I slip the device into my ear, close my eyes, and push the button.
Silence — clicking — static.
“Congratulations. You have chosen Pandora Companion KD-8. Each Pandora is unique in its design, and your Pandora is no exception. Please stay tuned for a message from the Creator of KD-8.”
She knows. She knows which egg I took. Opening my eyes, I place a hand on my bag, imagining the egg safe inside. My knees bounce as I anticipate hearing someone new on the device. I don’t have to wait long.
“Hello?” an older male voice says. “Hello? Okay. I’m Creator Collins, and I generated Pandora KD-8. I cannot tell you much about my — er, our — Pandora, as there are strict rules about such things.” The man pauses, as if he’s afraid to say too much. “But I can tell you I’ve spent my entire professional life conceptualizing KD-8’s capabilities, and I hope you find them useful inside the Brimstone Bleed. While you must discover KD-8’s abilities for yourself, please know I have the utmost faith in his ability to reveal his strengths when the time is right. Good luck to you, Contender. And …” The man hesitates again. “And I hope you care for KD-8 as I have.”
My mind buzzes thinking about the man who created my Pandora — Creator Collins. He sounds like an okay guy. His voice is that of a man who owns too many sweaters. I like the way he seems to care about KD-8. It makes me think there might be something special about my egg. I wonder if he made other Pandoras, or if it’s only one Creator per Pandora. Something about the way he hoped I would care for KD-8 the way he did makes me think it’s a one-to-one situation. And who are these Creators anyway? I instantly picture mad scientists with big white hair and plastic goggles. Insert flash of lightning.
I keep listening, and within seconds, the woman whose voice I’ve already memorized returns. “Please report to Lincoln Station and take the train to Valden. You have one hour.”
The deadlines thing is already getting old. I’m a girl who doesn’t like to be rushed. But apparently that’s a big thing in this race. I’m quickly learning that I’ll have to adjust, be someone who rolls with the punches.
Pulling Bob’s visor down, I check myself out in the mirror. Mascara runs down my cheeks, and heavy bags droop beneath my eyes. My hair is everywhere, but when I touch a hand to the back of my head, I don’t find any more blood. Win.
It almost pains me to see myself this way. Even living where no one could judge me besides my family, I prided myself on looking fabulous. And now I look like the bride of Frankenstein. Running my fingers through my hair, I think about how I should be racing toward Lincoln Station. But the compulsion to repair my face is too strong.
I grab my makeup bag — the one I never leave home without — and fix what I can. What I really need is twelve hours of beauty rest and a Swedish massage, but something tells me that ain’t happening. My hair also needs way more than I can do from inside a clunky car. And that’s when I remember Cody on Christmas.
My curly hair has a will of its own, and while I sleep, that will grows and grows so that when I wake up, I resemble a wild animal. Cody refers to my hair as a lion’s mane. And last Christmas — when he’d only been sick a few months — he constructed an actual mane from faux hair and a headband. Then he wrapped it as a gift from me to him. When he opened it, he acted all blessed to receive this gift I hadn’t given him and read the card (which he wrote) aloud. “Dear Cody, I want nothing more on this Christmas morn than for you to join my pride. Roar.” At roar, he clawed the air.
At the time, I hated him for it. But thinking back on how much time he put into being an ass, I can’t help but laugh. Because I know now, if he really hated me, he wouldn’t have bothered.
I pull my hair in front of my face and study it up close. It’s the hair my father gave me; the hair my mom thinks is beautiful. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with it. But some girl yanked it to bring me down tonight. And now that I know the race is real, I can’t let anything stand in the way of me winning. My brother’s life — Cody’s life — depends on it.
Before I can stop myself, I grab the scissors from the glove compartment and start slashing. I cut a huge chunk of hair from the base of my neck and work my way up until it’s almost all gone. Tossing the scissors onto the seat next to me, I run a hand over my head. Crap.
When I look back into the mirror, I grow cold. It’s gone. My hair is gone. I mean, all over, there are small pieces of hair curled close to my head — but the length, the heaviness have vanished. I almost cry looking at myself. Almost. I’ve always hated my hair, but now I don’t even look like me. My brown eyes — my mother’s eyes — look bigger, and my lips fuller. It’s like now that the hair is gone, everything else can breathe. That’s nice, I guess. But it isn’t all good news. My hair has always pulled attention away from the thing I hate most. My freckles.
Even my brother has never made fun of the freckles that cross my nose and stretch out along my upper cheeks. He knows that I — like everyone else — have a breaking point. And that if he brought them up, I would end him.
Now it’s like they’re mini-cheerleaders, picking up megaphones and refusing to be ignored. I press my lips together in irritation, but my face softens when I see my feather. I was careful not to cut it when I hacked my hair off.
I lean my head back and reinspect my reflection, try to see things in a new light. With curls trimmed close to my head and a roguish green-and-blue feather dangling over my right shoulder, I decide I just might seem like someone who would enter a daring race — and win.
CHAPTER SIX
Lincoln Station, I discover, accommodates both trains and buses. I have no idea which I’ll be taking, but I know I’m going to Valden. I decide I’ll just tell the person at the ticket window where I’m headed and let them figure it out.
The station is surprisingly busy for this late at night, or early in the morning, or whatever you call it. The floor is covered in small white tiles, and overhead, there are vast skylights that would probably be pretty awesome during the day. Big round benches dot the floors for people to lounge on, and because the ceiling is high and the floor is tile, every little sound morphs into something like an elephant stampede.
Eventually, I stumble upon the check-in area. It consists of a skittish guy in his midthirties standing behind a large, plasticky counter. He’s wearing a navy suit with a crisp white dress shirt. His tie is yellow, which pleases me to no end. The guy spots me approaching and runs a hand over his canary-yellow tie. Then he does it again. And again. It’s either his first day on the job, or my being a girl makes him extremely uncomfortable.
“Hi,” I say to the nervous guy. “I need to go to Valden.” No point in beating around the proverbial bush.
My request pushes Yellow Tie Man over the edge. His eyes get enormous and he actually starts to sweat. “Valden?” he croaks.
“Yeah, Valden. I’d like to go there.” I lay my allowance on the counter as proof of my seriousness.
The guy looks around like a SWAT team is about to bust up this convo and pushes my money back toward me. “Are you sure you want to go to Valden?”