The tendrils slide around Harper’s throat, and she screams as she fights to tear them from her body. She’s successful, and the jellyfish rides the next wave and floats away from us.
But Harper’s nails still tear at her skin, and her head disappears under the water. Overhead, RX-13 beats her wings and tries repeatedly to dive after her Contender. It’s no use. I find Harper easily, and when I jerk her head above water, she cries out and beats against my face with her eyes clenched closed.
“Harper,” I yell. “Stop fighting me. We have to get to shore.”
“It hurts,” she sobs.
Another piece of me dies hearing my strong, brave friend begging for help. The green rafts are closer than ever, and so I wave toward them, pleading for assistance. The Contenders ignore us. They didn’t pull our flag, but that’s the most they’ll do.
But finally, when I accept that it’s no use shouting, a woman, who looks more like a man, says, “We’ll take one of you.”
“Here,” I say in an instant, shoving Harper toward their raft.
Harper doesn’t fight me. She just takes a boy’s hand and flops to the bottom of their boat and out of sight. The woman waves the two Contenders who are paddling forward, and as they pass by, I hear someone mutter above Harper’s wailing, “It’s from a box jellyfish. Has to be.”
I don’t know what that means or if Harper’s life is in danger. I only know that I have to get to shore. So I put my face into the water, and I stroke toward land with everything I have. I’m almost there, so excruciatingly close, when I hear a Contender’s voice I recognize yelling for help.
Though Madox is nosing me to continue, I stop. Willow is a few yards back, flailing in the water. Immediately, I begin swimming toward her, but then I spy Olivia only ten feet from Willow. Olivia hesitates, and then drives toward the younger girl, her elephant following behind. I’m wondering what must have struck Willow when Olivia reaches her. The ten-year-old Contender seems to have a hold on Willow, but then Olivia’s head drops from sight.
I see arms flapping near Willow’s head, and understanding dawns on me — Olivia is drowning. The elephant beats her trunk toward the water, and I speed toward the two girls. I don’t know what I’m headed into, but I can’t leave them behind. I cry out for the umpteenth time when I’m stung yet again. When Willow sees me approaching, Olivia pops into view once more. Now Cotton is there, too, coming from beneath the girls with impressive stealth. He grabs hold of Willow and powers toward shore. I confirm Olivia is swimming after them before turning back to the island myself. There’s no telling what happened out there, but it’s all the more reason to get out of this wretched ocean.
I am stung uncountable times during my remaining trek in, and my pulse never slows. My three Pandoras are stung, too, though they hide their discomfort well. At last, with Braun and Mr. Larson in my sight, my feet touch the ocean floor. Relief showers over my body, cleansing me — for one beautiful instant — of the calamities I’ve endured. With the last bit of strength I have left, I wade to shore. Then I stumble to my knees and collapse.
Minutes pass, or maybe it’s hours. When I lift my head, Madox is whining at me, back in fox form.
I made it.
We made it.
I scan the beachfront and the torches lighting the way to base camp, and then I see them — the group of Contenders from the green rafts. They’re hunched over a body, staring down at someone who isn’t moving.
It doesn’t take me long to grasp who that someone is.
Harper.
Harper sleeps inside a mud-and-grass shelter for six and a half hours before she wakes. I spend the time alternating between hating the man who won a phone call with his niece and dozing off in the chair beside Harper’s bed. When I do doze, I dream of sopapillas with thick honey drizzled over their cinnamon sugar skins. There is a room full of them, and I swim through their deliciousness with snorkel mask in place. Not once do I get stung by jellyfish.
When Harper’s eyes flutter open, it’s the middle of the night, and a kerosene lamp casts a soft glow about the area. She pulls herself up in bed, and no matter how many times I offer her water or push cornmeal biscuits toward her, she refuses.
“They say it was a box jellyfish,” I say, encouraging her to lie down and tucking a blanket around her shoulders. “You could have died.”
She works her bottom lip between her teeth, and her green eyes glisten. Harper’s silence is jarring. It’s like she doesn’t care that she lived.
I take her hand in mine and swallow the fear of what I’m about to say. “I’m glad you returned for me, Harper. But maybe it’s time you went home to be with your family.”
Harper shifts in the bed, and a sad smile parts her mouth. Her mouth opens and closes twice before she finally says what it is she wants to say. “My daughter, she was only two years old, but she had this attitude, you know? If I didn’t give her what she wanted, she’d cock a hand on her hip and jut her chest out like a tiny diva.”
I grip Harper’s hand tighter.
“My parents never even wanted me to have her. They said I was only sixteen, that I wouldn’t know how to take care of her, and that her dad would disappear.
“When she got sick, I never expected her to get better. Not once. I suppose I just knew. I wasn’t surprised when the men here told me she was dead. On the trip back, I told the two guys dressed as police officers escorting me home that I wanted to return to the race after Lil — after my daughter’s funeral. They said it was impossible, but a couple of weeks later, one of them showed up on my doorstep. I recognized him immediately, and I was ready. My mother begged me to stay. She didn’t know where I was going, but she knew I wouldn’t be coming home again if I left a second time.”
Harper meets my gaze. “Mothers know this stuff.”
“Harper, prove her wrong. Go home. Please, for me, go back to your parents. You’ve lost your daughter — but they don’t deserve to lose their daughter, too.”
She shakes her head. “No. I said I’d return to help you win, Tella, but I’m here for my daughter, too. You know, before those jackasses dropped me off at my parents’ house, they told me I couldn’t tell anyone about the race. That if I did, it could cause my family undue grief. The way they explained it … I knew it was them who made her sick. So when you told me everything else about the race, I wasn’t surprised. I’d figured most of it out. The moment I saw RX-13 again, though, that thought sank to the back of my mind. I was so happy they’d kept her that, for a day or so, I could breathe again. Until you reminded me of what they’d done.”
Her eyes close, and I think she’s done speaking. When she opens her eyes again, though, the look on her face freezes me to my bones.
“I bet that at the end of the race, there will be more employees there,” she continues. Her head falls back on the pillow, and she glowers at the ceiling. “Like a whole bunch of them just clapping and smiling and shit. But you know what? I’m going to be there, too. And I’ll remember my daughter when I see them.”
I want to ask Harper exactly what she means by the threat, but when her eyes slip closed again, I decide to let it lie. Now that Harper is feeling better, I can focus on other things. Like the fact that Guy still hasn’t arrived at base camp. Not that any of the other swimmers have, either.
When I leave the small structure, I find RX-13 outside and tell the bird that Harper’s awake. The bird pushes through the dried-leather door, and I shake my head. An eagle that understands English. I wish I could go back to kindergarten with a Pandora for show-and-tell and hand Ben Gregory’s ass to him, and maybe sic Madox on that empty wasp nest of his that everyone thought was so cool.
Outside, Contenders lounge around an open fire. This base camp closely resembles the one in the jungle with the cleared dirt floor and surrounding trees. Only these trees aren’t quite as tall or thick, and here it’s much easier to take in the expansive night sky.
I spot Willow and move toward her, wishing I’d stolen a bla
nket from the shelter to combat the cold. It doesn’t seem like it should be this chilly on an island in October. But maybe that means we’re somewhere in the north. Birds call in the distance, and an animal I’m certain isn’t a Pandora trills stridently. The fire crackles, and embers pop and rise with the smoke. I sit down next to Willow, deciding this little girl needs directness.
“What happened out there while we were swimming for shore?” I ask.
She shrugs, keeping her eyes on the white rat in her hands.
A knot forms in my stomach. “Did you try to hurt Olivia, Willow?”
She faces me, her eyes large with shock. “Something had ahold of my leg.”
I glance at her exposed calves. She tucks one beneath her, but not before I see that there isn’t a wound. Pulling my knees to my chest, I say, “This race can make us do terrible things. Things we never thought we were capable of. You’re so young. If you did try to hurt Olivia, and I’m not saying you did, then it would be understandable. But that doesn’t make it okay. At the end of the Brimstone Bleed, we’ll have to return home, and we’ll have to live with the things we’ve done here. You don’t want to carry more regrets than you must. Does that make sense?”
Willow crawls into my lap and lays her head against me. It’s the first time she’s ever showed me much affection, and I’m not sure how to react. “It’s been so scary,” the girl says as her Pandora scurries up her arm. “But I feel better when you’re around. I feel like … like you wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.”
When her fingers curl around mine, my chest tightens. This isn’t right. The child is too quick to name me her protector, and I’m no one’s hero but Cody’s. What’s more, the people she’s latched on to seem to be the ones most likely of having an advantage in this race. It’s too calculating. I stand up, and she stumbles backward onto the ground. She catches herself, scowling, as C-90 teleports to the top of her head.
“I’m here for my brother, Willow,” I say simply, evenly.
She sits up and glares fiercely into the fire. I’m about to walk away when I hear the girl say, “The only thing I’d ever regret is letting my grandfather die.”
I startle at the vehemence in her voice, but it doesn’t take me long to recover. We’re each surviving the only way we know how, and sometimes sounding strong is a tactic. I can’t be sure Willow tried to hurt Olivia in the ocean without asking Olivia, who is asleep. As I near my Pandoras, I notice that Madox and Monster are asleep as well, and though I want to allow them adequate rest, I also haven’t had alone time with my Pandoras in days.
Madox is curled between AK-7 and the bull, though the bull appears to be leaving as much room between him and the slight fox as he can. I whisper in my Pandora’s ear until he opens his eyes. It doesn’t take him long to go from a dead sleep to bounding at my feet, elated to receive attention. The grizzly bear is much harder to wake up, and I’ve all but resolved to leave him behind when he stumbles to his feet. Before the three of us depart, I scratch behind the black bull’s ear. He opens one eye and moans with contentment. “You’ll keep an eye on the iguana, won’t you?” I say, noting the snoozing green lizard a few feet away.
Y-21 groans and shuts his eye.
Together with my Pandoras, I exit the ring of torches and head toward the beach, fighting the false sense that I’ve left the security of the camp behind. I locate a good place to sit and run my fingers through the pure, cool sand. The sky is so vast, it seems to lie on top of me, swollen by glittering constellations.
AK-7 plops down on my right, and KD-8 does the same on my left. “I don’t know what I’d do without you two,” I say to Monster, and then think to Madox.
I wonder where they take the Pandoras they don’t use anymore.
I allow myself to imagine that the three of us stay together after the race. That it’d be totally plausible for me to show up for my junior year at some fabulous new high school with Monster and Madox in tow. Oh, the animals? I have them for medical reasons. Will they kill faculty and students alike? No, you’re bananas! They’re completely tame. Do you not see their couture collars?
My wristband catches my eye, and I finger the thick plastic zip-tie. My band is still red, but some of the other Contenders have had their band colors swapped. The men said that because there will only be fifty-four of us continuing, at most, that we needed to be reassigned. But no one misses the fact that the Contenders without wristbands, the ones on the “flesh-colored” team, did not receive medical attention for their jellyfish stings nearly as fast as those of us with bands. In comparison, the two Brimstone Bleed men worked on my shoulder and stings like the devil himself had demanded a perfect rehabilitation.
Over the next few hours, I watch the ocean with Madox’s head in my lap and Monster snoring like he’s trying to wake a volcano. Two Contenders appear in the time I sit staring into the ocean. When the first one appears, I race to her side, asking what she needs. The woman shoves me away and staggers toward base camp, barely able to keep her eyes open. I have no idea whether she was one of the selected swimmers or if her raft simply deflated, but she’s here now.
The next guy arrives, and I make a movement like I’m going to get to my feet, but he rights himself with difficulty and passes by without acknowledging my existence. Eventually, I stop waiting for Contenders. I stop waiting for him. I lie back and gaze upon the sky, my hand beneath my head. The moon is suspended directly above me, shining like a promise of heaven at the end of a life well lived.
When I wake again, Olivia is curled against my side, sandwiched between Monster and me. Her elephant is on the other side of Madox, and I notice Guy’s lion is at my feet. It takes my mind a moment to adjust to my surroundings, but when I remember where I am, I stroke Olivia’s hair. It’s still night or perhaps very early morning.
A sound reaches me, and I realize it’s the same one that worried me awake. My heart leaps into my throat with pulsing hope, and I climb to my feet, careful not to wake Olivia. I lean down and run my hands through M-4’s unruly mane. He lets me do it without complaint.
“Did you hear something, too, lion?” I glance around, searching for the source of the noise.
His ears flick in the gentle island wind, and I wonder if he decided to stroll to the beach to investigate the sound. But, no, he wouldn’t have heard it from base camp, would he? I don’t believe so, which means he came for another reason.
“You came to sleep next to me, huh?” I whisper. “It’s okay to admit you like me.”
The lion shows his teeth in a show of mock aggression.
I look toward the sea. “Where is he?”
M-4 produces a low, pained moan.
The noise comes a third time, and this time when I look up, I believe my eyes deceitful. That they’re playing a brutal joke and showing me what I want most. But it’s not a hoax. I’m not imagining things.
The moon casts an eerie sheen across his wide shoulders. Rivers of inky water race down his bare chest. And like a mighty winter storm, Guy Chambers appears from the ocean.
I want to rush to him, to take his face in my hands. I want to kick him, and to kiss him. He strides closer, his bare feet leaving footprints in the sand. His wet shoes are gone. The reservation he’s worn since we left the desert base camp — gone. He gets within an arm’s length of me and drops to his knees. A hoarse sigh escapes his lips, as if he’s traveled a thousand miles and somehow missed his destination by a breath.
I close the distance between us and cup his chin. Water slips into my palm, tickling my skin. Guy gazes up at me. He crawls one step forward on his knees, and then lays his head against my stomach. His arms rise to encircle my waist ceremoniously, as if I’m a shrine and he’s come to offer prayer.
He breathes deeply, his lungs expanding against my legs. I run my fingers through his wet hair and wait for him to speak. Finally, he does.
“I didn’t think I would make it,” he says, while trying to catch his breath. “You were right. I was in better phys
ical condition when I trained, and I hadn’t anticipated the toll that being without adequate sleep and water had taken. But you had forgotten something, too. I had something else.”
“Tell me,” I whisper.
“You didn’t take into account that I would hold you in my mind. That I would focus so wholly on the feel of your skin against mine, that it was as if my body moved through the water on its own.” Guy burrows his head deeper into my stomach, which has been flattened by surviving on raw fish and desert fruit and snake cooked over an open fire. “You say all the wrong things. You’re completely untrained and ill prepared when it comes to surviving this race. You care too much for the Contenders and Pandoras when you should focus only on your brother’s welfare.” He swallows and shakes his head, hesitating. “I may have saved you in that jungle, Tella, and in the desert, too. But out there in the ocean, you saved me.”
I drop to my knees.
I’m not accustomed to Guy lowering his guard, and I never expected him to say what he has. There is something between us, even if he has been distant recently. There are two sides of my Green Beret: the side that thinks only of winning and the side that aches for companionship like the rest of us.
But I’ve changed since he told me I couldn’t win. It’s been a gradual process, but I no longer rely on Guy as I once did. He is still the first person I look to — maybe he always will be as long as we’re inside the race — but now there’s a voice in my head that whispers guidance. Each hour that I remembered his words at the desert base camp — that voice grew stronger.
Our foreheads touch, and Guy slumps to his side. He takes me with him. We lay there in the sand, Guy’s chest still heaving from exertion, my heart racing from his vulnerable admission. That he needed someone besides himself to continue.
I don’t respond to what he’s said. He’s already fast asleep, and M-4 is tucked firmly against Guy’s back, purring blissfully. Olivia hasn’t heard a word of our exchange, and neither have any of the other Pandoras.
Salt & Stone Page 13
