Fire & Flood (3 page)

The doors swing open.

I’m not sure whether to celebrate or freak out. I decide to do neither and slip inside. As I walk around the inside of the museum, listening to the sound of my footsteps echo off the walls, I imagine I am moments from death. It’s sad, I think, that this is all it takes to break my sanity.

Two curling flights of stairs bow out from the first-floor lobby, and red and white tiles cover the floors. There are gilded picture frames everywhere. So many that I think the placement of the frames — and not their contents — is the real art. Everything, absolutely everything, smells like wax. I mosey up to an abandoned reception desk and leaf through the glossy pamphlets littering the surface. I hold one of the pamphlets up to my nose. Yep, wax.

I glance around, having no idea what to look for. Will there be a sign like at school registration? Students with last names starting with
A–K
this way?

On my left, I notice a long hallway dotted with doors on either side. Nothing looks particularly unusual. But when I glance to my right, I spot something. There’s a door at the end of the corridor that has a sliver of light glowing beneath it. I’m sure it’s just an administration office, one where someone forgot to flip the switch. But I’ve got nothing better to go on, so I head toward it.

I pause outside the door, wondering if I’m about to get busted for B and E. Then I turn the handle and find myself at the top of another winding staircase.

You’ve got to be kidding me. What is this — Dracula’s bachelor pad?

I’ve watched a lot of scary movies, and I’ve learned nothing good is ever at the bottom of a winding staircase. Pulling in a breath and preparing myself to be eaten alive, I head down. My shoes are loud against the steps. So loud, I imagine they are intentionally trying to get me killed.

When I reach the final few stairs, I ready myself to look around the bend. My heart is racing, and I secretly pray the worst I encounter is an angry janitor with a wax addiction. I turn the bend — and my eyes nearly pop from my skull.

The enormous room is perfectly circular, dotted with candles to light the space. Surrounding the walls are rows and rows of dark, rich mahogany bookshelves. A large round table stands in the center of the red-and-white-tiled floor. The room is spectacular, but what it holds is so jarring, my ears ring.

Across every shelf, every spot on the table, every tile on the floor — are small sculptures of hands. And in a few of those hands — the ones still performing their duty — are eggs. There are only nine eggs left, it seems. For a moment, I imagine how
amazing it would have been to see each hand holding an egg, but it’s enough just to see these nine.

The eggs seem to dance in the candle flame, and as I move closer, I realize why. The surfaces of the eggs are almost iridescent, their colors changing depending on how you look at them. They are different sizes, too; some as big as a basketball, others as small as a peach.

I don’t need the device in my pocket to tell me what my gut already knows.

This is the Pandora Selection Process.

If this race isn’t real,
I think,
I give the prankster mad props for enthusiasm.

The eggs look fragile, like if I touch them, they’ll shatter into a million pieces. I remember when I was small and we would go to my grandmother’s house — the grandmother I knew — there were always things I was allowed to touch and things I was not. These eggs would have definitely made the Do Not Touch List. I walk around the room slowly, bending down or reaching up on tiptoes to look closer at each one. They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and it feels almost like I’ve stepped onto the set of a sci-fi flick. I don’t understand how these things got here. Or how this is even happening.

Some eggs seem brighter than the rest, while others seem a bit sturdier. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to pick, what characteristics I should look for, or how I’m supposed to announce my decision.

As I’m about to touch an egg, a thought occurs to me. What if the first one I touch defines my choice? Yes, this whole thing may still turn out to be a hoax, but it sure as hell doesn’t seem that way, and I want to be careful in case it’s not. I yank my hand back and bite down on my fist. Decision making has never been my strong suit.

I lean in close to a rather large egg, my breath causing the colors to swirl and change. It’s so beautiful, and isn’t it always more fun to have the bigger present at Christmas? A decision must be made, and if I let myself contemplate what’s inside each egg any longer, I’ll never make one.

“Eeny, meeny, miny …” I point to the large egg in front of me. “Moe.”

My hands are almost on it when I hear a thundering on the
stairs behind me. I spin around and listen. It sounds like hail during a bad storm. And it’s getting louder, and closer. Moments later, people of all ages spill into the room in a frenzy. They race toward the eggs, their eyes wide and their hands outstretched. Unlike me, they don’t hesitate. They snatch the first eggs they come to and race back up the stairs.

My face burns when I realize what’s happening. They’re taking all the eggs. There won’t be enough for everyone. I can’t wait any longer.

Someone has already grabbed the egg I’d intended to take, so I dash toward another one. A man in his midtwenties cuts me off and swipes the egg in one graceful movement. Then he tucks it under his arm like a football and makes for the stairs.

Three more people rush toward two eggs. They claw and kick and scream until two girls, no older than thirteen, slip away from a portly man and sprint toward the stairs. I see an egg toward the room’s entrance and hurry toward it, but I’m not aggressive enough, and when it comes down to me and another girl with wild eyes and big shoulders, I falter. She sneers at me and grabs the egg. Then she’s gone, flying up the stairs two at a time.

Everything has happened in a matter of seconds. As I look around the room, I realize with a bolt of fear that there’s only one egg left. I’m closest to it, and the girl closest to me realizes that. She narrows her eyes in my direction and darts toward the egg. But I’m faster. The people behind us don’t move, or at least I don’t hear them move. It’s like they know it’s too late. That it’s between me and this girl, and they might as well pack it in.

I’m so close to the egg that a smile curls my lips. I’m going to get there first. Then it’s just a matter of getting past her and back up the stairs. I reach out to grab the softball-sized egg, and then I feel it — a shooting pain ripping across my scalp.

The chick has ahold of my hair and she’s pulling me down,
down. I crash to the floor and she leaps over my body. Instantly, I reach for her legs. If I have to fight her on the ground, I will, because suddenly I remember Cody the way he was before I left, the steady rise and fall of his chest.

The girl anticipates my grabbing for her, so she makes a hard left, races around the circular table, and it’s over. She’s gone. At some point during the mad dash, I realized with overwhelming certainty that this race is real. That the Brimstone Bleed is
real
. And now I try to swallow that I’ve already lost.

I beat my fist against the ground and look up. Three people remain in the room with me. They looked equally dazed, searching for an egg that isn’t there. One of them hangs his head and ascends the stairs slowly. Like me, he seems petrified to return home and admit failure.

The back of my head aches, and when I reach around and touch the throbbing spot, I feel something wet and sticky. Though I know I’ll be sick if I look, I almost want to. Like seeing my own injury will be partial punishment for failing my brother.

I look at my hand. Sure enough, my fingers are coated in blood. It’s bright red, which I think is good. Dark blood means it’s coming from somewhere deep. I glance up to — what? — show the two people left my wound?

But when I look up, there is only one person.

My heart stops.

The guy looking down at me is very tall, or maybe he just seems so because I’m still on the ground. He appears to be about my age, though the broad width of his shoulders tells me he may actually be a couple of years older. His eyes are blue. Not in the way that makes me buckle at the knees and start naming our children, but the kind of blue that makes my breath catch. A cold, hard blue that looks more like a statement than a color — one that says, “Back the fuck off.”

His hair is so dark, it looks like wet ink, and is spiked around his scalp in soft tufts. He has a strong jawline, and right now that jaw is clenched so tightly, I’m afraid this guy is about to kick me when I’m down.

“They’re all gone,” I whisper. I hadn’t thought to say anything, but it just slips out.

He narrows those chilling blue eyes at me, and in an instant, they flick toward the floor near one of the bookcases. He looks back at me, and I wonder if maybe, even though he looks a little like a serial killer, he’s going to help me up.

His gaze lands on my hair, on the feather woven into it. Then he turns and walks toward the stairs, carrying a colossal egg under his arm. I contemplate fighting him for it; it’s easily the biggest egg I’ve seen tonight. Then I realize it’s pointless. I’m dizzy from hitting my head, and this guy looks like he works out for a living. But I think about the way his eyes flicked toward the bookcase. It makes me wonder …

Treading softly, I move toward where he had looked. But there’s nothing there. I grab on to the top of the bookcase, as far as I can reach anyway, and step up. Then I climb the shelves like they’re a ladder until I can see over the top. There’s nothing there and — when I look around the room from this elevated height — I don’t see anything anywhere else, either.

I crawl down the shelves until I’m standing on the floor again. Then I get onto my hands and knees. When I lay my face against the cool tile and peer under the bookcase, I have to bite my lip to keep from whooping.

I see an egg.

Pressing myself flatter against the floor, I stretch my arm out. I hold my breath as I retrieve it, afraid if I fill my lungs, I’ll drop my prize. Once the egg is safely out, I study it closely. It’s the size of a watermelon, which I guess is okay, but the coloring is all wrong.
It’s not like the others, with the remarkable sheen that changes when you turn them over in your hands. This one is dull, and when I hold it up, I see there’s a fracture the length of my finger running across the bottom.

It must have dropped onto the floor and rolled beneath the bookcase. Looking at it, I wonder if whatever’s inside is still alive. My guess is no, but I have no other choice than to hope it is. I stand up, pull out my shirt, and lay the egg in like my shirt’s a nest.

Then I smile. This egg is ugly, and if I’m not mistaken, it’s got a little stank rolling off it. But it’s mine. And I’m going to take care of what’s inside.

I wrap both arms around the bottom of my egg and hurry up the stairs, out the front doors, and into Bob. Slamming the car door, I glance around. I’ve got to find a safe place for this thing. I grab my bag from the back and pull out anything sharp. When all that’s left is soft clothing, I nestle my egg inside, take one last look at it, then zip the bag back up.

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.