“I don’t need a plan. By the time we get to base camp, you’ll have realized you belong with us.”
Fat chance.
“We’ll see.”
Titus flashes me another thousand-watt smile. He thinks I’m open to the idea. I can see it written all over his pompous face. The question that nags me is why he cares if I willingly join them. He already has me and my Pandora in his possession.
I feel a hand squeeze my butt.
“What the hell?” I yell, spinning around. The guys keep straight faces and stare forward. Titus stops, and the tin soldiers stop, too.
“What happened?” Titus asks.
I inspect the guys, searching for something that tells me who it was. Then I look at Titus. His face is pulled together in confusion, and he’s too far away for it to have been him. I want to spill, but I’m afraid it’ll A) cause a commotion I don’t need, and B) screw with Mission Escape in the Dead of Night. For now I’ve got to pretend I’m considering joining his ranks. And part of that is acting like this kind of stuff doesn’t bother me. So I feign passiveness.
“Nothing,” I say, trying to hide the venom in my voice. “The guys were just messing around.” I don’t smile. I don’t laugh. Doing either might send a red flag. Titus may be nuts, but he’s not stupid. I just shrug like it isn’t a big deal and keep walking.
Surprisingly, Titus doesn’t press. But I see the way he eyes his guys before I turn away.
After we’ve hiked for another hour — Titus chatting away like we’re on a first date — Madox begins to whine. Titus holds a hand out and everyone stops. “What’s he doing?” he asks.
I approach my Pandora, but it does nothing to calm his nerves. “I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“The wittle fox is all tuckered out,” Acne Face mocks from the back. The guys laugh, but the gesture sounds forced.
Titus waves a hand forward and keeps walking. When I go to follow, Madox barks. Once. Twice. Three times. Every step I take, he becomes more and more upset, circling my ankles, rearing up and placing his front paws on my shins. I feel like I’m watching an old black-and-white Lassie show.
What is it, girl?
Titus stops us again. Nothing looks strange ahead, but Madox certainly doesn’t want me going any farther. Titus looks at Acne Face and says, “Go check things out.”
The Trigger seems proud that Titus asked him out of the other five guys. He nods and jogs past us. He searches the ground, looking for whatever it is that’s caused my fox to panic. Then he turns and faces us. “I don’t see anything,” he calls back.
Titus’s brow furrows. “Keep looking.”
The guy spins around and takes a few more steps. Then he stumbles and falls.
At first, it appears he’s just tripped over a rock or something. But as he flails, I start to realize it isn’t that at all. It almost looks like he’s … sinking. Titus waves an arm at the guys behind him, and they race past us to help Acne Face. The Pandoras stay behind, heads hanging. I take a step to follow the guys, but Titus grabs my arm.
He tips his chin up and asks them, “Well, what is it?”
A guy with enormous shoulders and long legs turns around. “Quicksand.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Titus keeps hold of my arm and creeps toward the quicksand. Madox goes crazy, barking and whining when he notices Titus dragging me behind him. I silently plead with my Pandora to cool it, and miraculously, he does. “Nick,” Titus calls. “You sinking?”
“Yeah,” Acne Face — Nick — answers. “Get me out of here!”
The guys make way as we get closer. Titus slinks to the very edge of the wet sand and stares down. “How did you not see this? It’s clearly darker here.”
Nick shakes his head, eyes bulging with fear. “I — I don’t know. But I gotta get out.” His legs and hips are buried, so all I can see are his chest, arms, and head. The more he squirms, the farther down he sinks. My stomach tightens and I suddenly feel like it’s hard to breathe. Like it’s not Nick down in that sand, but me. This morning, he beat that Pandora like it was nothing, but I can’t watch another person die.
“Help him,” I beg Titus. “Please.”
He glances at me from the corner of his eye, his face pinched with disgust. It’s like he hates that I care.
“We need all the hands we can get if we’re going to win.” I pull myself up like I’m strategizing. I can’t say I’m joining the Triggers — Titus wouldn’t believe it — but I can let him read into my statement and form his own conclusion.
A slow smile splits his mouth. He waves a hand toward the guy with long legs. “Get him out.”
Long Legs reaches his long arm toward Nick. Clearly relieved, Nick takes hold of his hand and pulls. Long Legs wobbles and nearly falls in until another guy grabs the back of his shirt. “You’re going to have to help me,” Long Legs tells the guy behind him. The guy nods and reaches out an arm, too. But even together, the two guys can’t seem to free Nick from the sand. As time wears on, and Nick sinks deeper, a hysterical sensation washes over me.
What if they can’t get him out?
They have to get him out!
“Let’s try the Pandoras,” I tell Titus, worried his patience is wearing thin. I’m afraid of drawing attention to Madox, of involving him in anything that could put him in harm’s way. But I know I can’t let this person die. Not like this. Not when he’s screaming in a way that makes my skin crawl.
Titus glances over his shoulder at the Pandoras and back at Nick, who’s now immersed up to the bottom of his chest. Nick cocks his head like he knows what’s coming. “No,” Titus says. “He let your little friend with the bird kill his Pandora. Why should I risk the rest to save him?”
Even half buried, Nick looks furious. And when I think of Madox behind me, I know why. Losing my Pandora would crush me. I rip my arm away from Titus and lean over to help Nick. Maybe he’s the way he is because of Titus. Maybe there’s still good I can dig out of him. But whether there is or isn’t, I’m going to help him.
Before I can offer Nick my hand, the large guy — the one who sleeps curled in a ball — stops me.
“Let me,” he says. I look in his soft brown eyes and some of my fear dissipates. He’s built like an SUV, and his head is shaved to the scalp. When I glance at the hand covering my arm, I find it’s as wide as a toaster, and that his nails are manicured to perfection, like maybe this Godzilla hit a salon before entering the race.
Stepping back, I allow him to edge closer. He reaches his salami of an arm toward Nick, and Nick grabs hold.
“On three,” Godzilla says.
Nick nods.
“One …”
“You ask me, he deserves being stuck in that sand,” someone pipes in.
“Two …”
“Touching Titus’s girl that way.”
“Three.”
Godzilla starts to pull at the exact moment that Titus barrels forward. I move to stop him, but it’s like standing in front of a cannon. Titus shoves me to the ground and slams into the guy who has great nails. The big guy hardly moves, but it’s enough to cause him to lose his grip of Nick’s hand. Titus jabs his boot out and places it on top of Nick’s scalp. Without a word, he pushes the guy’s head downward.
Nick’s chest plunges under the sloshing sand, then his arms. His shoulders. Nick shouts, and I scurry along the ground toward Titus’s legs, trying to tackle him. To push him into the quicksand. Something. But the big guy grabs me and tugs me to his chest.
“Stop it,” he says quietly. “Stop making a scene.” Then he wraps his enormous hand around my face so that I can’t see.