Salt & Stone Read online

  Guy hasn’t kissed me since the day he told me about his plans for the Brimstone Bleed. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t hurt. My priority is Cody, but it was nice feeling as if someone cared deeply about me inside this race.

  “You should stay here tonight,” Guy says.

  “No way, I’m going with you.”

  “Tella, you have to listen to me if this is going to work.”

  Maybe it’s the distance he’s put between us the last few days or how he promised he’d never leave me again, but what he’s saying frustrates me. “Why?”

  “Because I want to keep you alive, and I don’t like you taking unnecessary risks.”

  “It’s not your job to keep me alive.”

  Guy smiles. “I make it my job.”

  Madox trots toward Guy and releases a playful growl. Guy suppresses a laugh and stretches his hand toward him. But Madox turns his head, refusing anything but my affection … or treats. He’d certainly take a treat from Guy. “Lighten up, fox,” Guy tells Madox. “You should love me.”

  Now I smile. “He should, should he?”

  Madox reluctantly offers Guy his right ear for a scratch. “Well, yeah, your Contender would still be back in that jungle if it weren’t for me.”

  The air is sucked from the room, and I flinch from the sting of his words. I know he didn’t mean to intentionally hurt me just now. But he did. Guy chuckles lightly and tosses me a genuine grin, and I do my best to return the gesture.

  I’ve spent six weeks with Guy under insurmountable stress, and yet that one sentence he uttered is as hard to swallow as some of the biggest obstacles we’ve overcome. Is that how he thinks of me? The girl who needs saving? The girl who wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him?

  If I’m being honest with myself, it’s something I’ve thought a lot about over the last few days, especially since he rescued me from Titus and the Triggers. How would I fare without Guy around? Would I still have a chance at winning, at surviving? I’m not sure why what he said struck me so hard.

  Actually, yes, I am.

  It’s because it’s the truth.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  I nod and pull a calm mask with a fake half smile over my face. “I’ll stay here when you look around tonight.”

  “Good,” he says with relief. “That’s good.” Guy seems for a moment as if he’s going to take my hand. But in the end, he simply rises and vanishes through the blanketed door like a ghost, taking my pride with him.

  Once Guy leaves, I feel utterly alone. Except, that is, for Madox. My Pandora is snoozing on my legs, tongue lolled out onto the blanket, where a quarter-sized puddle of fox drool forms.

  Nice.

  Almost immediately, I begin rehashing our conversation. Guy thinks I’ve only made it this far because of him. Which begs the question: What would happen to the mission to destroy the race if he weren’t around? The fact that I’m unsure makes me ill. The fact that Guy is probably unsure of my ability to persevere makes it that much worse. I don’t even know how to remedy this situation. I need Guy. No, that’s not right. Guy is an asset. One I care deeply about. But maybe I need to rely on myself more than I do.

  I climb out of bed and pace the hut, stepping over sleeping bodies, which fidget and moan. An older dude tells me to bring him the corn without opening his eyes. Out of all the things I’d want someone to bring me in my dream world, corn doesn’t top the list, if you can imagine that.

  Madox jumps down from the cot and leaps over the sleeping bodies.

  “Should we go after Guy?” I whisper to Madox.

  My black fox cocks his head as if I’m nuts.

  Then I recall that this isn’t the way we communicate. Should we go after Guy? I think to Madox.

  He straightens, and his tail stops wagging. We’re communicating now, but that’s not exactly a command.

  Should I go after Guy? He told me to stay here. Because it’s his job to keep me alive. Because I’d still be back in that jungle if it weren’t for him. Wasn’t I just thinking that I was stronger than I was before? How strong can I be if I’ve followed Guy blindly for the last month and a half?

  My lips form a thin line, and I think to Madox, We’re going after Guy. Follow me.

  My Pandora, KD-8, follows me to the doorway and waits as I peek out. As with most nights in the desert, the sky is devoid of any clouds, magnifying a dense bouquet of stars. For some, the brilliant, sweeping stars remind them that a higher being is at work. For others, they put their lives into perspective, make them feel small in comparison to that kind of vastness. Me? I think of the silver-sequined dress my mom bought me: a dress I never got to wear, a homecoming dance I never attended. Yeah, stars make me think of a bombshell dress.

  Don’t hate.

  I’m about to leave when I’m bumped from behind. I spin around and find AK-7, the grizzly bear Pandora, sleepy-eyed and waiting for instruction. He raises his weary head, and I order him back to bed. The bear nudges my side as if he won’t let me go without him, but I gently push him backward. He doesn’t move an inch.

  “You’re a touch too big, Monster,” I say, using my nickname for him. The name took shortly after we arrived in the desert. I overheard one of the other Contenders referring to AK-7 as a monster. Olivia and I got a good laugh at that, because AK-7 is anything but a monster. “I need stealth tonight.” He lowers his muzzle and attempts to make himself smaller. I stifle a laugh. “Next time, okay?” AK-7 huffs through his nostrils and waddles back toward my cot. He collapses on the floor and lays his head upon his front legs. I resist the urge to spend the next ten minutes hugging and coddling the beast. It’s a difficult battle to wage when he’s looking at me with those chocolate-pudding bear eyes. But I persevere.

  Racing across base camp with Madox at my side, I picture myself as invincible. Instead of cargo pants, I’m sporting camo. Instead of stitches in my stomach, I’ve got a gun holster wrapped around my abdomen, John Wayne style. Guy is probably tied up and gagged, and I’m about to save the day, barrels blazing.

  I spot Guy and his lion hunkered down outside the main hut. A smell of roasted meat hits my nose and makes my mouth water. Now I’m more Madox than John Wayne, drooling away. I also detect the sound of music playing, and as I get closer, the lyrics increase in volume.

  I sidle right up next to Guy and his Pandora, and I’m incredibly proud that I’m able to get so close without being discovered by the Green Beret or his lion. His head whips around, and at first he seems proud that I’m there. But then his brow furrows, and he takes me by the upper arm and pulls me down beside him.

  He holds a thick finger to his lips and points away from the hut and toward our own as if I should follow him. Before I do, I gaze through a space Guy must have created in the grass structure. I spot a quiet fire in the center that’s strategically positioned away from the flammable walls. One of the two Brimstone Bleed men spins a roast over the open flame and occasionally sprinkles green flakes across the tight red-brown skin. A battery-powered radio sits to his left, and a crackling radio station drowns out anything the threesome may have revealed. The other Brimstone Bleed man sits near the wall, picking at his teeth.

  The woman in the orange skirt, still impeccably dressed, stands before a large sheet of paper strung along the wall, a hand cupping the back of her neck in thought. On the paper, there are names, a series of digits beside the names, and a color written at the end of select lines.

  Contender Joseph – 31 – Red

  Contender Courtney – 101 – Green

  My eyes return to the woman, and I inspect her closer. My breath hitches when I realize it’s the same lady from the train in Lincoln. She wore a green dress then, and doled out green pills to me and two other Contenders in our train car. I turn my attention back to the paper, but before I can read more of the writing, Guy guides me away, our Pandoras tailing us. I remain silent until we’re directly outside our hut, standing a safe distance away from the blanketed doorway, as if that wi
ll help us remain unheard.

  Guy presses me against the outer wall until my back itches from the straw poking through my shirt. He takes my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing the sensitive skin beneath my eyes. “Why did you come after me, Tella?” He says it evenly, intensely. But tonight his intensity is off-putting. I can’t stop thinking about what he said to me earlier. I think about how he’s distanced himself the last few days. How ever since I said I’d help him take the race down, our lips haven’t touched.

  “I wanted to see for myself what they were up to,” I respond.

  Guy swallows. His gaze falls to the sand, to our beat-up combat boots. He doesn’t say anything for a moment. It’s hideously quiet. I pick up the sound of that blasted radio station and wonder how I didn’t hear it before from this distance.

  I start to add something else. How he’s wrong about me.

  His head snaps up and his hands fall to his sides. “Tella, when I ask you to stay behind, it’s because I think it’s safest.”

  My brows furrow. “I can think on my own without getting hurt, you know.”

  Guy’s lion nudges his fingers, but Guy jerks away. The lion grumbles his discontent and flops down onto his stomach. Madox jumps at the front of his paws, and the lion swipes lazily at my Pandora, annoyed at the fox’s late-night enthusiasm.

  “Of course you can,” Guy says, but his lack of conviction is like a punch to the heart.

  I flinch as if he actually did strike me. He really doesn’t believe in me. And he really does think the only reason I’m here is because of him. But who’s to say I couldn’t have made it this far on my own? No one can, I guess. Because that’s not how this played out. I latched on to Guy in the jungle, looked to him for guidance, and haven’t stopped since then.

  When is the last time I looked inside myself for answers?

  I’m suddenly mortified at how he must see me. Turning away, I realize I’m having trouble breathing. I’m about to walk back to Guy’s hut, my hut, when one of the Brimstone Bleed men catches my eye. He’s striding toward a small dark mass on the ground. When he gets closer, he bends at the waist to inspect it. The mass is an animal — a Pandora, no doubt — sleeping soundly. The man kicks the Pandora, and my jaw falls open to protest. Before I can, Guy wraps his calloused palm around my mouth and shushes me. Before, I would have stood still. I would have let him hold me in place because surely it was best.

  I stomp down on Guy’s toe and he jerks that foot up, but his hand remains in place. Confusion crosses his face.

  The man crouches to a squat, and I notice he has a can in his right hand. I hear a faint clinking sound and then a hiss. The man pats the animal, stands up, and walks away. Guy removes his hold on me, and I lurch backward.

  He seems so baffled that I stomped on his foot that I find myself saying, “Sorry, I just … I just didn’t like you covering my mouth like that.”

  Guy’s features soften, but he folds his arms across his chest. “I didn’t want you to do something that would get you in trouble, Tella.”

  “I can take care of myself,” I snap.

  A single eyebrow on Guy’s face rises in a question. Can you?

  I storm toward the entrance of my hut but pause before stepping inside. Glancing back, I examine the Pandora on the ground. Without the man blocking my view, I make out that it’s a long, spindly reptile, and along its back is a red stripe of spray paint. It seems to be okay, so I turn away.

  I catch Guy’s gaze and recall what he said. Still be back in that jungle if it weren’t for me.

  As much as I care about Guy, I want to imagine I can prove him wrong. That I can do anything I put my mind to, just like the guidance counselor at Ridgeline High said. And that I can do it all without his help. But I can’t quiet the voice in my head.

  Can you?

  The next morning, I wake to a commotion. Half the Contenders staying in the hut with me are gone, and those who remain are getting to their feet. Outside the straw walls, I hear the voice of an older man shouting orders. I glance along the floor for Guy. He’ll know what’s happening, maybe. He’ll know what we should do, definitely.

  Then I remember our exchange last night and my throat tightens. Gathering Madox in my arms, I stand from my cot, determined. The fox wiggles in my grasp, stretching upward to lick the bottom of my chin. I wipe the slobber from my skin and lower my arms so he can’t reach me. No matter. He just licks my hand instead.

  “Come on, Monster,” I say to AK-7. The grizzly bear rises on four legs and happily plods after me. “Looks like you could use hibernation,” I tell his sleep-laden face. The bear rubs his enormous body against my left side, and I shift Madox into one arm and scratch behind Monster’s right ear with my free hand. This elicits a grizzly-bear moan that makes the lingering Pandoras in our hut extremely nervous.

  Outside, in the blinding sunlight, a man who works for the Brimstone Bleed stands tall, a small trunk at his feet. My muscles clench as I pull the device from my pocket. It isn’t blinking, but I suppose I don’t need it to tell me what I already know. This is when we decide exactly how brave we are. Whether we’re willing to, once again, risk our lives to save our family and friends back home.

  Though it infuriates me, I find myself searching for Guy. My eyes rake over Contenders, Pandoras, and miles of venomous sand. Then I see him. He stares back at me, a proud lion by his side. Guy takes a quick step in my direction and then stops. He seems as hesitant as I feel. Maybe he’s still frustrated that I didn’t listen to him last night. Well, so what. I’m frustrated that he thinks I need him to tell me when to breathe. Still, I fight the instinct to wave him over. Part of me — okay, most of me — wants to forget about what he said. So what if I lean on him too much?

  I care.

  Jaxon, Braun, and Olivia and two Pandoras head over. The three of them insisted they sleep in a separate hut at base camp so that we could “do it” in private. Olivia’s words, not mine. Though sometimes I doubt Olivia is old enough to know what she’s talking about; never mind that I pointed out there wasn’t a chance of privacy anyway, not with so many Contenders and so few dwellings.

  “Guy was right, I guess,” Jaxon says when we’re all standing together.

  “When is he not?” Olivia adds.

  “It’s pretty obvious,” I snap. “I mean, it’s the seventh day of rest.”

  Braun rubs my back. “Everything okay with you two?”

  I sigh and put Madox down. “We aren’t a twosome. We’re Contenders.”

  It hurts to speak the words aloud, and I may have said it to feel the sting. Or maybe I said it because my idea of Guy and me as equal partners is splintered. It’s more like I’m a child he has to protect. What a disturbing thought.

  Braun nods his understanding, and Olivia stays quiet. Jaxon, on the other hand, steals closer. He fingers the blue-and-green feather over my shoulder. “Hey, girl, hey. Have I told you how good you been looking lately? I dig a chick with short hair.”

  I pull the feather out from between his fingers and laugh. My shorn hair is growing back slowly, but it’s still well above my shoulders. I often wonder if I’ll keep it this length when this race is over. The moment I cut it off was the moment I got serious about the race.

  It’s the moment I knew I would take on any challenge to save someone I loved.

  “May I have your attention,” the big-bellied man booms. “Just like last time, we’ll form two lines. If you wish to return home, please form a line to the right. If you wish to continue, move to the left.”

  Jaxon is always the comedian, but at this, he doesn’t utter a word. There isn’t anything to say. We’ve waited over a week for this moment, longed for it, even. Because sometimes, sitting in place is worse than running.

  Jaxon glances at Braun and at me, and then he wraps his arm around Olivia’s shoulders and guides the two of them toward the man on the left. Olivia’s Pandora trails behind them, sending miniature clouds of sand into the air with each elephant step. Already, t
here is a line of at least a dozen Contenders in the continue line.

  Braun places his giant hand on my shoulder and leaves it there for a moment. He searches my face, so I offer him a smile. He lowers his arm and takes off after Jaxon, with his pig in tow.

  I stand alone.

  “We can do this,” I whisper to Madox, even though he doesn’t understand when I speak aloud. “We’re halfway.”

  I consider my black fox and brown bear. Out here, they’re my family. My comrades.

  My gangsters.

  “I’m going to make this next leg of the race my biatch,” I tell Monster. I hope this sounds thuggish. As if I’m not afraid of the colossal needle Pregnant Man will soon draw from the carved wooden box.

  “Right sleeves up,” the man instructs.

  I tell myself not to look. I echo the thought until I hear nothing else inside my head. It doesn’t help. I still turn and glance in the direction I last saw Guy.

  He stands solid as a skyscraper, shining like a god in the sun. With pride beaten back, I square my shoulders and head toward the stay line, a Pandora on each side of my body. I hope I appear confident as I march forward. I hope Guy is all, Oh snap! Look at her go! I’ve totally underestimated her.

  When I settle into place, I find myself searching for the woman in orange. The helicopter is still here, so she must be also. I locate her at the entrance of the main hut. She speaks quickly to one of the men standing just inside the structure. Her hand waves impatiently before being handed a black notebook. She opens it, inspects what’s inside. Closes it.

  All the Contenders have chosen their lines, and the man who will hold the syringe lies in wait. His gaze falls on the woman, and she treads toward the two lines, a smile playing on her lips.

  “Bring me the box,” she instructs one of the men.