Fire & Flood Read online

  Opening the glove compartment, I start to toss in all the remaining items from my bag. When I get to the device, I notice the red light is blinking. My shoulders tense. Will it be the same message as before? Or will there be new information that helps me find the race? I hadn’t even stopped long enough to wonder what I was supposed to do now that I had this freaky egg in my possession.

  I slip the device into my ear, close my eyes, and push the button.

  Silence — clicking — static.

  “Congratulations. You have chosen Pandora Companion KD-8. Each Pandora is unique in its design, and your Pandora is no exception. Please stay tuned for a message from the Creator of KD-8.”

  She knows. She knows which egg I took. Opening my eyes, I place a hand on my bag, imagining the egg safe inside. My knees bounce as I anticipate hearing someone new on the device. I don’t have to wait long.

  “Hello?” an older male voice says. “Hello? Okay. I’m Creator Collins, and I generated Pandora KD-8. I cannot tell you much about my — er, our — Pandora, as there are strict rules about such things.” The man pauses, as if he’s afraid to say too much. “But I can tell you I’ve spent my entire professional life conceptualizing KD-8’s capabilities, and I hope you find them useful inside the Brimstone Bleed. While you must discover KD-8’s abilities for yourself, please know I have the utmost faith in his ability to reveal his strengths when the time is right. Good luck to you, Contender. And …” The man hesitates again. “And I hope you care for KD-8 as I have.”

  My mind buzzes thinking about the man who created my Pandora — Creator Collins. He sounds like an okay guy. His voice is that of a man who owns too many sweaters. I like the way he seems to care about KD-8. It makes me think there might be something special about my egg. I wonder if he made other Pandoras, or if it’s only one Creator per Pandora. Something about the way he hoped I would care for KD-8 the way he did makes me think it’s a one-to-one situation. And who are these Creators anyway? I instantly picture mad scientists with big white hair and plastic goggles. Insert flash of lightning.

  I keep listening, and within seconds, the woman whose voice I’ve already memorized returns. “Please report to Lincoln Station and take the train to Valden. You have one hour.”

  The deadlines thing is already getting old. I’m a girl who doesn’t like to be rushed. But apparently that’s a big thing in this race. I’m quickly learning that I’ll have to adjust, be someone who rolls with the punches.

  Pulling Bob’s visor down, I check myself out in the mirror. Mascara runs down my cheeks, and heavy bags droop beneath my eyes. My hair is everywhere, but when I touch a hand to the back of my head, I don’t find any more blood. Win.

  It almost pains me to see myself this way. Even living where no one could judge me besides my family, I prided myself on looking fabulous. And now I look like the bride of Frankenstein. Running my fingers through my hair, I think about how I should be racing toward Lincoln Station. But the compulsion to repair my face is too strong.

  I grab my makeup bag — the one I never leave home without — and fix what I can. What I really need is twelve hours of beauty rest and a Swedish massage, but something tells me that ain’t happening. My hair also needs way more than I can do from inside a clunky car. And that’s when I remember Cody on Christmas.

  My curly hair has a will of its own, and while I sleep, that will grows and grows so that when I wake up, I resemble a wild animal. Cody refers to my hair as a lion’s mane. And last Christmas — when he’d only been sick a few months — he constructed an actual mane from faux hair and a headband. Then he wrapped it as a gift from me to him. When he opened it, he acted all blessed to receive this gift I hadn’t given him and read the card (which he wrote) aloud. “Dear Cody, I want nothing more on this Christmas morn than for you to join my pride. Roar.” At roar, he clawed the air.

  At the time, I hated him for it. But thinking back on how much time he put into being an ass, I can’t help but laugh. Because I know now, if he really hated me, he wouldn’t have bothered.

  I pull my hair in front of my face and study it up close. It’s the hair my father gave me; the hair my mom thinks is beautiful. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with it. But some girl yanked it to bring me down tonight. And now that I know the race is real, I can’t let anything stand in the way of me winning. My brother’s life — Cody’s life — depends on it.

  Before I can stop myself, I grab the scissors from the glove compartment and start slashing. I cut a huge chunk of hair from the base of my neck and work my way up until it’s almost all gone. Tossing the scissors onto the seat next to me, I run a hand over my head. Crap.

  When I look back into the mirror, I grow cold. It’s gone. My hair is gone. I mean, all over, there are small pieces of hair curled close to my head — but the length, the heaviness have vanished. I almost cry looking at myself. Almost. I’ve always hated my hair, but now I don’t even look like me. My brown eyes — my mother’s eyes — look bigger, and my lips fuller. It’s like now that the hair is gone, everything else can breathe. That’s nice, I guess. But it isn’t all good news. My hair has always pulled attention away from the thing I hate most. My freckles.

  Even my brother has never made fun of the freckles that cross my nose and stretch out along my upper cheeks. He knows that I — like everyone else — have a breaking point. And that if he brought them up, I would end him.

  Now it’s like they’re mini-cheerleaders, picking up megaphones and refusing to be ignored. I press my lips together in irritation, but my face softens when I see my feather. I was careful not to cut it when I hacked my hair off.

  I lean my head back and reinspect my reflection, try to see things in a new light. With curls trimmed close to my head and a roguish green-and-blue feather dangling over my right shoulder, I decide I just might seem like someone who would enter a daring race — and win.

  Lincoln Station, I discover, accommodates both trains and buses. I have no idea which I’ll be taking, but I know I’m going to Valden. I decide I’ll just tell the person at the ticket window where I’m headed and let them figure it out.

  The station is surprisingly busy for this late at night, or early in the morning, or whatever you call it. The floor is covered in small white tiles, and overhead, there are vast skylights that would probably be pretty awesome during the day. Big round benches dot the floors for people to lounge on, and because the ceiling is high and the floor is tile, every little sound morphs into something like an elephant stampede.

  Eventually, I stumble upon the check-in area. It consists of a skittish guy in his midthirties standing behind a large, plasticky counter. He’s wearing a navy suit with a crisp white dress shirt. His tie is yellow, which pleases me to no end. The guy spots me approaching and runs a hand over his canary-yellow tie. Then he does it again. And again. It’s either his first day on the job, or my being a girl makes him extremely uncomfortable.

  “Hi,” I say to the nervous guy. “I need to go to Valden.” No point in beating around the proverbial bush.

  My request pushes Yellow Tie Man over the edge. His eyes get enormous and he actually starts to sweat. “Valden?” he croaks.

  “Yeah, Valden. I’d like to go there.” I lay my allowance on the counter as proof of my seriousness.

  The guy looks around like a SWAT team is about to bust up this convo and pushes my money back toward me. “Are you sure you want to go to Valden?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’m sure.” But now the guy’s glistening brow has become a dripping glistening brow, and I’m suddenly not sure at all. Maybe Valden isn’t somewhere I want to go. Maybe it’s in the center of a volcano, and that’s something I’d like no part of. “Can you remind me what state Valden is in?”

  The yellow tie trembles, and so does the man behind the shoddy counter. “It’s not a place. It’s just a word to let me know —” He stops to wipe his forehead, and I feel my own brow prick with sweat. This explanation does not make me feel better about th
ings.

  Eyeing my backpack, he slides a ticket across the counter. I expect it to be laced with acid that’ll burn my skin off, but as I take it, I realize my fingers will survive. And so will my allowance, since this dude is apparently giving me a free ride. I shove the cash back in my pocket.

  “Where do I go?” I try to sound more confident than I am. Which is not at all.

  “You’ll take train 301. Down that way.” He points over his shoulder to the right. Then he backs up, like he can’t wait to get rid of me. As I start to head in the direction he indicated, he throws his hands over his face. “Oh my gawd. I almost forgot. Why do I keep forgetting?” His hands fall. He searches for something under the table, looks around again, and reaches across the counter. “Put this on your shirt.”

  It’s a small gold serpent pin, and it’s fairly heavy. When I attach it over my heart, it tugs the cloth of my long-sleeved shirt down, and the snake glares up at me with a glittering green eye.

  “It will identify you,” he says.

  I had figured as much, but it relieves me to hear him confirm my suspicion. As if my figuring out this one thing is a sign from the universe I’ll be okay. “Thanks,” I say. “Nice tie.”

  The guy smiles, but I’m not sure I’ve made his day any better. I want to tell him he didn’t exactly soothe my nerves, either, but he clearly wants nothing more to do with me, so I yank my backpack straps tighter and head toward the platforms.

  To my astonishment, I get myself onto the appropriate train without killing myself, though I’ll admit it’s far harder to fall onto the tracks than I’d originally thought. A woman wearing way too much rose-scented perfume shows me to my seat, which turns out to be in a sleeper car. When I first get inside the tiny room with a mini window and cute bunk beds on both sides, I can’t help but do my happy dance. Then I wonder exactly how long I’ll be on this train and why I’ll even need a place to sleep. The question doesn’t bode well for my sanity. I mean, trains are cool and all. But not when a small white device has told you to board one to a city that doesn’t exist.

  I hear a sharp snap and turn around. A girl my age pushes into the room, acting very much like she owns this sleeper car and all the contents in it — including myself. She has short dark hair, with hard bangs cut razor straight across her forehead. Her eyes dart around, looking everywhere but at me. Seconds later, another girl walks into the room. This one looks a bit younger and a lot less hostile. She’s got long, wavy hair and big blue eyes, and she stares right at me.

  “Hi,” Blue Eyes squeaks.

  “Hey,” I say with a nod. Then I notice a glint on her blouse. It’s a serpent pin — the same as mine. I glance at the aggressive girl and notice she has one, too. They’re each carrying a bag, and I suddenly realize they’re also packing Pandora eggs.

  They’re Contenders, I think with relief. I’m not alone. Then I remember they’re my competition. I wonder how these girls got invitations, and if they also have someone they’re trying to save. I wonder how any of us were chosen to compete in the race. Did whoever’s running this show choose only contestants with sick family members? Do they all have the same thing?

  These thoughts make my head spin. Regardless, there’s no reason not to be polite to these girls, no matter why they’re here. We’re all going through this together.

  “I’m Tella,” I say to Blue Eyes.

  The girl looks at me with such relief that my heart aches. She opens her mouth to respond, but stops when someone new comes through the door.

  The first thing I see is a shock of color. The woman’s dress is so bright and so devastatingly green that I almost forget my name. It curves around every bit of her body and ends at the knee. Her bright blond hair is pulled back into a tight twist, and her lips are painted a flashy shade of red. In her left hand is a gold clutch. She’s my kind of girl — a fashion guru, if you will — and I feel underdressed and underkempt in comparison. I wonder where she found her shoes.

  “Please, sit.” The woman waves a small hand toward the bunk beds. Her voice is perfectly even, perfectly calm. I wonder if anyone has ever told her no. My guess is if they did, they quickly changed their minds.

  Blue Eyes sits on a lower bunk and I sit across from her on the other. Aggressive Girl jumps onto the top bunk above me, her legs dangling in my line of vision. I press my lips together in annoyance and move over so I can see.

  The woman closes the door behind her and locks it. Never a good sign. She reaches into her gold clutch and pulls out three blue boxes, exactly like the one I found on my bed but much smaller; so small, I wonder what could possibly be inside. The woman hands a blue box to each of us. When she gets to me, her fingers brush mine. My muscles tighten, but she only smiles. I realize the woman must work for this … race. I eye her closely, looking for clues that’ll help me understand what I’ve gotten myself into — that’ll help me win.

  “Open them,” she says.

  I lift the lid of my blue box. There’s no miniature pillow this time — only a single green pill. I remove it from the box and lay it in my palm. It’s the kind of pill that looks like it has liquid inside. It’s actually quite beautiful, and I find the desire to take it compulsive.

  “Swallow the pill immediately. If you do not, you will be disqualified.” With that, she unlocks the door and leaves.

  I glance at Blue Eyes and wonder if she can hear the hammering of my heart. It pounds so hard against my chest, I imagine I might be having a heart attack. How did this happen? How did I go from homeschool and teasing Cody and Sunday Fundays to this? I could back out, I think. I could just throw up my hands now and decide this is all too friggin’ psychotic.

  But then I think of Cody. I know he would do this for me. He wouldn’t even hesitate. Despite all his irritating qualities, I’ve always thought of him as courageous.

  “Damn Pharmies,” the girl above me says. “Bottoms up.”

  Blue Eyes gasps. Then she looks at me. “She took it.”

  I shrug, trying to act like it’s all cool even though I’m about to pass the hell out. Glancing down at the green pill, I make a decision. I will not abandon my brother. I pop the pill into my mouth and swallow. It goes down easily, but I still reach for a water bottle in my bag. I take a few pulls, then hand it to Blue Eyes.

  “Here, it’ll help.”

  She takes the water with a shaking hand. When she looks at me, the pill close to her lips, I nod. I don’t know why I’m helping her. I probably shouldn’t. There’s no telling what we’re taking. I could be helping her sign a death sentence, for all I know.

  The thought sends shivers down my body. I tremble so hard, I have to lie down. Turning my head on the overstuffed pillow, I watch Blue Eyes swallow the pill and then two gulps of water. She lies down on her bunk, keeping her eyes locked on me the entire time.

  I look above me and wonder what Aggressive Girl is doing. Her legs have disappeared from over the side of the bed. “What did you mean?” I ask, tapping the bottom of her bunk.

  “About what?” Aggressive Girl says, though her voice doesn’t sound quite so aggressive anymore. It sounds more … drained.

  “You said something about Pharmies,” I say. “What is that?”

  “Not what — who,” she answers, though I can hardly understand her. It sounds like she’s slurring her words.

  I move to sit up, to drill her with questions since she seems to know what’s going on. But as soon as I do, the room spins. I drop back down onto the bed and glance over at Blue Eyes. She’s looking at me, her face a mask of fear.

  “Who are the Pharmies?” I ask aloud. My voice sounds strange. I’m not sure if I’m talking strangely, or hearing differently.

  The girl above me doesn’t respond, and slowly, I begin to sink. Blue Eyes and I hold each other’s gaze for several seconds, like if we can just keep eye contact, we’ll be okay. But then her lids flutter closed and open. Once. Twice. Her cheek presses deeper into the pillow. She doesn’t open her eyes again.

/>   My own eyelids feel like they’re weighted. It’s just a sleeping pill, I assure myself. That’s all we took. Since I haven’t slept in I don’t know how long, I close my eyes for just a moment. I fully intend to reopen them, but once they’re closed, it feels so good.

  “Can anyone hear me?” I ask, my eyes still shut. My voice sounds like it’s coming from the other side of a wall. Though my arms feel heavy, I manage to tug my backpack onto my chest. I wrap my arms around it, praying my egg is safe inside. When my feather falls over my neck — tickling my skin — it reminds me of my mother.

  I pull her face into my mind, and I let go.

  The first thing I become aware of is the sound. It’s a low rumbling and seems to be coming from beneath me.

  I open my eyes and immediately close them again. Everything in my body screams for more sleep. I almost give in to the temptation but know I shouldn’t. There’s something I’m forgetting. I force my eyes back open and this time, I take in my surroundings. Or at least I try to take in my surroundings. There’s hardly any light to see, and a slow panic twists in my stomach.

  Where am I?

  Pushing myself up from the fetal position, I feel smooth wood beneath my hands. I throw my arms out and find four walls. They’re close, way too close. My throat tightens when I begin to understand.

  I’m in a box.

  I go from mild anxiety to full-fledged mania in a matter of seconds. Pounding my fists against the boards, I scream. I swallowed the pill. I’m in a box. How stupid could I have been? I left without telling my family where I was going, got on a train to a city that doesn’t exist, and swallowed a foreign object. Oh yeah, and I also picked up a rotting egg along the way.

  My egg.

  I feel along the bottom of the box and my fingers touch a corduroy bag that’s not my backpack. Stuffing my hand in, I sigh with relief when I find my smooth egg tucked safely inside. I pull the bag over my crossed legs and into my lap and wrap my arms around it.