Salt & Stone

by Victoria Scott

  And today I’m Mountain Tella.

  So I go inside, and after gathering some branches outside the entrance, I have M-4 light a fire. The iguana glows, providing the lion light until he can get the wet sticks to catch. Finally, we settle along the ground and inspect our surroundings. The inside of the cave isn’t black like I expected. It’s more a medley of grays and browns and jutting, angular rock organs. The ground is uncomfortable, and the entire thing smells like wet dog. It is … spectacular. I decide Mountain Tella is pretty cool. She sleeps in caves, which is fierce and totally something I could blog about one day. Or maybe vlog if I’m feeling saucy.

  The fire crackles to life, and we push toward one another like pieces of a stinky, weather-beaten puzzle. I squish in between Guy and Harper, my two people. Monster plops down behind me, and I lean against his girth, running my fingers through his coat. Madox climbs into my lap and lays his head on my knee. I hesitate only a moment before pulling him closer. Guy’s lion and Cotton’s bull lean against each other with obvious distaste but for warmth’s sake, and Willow lies back on Oz’s alligator tail, with Rose snuggled nearby. The eagle perches on the elephant’s back, and for once, the elephant doesn’t knock the bird off with her trunk as she has in the past.

  We are all accounted for. Except that we’re not.

  As the fire warms our weary bones, Harper retrieves her pack and drags it into her lap. She unzips it, and we all stare to see what she discovers. Because of the cold and our late start, we opted to wait until dark before exploring our packs. We knew more than anything that we needed to keep our bodies moving and to find cover before the sun set. But now the packs have our full attention.

  Harper digs her hand inside and produces a handful of brown crumpled paper.

  Olivia cocks her head and bites her bottom lip. “Oh, I know. For lighting fires.”

  When Harper unfolds the papers and doesn’t find anything written on them, we decide Olivia is right. For many Contenders, this will be a godsend. We have a lion that can light wet wood, but if we didn’t, this dry paper could be the difference between life and death.

  Braun elbows Harper. “Keep going, Barbie.”

  Harper grimaces and then reaches in a second time. She discovers more brown paper and tosses it to the floor with the rest. The third time she pulls out brown paper, my stomach sinks.

  Harper pulls the paper out faster and faster, fistfuls of the stuff flying out until she’s growling with rage. Finally, she gets to the bottom. I scarcely breathe, wondering what might lie there. Harper ducks her head in and stares as blood throbs inside my ears. When her head falls back and her eyes squeeze closed, I know what she’s found isn’t good. “They stuffed the bags with paper and rocks.”

  The rest of us grab our packs at once. We unzip them and shove our arms inside. When we find the same things Harper did, Cotton gets to his feet and races toward the cave entrance.

  Then he drops the bag midstride and punts it like this is the freaking NFL. He stands panting at the mouth of the cave, his hands clenched.

  When he turns back around, Guy says simply, “Nice kick.”

  Olivia’s face turns almost purple with excitement. “Hey, are you a Vikings fan? Blair Walsh kicks like he doesn’t have a hip bone, right? Dude’s amazing!”

  I giggle, and Cotton points at me as if this is my fault. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “Everything’s a joke,” Harper says, exasperated.

  “How can you guys do this?” Cotton paces back and forth. “How can you act like everything is okay when these people are doing everything they can to break us? Haven’t you noticed things have gotten worse since the ocean race started? Every single day, worse! Sometimes I don’t even know if they want us to survive at all.”

  Braun stands up, walks over to Cotton, and puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay,” he says. “I understand. You’re from Minnesota. I’d be angry, too, if my team hadn’t gone to the Super Bowl since the seventies.”

  Cotton jerks back but smiles despite himself. “I’m from Pittsburgh, dick.”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Guy pipes in. “The Steelers are the worst.”

  “You want to say that to my face?” Cotton says.

  Guy cracks his knuckles absently. “Think I just did.”

  The guys are having a good time, and I want them to — we desperately need it — but the way he said …

  I stand up. “Cotton? What about the jungle?”

  He shrugs. “What about it?”

  “What about how hard it was there?”

  He doesn’t reply.

  “How about the desert, then? What do you think was the worst part about the desert?”

  “The heat.”

  “But what about the flags? Don’t you think it’s odd that they changed color for the desert portion only? They were trying to rattle us then, too.”

  “What’s your problem, Tella?” Cotton strides toward me, and Guy stands up.

  “Answer the question,” I say.

  “Yeah, it was odd. Who cares? We’re here now, aren’t we? Why the hell are you in my face?”

  “Enough.” Guy steps between us, but it’s not me he glares at. “Go blow off some steam, Cotton.”

  “But I’m not —”

  “Go. Now.”

  Cotton storms past our group and disappears down the guts of the cave until he’s completely out of sight. With Cotton gone, Guy turns on the rest of us. “Not a word. Discuss something else. We don’t need to be at each other’s throats. Not now. Not when we’re so close.”

  I hear what he’s saying, but his face holds a different message. He understands what happened, what Cotton just admitted. He doesn’t want Willow finding out something we don’t want her to know.

  The desert flags were blue as all the others have been, but Cotton agreed with my lie. Harper’s stiff spine tells me she picked up on everything, and Olivia is glancing back and forth at all of us, confused but not opening her mouth. But we all know this:

  Cotton never competed in the first half of the race.

  When I wake in the middle of the night, Cotton still hasn’t returned and Guy is keeping watch. My eyelids feel weighted, but I’ve opened them far enough to see that Guy is sitting beside me, his body curved toward mine like a human shield. He’s staring into the dying fire and chewing on the inside of his cheek.

  The hood of his jacket is pulled up around his head, and the fire casts shadows over his angular features. Everything about his face — his harsh, deep-set eyes, his strong jaw, the scar cutting through a dark eyebrow — they come together like an artist’s capturing of crude, raw masculinity.

  He sees me watching. He bends to kiss my forehead. His lips linger there, and the warmth of them is so delicious, I forget to breathe. He smells like nice, safe things: campfire smoke and snow-covered cedars. But his body looks fatal.

  His lips leave my skin, and his voice is rough when he speaks. “Go back to sleep.”

  And so I do.

  We send RX-13 and Madox dressed as an eagle out the next morning to hunt for food. They return later with game to eat, which is exciting enough, but in their clutches is something even better: a flag. I consider asking them to return it so other Contenders don’t lose their way and die in the cold. But this is the last leg of the race, and I have to remember that my brother’s life is at stake.

  Later, as we eat our breakfast in a rush — three chipmunks and two squirrels skinned and smoked over a fire — Cotton turns the flag over in his hands. “I don’t remember much of the first two legs of the race,” he says suddenly. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”

  Guy wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why?”

  “Why didn’t I want anyone to know?”

  “Why don’t you remember?”

  Cotton stares down at the flag. He shakes his head.

  “You don’t remember anything?” Harper pulls her knees to her chest as she asks this, and even I can hear the doubt in her voice.
/>   “I remember the heat, and I remember the boxes they put us in before we started the race.” Cotton lifts his pointer finger as if something else has occurred to him. “And I remember the sounds in the jungle.”

  “They never stopped,” Olivia offers.

  A corner of Cotton’s mouth tugs into a smile as he touches a hand to the back of his black hair. “I found a lump. I think I may have hit my head.”

  I get to my feet and walk to where he sits. “May I?”

  He lowers his head, and I part his hair. When I find a bump at the base of his scalp, I know he’s telling the truth, but that doesn’t prove he was present for the first half of the race or that he had memory loss. Even the things he said he does remember — the heat, the boxes, the unending sounds in the jungle — he could have overheard us talking about them. Didn’t we mention as much on the sailboat?

  I decide to let it go for now. Once we find a pattern to the flags, we’ll have every reason to part ways. For now I don’t want a potential enemy on our tail. “I believe you.”

  He glances up, his brown eyes heavy with longing. “You should.”

  Olivia gathers snow from outside the cave and throws fistfuls of it over the embers as if the conversation is settled. Taking a cue from the girl, Guy stands and straps his empty pack onto his back. I sigh and reach my hand out to Cotton. He takes it and pulls himself up.

  As I start to turn away, he says, “It would weird me out, too. If one of you said you didn’t remember, I would think it was weird.”

  For some reason, his stating the obvious makes me feel better, but I decide it’s still best to remain on guard. Harper crosses the distance between us, and Cotton watches every move she makes. “When should we leave?” she asks.

  With our bodies no longer huddled together, I shiver. Last night, I slept like the dead, but this morning, I’m colder than I ever imagined possible. My body hurts from head to foot. I cringe as I gaze into the colorless purgatory outside the cave, even as I hear myself, Mountain Tella, say, “We’re heading out now.”

  Harper’s eagle leads the way, and the rest of us follow along at a fast pace. I keep a close eye on Rose, since she’s the smallest and slowest of the Pandoras, but I’m not nearly as protective as Guy is with his lion. I guess like the rest of us, he’s afraid of losing his edge so close to the finish line.

  Plowing through the snow, Guy looks like a man made of steel. He seems to have regained his stamina and some weight while at the ocean base camp. That’s how quickly he recuperates. His body is like a kudzu vine; cut him down, and he comes back faster, stronger.

  I blush, remembering the kiss he laid on my forehead last night.

  Guy wouldn’t ever read sonnets to me or suggest we take a picnic at Crane Beach, but he does other things, better things. He makes me feel beautiful with cropped hair and dirt smudged across my skin. He stands close when I’m afraid, and leaves me be when I can stand on my own. He believes I’m strong, even if it took some time for him to respect that. And he allows me to lead when I know he could do a better job himself.

  Guy is strong, courageous, unbreakable.

  But even he experiences fear. I saw it in the jungle when I jumped into the river to save Caroline, and I saw it in the desert when he saved me from Titus. I saw it when he told me about his plan to destroy the race, and I saw it on the beach when he knelt before me in the sand.

  I saw that fear when I told him I was here for my brother and not him.

  And I saw it last night when he lowered his lips to my skin, his head bending quickly so as to avoid rejection.

  I am afraid of everything — of the chimps in the jungle, of the Triggers who stalked me in the desert, of the little boy who turned out to be a Pandora, of the sharks that took Jaxon from me in the ocean, and of the wretched cold that endangers my spirit with every step. I’m afraid of losing the Brimstone Bleed, of killing my brother because I’ve failed, of what’s at the top of this mountain, of the cackling sound in the towering trees.

  But Guy Chambers is afraid, too.

  He’s afraid of me.

  Harper’s eagle roller coasters in the sky, her excitement growing as we march nearer to the place where she spotted the flag. RX-13 hasn’t found a single flag during this entire race until now, and I think it’s disappointed Harper. It may have disappointed me, too. If I had a bald eagle Pandora — and I guess I do, in a way, because of Madox’s ability — I’d expect it to spot every flag within a hundred-mile radius. But I suppose an eagle’s vision relies on sudden movements, and so far the flags have been heavy, limp things that don’t scurry like prey would. This time, she’s found it, though, and she’s all too eager to please her Contender.

  Willow and Olivia walk directly ahead of me because they have the youngest eyes and can spot pitfalls before they become a problem.

  Because they’re the youngest, and I want to ensure they’re safe.

  Monster plods by my side, delighted to have my full attention. Madox and Y-21 stride ahead of us all, and once again, Madox has pulled on the bull’s appearance. The real bull doesn’t knock the fox-bull aside as he sometimes does, and I may be wrong, but it seems like Y is enjoying his traveling companion. Or maybe tolerating is a better word.

  The grizzly bear keeps watch over my fox the same way I do. Sometimes I think of Monster as a gentle, quiet father figure to Madox. Monster is Madox’s safe place, the Pandora he most often curls up next to when the sun is MIA. But Y-21 is new and shiny, and the older brother Madox strives to emulate. I wish Madox were more entranced by M-4, a Pandora whose Contender I feel comfortable with, but I guess you can’t pick your Pandora’s playmates.

  Harper comes to walk by my side. “We’re almost there.”

  “Yeah, you’d think it’s mating season from her performance up there.”

  Harper laughs, and as she does, the snow falls faster, as if she somehow beckoned it by smiling. The sky looks bloated, and I curse myself for not paying attention to my surroundings. Of course, it’s hard to do anything besides put one foot in front of the other in this weather.

  Now that I’m paying attention, I realize I no longer hear birds’ raucous calls or the sound of nails scuttling across bark. The world has fallen still, and I’ve learned that nothing good happens in silence. Not when you’re a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed.

  I turn to Guy. “It’s too quiet.”

  He stops and listens as if he was lost in his own head, too. His brow furrows, and he opens his hands, palms up. When he glances at the sky and then back at me, his face tells me my suspicions aren’t unfounded.

  Braun grabs his right ankle and bends his leg behind his body in a stretch. “What’s going on? Why are we stopping?”

  “There’s a storm coming,” Guy says simply, since a storm is no bother to a man made of steel.

  “Should we go back to the cave?” Cotton asks.

  “There may not be enough time.”

  A shiver trickles down my spine as I hear his response. At the same time, I inspect our surroundings. Yes, the snow is falling faster, and, yes, the sky is darker, but we’re too close to stop now. “Let’s push onward,” I say. “We need to pinpoint the flag’s location.”

  Guy straightens, his posture defiant. “No, we have to seek shelter immediately.”

  “You said there may not be enough time to return to the cave. Besides, we have as much chance of finding shelter ahead as we do by turning back.”

  “We should spread out,” Guy says.

  “We’re staying together,” I retort.

  Harper touches my elbow. “Maybe we should do what he says.”

  I glare at her. “Maybe you should do what he says. I’m following RX-13. I’ll use Madox if I have to.”

  Harper grabs the back of my neck and pushes our foreheads together. “Don’t snap at me, bitch. I’m here to make sure you win, remember?”

  I can’t help smiling, not when our faces are so close that her two eyes merge into one, making her look like a Cyclo
ps. “I’m really cold.”

  “My nipples are frozen,” she whispers.

  I pull back and bark with laughter. Guy, Braun, and Cotton eye us as if we’re nuts, and Olivia and Willow stand staring. I point at the two young girls. “You guys look like Smurfs. You’re almost blue.”

  Harper actually slaps her knee and laughs even harder.

  “The weather is making you two mean,” Braun says.

  Cotton shakes his head. “My sister was like that. Nice one moment, banshee crazy the next. I think it’s hormones.”

  I stop laughing when I notice Madox’s back is nearly white from snow. Regardless of what decision we make, we’re wasting time. “Let’s go. We keep heading toward the flag. I want everyone looking for shelter as we travel.”

  “Shall we bow to you as we walk, Queen Tinker Bell?” Braun mocks me, but I detect the relief in his voice. It used to be me teasing Guy over his militaristic orders and ultra-seriousness. When we were creating a raft to float down the jungle river, we all mocked Guy’s soberness and Harper even shook her butt at him. But deep down, we were thankful that he had answers. We knew he may not be right every time, but he made concrete decisions, and that enabled the rest of us to relax.

  Now I’m the one allowing others that same relief. The question is Should they trust me? My eyes slide upward toward the mountaintop. Though there are dozens of hills and valleys, the tallest mountain looms over us like a giant from a fairy tale, jagged teeth set in a permanent under bite. I have no doubt it’s where every Contender is headed.

  I forge ahead, and when I glance over my shoulder, I notice the Contenders and Pandoras following. Guy’s lion trails behind, stumbling over his feet. It isn’t like him. Every couple of steps, EV-0 raises her trunk and taps the lion’s rear to keep him moving.

  I turn back to the mountain, tug my jacket tighter, and push onward. When the snow starts to fall even harder, whipping across my field of vision with disorienting fury, I begin to wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.