cotton balls shoved into my mouth. And now I see so much water.

  I’m so close, I realize. Maybe a half-hour walk. Fifteen minutes if I run.

  Stepping closer to the ledge, I look again. Just as I suspected, I don’t see anyone walking around the camp. Sure, there could be people inside the huts. But something tells me there aren’t. Glancing down the side of the cliff, I wonder how quickly I could make it down.

  I could win this leg.

  I’m so close, I can taste it.

  My heart sinks when I remember the promise I made Harper. I have to free her Pandora. And I will.

  But then I will grab Madox and run.

  Spinning around, I scour the formation, searching for RX-13. It doesn’t take long to find her. The rope that was tied around her left leg is tangled in some foliage growing between the stones. When the eagle spots me, she squawks and beats her wings.

  “It’s okay, girl,” I say, bending over the Pandora. “I’m going to cut you loose.”

  “No, you’re not,” a voice says from behind me. I bolt upright and goose bumps race along my arms. It’s him.

  I reach for the blade in my back pocket, then slowly turn around.

  Titus stands twenty feet away, his hair matted with blood, face swollen and bruised. “We’re going to need that Pandora.”

  I back up so that I’m blocking Harper’s eagle. My mind spins with surprise, but one thing remains clear — I can’t let him hurt RX-13. Though if it comes down to me against him, I’m not sure what I’ll do. He’s hurt, but so am I. And he easily has eighty pounds on me.

  “Back away from her.” Titus tips the point of his knife toward himself. “We don’t want to hurt her quite yet. Unless you’re eager to get on with it.”