Race with Danger (Run for Your Life Book 1) (10 page)

Two men glide down from the chopper like spiders, black silhouettes against the bright sky, and for a second I’m living another flashback of the shadowy figures I saw in my house on that horrible night. Dressed all in black, hoods pulled over their heads and gloves on their hands.

At least I think that’s a real memory. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Sometimes I can’t decide if they were men with black faces and hands, or if they were just wearing black clothing. Everything about that night is dark in my imagination.

But I see that here and now, these two men wear dark green jumpsuits with a Verde Island race emblem on the chests, so I guess they’re part of the support team. The first clutches what looks like a medical kit in his arms. The second to reach the ground carries a metal detector, which he switches on and then sweeps over the road. Mr. Medical Kit follows Mr. Metal Detector to where Jason lies.

“We’ll take it from here,” Medical Kit says, kneeling beside Jason and Sebastian. Jason is moaning, so at least he’s still alive.

My hearing is returning. I’m shaking all over like I’m in the arctic instead of the jungle. My stomach is doing flip-flops.

Mr. Metal Detector inches along, sweeping his device over the road. At intervals—over each pimple—it beeps and then lets out a protracted squeal. He shuffles over to the side of the road and wades into the underbrush, bending over Maddie. After a minute, he straightens back up and pulls a communicator out of his pocket.

“One stretcher, one bag,” he says into it.

“I can’t believe we missed this,” Mr. Metal Detector remarks to Mr. Medical Kit, who stands up. His hands are covered in Jason’s blood.

“We didn’t,” the bloody guy growls. “These mines weren’t here last week.”

“What?” I yelp. Could this be The Threat the Secret Service keeps hinting about?

Both Verde Island guys turn to look at me and Sebastian, like they just remembered we were here. Mr. Metal Detector points to the side of the pimpled road. “Wait there.”

“The hell we will,” Sebastian says.

And then he gallops off through the brush and I have no choice but to follow.

After that horrifying experience, it’s actually a tremendous relief to focus on simply putting one foot in front of the other. I thank Whoever-There-Is-To-Thank that my partner and I still have two feet apiece and that we can run. Team Seven arrives in second place that evening, after Team One.

Team One took the longer Jeep road marked on the map, which obviously didn’t involve a mine field, because they arrived almost an hour ahead of us and don’t have a clue what has happened. They are already showered and dressed. Catie’s doing her usual fashion model poses before a set of adoring cameras when Bash and I trot into camp.

With sweat streaking rivulets down our dirt-and-blood-caked skin, the two of us look like we detoured through the Underworld to get here. The media immediately turn toward us, and then trot our way like a pack of starving wolves that have just spotted the limping caribou. Their cameras snap away, capturing for Net eternity our horrendous appearance.

Sebastian looks as if he recently wormed his way out of a vampire marmot’s burrow. I’m pretty sure I look even worse. So for once I am glad when the Secret Service guys surround us. They force the newsquackers to back off, promising interviews later after we are cleaned up and have eaten.

Team Five—Marco and Suzana—come in only ten minutes behind us, having taken the Jeep road, too. Marco honed his running skills in Kenya and Ethiopia, so I’m not surprised he’s staying near the front of the pack in a tropical race. Suzana is a newcomer, but obviously she’s tough and fast, and she’s nearly as tall and thin as Marco. No wind resistance in that pair.

I take a luxurious shower with scalding water and plenty of soap. Brown dirt clumps and chunks of spongy-looking grayish material sluice off me and swirl around the drain. I don’t want to think those squishy bits might be pieces of our fellow competitors, but of course my double-crossing memory insists on replaying the scene where the life goes out of Maddie’s face. Her cold hand. Biting my lip to keep from sobbing out loud, I lift my face to the spray to wash away the tears.

After I pull myself together and emerge from the shower, I am examined by doctors in the medical tent. They poke my bruises (as if they didn’t hurt enough already), scan my chest for some peculiar reason related to explosions, and peer into my ears, nose, and eyes. Finally, they pronounce me good to go, and it’s on to the usual urine and blood tests.

Sebastian takes longer to come out from behind the canvas flap of his medical station. When he does, he’s sporting a shaved spot with a white bandage at the back of his neck.

“GluSkin,” he growls. “It already itches.”

And then his face sort of collapses. He’s probably remembering that he’s lucky to be alive to complain.

Outside the medical tent, the secret squirrels wait in a cluster. Beyond them, the reporters wrestle each other to get to the front of the pack. The suits shepherd us through the noisy gauntlet to a tent that contains only the dinner buffet and tables. I am grateful to see zero cameras for a change. The officials inform us that the media hounds are waiting in a separate tent. The shocking events of the day have somehow rearranged the previous camp set-up to give the competitors a little much needed privacy.

Sebastian and I eat without talking. He seems more shell-shocked than I feel. We’ve both seen competitors get injured during these races, but I am probably the only one who has seen corpses and pools of blood. Lucky me.

It doesn’t seem right to enjoy dinner after seeing two comrades blown to bits. But the chicken in mushroom sauce is incredibly tender and I’m not sure I’ve ever tasted anything as good as the fresh strawberries and mangos in a tangy orange syrup. Maybe it’s true that you appreciate everything more after a traumatic event. But when I remember that Maddie will never again taste a strawberry, I have a hard time swallowing.

Sebastian receives another basket of flowers and at least a dozen letters of support. I get nada. The Secret Service gal looks embarrassed for me, but I just shrug. Actually, I’m relieved not to receive another mysterious item from Africa. I don’t have enough energy for any more worry right now.

Teams Two and Ten come in halfway through the meal, looking as if they’ve been dragged behind a truck all day long.

I want nothing more than to go to bed, but the television hounds await, and our Secret Service escort shepherds us in the direction of the media tent. I guess they were giving us time to compose ourselves as we ate tonight. But they can’t leave us alone indefinitely; they want all the gruesome details.

Catie and Ricco are already in the media tent, silently watching the vids of the day’s race. They are both totally shocked. Tears glisten on Catie’s cheeks. The land mine accident is the big story of the day, of course. On the vid, the race officials swear that all explosives were cleared from the island before the big race. The military groups that last trained on Verde Island disavow any knowledge of land mines. A snarky reporter asks if one of the competitors could have planted the bombs. Everyone is eager to point a finger, but nobody knows who to point at.

Scenes of me bending over Maddie and of Sebastian staunching Jason’s blood play on the big screen over and over again. Thankfully, the footage was shot from far overhead and they don’t focus on the blood and guts and there’s no sound involved. I see Maddie’s lips move and I watch Jason writhe on the ground, but I can’t hear any words or moans of pain. Sebastian and I are lauded as heroes.

As the reporters in this tent close in on me, I look over their heads to watch the screen on the far wall. I don’t see any footage of us discovering the dead buffalo or of Sebastian chucking the rock that set off the first mine, so I guess he was right in saying the Secret Service would squelch certain awkward parts.

“What did Madelyn Hatt say to you as she was dying?” the reporters all want to know.

Mr. and Mrs. Hatt are parked in front of the screen, watching their daughter die over and over again. How can they stand it?

Mrs. Hatt rocks in her chair, sobbing with a handkerchief pressed to her face. Mr. Hatt’s skin is gray. His posture is as rigid as a statue.

“Maddie’s dying words?” a reporter presses again, shoving a microphone so close it makes me cross-eyed.

I’m not going to tell these media ghouls Maddie’s last words. Her family wouldn’t want everyone to know she was raving about condiments instead of saying something profound and comforting.

“That’s private,” I tell the microphones. “That’s between Maddie and me and her family.”

A lump lodges in my throat. I do my best to swallow it down as I pull back my shoulders, but my voice still sounds like a croaking frog when I say, “Madelyn Hatt was one of the best racers I know. She will be missed.”

I can tell by their exasperated expressions that I’m not giving these newsquackers anything they want to hear. After a minute, they move on to Sebastian. One of the race officials, oddly dressed in a three-piece business suit, hands my partner a huge beribboned medal.

“For saving Jason Jones’s life,” he explains.

Sebastian’s face goes crimson, and I know he’d like the ground beneath him to open up and swallow him. Then he grudgingly puts his fingers on the medal, and his mortification segues swiftly to anger when the official clutches it tightly while turning toward the cameras, stretching out the moment for a few more frames of himself with The President’s Son.

The robot suits won’t let me leave without my partner, so I retreat to an uncomfortable metal folding chair at the far end of the tent to watch this charade. I have barely sat down when Maddie’s parents approach. Her mother collapses into the chair on my left and her father takes the one to my right, flanking me like a pair of prison guards. For a brief second, I envision myself bolting out of the tent for a moment of a solitary peace under the stars. Instead, I grip the metal seat with my hands to stay in place.

Mrs. Hatt places one hand gently on my knee. Her lipstick is smeary and dark smudges shadow her eyes; she has rubbed mascara all over her face.

“Thank you for being with Maddie today,” she murmurs in a voice so low I have to tilt my head close to hear.

How am I supposed to answer that? “You’re welcome” would be ridiculous and nothing else seems right, so I just nod.

“What did Maddie say to you?” her father asks. His posture is tense. I have the feeling he’d punch a hole in the wall with his fist if there was a punchable wall anywhere near.

I swallow hard, trying to come up with something appropriate. I know so little about Madelyn Hatt, and most of what I know is not what parents would want to hear. Did Maddie have brothers and sisters? Did she have a boyfriend?

“I know she said something,” her father prompts again. “I saw her lips move.”

“She said to tell her family and friends that she loves them.”

It’s vague, but I’m sure it’s what everyone wants to hear. I would like to think that my parents at least
thought
about how they loved our family as they lay dying, even if they didn’t have anyone to say it to.

Both the Hatts nod. Maddie’s mom wipes tears from her eyes, streaking more mascara down her cheeks.

Her father puts his hand on my other knee. Now I’m really trapped.

“Anything else?” he says.

His breath smells like beer. I’m dying for a glass of wine or beer or a shot of tequila. But I’m seventeen, so that’s not going to happen here, at least not in front of all these cameras.

“Did she say anything else?” Mr. Hatt clearly wants more.

“She asked me to p..promise…” I stutter, then take a gulp of air to continue, “…well, she was … fading at this point, so it doesn’t make sense, but she asked me to promise to take care of … salt and pepper?”

Mrs. Hatt’s expression changes to dismay. Or maybe it’s horror, I can’t really tell. But Maddie’s father shakes his head, suddenly furious.

I shouldn’t have told them about the salt and pepper. “She was losing consciousness when she said that,” I tell them. “Her brain was probably, you know, misfiring.”

“Salt and pepper?” Maddie’s father plants both feet on the ground and leaps to his feet, shooting his chair backward. With a loud clunk, the chair hits the one of the poles of the tent frame. Canvas sways around us. Several people look our way.

“Her last thoughts are for goddamned salt and pepper?” he growls.

I shrug sadly. “That’s what she said.”

“After all we’ve been through.” Then he takes a deep breath, looks at his wife, and says, “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

Somehow, the way he says it does not sound like he just lost a beloved child. I try to give him the benefit of the doubt because I know people grieve in different ways.

A painful sounding sob escapes Mrs. Hatt. She bends at the waist and buries her face in her handkerchief.

After a few seconds, Mr. Hatt says, “We’ll sue for millions.”

Mrs. Hatt sobs again, then wipes her face and nods like that is a solution.

Maybe Maddie didn’t have such supportive parents after all.

Sebastian’s press conference is finally over and I’m ready to stagger to our sleeping tent. But as I stand up to join him and his Secret Service contingent, a race official grabs my arm. “Call for you, Miss Grey.”

It’s Emilio again. Two nights in a row?

“You okay?” he asks.

He must have seen the vid of today’s race. I know I look exhausted, and I have a couple of scrapes and bruises that weren’t there this morning. But Private Emilio Santos doesn’t look so good himself. When he leans back from the screen, I see that he has a long scratch on his face and his right arm is in a sling.

“I’m fine, Shadow,” I tell him. “What happened to you?”

“Truck rolled over.” His voice is curiously flat. “Nobody died.”

He looks away for a second as he adds, “At least not in our vehicle.”

I swallow hard and work to keep my face serene. I can’t bear to think about death any more today. I search for something, anything else to talk about. “Verde Island is interesting,” I tell him. “It’s pretty much got everything—beaches, jungles, a mountain…“

“Tell me about the birds and flowers.”

I tell him about the parrots and bee-eaters and orchids.

“All we’ve got here is dust and sand. I’d love to smell an orchid.” He sighs wistfully. “Dreaming about Michoacán is the only thing that keeps me sane, Tee.”

He’s talking about the plans we made to go see the millions of Monarchs that winter in Mexico. It must be a spiritual experience to view all those brilliant butterflies, their sunset wings painting the landscape.

“I can’t wait to go there with you, Shadow.” We’re planning to make that trip after he gets out of the Army and becomes an American citizen.

Then he turns his face to the camera again. “How goes the race?”

So he
hasn’t
seen the news of the day.

“We’re in second place,” I tell him.

“Win that prize for us, Babe.”

Guilt envelops me like a poisonous fog. I want to duck under its weight, but instead I smile brightly at the screen. “I’ll do my best to win.”

He’s always been so supportive; so gentle with me. When I was at my lowest, I would go off into the orchards or fields by myself so Marisela and the twins wouldn’t see my tears. After a while, Emilio would inevitably materialize and sit down next to me, put his arms around me, and just hold me tight. He never said a word.