I let my gaze fall to the ground. Of course they are. The jungle must get much worse the farther you get inside. “I don’t understand what the people running the Brimstone Bleed get out of this,” I mumble, shaking my head. “They seem so cruel.”
“It’s complicated,” he says quickly.
Everything in me wants to shoot questions at him like rapid-fire, but I can’t speak. Because Guy is staring at me in a way that makes my cheeks flush. He puts his palms against the ground and moves closer. When he’s only a breath away, he lifts a hand and runs it over my side. Every rational thought in my mind vanishes.
“What happened here?” he asks.
Glancing down, I notice he’s thumbing the quarter-sized stain of blood on my shirt. To my surprise, there’s a fainter, larger stain circling the center one, as if the blood has seeped outward. Guy pulls the side of my shirt up and I gasp when I notice the small wound the leech left. It’s pink and puffy, but the most alarming part is that it’s still bleeding.
Guy presses near the wound and blood oozes out.
I fight the urge to faint.
“This is from a leech.” He looks at me for confirmation, and I nod. “When they bite, they inject you with venom that prevents your blood from clotting.”
I am going to bleed out from a leech. And die.
That is how I take this news.
“You’ll be fine.” Guy lets my shirt fall back into place and stands up. “I need to go find something to stop the bleeding, though. I’ll be right back.” He taps the lion’s head. M-4 springs to his feet. “Come on, boy.”
For fifteen minutes, I plan my funeral. My pastor will give my life eulogy. He’ll say I wore way too much makeup and that I had a borderline obsession with sticky notes. They’ll serve Greek food at the wake, because Mom will insist it was my favorite, and Cody will ask why he has to eat this crap even after I’m gone.
But that’s not right. Because if I’m gone, then Cody …
I hear a rustling nearby and am so relieved to see Guy, I almost hug his legs. He’s holding a fistful of leaves in one hand and two stones in the other. Sitting next to me, he grinds the leaves between the rocks.
“Is that going to save me?” I ask.
Guy stops grinding. “Save you?”
I realize in this moment that my life is not dangling by a thread. I laugh. “I’m kidding.”
He goes back to grinding. Seconds later, he lifts my shirt back up. Despite what we are treating here, I can’t help but get goose bumps. Because he’s, you know, lifting my shirt up. I watch as he gets some of the leaf pulp between his fingers and spreads it over the wound. As he works, I don’t even think about what he’s touching. Instead, I concentrate on the way he chews his bottom lip in concentration. Guy is so distant and cold, but right now he’s something different.
“Why are you traveling with us?” I ask suddenly.
He stops applying the makeshift medication and looks up. And, my God, he is so damn close. Guy’s eyes travel from my eyes to my lips. He presses his own together, and then pulls away. “Your Pandora is very powerful,” he says. “I can’t imagine there was a better one created than him. I know if I stay close by, your Pandora will remove most roadblocks from here to the Cure.”
I swallow. He told the truth. I had expected him to lie. Then I’d expected to wrestle the rest of the day with whether to believe him. But he told the truth. I run a hand over my head. “Thanks for telling me, I guess.”
“You already knew,” he says.
I look at him. “I suppose I did.”
Guy returns to medicating my side. When he’s finished, he moves away, but only a little. “You look different,” he says.
My face scrunches with confusion. “How so?”
He touches a calloused hand to his head and tugs on a spiked clump of his own dark hair.
Oh.
“Yeah, I probably do, huh?” I say. “I forgot you saw me at the Pandora Selection Process.” I lean back on my hands. “There was a girl that dragged me down that day by my hair. I decided it had to go.” What I want to also say, for some asinine reason, is: Don’t worry, it’ll grow back. I won’t always look this hideous.
Guy studies the feather lying over my shoulder, then nods to himself. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I just got an official nod of approval. Not sure of what to say next, I ask, “Do you think the raccoon would have done this? Healed my wound?”
He shakes his head. “Not for you, no.”
It’s what I figured, that each Pandora looks out only for its own Contender. Still, I wonder how he knows for sure.
Guy cracks his knuckles like he wants to say something, but doesn’t know how. When after several seconds he still hasn’t spoken, I decide to take a gamble. “Guy? Will you tell me about this race?” I swallow hard and add quietly, “Please.”
“I told you it wouldn’t help.”
“Tell me anyway,” I say, hoping my voice is steady.
Looking toward the sky, he seems to think. He pulls in a breath and lets it out. He does it again. And again. His broad chest swelling like a bird’s, then flattening. Then to my astonishment, he speaks. “There are different people running it. Different … names for them.” He stops suddenly, like he can’t believe he’s said anything. I stay quiet. So quiet, I can hear my heart pulsing in my ears. Guy wets his lips. “There are the Creators, the ones that made your Pandora. They’re more commonly referred to as Pharmies.”
My mind spins. I know that word. The girl in the train car with me said it.
“They work in pharmaceuticals, of sorts, and ensure the Cure is available to the winner.” He taps his temple lightly. “These guys are brilliant. They were experts in genetic engineering by the early 1950s, two full decades before the public started reading about it.”
Guy looks at me, but I avoid his eyes. I don’t want him to see how enraptured I am by what he’s saying. Instead of asking him to clarify, and before I can really think, I ask, “Who are you here for, Guy?”
He turns away from me. I’ve asked the wrong question, and now he’s shutting down. To my surprise, he looks back at me with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “You owe me a favor for treating your wound.” He says it so even keel that I wonder if he practices speaking without emotion.
“A favor?” I ignore the fact that he’s avoiding my question, or that he’s just told me half a story. “What kind of favor?”
He looks at Madox, and my stomach plummets. No. I won’t give him my fox.
“I want you to sing that song,” he answers.
“What song?” But as soon as I ask, I know. He heard me singing to Madox when I was following him. Which means he knew I was following him. “Oh God.” I cover my face with my hands. “You mean the sicky song.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I realize he really, truly means for me to sing it. Like, now. “You can’t be serious,” I say.
Nothing.
I roll my eyes. This will be the most embarrassing moment of my life. But he touched my leech wound, for crying out loud. And I have so many more questions I need him to answer. So if he wants the sicky song, he gets the sicky song.
I clear my throat like a professional might do. Then I open my mouth and sing. It lasts for ninety humiliating seconds. I can’t even look at him when I’m done. But when he doesn’t say anything, I can’t not look at him.
Glancing over, I notice he’s just staring forward.
“You are a horrible singer,” he says.
My jaw falls open. The friggin’ nerve. I’m about to tell him where he can shove it, but then I see it — the smallest of smiles tugging the corner of his mouth up. And I can’t help myself. I point at his face. “You’re smiling,” I say while laughing. “You’re totally smiling.”