“Madox,” I whisper again. “What are you doing?”
My Pandora is actually starting to freak me out. I move to stand but stop suddenly when Madox relaxes out of his crazy stare. His eyes return to their normal, nonglowing green and he trots over to where the ram sleeps. Then his muscles tighten, his eyes flick back on, and he studies G-6 like the ram holds the answers to the world.
I can’t speak anymore. I’m too terrified of what will happen if the others wake up and see this. But I’m also afraid of what Madox might be doing to these creatures. I need to do something. Pulling myself up, I head toward my Pandora. I’ve almost got him when he breaks his trance, slips between my legs, and heads toward Harper.
The eagle. He’s doing something to the eagle this time.
His eyes are still glowing when I scoop him up. Turning him around, I watch as they dim to their normal green hue. I’m breathing hard, and I feel a little unsteady on my feet, but I pull him to my chest and squeeze him tight.
What were you doing?
I glance at the other Pandoras. They seem to be fine, so I try to calm down. It feels like a few hours have passed since I’ve been keeping watch, so I decide to wake Caroline and Dink. Also, I want to know if they feel like anything is off. Starting with Caroline, I gently shake her shoulder until her eyes open. Then I move to wake Dink.
“No,” she says quickly. “I’ll wake him.”
I nod, wondering about their relationship. Dink may not be Caroline’s son, but she treats him as such, and I’m sure there’s a story there. As the two pull themselves up and dust off their brown scrubs, I study their faces. They don’t seem to sense anything strange, and Madox’s eyes haven’t flicked back on.
Caroline glances at me. “It’s okay,” she says, seeing the worry in my face. “We’ll keep watch.”
I force a smile and lie down on the hard ground. Madox circles three times and then plops down, his side pressed against my belly.
What did you do? I think again. For some reason, I feel as though I’m failing as a Contender because I don’t know. With my left hand, I stroke his soft black fur. My Pandora closes his eyes, and his body relaxes. For a long time, I study Madox, the way his chest rises in quick bursts. I don’t know how I’ll ever sleep, but I know I need rest. So I close my eyes and try.
I wake to something splashing over my face. Dink giggles as we all sit up and realize we’re being rained on. Leaning my head back, I open my mouth and drink in the cool liquid. It’s not as hot in the jungle early in the morning, and with the rain pouring down my back and over my cropped hair, I feel invigorated.
“Why you smiling, loony?” Ransom asks.
“Because she’s thirsty and it’s raining,” Levi answers for me. He opens his own mouth, and Ransom copies him.
Soon, we’re all standing there, drinking the rain. We look like idiots. Every last one of us.
Madox jumps around and splashes in the quickly forming puddles, and the other Pandoras chase and snap at him. He dodges them and continues playing. I restrain myself from picking him up. I want so badly to rescue him from the bullying, but I have to start letting my little fox fend for himself. And I’m honestly kind of relieved the other Pandoras are okay after Madox’s glowing-eyes attack.
Ransom plucks his device from his pocket and stares at it. I know what he’s wondering — whether an electronic anything could still function after this downpour. It’s the same thing I wondered the first day of the race, when the rain had lulled me to sleep. Ransom sees me watching him. He gives a halfhearted smile and drops it back into his pocket.
The rain continues as we stretch and yawn and listen to Levi tell us where we’re headed. “Toward where they found the flag,” Harper explains to me, as if I hadn’t heard him. We walk for what feels like two miles, and the rain never stops. At one point, I do pick up Madox. I can’t help myself. He looks so small in the mud and rising water.
“There,” Ransom yells, running forward.
We run after him, Dink ahead of us all. When I see the pole the flag was attached to, I grimace. There’s no way I’ve accidentally missed flags. The pole itself stands seven feet tall, six inches wide, and is painted bright blue to match the flag.
“How did you reach it?” Caroline asks. I was wondering the same thing.
Ransom looks offended. “Uh, what are you implying?”
Caroline blushes, but Harper just says, “You’re short. The pole is tall.”
Ransom crosses his arms. “We’re not that short. In fact, we’re —”
“It was tied to the middle,” Levi interrupts. “Right there.”
We all stare at the middle of the pole and nod our heads. Dink reaches out to touch the pole, and right as he’s about to brush his fingers along it, Levi grabs his arm and yells. Dink jumps, and Levi laughs.
Caroline pulls the boy to her, but maybe she shouldn’t, because Dink is laughing, too.
Harper glances around. “We need to keep track of them.” I think she means for Levi and Ransom to not lose the flags on their arms. “RX-13,” she calls. The bird swoops down and lands on her arm. She lets her onto the ground and kneels in front of the eagle. Then she pulls the front of her shirt up, enough so that I can see her bra is a perfect shade of pink. Of course it is. I’m relieved to see that she has the slightest hint of stretch marks on her belly. Though they’re hardly visible, I’d like to imagine she was once enormous.
“Make a mark in the center of my stomach. Deep enough to scar, but not so deep that I won’t heal,” she tells her Pandora.
“Harper, what are you —” I start to say.
The bird raises a talon and makes a tiny slice three inches above her naval. Blood drips from the wound when the eagle removes her claw.
“Jesus, Harper,” Levi says. “Couldn’t we have used something besides your body?”
“My stomach is a map, see?” she explains, ignoring Levi. “When we find another flag, we make a new mark in relation to this one.” Harper points to the bleeding cut. “It needs to always be with us,” she says. But what she means is: me. It needs to always be with me.
Levi rolls his eyes. “You’re frackin’ bananas.”
I stare at Harper as she bunches her shirt up and presses it against the wound. What I want to know is how her Pandora knew how deep to cut. Is the bird suddenly a doctor now? Maybe Harper’s lost her mind, I think, but at least she’s making decisions. “Let’s keep moving,” she says.
“Which way?” Ransom asks.
“It doesn’t matter,” I answer. “As long as we keep track of the direction.”
Harper glances at me and nods. “Exactly.”
“South?” I want for it to sound like a statement, but it’s clearly a question. One directed at Harper.
She looks in front of us and nods again. “South.”
We push forward through the morning. At about midday, the rain turns torrential. The twins pull off their shirts and pants, then rinse them out in the rain. They wipe their arms and legs and anywhere else there’s caked-on dirt. Ransom and Levi are only thirteen or so, but it still feels odd seeing them in only boxers; their thin, pale bodies so … exposed.
I startle when Harper pulls off her own shirt and pants and tries to get the dirt out. She continues walking in her heavy boots and matching pink bra and undies. When she sees me watching, she laughs. “We’ll never see these people again.”
She may be right, but I’m pretty sure from the way Levi and Ransom are staring that they’ll remember this forever. I decide to remove my shirt, but leave on my pants. Caroline still has her clothes on, and it makes me wonder what she’s thinking. What my mom would think about me showing my goods in the middle of a jungle.