“Our devices went off while you were sleeping,” Guy says. “We all listened already.” I start to dig into my chest pocket, but Guy holds out a white device. “It’s yours. I just checked to see if it was blinking.”
I feel my eyes glass over. “Can you just tell me what it says?”
He looks at me like I may suddenly break into a thousand pieces. Then he nods. “It was the woman. She congratulated us on completing the first leg of the race and for arriving at base camp.”
My face scrunches, and I turn away in disgust. People died in this jungle. Congratulations, she said.
“She said there will be a ceremony in four days when the first deadline passes. She called it Shevla.”
I hear what Guy is saying, but for some reason, I can’t absorb the information. I inspect the interior of where we are. It seems like a cabin, like something made of logs and mud from frontier days. It’s a single room with only six beds, which are more like cots. Everywhere I look, I see green-and-blue plaid blankets and fluffy white pillows. The cots remind me of home, of how secure I felt in my own bed with the cool of my pillow beneath my cheek.
I wonder how Guy secured me a bed when so many people are sleeping on the floor.
The cabin has two small windows and only one door. No bathroom, no kitchen … no electronics of any sort. Once again, we’re completely barred from the outside world, without a clue as to where we are.
“Is this everyone?” I ask Guy.
He pauses, like he’s processing that I brushed past the ceremony tidbit. “No,” he says, finally. “There are nine more cabins like this one. Most are about half full. This one has more beds than the others.”
I glance down at the cot I’m lying on. Then I remember where Levi is lying — dead in the jungle — and I’m overtaken by a wave of dizziness.
Guy stands up and then sits along the side of my small bed. He places a hand on my shoulder and pushes me back down. I don’t fight him. I just let my head find the pillow and I squeeze my eyes shut. I hear him get up and walk away, and the sound rips my heart in two. I don’t want him to leave me. I know so little about him — about the person he was before this race — but I’ve come to think of him as a source of stability. With him, we are safe.
I wonder if Levi thought he was safe.
I stuff my mouth against the pillow and cry.
Then I feel someone slip into bed behind me. My head snaps around to see Guy’s blue eyes slide over my face. He holds my gaze for a few moments, then lies down and wraps his strong arms around me. He pulls me tight and buries his face in my neck. Madox hardly stirs.
All the fears I’ve held inside rush out. It’s like he’s asking for them, saying he’ll carry them for me. I press back against him and curl into a ball.
We lie like this for several minutes before I feel his words on my neck. “My cousin loves lemon,” he says. I can tell he’s trying to whisper, but the deepness of his voice makes it almost impossible. Over the past ten days, I haven’t learned many personal things about Guy. But I have picked up on the way he operates. And so I know that if I say anything now, he’ll shut down. I stay quiet, and after what feels like ten minutes, he speaks again.
“He has lemon everything. Lemon soap, lemon shampoo, lemon tea. He even let his girlfriend paint his room yellow because the color was called Lemon Laughter.” I feel Guy shift behind me. “My brothers and I ragged on him pretty hard about it. But after he got sick, I spent months obsessing over that same lemon crap. Sometimes … I felt like if I could find something really great for him, something lemon scented or lemon flavored or whatever, that he’d be happy again.”
We lie in the silence, and eventually, I feel his breath on my neck deepen. Before I fall back asleep, I wonder where the strange men are and if they’ll enter the base camp. But inside Guy’s arms, I imagine it isn’t even possible.
For four days, we reside inside the camp. The two men from the start of the race are here, the same ones who helped unload us from the semis. They wear green, collared shirts and gold chains with serpent pendants. Contenders try to ask them questions, but when that happens, the men just glance past as if they aren’t even there. The only thing they will do is tend to the injured. Apparently, they’re part day laborer, part doctor. The men are an odd addition to an even odder situation.
The base camp is made up of ten small cabins, and the ground around and between them has been cleared so that it’s just soft dirt beneath our boots. I’m thankful for this, because even though my ankle is improving, I imagine it’d still hurt to walk on uneven terrain.
Torches circle the perimeter, and in the center of the camp is an enormous fire pit — though the men keep us from lighting it. In one of the cabins, there are basic supplies: packs of dried fruits and meats, bottles of water, toothbrushes and toothpaste, deodorant, soap, and even TP. And across the base camp, where no windows face, are three outdoor showers that offer a bit of privacy. I don’t know where the water comes from, and I don’t care. It feels like heaven on earth.
During the day, we entertain ourselves as best we can — mostly by meeting other Contenders and gawking at their Pandoras — but at night the Contenders pull away into small clusters. Harper, Caroline, Dink, Guy, and I spend most of our time together. I keep an ever-watchful eye on Madox, who seems playful and carefree at times, and anxious at others.
Ransom has become reclusive, and though we try to include him in everything we do, he mostly stares off into space, his face shadowed with rage. It kills me to see him this way. I think the others are getting tired of me talking about it. But I can’t forget him, and I know he needs us now more than ever.
Titus also doesn’t hang around us anymore. This, on the other hand, is a relief. He seems to have found a new knot of Contenders to group with. They’re all guys, ranging from maybe early teens to midtwenties. The pack has swiftly formed an unsettling reputation, and most people stay out of their way as best they can.
Glancing around, I spot three women in their early fifties discussing something. Two of them laugh, while the third frowns. After a moment, the women disperse. Sitting close to where the women stood are a guy and girl pair a bit older than Guy. They stay close to each other, constructing something long and thin out of branches. They don’t speak; they just work. On the far side of the camp, children play. A girl Dink’s age chases a boy and girl, diving after them and kicking the ground in frustration when they narrowly avoid her grasp. Many of the Contenders have plum-colored bruises or shallow lashes across their extremities. Others seem untouched by the jungle. But they are all here, seeking some sense of normalcy.
Since it’s the last day to locate base camp, I’d expected a constant stream of Contenders to trickle in. But no one has arrived since last night. When the sun nears the middle of the sky, all the Contenders hover around the perimeter, waiting to see who will make it in at the last minute. But as the sun crosses the sky and begins to set, we know it’s over. That this is everyone.
The horizon, or what I can see of it, is splashed with reds and pinks. It’s so beautiful, and in my stomach, I feel the first twinge of happiness after four days of fear and mourning. I knew Levi for only ten days, but I won’t ever forget him. And I’ll never forget that he died fighting for his sister’s life.
I feel someone standing near me and turn to see Guy watching me.
“Hey” is all I say. Then I turn back to the painted, darkening sky. Guy feels huge next to me, and I fight the urge to lean closer. I don’t know how to explain my feelings for him — if they’re circumstantial, or something more — but I know it’s hurt that he hasn’t slept in the bed with me since our first night at base camp. It was the only time I felt any true relief — and though he always sleeps close by, it isn’t close enough.