Fire & Flood

by Victoria Scott

  “He was a gambling man. He loved watching his money grow without his lifting a finger. Santiago believed he was born lucky and maybe that he was born smarter. Smart enough to know it’s easier and more exhilarating to earn money from being right. So he sought ways to gamble: cards, hounds, horses. He loved discovering grander and riskier bets. Because Santiago believed he couldn’t lose. And if he was losing, he had a crew of guys who’d ensure it didn’t last long. Gabriel Santiago wasn’t the kind of boss you disappointed.” Guy rubs the back of his neck like he’s thinking. Or maybe like he’s trying to decide how best to tell the story.

  “Santiago had a young daughter named Morgan. She was … she was his everything. He’d lost his wife years before, and Morgan was all the family he had left. He gave that little girl everything. Anything she asked for, and anything else she didn’t. Some said he was a cold man, others called him a criminal, but for her, he melted.”

  Guy narrows his eyes at the sand between his knees.

  “One day, one of Santiago’s guys told him that this firm, Intellitrol, was looking for financial backing. Said these guys were playing with genetic engineering and making huge discoveries in medicine and that there was a fortune to be made. That they just needed direction and cash … and someone willing to take a chance. To Santiago, it sounded like a different kind of gamble, and he couldn’t help being intrigued. So he agreed to meet with them, and before you know it, Gabriel Santiago had these guys working on all kinds of crap. And in general, things seemed to be going smoothly.

  “But one day, when Morgan’s birthday was rolling around, Santiago jokingly asked one of the scientists at Intellitrol to make a puppy for his daughter that can fly like a sparrow. At first, they were all laughing, but then the Pharmies started thinking about it. Why couldn’t they make something from two different animals? Or from different elements that existed in the world? This was when genetic engineering was first being discovered, right, so there was a lot of excitement at Intellitrol about it. And they had Santiago’s resources to play with…. So they did.”

  Guy’s eyes meet mine, and my stomach clenches.

  “When Santiago saw the animal they created for his daughter, and when he witnessed how much Morgan loved it, he saw a business opportunity that dwarfed anything else he’d done before. So he told these guys to start making more of these animals … fast.”

  I glance at Guy’s lion and think about the fire it created hours earlier.

  Guy hesitates again, and I get the sudden sensation this isn’t going somewhere good. “But soon, Santiago started pushing the Pharmies to take more and more risks with these creatures. And as the animals started increasing in numbers — kept in cages below a warehouse Santiago bought — the scientists started worrying. See, none of this research had been approved by Intellitrol. Or anyone. And the public tends to rebel when something unnatural — something ungodly — is created. Plus, these scientists weren’t exactly supposed to be taking orders from Santiago, their investor, when it was a public company and whatnot.” Guy bites the fleshy part of his thumb, like he’s debating telling me more. When he looks at me, I know he’s decided to continue.

  “So the scientists decided they’d approach Santiago and tell him they didn’t want to make these animals any longer. Well, the guy went apeshit. Threatened to go public with their research and tell Intellitrol, the FBI, the CIA, whoever what they’ve been working on. In truth, Santiago never would have reported them, not with his past. But the scientists didn’t know this, so they came up with a plan: burn the building down and call it an accident. The other Pharmies, for one reason or another, agreed it was the best way out. So they started the fire. But they didn’t realize …”

  Guy wipes a hand across his brow. He flinches.

  I put my hand lightly on his thigh and hold my breath.

  “Santiago’s daughter, Morgan, she was in the building. She was … she was down near the animals’ cages, probably playing with them and crap when the Pharmies started it.” Guy swallows and says in a rush, “She died.”

  “Guy —” I start. But he shakes his head and I can tell the conversation is over. I want to push for more. I want so badly to know how this story ends with us here. With me and Guy and Harper and the rest of the Contenders fighting to save the lives of the people we care about. But I know it won’t get me anywhere. So I make a promise to ask him later. Maybe then he’ll share the rest of his secrets.

  As my mind wraps around the horrific story he told, I lie back down. This time, I don’t turn away from him. After a few moments, he reaches out and lays his enormous hand against my cheek, cupping my face. I press against it and close my eyes, thinking of Morgan, of how she burned to death.

  Maybe Guy is filled with lies. Or maybe he has an ulterior motive in telling me what he has. But just for tonight, I decide to throw caution to the wind. And trust him completely.

  Even if he does break my heart.

  The next morning, we are rejuvenated. Already, we’ve learned how to sleep in the cold, on twigs and leaves. We’ve adjusted to the desert quicker than we did the jungle, though the desert is crueler. Still, it shows surviving the wild is a learned skill. That we can apply tricks from one ecosystem to another.

  Caroline says she’ll lead, and Guy quickly agrees, though the rest of us are worse at veiling our surprise. The daughter who came to save her mother has shocked me more than once. Guy was right when he said she’s stronger than she appears. I’ll have to keep an eye on her. Although last night I lost myself in Guy, in the story he told me, today I remember my brother — that I’m here to save him.

  That Guy is temporary.

  And Cody is my family. My blood.

  This morning, I’m near the back. It allows me to move slower, knowing I won’t hold anyone up besides Olivia, who’s behind me. It also allows me to think about what I’ve learned. That Santiago had a daughter and that scientists accidentally killed her. Did Santiago find out what the Pharmies did? Or did he die an old man still thinking it was an accident? Regardless, I need to find out the rest. About how all this leads to the Brimstone Bleed. I know now how the Pandoras were first created, but why a race today when this happened sixty years ago? And when am I going to tell the others about the things I’ve learned?

  I look at Guy. A few more days, I decide. Just a few more questions answered before I risk the others jumping on him. It isn’t fair that I’m keeping this from them, but I tell myself it’s because I want to get the full story first. That it’ll help them more if I do.

  I glance around and notice Madox is trudging along near the lion this morning. M-4 wants no part of the baby fox, but my Pandora is insistent. Overhead, RX-13 screeches and glides through the sky, wings spread open, riding the wind.

  I pull my canteen off and take a long drink. The water feels incredible washing down my throat, and I pray today won’t be as hard, knowing I can drink when I need to — which is about every ten minutes.

  Behind me, I hear Olivia’s stomach growl. You and me both, sister. For the last three mornings, we’ve eaten a steady diet of bitter green fruit. I’m about ready to stir-fry Madox just to get a little meat up in this joint. Madox looks up at me and whimpers, like he can read my mind. I hold my hands up in claws and act like I’m a monster. He trots ahead of the lion.

  God, I’m such a jerk.

  I stop when I don’t hear Olivia or her elephant trudging behind me. Turning around, I notice she’s about ten feet away, bending over at the waist. She’s going to be sick, I realize.

  “Jaxon,” I say, because it seems right to tell him. “I think Olivia needs you.”

  Everyone stops, and Jaxon moves toward Olivia. That’s when I see the girl reach a hand out toward the ground. She isn’t sick, I gather suddenly. She sees something in the sand.

  “Olivia,” Jaxon barks, his voice cold as steel. “What are you doing?”

  Guy races past me so quickly, a breeze blows across my skin. But it’s too late.

  The
sand beneath Olivia’s hand shimmies and a thick brown snake thunders into sight, pink tongue tasting the air. Above its eyes are two perfect horns. The sight sends a shiver down my body, but I don’t move. No one does. Not even the Pandoras. Olivia has frozen solid, her hand still outstretched toward the snake.

  “Olivia,” Guy says beneath his breath. “Do not move.”

  A hissing, crackling sound emanates from the snake in a crisp warning, and the girl begins to cry silently. Her arm shakes, and tears drip down her cheeks, drying before they reach her jawline.

  “I want you to listen to me.” Guy is a statue of muscle and bronze in the scorching sun. I want to believe he can help her. He has to. “I’m going to tell you exactly what to do.”

  “Don’t let that thing touch her, Guy,” Jaxon snarls. “Don’t you dare fuck up on this.”

  “Olivia, open your eyes.” Guy’s voice is smooth as milk, but each word feels like a gamble. Like something that may startle the snake and put Olivia at risk. “That’s good,” he says. “Now, I want you to take a very small breath. Very small. And at the same time, I want you to step backward. Pull your right foot back first, then bring your left back to meet it.”

  My head is pounding. My heart is thumping. I’m afraid I might scream from pure anxiety.

  Olivia pulls in a small breath and steps back with her right foot.

  Should she have moved so fast? Why is she moving so fast?!

  The girl brings her left foot back to meet her right, and I can see her body relax just a bit. The snake watches her carefully, tongue flicking, body arching.

  “That’s good,” Guys says. “Now, when I tell you to, I want you to do the same thing again. Another small breath, another step back. The rest of you, stay still. Don’t approach Olivia. That means you, Jaxon.”

  Jaxon doesn’t respond, but I recognize the fear twisting the features of his face.

  Olivia sucks in a short breath and steps her right foot back. Flawless.

  She brings her left foot back to meet it —

  And stumbles.

  Her hands splay out and she falls forward. Jaxon runs toward her, and Olivia’s Pandora makes the most terrible sound through its trunk. But nothing helps.

  The snake strikes.

  Caroline screams, or maybe it’s Harper. My heart is pounding so loud in my ears, I can’t tell where it came from.

  The next thing I know, Jaxon is carrying Olivia away and the elephant is stepping on the snake’s head. Guy withdraws his pocketknife and swiftly cuts a clean slice behind the snake’s head. When the elephant pulls its foot back, Guy kicks the head away from us and rushes toward Olivia.

  “Give her to me,” Guy tells Jaxon.

  “Screw you,” he says.

  “Give her to me!” I’ve never heard Guy so much as raise his voice. So the sound of his shouting sends waves of hysteria rolling over me. This is serious. Oh my God, this is serious. I can’t lose someone else. Olivia can’t die.

  Jaxon’s eyes are wide with uncertainty, but he hands a sobbing Olivia over. Guy drops to the ground and holds her against his chest. He looks her over before announcing, “It struck her on the hand. On her pinkie.” He sighs with despair and adds quietly, “A horned viper.” Guy searches the desert, and his eyes land on her elephant. “Olivia,” he barks. “Tell your Pandora to help you.”

  Olivia stops crying for a moment, sniffs, and looks at the elephant. “EV-0,” she says, her voice shaking so much, my heart clenches. “Please help me.”

  The elephant takes two steps in her direction and stops.

  “EV-0, help me,” she repeats.

  Her Pandora’s head drops ever so slightly.

  Olivia looks at each of us and then back at her elephant. “Help me, you worthless animal! Help me! Help me, damn you! Help —”

  She stops screaming and sobs into Guy’s chest. Jaxon points at Guy, tears streaming down his face. “Do something,” he says. “You do something or I’ll kill you myself.”

  Guy didn’t put the snake there. He didn’t make Olivia stumble. But we depend on him. And now that something terrible has happened, we expect him to make it better.

  “Take off your shirt,” Guy says, staring directly at Jaxon.

  Jaxon rips his shirt off like it’s made of acid. He drops it in front of Guy.

  “I need yours, too, Dink.” Caroline helps Dink — who appears even paler than he has the last two days — remove his shirt. She tosses it to Guy. He lays Olivia flat on her back in the sand, and she curls into a ball, sweating and crying without end. He takes Dink’s shirt and twists it into a long rope. “Open your mouth, Olivia.”

  “What are you doing?” Jaxon says, pacing.

  Guy ignores him, and Olivia opens her mouth. “Bite down on this,” he tells her.

  She does, and my stomach turns as I realize what he’s planning.

  Guy wipes his switchblade along his pants to remove the snake’s blood. He looks up at Jaxon, then at Harper. “The two of you need to hold her down.”

  Olivia squeezes her eyes shut and moans into the shirt. I know she’s thinking the same thing I am, that this isn’t going somewhere good. Looking at her now, I briefly wonder if Santiago’s own daughter, Morgan, was much younger than Olivia.

  Harper grabs Olivia’s arms, and Jaxon holds her legs.

  “Tell me what you’re going to do, asshole,” Jaxon spits.

  Again, Guy doesn’t answer. And I still don’t move. But when he grabs Olivia’s hand, and lays the blade at the base of her finger, I turn and vomit into the sand. I’m still emptying the water in my stomach as Olivia’s muffled screams reach my ears. When I finally stand up, I’m shaking so hard, I almost collapse. I know what’s happening behind me, but I can’t look. I can’t.

  Eventually, Olivia’s screams stop. Someone else is crying, but I know it’s not her. At some point, I’m going to have to help. We’re here for one another … until the end. And I’ve done nothing but nurse my own fear while Olivia lives a nightmare. I pull in deep breaths of dry desert air and turn around.

  The world spins as soon as my eyes land on Olivia. Her body has crumpled in on itself. She looks lifeless, but I can see her chest moving, so I know she’s not gone. She must have just lost consciousness. Harper is rocking herself and staring at her own boots, and Jaxon is crying into his hands. Guy kneels over Olivia, his hands covered in blood. His eyes are glassed over, like he’s having trouble grasping what he did. But he shouldn’t. It isn’t hard to understand when the truth is lying in the sand —

  As Olivia’s severed pinkie.

  Though Guy seems helpless, I notice he’s wrapped Jaxon’s shirt around the girl’s hand and is pressing down. I don’t know if he’ll be able to stop the blood. It’s a finger, not a skinned knee. A friggin’ finger. I remember when Hannah and I used to play those would-you-rather games.

  Would you rather kiss Curtis O’Brian with tongue, or get a hickey from Mr. Davidson?

  Would you rather go three days without makeup, or get kidney punched by that girl who only wears lip liner?

  Would you rather discuss sex with your mom, or cut off your own pinkie?

  In any situation in which losing your pinkie was an alternative, the finger always got the ax. But that was in theory. Not in real life. Not in an Olivia’s-finger-is-lying-in-the-sand-and-turning-blue kind of way. In this case, I’d choose the other option. No matter what.

  Guy speaks and it startles me in the way a shotgun firing might.

  “We need to rest here for the remainder of the day,” he says. “If she’s okay when she wakes up, we’ll travel through the night.” No one responds. I’m sure we’re all thinking the same thing. That we don’t want to make her travel at all, but that we also need to find base camp or we’re all dead.

  The cheetah moves toward the finger and sniffs. My heart beats in overtime praying he has some skill that can help. I know Pandoras usually help only their own Contenders, but maybe because Jaxon is so upset, Z-54 will do something anyw
ay. Harper raises her head to watch, and even Caroline stops rocking Dink to see what the creature will do. We all hold our breaths.

  The Pandora continues to sniff it for a few seconds, then lifts his head … and bats at the finger like it’s a toy.

  “Oh my God,” Jaxon says. He jumps toward his cheetah. The Pandora snatches the finger between his jaws and trots away from the group. Now M-4 runs after the cheetah. They fight over the finger in a way that’s almost playful. This is a game for them, I realize. They love us, are built to help us survive, but they also have instincts. And right now they smell blood.

  The lion steals the finger away and pops it into the air. From behind the lion, the cheetah leaps up and bites down on it.

  “Jesus,” Guy says. “Someone get that thing away from them.”

  I try not to think about what’s happening, and instead race toward the two cats. Right as I reach them, the cheetah closes his mouth over the finger. And swallows.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I fight the urge to get sick again. Seeing a cheetah eat a child’s finger is not something I ever thought I’d need to be equipped to handle.

  We find a small tree, which offers almost no shade, and carry Olivia beneath it. And then we wait. At first, we watch the girl, but she never stirs. Then we watch the cheetah to see if it gets sick from the venom, but it doesn’t.

  When the sun finally sets, and Olivia still hasn’t woken up, Guy says we need to bring her around. Jaxon agrees and shakes the girl gently until she stirs. “Heeeeey, Olivia,” he says, though nowhere near the way she did to him this morning. “Heeeeey, Olivia.” The girl’s eyelids flutter for a moment, then she raises them completely.

  The first thing she does is puke.

  I bite my lip watching her, hoping this is a good sign. Guy doesn’t seem too concerned, which I take as promising.

  “Give her water,” Guy tells Jaxon.

  Jaxon retrieves his canteen and tips it so that Olivia can drink. She takes a few pulls and then pushes it away.

  “Olivia,” I say. Jaxon, Guy, and the girl all look at me. “Is there anything we can do? Anything?”