Guy reaches his hand toward me, but when I turn to face him, he lets it fall. His jaw clenches.
“Guy —” I start to say.
“May we have your attention?” a voice booms from behind us. Guy and I spin around to see the two men in collared shirts standing near the fire pit. We glance at each other like we’re not sure they just spoke, because before now, you’d have thought they were practicing to enter a Buddhist monastery. “We will now begin the ceremony that marks the completion of the jungle race.”
The man on the right has a swollen belly and thin arms. He lights a match with his even thinner hands and tosses it into the pit. Fire bursts toward the sky and sounds of awe ripple across the Contenders. The man on the left, who’s sporting a wicked comb-over, raises his arms into the air and his voice rumbles. “Welcome to Shevla!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I gasp as men, women, and children dressed in white robes and ankle-high boots pour out of the jungle and into our camp. The women wear huge, bright jewelry and serious faces as they carry platters of food above their heads. And as they move closer, decadent scents roll off the dishes. Every memory of being eaten by ants, of escaping chimpanzees, of being sucked on by leeches and nearly drowning and racing through the jungle with strange, painted men trying to kill me — they vanish when I smell the food.
The women set the platters down onto tables the men carried in on their backs. I laugh with surprise as small children approach the fire and sit with drums between their legs. They begin to play. The beat is contagious, and before long, the women in white begin to sing strange, seductive songs.
Guy takes my hand.
I look up at him, forgetting the trance Shevla has brought.
“Do you want something to eat?” he asks.
I nod like a child on Easter, a yard of candy-filled eggs just beyond my reach. Guy pulls me toward the tables and we get in line. Four women in white tell us about the food as we fill our stoneware plates.
“Smoked over fire,” a woman says, pointing to cooked fish. “And here, we roast these with spices from the jungle,” she adds, touching a finger to a platter brimming with glistening vegetables.
Guy and I settle in close to the fire and listen to the beat of the drums. The women continue singing, but now they add dancing to their performance. They skip and leap and toss themselves in peculiar patterns around the fire as if the music has possessed them. I glance at Guy, and notice there’s a smile on his lips fighting to make an appearance. I want to tell him to let it happen, to not be so serious all the time. But I know it’ll vanish the moment I do, so I don’t say anything. Instead, I nudge him with my shoulder.
“Pretty cool, huh?” I say, after swallowing down a bit of charred, buttery fish.
He doesn’t look at me, but the quasismile leaves his face, as I expected. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool.” He looks down at his plate. “I don’t think these people know about the race. They were probably just paid to bring us food.”
That’s why I’m able to enjoy it, he means. Because they didn’t do this to us.
Across the fire, Caroline is finger brushing Dink’s hair. He pretends to pull away, but the slight grin on his face gives him away. Ransom is nowhere in sight, which worries me, but I do spot Harper a few feet from Caroline. There’s a guy talking to her. She ignores him completely. Even so, he continues to chat away as if they’re both participating in the conversation. Harper sees me watching and sighs heavily. Against all odds, I smile, and it actually feels authentic.
I’m not sure what Harper’s ideal type would be, but I’m pretty certain this guy isn’t it. For one, he seems way too happy to be here. Or maybe he’s just happy to be near her. The guy looks a bit younger than Harper and is extremely tall. His hair falls in messy blond curls that nearly hide his eyes. He uses a lot of dramatic arm gestures as he speaks to Harper, and I can only imagine this annoys her to no end.
“Check out the guy talking to Harper,” I say, attempting to discuss anything that isn’t the race or Levi or the fact that no one has seen Ransom today. “He seems pretty determined to get her attention.”
Guy’s brow furrows as he inspects the blond. “Poor guy.”
I laugh and punch his shoulder. “Why is he ‘poor guy’? Harper is a … is a …”
“Exactly,” he says. “There are no words.”
I roll my eyes and try to keep laughing, to hold on to this small moment of joy. An older man sitting on Guy’s other side hands him a bottle of something. Guy smells it and raises it to his lips. After he swallows, his face pulls together and he sucks air between his teeth as he passes it to me.
Taking it in my hands, I inspect the bottle. It’s round and heavy at the bottom, and flows into a long and narrow neck. The green glass is too dark to see what’s inside. I glance at Guy, and he makes a tipping motion with his hand as if to say Drink up. I remember all the things I don’t want to remember, and I stare down into the bottle. For three seconds, I wonder what Dad would say about my drinking to kill bad memories. Or about my drinking at all. But then I decide that the second I joined the Brimstone Bleed was the second I had to learn to survive any way I could. And this … this is a ticket to mental freedom.
I tip the bottle back and guzzle until my head swims.
When I lower it and wipe a hand across my mouth, I note Guy eyeing me.
“Great,” he says, shaking his head.
“Great what?” I pass the bottle to the woman next to me, who is all too eager to accept it. “What’s so great?” I ask this question about a hundred times over the next half hour. Guy just shakes his head, which makes me laugh hysterically and hang on his arm. “What’s great, Guy? Me? Am I great? I am, right? Do you want to know why?”
I stare into the fire, transfixed by the flames.
“Why?” Guy says suddenly.
“What?” I turn and look at him.
“You asked if I wanted to know why you’re great.”
I shake my head and look for the green bottle of magic and awesome. “You’re crazy.”
He sighs.
I glance back at the fire. All around it, Contenders dance. Most of the men in white have left, but a few children and women stay behind, singing and beating the drums. The smoke from the fire wraps around the arms and legs of the people dancing and eggs them on. Everything seems to go in slow motion: the thwump-thwumping of the drums, the Contenders’ easy laughter, the Pandoras howling at the moon.
When I glance at Guy to see if he sees what I do, I realize he’s staring at me. “Why are you always watching me?”
His face opens with surprise at my question. I’m a little surprised myself, but mostly, I’m wondering where the damn green bottle is.
“Did you hear me?” I ask.
He presses his lips together and nods his head.
“Then why don’t you answer?”
“Maybe I don’t have the answer.” He leans back onto his hands and looks up at the sky. “Why do you ask so many questions?”
“Because I’m curious,” I say.
“About everything, apparently.”
“No, just about you.” Though I feel relaxed and carefree, this last admission feels like one I may later regret. My eyes find his, but he’s not looking at my eyes. He’s looking at my mouth. Before I can protest, he raises a hand and runs his thumb over my lips. I close my eyes and shiver beneath his touch. I feel him shift beside me, and then his warm palms wrap around my face. I pull in a breath.