Everyone tosses their arms up, and down rains the most useless crap ever.
Except for what Caroline throws — which, thank the sweet heavens, actually floats.
“Yep-yah!” Ransom shouts, pointing at the long, thin tube surfing the river.
We all dance around like idiots at Caroline’s success. Levi and Ransom pick her up, and the three nearly tumble into the river. We are delirious from exhaustion, but I’m relieved that something has worked and that we’re doing our best to stay optimistic.
Titus glares at Caroline.
Lost in the moment, I stick my tongue out at him. “Cheer up, Grinch.”
He crosses the distance between us in a matter of seconds. His hands wrap around my waist and he jerks me against him. “Stick that tongue out again,” he whispers against my neck, “and I’ll show you what I want to do with it.”
Titus flies away from me and lands hard. Guy stands over him, face twisted with rage. He points a densely muscled arm at him. “I need your help with this river, so I’m going to let you pick yourself up out of that mud.” Guy bends down and gets in his face. “But if you touch anyone else here, I’ll hold you underwater until the last breath leaves your body.” He stands up. “Do you understand? I will end you.”
Titus’s eyes are large with surprise, like he has no idea how he ended up on the ground. But then his eyes change. They fill with fury. And the smile that crawls over his face in no way resembles the wrath lacing his voice. “Sure, buddy,” Titus says, grinning. “I was just messing around.”
The look on Titus’s face says there’s no way he’ll let this slide. Afraid of what Guy will do, I eye him with alarm. But Guy does something that surprises us all. He offers Titus his hand.
Titus, still sticking to his innocent facade, takes Guy’s offer and pulls himself up. He looks at me and his grin widens. “You know I was just playing, right?”
I nod, because I don’t know what else to do. In my peripheral vision, I spot Titus’s grizzly bear. He never moved to protect Titus, which surprises me. Madox, on the other hand, is at my feet, hackles raised, a small growl in his throat as he eyes Titus.
No one speaks for the longest moment of my life, and then Caroline says, “So what do we do now, Guy?” It’s a reasonable question, but it still feels odd after what happened. Guy tears his gaze away from me and looks at Caroline. He seems equally confused by how to respond. Rubbing the back of his neck, he glances at the water, like he just remembered it’s there. “We have to build something so that we can ride the river.”
Everyone kind of looks around, eager to have something to do that isn’t standing here uncomfortably.
“Caroline, where did you find the thing that floated?” Guy asks. “That piece of bamboo?”
She points upriver. “It’s down that way. Along the bank.”
“Okay, good.” Guy knits his eyebrows together, and the scar over his right eye deepens. “Titus, Ransom, and Levi, you guys come with me and we’ll get as much bamboo as we can. The rest of you need to look for vines that don’t break when you tug on them. Does that sound good to everyone?”
Harper glances at me and says, “We got it on our end.” I nod to let her know I agree.
Titus salutes Guy. “Happy to help, General.”
Guy ignores the comment and starts walking, M-4 at his side. The rest of us head back into the jungle foliage. A half hour later, we’re on the riverbank again. We made out like bandits in the vine department. It was Harper who found the best kind. We tried everything to get it to break, but short of RX-13’s eagle talons, nothing worked. We have our winner.
The boys appear minutes later, carrying their last armfuls of long bamboo shoots. M-4 and AK-7 walk beside their Contenders, holding their heads high. I imagine it was them who cut the shoots down and then sliced them into equal lengths.
Ransom lines the bamboo stalks side by side as the guys lay them down. Harper, understanding what is happening, goes to one side of the bamboo and begins tying the ends together so as to create a long and narrow raft. I take her lead and begin working on the other side.
As I’m winding the vines around the bamboo, I notice Madox is watching me. Thinking about riding the river creates a nervous rumbling in my belly. But I smile at my Pandora and pretend everything is as it should be. He climbs onto the raft and cocks his head to the side. I imagine he’s saying: Let’s do this thing.
Guy tugs on the bamboo and tries to separate the stalks. They don’t budge. He looks at Harper and me, and gives us a thumbs-up. I light up like the sun, then feel like a chump for being so desperate for approval. “Are you all ready?” He doesn’t actually wait for an acknowledgment. Just starts positioning us on the raft. I suddenly realize there’s not enough room for our Pandoras. Not even close.
“What about our Pandoras?” I ask him.
“They can travel faster without us.” He motions farther up the bank. “We’ll have them follow our progress along the river.”
“No way,” I say. “I’m not leaving Madox behind.”
“Tella,” he says. Warmth fires across my skin when I hear him speak my name. I shake my head against the reaction, and he mistakes it as disagreement. “Yes. They have to stay here. If we try to put them aboard, the entire thing will capsize. We have a lion and a bear. Think about it.”
He’s right. I know he is. I want to insist there’s at least enough room for Madox and perhaps even RX-13 and DN-99. But I know it’d be unfair. I swallow down the fear of losing my baby fox and gently nudge him off the raft. “KD-8,” I say. “I want you to follow the raft from the bank. Understand?”
Madox looks at me with confusion, and Titus snickers. I fight the urge to yell at Titus.
Please do it, Madox, I silently plead. Just go with the others.
I sigh with relief as my fox chases after the other Pandoras, whose Contenders have given them similar orders.
“Okay, everyone off.” Guy waves his hand to hurry us along. “Titus and I will move the raft into the river, and then everyone needs to get on exactly as before.”
We all step off and watch as Titus and Guy maneuver the bamboo raft into the water and hold it into place. Then we carefully step back on. Surprisingly, the raft doesn’t rock too much, and we’re able to get on without too much trouble. Right before Levi steps on, he grabs a spare bamboo shoot. He holds it as Guy gets on behind Titus, who’s in the very front. Guy takes the bamboo shoot from Levi and pushes us away from the bank.
As we float toward the middle, I spot something moving in the brush.
“Look,” I say, pointing to where we just were.
A man dressed in strange brown clothing peers out from behind the trees. His head darts side to side as he inspects us. He acts just like the men we saw following those Contenders earlier today. And he looks like the guy I spotted my first day in the jungle. The one I thought I’d imagined.
There’s a long, spear-looking object in his left hand, and he raises it to point in our direction. Moments later, two more men come to crouch beside him. Their faces and lips are painted with vibrant red streaks and their heads are adorned with bright feathers. The effect is nothing if not creepy.
Inspecting the feathers closer, I notice they are green and blue like the one I wear in my hair. I touch it absently, running my fingers down the soft bristles. “Who are they?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Harper answers. “But I’m glad they’re there and we’re here.”
The men cock their heads like birds, then disappear into the jungle. I watch the spot for a few seconds longer until we’ve floated so far down the river that I can’t remember where I’d seen them. An icy chill swirls inside my chest, and I wonder if the men will follow. I don’t like the way they watched us — like they’d missed a crucial opportunity.