Guy wipes his switchblade along his pants to remove the snake’s blood. He looks up at Jaxon, then at Harper. “The two of you need to hold her down.”
Olivia squeezes her eyes shut and moans into the shirt. I know she’s thinking the same thing I am, that this isn’t going somewhere good. Looking at her now, I briefly wonder if Santiago’s own daughter, Morgan, was much younger than Olivia.
Harper grabs Olivia’s arms, and Jaxon holds her legs.
“Tell me what you’re going to do, asshole,” Jaxon spits.
Again, Guy doesn’t answer. And I still don’t move. But when he grabs Olivia’s hand, and lays the blade at the base of her finger, I turn and vomit into the sand. I’m still emptying the water in my stomach as Olivia’s muffled screams reach my ears. When I finally stand up, I’m shaking so hard, I almost collapse. I know what’s happening behind me, but I can’t look. I can’t.
Eventually, Olivia’s screams stop. Someone else is crying, but I know it’s not her. At some point, I’m going to have to help. We’re here for one another … until the end. And I’ve done nothing but nurse my own fear while Olivia lives a nightmare. I pull in deep breaths of dry desert air and turn around.
The world spins as soon as my eyes land on Olivia. Her body has crumpled in on itself. She looks lifeless, but I can see her chest moving, so I know she’s not gone. She must have just lost consciousness. Harper is rocking herself and staring at her own boots, and Jaxon is crying into his hands. Guy kneels over Olivia, his hands covered in blood. His eyes are glassed over, like he’s having trouble grasping what he did. But he shouldn’t. It isn’t hard to understand when the truth is lying in the sand —
As Olivia’s severed pinkie.
Though Guy seems helpless, I notice he’s wrapped Jaxon’s shirt around the girl’s hand and is pressing down. I don’t know if he’ll be able to stop the blood. It’s a finger, not a skinned knee. A friggin’ finger. I remember when Hannah and I used to play those would-you-rather games.
Would you rather kiss Curtis O’Brian with tongue, or get a hickey from Mr. Davidson?
Would you rather go three days without makeup, or get kidney punched by that girl who only wears lip liner?
Would you rather discuss sex with your mom, or cut off your own pinkie?
In any situation in which losing your pinkie was an alternative, the finger always got the ax. But that was in theory. Not in real life. Not in an Olivia’s-finger-is-lying-in-the-sand-and-turning-blue kind of way. In this case, I’d choose the other option. No matter what.
Guy speaks and it startles me in the way a shotgun firing might.
“We need to rest here for the remainder of the day,” he says. “If she’s okay when she wakes up, we’ll travel through the night.” No one responds. I’m sure we’re all thinking the same thing. That we don’t want to make her travel at all, but that we also need to find base camp or we’re all dead.
The cheetah moves toward the finger and sniffs. My heart beats in overtime praying he has some skill that can help. I know Pandoras usually help only their own Contenders, but maybe because Jaxon is so upset, Z-54 will do something anyway. Harper raises her head to watch, and even Caroline stops rocking Dink to see what the creature will do. We all hold our breaths.
The Pandora continues to sniff it for a few seconds, then lifts his head … and bats at the finger like it’s a toy.
“Oh my God,” Jaxon says. He jumps toward his cheetah. The Pandora snatches the finger between his jaws and trots away from the group. Now M-4 runs after the cheetah. They fight over the finger in a way that’s almost playful. This is a game for them, I realize. They love us, are built to help us survive, but they also have instincts. And right now they smell blood.
The lion steals the finger away and pops it into the air. From behind the lion, the cheetah leaps up and bites down on it.
“Jesus,” Guy says. “Someone get that thing away from them.”
I try not to think about what’s happening, and instead race toward the two cats. Right as I reach them, the cheetah closes his mouth over the finger. And swallows.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I fight the urge to get sick again. Seeing a cheetah eat a child’s finger is not something I ever thought I’d need to be equipped to handle.
We find a small tree, which offers almost no shade, and carry Olivia beneath it. And then we wait. At first, we watch the girl, but she never stirs. Then we watch the cheetah to see if it gets sick from the venom, but it doesn’t.
When the sun finally sets, and Olivia still hasn’t woken up, Guy says we need to bring her around. Jaxon agrees and shakes the girl gently until she stirs. “Heeeeey, Olivia,” he says, though nowhere near the way she did to him this morning. “Heeeeey, Olivia.” The girl’s eyelids flutter for a moment, then she raises them completely.
The first thing she does is puke.
I bite my lip watching her, hoping this is a good sign. Guy doesn’t seem too concerned, which I take as promising.
“Give her water,” Guy tells Jaxon.
Jaxon retrieves his canteen and tips it so that Olivia can drink. She takes a few pulls and then pushes it away.
“Olivia,” I say. Jaxon, Guy, and the girl all look at me. “Is there anything we can do? Anything?”
Her eyes fall to the sand. “Is it gone?”
Guy hesitates, then says, “Yeah, I had to remove it so the poison wouldn’t get in your system. We probably got the majority out.”
“My body hurts and my head feels funny,” she says.
“That’s the venom.” Guy glances at her hand, still wrapped in Jaxon’s blood-soaked shirt. “It should wear off over the next several hours.”
Olivia closes her eyes and swallows. “Where is it?” she asks. “My … my finger.”
Everyone looks at Jaxon.
“Don’t look at me. It’s not like I made him do it.” Jaxon’s already sunburned face reddens deeper. Though he acts upset with what’s happened to Olivia, he also seems relieved that she’s okay now. “Stop looking at me. All of you.”
“Jaxon,” Olivia says. “Where is my finger?”
Harper snorts, and now we look at her. “Oh my God,” she says. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to …” She shakes her head, covers her mouth, and waves her hand as if to ask us to stop staring.
“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Olivia sits up and holds her injured hand in her lap. “I just got bit by a snake with horns, got my finger cut off with a switchblade, and I’m in so much pain, I feel like I could die.”
“Does your hand hurt?” Guy asks.
“Actually, no,” Olivia admits. “It’s throbbing, but it’s numb.”
“Probably the venom, but maybe it’s because of blood loss.” Guy narrows his eyes, thinking. “Maybe it’ll stay numb until we can —”
“Where is my finger?” Olivia screams.
Caroline bolts to her feet. “The cheetah ate it.”
Olivia’s eyes get so big, I’m afraid they’ll burst. “The cheetah. Ate. My finger.” The girl looks at each of us. “That’s what you’re telling me? That Jaxon’s Pandora ate the pinkie from my right hand? My writing hand?”
“To be fair, he won it from M-4.” Harper looks like she’s about to explode from laughter. I’m not sure whether I feel like laughing, too, or punching her in the ear. “They battled for it.”
Olivia’s gaze turns wild, and she stares off into space for a minute. Then a small smile crawls over her lips. “That is, like, the best way for my finger to go.” She looks at Jaxon. “Ever.”