Please don’t stop, I pray. Keep showing me where you are.
At last, after running for what feels like half an hour, I come upon a tree. It’s one of the largest I’ve seen in the desert. And it actually has leaves that grow green in the blistering sun. Beneath the tree’s bough, I spot someone leaning against the trunk. I slow my pace and creep closer. I’m out in the open and there’s no way I’ll see them — hidden by the shade — before they see me. But I can’t be afraid. So I take a breath, stand tall, and walk toward them.
While I can’t make out what the person looks like, I can pinpoint the moment they turn in my direction and straighten.
“I’ll be damned,” a female voice croaks. “It’s Dorothy and her little dog, too.”
I don’t need to hear more than that. And I don’t need to see the person. I know exactly who this is.
“This girl and her dog are coming to save your rear,” I tell Harper.
“Thank God you’re okay.” She hangs her head and sighs heavily. “I didn’t know what Titus would do to you.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. And Titus didn’t do much,” I tell her as I plop down. “Just psychoed out a few times before Guy got there.” I refrain from telling her about Nick, about the fact that Titus moved from creeper category to killer.
“So Guy made it.” There’s a look of regret in her eyes, and I want to tell her it’s fine. But I don’t. Because the truth is I’m a little curious as to why they didn’t all come. So I just look her in the eye and nod. “And Titus?” she asks. “Is he still —”
“Yeah,” I answer, glancing over my shoulder. “I think that freak’s still out there.”
She leans toward me, a new look on her face. “Do you have any water?”
I shake my head. “Guessing you don’t, either.”
Harper presses her lips together in frustration. I take that as a no.
I look her up and down and decide it’s time to confront the obvious. That she’s not wearing a shirt. Just sitting beneath the tree in her pink bra. “Going streaking later?” I’m joking with her, but all I want to do is squeeze her into a hug and never let go. Titus made it seem like she was dead. But I was sure she wasn’t. Not Harper. Not the girl I saw fight like a gladiator. Finding her here, however impossible it feels, is a stroke of good luck I’m not about to question.
My friend pulls her arm up and I notice a white shirt wrapped around her right forearm. It’s spotted with blood. I gasp, and then reach to inspect her wound. She pulls her arm back against her before I can try and help.
“From when the Triggers attacked us?” I ask.
She nods. “From the night Dink died.”
A lump forms in my throat. One I can’t quite swallow down. “He was a Pandora. The whole time, he was a Pandora.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Guy told us what he did. I don’t blame him. Something was wrong with the boy. The Creators went too far. Trying to make a Pandora that looked and worked like a human? It’s disgusting.”
“Caroline?” I ask.
“After we fought off the Triggers, and she saw him …” Harper shakes her head. “She was inconsolable. I mean, we could tell she knew he was a Pandora. He must have hatched from the egg she chose, for crying out loud. But I think she started to think of him as her son or something. Maybe it’s why she never told us.”
I run a hand over my curls, which have grown longer since the start of the race. “Where is she? Where is everyone?”
“Caroline took off. Wouldn’t let anyone follow her. Then Guy left, saying he was going to find you, that he couldn’t have the rest of us slowing him down.” Harper licks her dry, cracked lips. “Guess he really meant Olivia. But that’s okay. She has Jaxon, who acts like her friggin’ father. That’s why I had to leave. I couldn’t be around that. Not alone.”
I zero in on the fact that Guy wanted to find me on his own. Insisted on it. That makes me feel better about the others’ not coming for me. I mean, I know we’re here for our families and friends back home, but thinking they’d left me with the Triggers hurt. I watch Harper pull into herself. She doesn’t want me to ask what she means about not traveling with Jaxon. So I don’t. Instead, I ready myself to ask why she’s here, under this tree. But she beats me to the punch.
“Tella, do you think …” She pauses. “Do you think you could help me?”
“Of course. I’m not going to leave you. I’d never do that.” Not like I did to Guy is what I think to myself. I go to slide my arm beneath her, but she stops me.
“That’s not what I mean.” Harper scoots away and points at the rock formations, which are now only a few hundred yards away. “My Pandora is up there. I heard her last night, screeching. I know that sound. I know her sound. She’s caught up there somehow and I can’t climb up and get her.” She raises her injured arm as proof. Then she looks at me with such desperation that my stomach churns. “Could you go and get her for me? Please, Tella?”
I listen to Harper as she begs me to rescue her eagle. As she explains that she won’t have a chance to win without her. And that I’m not so stupid for naming my Pandora, because RX-13 is pretty awesome.
Guy said base camp was right on the other side of the rock formations. I have no idea how he knows that, but I trust him. And that means base camp is so close that I could have a chance at arriving first. I can’t know for sure, but I haven’t seen any other Contenders passing us. Not like I did in the jungle.
Five years.
I could give Cody five healthy years.
If I tell Harper no — that I’m here for my brother — I could keep him alive. But then I remember something else Guy told me — that I have to kill a Pandora to continue the race. My stomach sinks just thinking about completing the task.
I quickly decide to help Harper, because I can’t not help her. And because her strength will help when it comes time for me to … destroy … a Pandora. Part of me wants to ask if she’s already killed one. But right now she’s staring at me, waiting for an answer.
Nodding, I wrap my hands around her upper arms. “I’ll go and get your eagle. You walk with me to the formations and then wait while I go up.”
Harper’s face pulls together like she’s going to cry. But, of course, she doesn’t. She just waves me away like, How dare you make me emotional, and drags herself to her feet. I loop my arm around her waist and again she shoves me off. “I’m not crippled,” she says. And then quieter, “Thank you, Tella.”
Though the formations are close, it takes a while to get there. We both have to stop often; Harper because of the pain in her arm, and me because I feel damaged all over. But eventually, at snail’s pace, we arrive.
Harper humphs, and I ask what she’s humphing about.
She pats her hand against the stone. “It’s not so big up close. You’d think as we got nearer, it’d get bigger. But turns out, it’s not that high.”
“Maybe they looked so big from afar because there was nothing else to look at,” I say. She nods like this is true, but I can tell she’s distracted. “It’s okay, Harper. I’ll be up and down in no time.”
Looking up, I imagine I believe what I’m saying. The closest formation can’t be any more than forty feet high — about the equivalent of a four-story building. And I’ve become quite the athlete over the last several weeks. Climbing up should be no problem. But glancing at Madox, I realize I’ll have to leave him behind. I know I won’t be long, but it still makes me nervous to go anywhere without him.