Salt & Stone Read online

  FOR ERIN BLACK, MY BRILLIANT EDITOR.

  YOUR INSIGHT, ENCOURAGEMENT, AND DEDICATION

  BRING OUT THE BEST IN ME AND MY STORIES.

  THANK YOU.

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  THE SEPARATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE TIDE

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE GLADIATOR

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  THE FROST

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  THE BRIMSTONE BLEED, INC.

  Pandora Assignments, Con’t

  Contender Cluster C

  Pandora: KD-8

  Design Type: Fox, Small-Scale

  Ability A: Replication

  Assigned Contender: Tella Holloway

  Code Color: Red

  Pandora: RX-13

  Design Type: Eagle

  Ability A: Invisibility

  Ability B: Nautical

  Assigned Contender: Harper Shaw

  Code Color: Green

  Pandora: M-4

  Design Type: Lion

  Ability A: Flame

  Assigned Contender: Guy Chambers

  Code Color: Orange

  Pandora Identification: EV-0

  Design Type: Elephant, Small-Scale

  Ability A: H2O

  Assigned Contender: Olivia Finch

  Code Color: Blue

  *Pandora Identification: Z-54

  Design Type: Cheetah

  Ability A: Night Vision

  Assigned Contender: Jaxon Levine

  Code Color: Green

  *Expired

  Pandora: BK-68

  Design Type: Pig

  Ability A: Hypnotizability

  Assigned Contender: Braun Kirkland

  Code Color: Green

  I am stronger than I was before.

  Six weeks ago, I was a sixteen-year-old girl from Montana whose brother was dying. Nine months before that, I was shopping with my best friend in Boston, picking out the perfect shade of coral lip gloss. I was the girl who loved a chilled Greek salad, hold the onions, who texted my girlfriends every time there was a sale at Express, who had a closet full of glitter — and so what, a girl has a right to glitter.

  Before, I figured that when my family was struck with illness, when my brother, Cody, first passed on a second helping of meat loaf with red gravy and started losing weight, that this was the thing. This was the tragedy I’d have to deal with in my life — watching my big brother crumble and my family with him.

  I tried to be brave, to smile when there was nothing to smile about. To offer a polished joke in the doctor’s office so that Cody could cast off the fear in his belly and laugh instead.

  Good-bye, fear. Nice knowing you! I won’t be needing you since my sister’s here.

  Now I’m competing in the Brimstone Bleed to try and save his life. I thought the bad hand we were dealt was Cody’s being sick. But sometimes a hand worse than illness is the one offering a slippery morsel of hope. That’s the thing about life: When you’re dealt a crappy situation, you think to yourself, At least it can’t get any worse than this.

  And then life slaps you upside the head for being naïve.

  I wasn’t cut out for a race across the jungle or to trek across the desert with the sun scalding my cheeks.

  But like I said —

  I am stronger than I was before.

  Guy Chambers looks worried. And when he worries, I worry right along with him. Of course, sometimes Guy makes it difficult to be anything at all besides lustful. Even in the heart of the desert — the fresh pink scar on my stomach itching like crazy — I could still shove him on a Popsicle stick and slurp him up. Nom-nom-nom.

  “Tella,” he says. His voice is sharp, even urgent.

  Though, in my mind, he says my name more like Te-lllla.

  Guy tilts his head as if he’s not sure I’m listening, which I’m not. We’ve been at this desert base camp for over a week for “rest and recovery.” But it’s hard to do either when we’re counting down the days until the Brimstone Bleed continues.

  The Brimstone Bleed covers four ecosystems: jungle, desert, ocean, mountain. Or mountain, then ocean. Two we’ve completed; two remain. We’re halfway. Hoorah! Victory dance.

  Except it’s hard to feel positive about how far we’ve come when we’re battling one another for the Cure — something that will save our loved ones back home from croaking — and because we’ve already lost friends along the way. Even worse, the people behind this race are the ones who made our loved ones sick, though they pretend to be the heroes. And for the grand finale? The second ecosystem we overcame was harder than the first, which doesn’t make me real optimistic about what lies ahead.

  Guy’s lion, his Pandora, gives a small growl deep in his throat. It’s as if he’s frustrated that I’m not paying attention to his Contender. My own Pandora growls in return, though it’s amusing, considering the sound emanates from a black fox one-tenth the size. I scoop my Pandora, Madox, into my arms and attempt to focus on what Guy is saying.

  “What’s up?” I ask, hoping if I sound casual, the concern will leave his face.

  “I think they’re getting ready to move us.”

  “Move us,” I repeat, my brow furrowing. “Like we’re cattle or something.” My blood burns as I remember that these monsters ordered us to kill other Contenders’ Pandoras to qualify for the rest of the race. Sometimes, I can’t shake the m
emory of sliding a blade into Levi’s dying Pandora, even if his brother did ask me to do it.

  Guy shifts as if he’s going to brush away the hair from my face like men do in romance novels. Not that I’d know or anything. Not as if I used to dig those suckers out of my mom’s nightstand and devour them while plunging an arm into the graham crackers box.

  Before Guy can morph into Fabio, his hand drops to his side. Maybe it’s because I hacked my hair off and all that remains to caress is the blue-and-green feather Mom gave me, the same feather my grandmother once wore in her own hair. Or maybe he’s being distant again. I thought we were past that, but lately I’m not so sure.

  Guy runs his hand along his clean-shaven jaw. It won’t be that way for much longer. “I can just sense something’s happening. We’ve been here long enough. It’s time.” He pauses, bites the inside of his cheek. “Look, Tella …”

  Te-lllla.

  “You should forget about what I said,” he continues, voice lowered. Guy musses his dark hair that, after hiking through the jungle and desert, still manages to look GQ. “I’m not going to let you —”

  “We’ve been over this,” I interrupt. “I have to try and win, for my brother. After that, I’m going to help you destroy …” I glance around at the other Contenders, at their exhausted faces and slumped shoulders. I study the Pandoras by their sides, beaten and bruised from helping their Contenders survive. “I’m going to help you destroy the race so no one has to go through this again.”

  The Green Beret of a dude nods his head, though I can tell he’s not convinced. And that in the end, if I’m one of the final five and receive an invitation to become a Brimstone Bleed employee, he might accuse me of cheating so I can’t continue. Assuming cheating is even a thing, which it probably isn’t.

  “Hey-o! Are we packing up? Are the Rambos moving out?” This comes from Jaxon, my friend. He’s wearing a blue flag, the kind that helps us navigate to base camps, around his forehead. His blond curls spring up and over the top. Seeing me eyeing the flag, he says, “See, like Rambo.” Jaxon holds his arms up as if he’s got a machine gun and proceeds to put a round of bullets into Guy.

  Guy isn’t amused.

  Clinging to Jaxon’s leg is Olivia, a ten-year-old girl with exactly nine fingers. She’ll show everyone who asks those fingers, and anyone else who doesn’t. A blue-gray trunk wraps around Olivia’s waist.

  “Cut it out,” Olivia tells her elephant. Though I can tell she secretly adores her Pandora’s nuzzling. Jaxon looks at her elephant, EV-0, with longing. He lost his Pandora in the desert when one of our Contender allies turned out to be a Pandora and ate his animal companion.

  And the people running this race think we can “rest and recover” at base camp.

  Please.

  “So are we?” Jaxon repeats. “Moving out?”

  Guy nods as if he’s sure, but I don’t know how he can be. Then again, if Guy said our next leg of the race would be on the moon, I’d start looking for the shuttle. He stares into the desert as if the answer is there. “There’s been talk.”

  “Scandalous.” Jaxon’s head bobs, a huge smile plastered on his face.

  Guy sighs, and I lock eyes with him. Blue eyes. Not blue like the ocean at high tide or the sky on a summer afternoon. More like the blue of a dead body. A kind of blue that makes you hold your breath and count your blessings and beg for one more. I like when Guy sets his gaze on me. That shade of blue could make the world tremble on bended knees, but I’d happily drown in it.

  An enormous hand with polished nails comes down on Jaxon’s shoulder. “He’s going to kill you one of these days,” a surprisingly soft voice says. Surprising because its owner is the size of a planet.

  Braun orbits into view, his pig Pandora grunting at his side. “Do we know where we’re going next?”

  Guy’s eyes widen. He’s looking over Braun’s shoulder, and I turn to see what nabbed his attention. The two men who work for the Brimstone Bleed stand outside the perimeter of the base camp, an orange flag in each of their hands. They hold the flags by their sides and drag the toes of their boots in the sand, creating a large circle.

  I hear it before I see it — the unmistakable thwump-thwump-thwump of a helicopter approaching.

  The helicopter is like a crow against a sea of blue. As it gets closer, it seems more like a smudge of black paint, one I could swipe from the sky with the pad of my thumb. And then it seems only like what it is, a beacon of hope. Or one of fear.

  Contenders rush from huts, which resemble tepees, out into the open air. They raise hands to their brows and watch as this metal monster hovers over our heads. Sand beats against my skin, stinging. It isn’t much worse than the sun’s ever-present bite. What limited brush there is flattens against the ground, and I feel myself doing the same.

  Someone grabs on to my elbow and yells into my ear. It’s Guy, but I couldn’t hear him if he spoke telepathically, let alone over the sound of the helicopter’s blades whirling. A nervous brown muzzle nudges my arm, and I dig my hand into the bear’s dense fur. AK-7 is a grizzly bear Pandora and has the girth and jaws to prove it. But his previous owner did unspeakable things to him, and though I’ve tried to show the animal he won’t be hurt again, he’s still skittish. I’ve adopted AK-7 as my own, for better or worse, but it’s hard to not see his former owner — Titus — when I stroke his thick coat, or to forget how Titus died trying to kill me. At least I know he isn’t coming back and that the rest of the Triggers have all but disbanded.

  To the tune of orange landing flags waving, the helicopter touches down, and the wind dissipates, leaving behind an eerie silence. One of the Brimstone Bleed men jogs over. He opens the door, and at the same time, Guy drags me backward. Braun, Olivia, and Jaxon follow our movements. The Pandoras line up in front of us, and Madox raises his wet nose into the air.

  “Not too close,” Guy orders no one in particular.

  The pilot steps out of the helicopter, graceful as a ballerina. She’s wearing an orange knee-length pencil skirt and a stiff white collared shirt. Brown kitten-heel boots adorn her feet, and when she takes a step into the sand and sways, the man who opened her door offers his arm. She takes it with a warm smile and tosses bulky headphones back into the helicopter.

  The other man, the tall one with enormous ears and a shortage of hair, reaches into the helicopter and slides a box forward. He lifts it up, putting every ounce of strain on his back, which everyone knows is wrong. The three of them, one with the box in his arms, stride toward the largest hut on the perimeter of base camp, landing flags forgotten. The green-and-blue-plaid blanket that hangs over the entrance is pushed aside, and the crew vanishes from sight.

  The sun is setting on the sixth night of our rest week. The fourteen days we were allotted to make it to base camp have passed. No one ever enters the base camps after the fourteen days expire. Not in the jungle and not in the desert. I want to dwell on what happens to the ones who are still out there. But Guy tells me not to. He makes it seem easy to forget, and that worries me.

  “We should go to our huts and relax,” Guy announces. “They’ll be moving us tomorrow.”

  He speaks with such confidence. It makes me hate him. But then his face turns in my direction, and his strong jawline, his cheekbones, his shoulders — they tell me to ease up. That and he is the single most resourceful Contender in this race. His father told him about the Brimstone Bleed, trained him to take it down from the inside. I regard his mangled left earlobe and the gash through his right eyebrow, souvenirs from that training.

  “How about, instead,” Jaxon says, “we huddle into one hut and talk all night about why a strange woman appeared at base camp, who may or may not be cougar hot.”

  “Seriously?” Braun chuckles. “She’s one of them.”

  “She’s one of them now,” Jaxon says, popping his collar.

  Olivia rolls her eyes. “Unpop your collar, jackass. No one does that anymore.”

  Guy heads toward his hut, th
e one I’ve shared with him for the last several days, and Olivia, Jaxon, and Braun follow behind. Jaxon continues to chatter about how he can “turn” the woman in orange, and we all ignore the fact that he is still heartbroken over Harper’s leaving. We hear the way he tosses her name out in every other conversation and the way he studies the desert at night as if she’ll suddenly flicker into view like a lightning bug.

  Harper won the second leg of the race. With that win, she received a five-year Cure for her sick daughter. But her daughter died before it could be administered, and Harper gave the Cure to Caroline instead. Before she left the desert base camp, Harper wrote a note. In that note, she explained how she’d return to finish the race — and help me win.

  I’m not sure she’ll be able to do that, and I wish she hadn’t promised something she isn’t able to fulfill. Because sometimes I catch myself following Jaxon’s gaze, praying her blond hair, green eyes, and brick-house stamina will reappear.

  Guy eventually waves Jaxon, Braun, and Olivia away. The three of them huddle near a lit torch with their remaining Pandoras and speak quietly as the sun plummets toward the earth, the relief of night cooling our campsite.

  “Inside,” Guy says to me, leading the way into our hut. The moment we arrived at base camp, Guy staked claim to this particular hut. It’s the one I woke up in after Braun carried me from the formations. The one I woke up in after I helped kill Titus. Other Contenders sleep inside the hut with us, but Guy made it known that the dusk hours were his and mine.

  When Guy speaks, people listen. Not because he’s abrasive, but because everyone is searching for a leader in this race, whether they’ll admit it to themselves or not. And Guy supplies a sense of security when he vocalizes what he wants.

  I sit on a single cot, and Guy sits next to me, his arm brushing my own. Goose bumps rush across my skin, and I’m certain it isn’t from the sudden chill in the air. “We should tell the others about our plan,” I whisper.

  His eyes flash in my direction, and my heart clenches. “It would put the others in danger,” he responds. “I can’t risk that.” I sigh, because the last part is really what he means. The part about others being a risk to his plan. Guy’s strategy is act alone. One-man show. It’s do or die, as long as he’s the only person affected. It’s why he’s tried to talk me out of joining him on his crusade. “I’m going to sneak over to the main hut tonight, see if I can learn anything.” Guy studies my face and, slowly, his gaze roams to my mouth. I press my lips together with anticipation. Maybe I’m trying to keep his attention there; I don’t know.