Fire & Flood Read Online Free PDF Page B

toward another one. A man in his midtwenties cuts me off and swipes the egg in one graceful movement. Then he tucks it under his arm like a football and makes for the stairs.
    Three more people rush toward two eggs. They claw and kick and scream until two girls, no older than thirteen, slip away from a portly man and sprint toward the stairs. I see an egg toward the room’s entrance and hurry toward it, but I’m not aggressive enough, and when it comes down to me and another girl with wild eyes and big shoulders, I falter. She sneers at me and grabs the egg. Then she’s gone, flying up the stairs two at a time.
    Everything has happened in a matter of seconds. As I look around the room, I realize with a bolt of fear that there’s only one egg left. I’m closest to it, and the girl closest to me realizes that. She narrows her eyes in my direction and darts toward the egg. But I’m faster. The people behind us don’t move, or at least I don’t hear them move. It’s like they know it’s too late. That it’s between me and this girl, and they might as well pack it in.
    I’m so close to the egg that a smile curls my lips. I’m going to get there first. Then it’s just a matter of getting past her and back up the stairs. I reach out to grab the softball-sized egg, and then I feel it — a shooting pain ripping across my scalp.
    The chick has ahold of my hair and she’s pulling me down,down. I crash to the floor and she leaps over my body. Instantly, I reach for her legs. If I have to fight her on the ground, I will, because suddenly I remember Cody the way he was before I left, the steady rise and fall of his chest.
    The girl anticipates my grabbing for her, so she makes a hard left, races around the circular table, and it’s over. She’s gone. At some point during the mad dash, I realized with overwhelming certainty that this race is real. That the Brimstone Bleed is real . And now I try to swallow that I’ve already lost.
    I beat my fist against the ground and look up. Three people remain in the room with me. They looked equally dazed, searching for an egg that isn’t there. One of them hangs his head and ascends the stairs slowly. Like me, he seems petrified to return home and admit failure.
    The back of my head aches, and when I reach around and touch the throbbing spot, I feel something wet and sticky. Though I know I’ll be sick if I look, I almost want to. Like seeing my own injury will be partial punishment for failing my brother.
    I look at my hand. Sure enough, my fingers are coated in blood. It’s bright red, which I think is good. Dark blood means it’s coming from somewhere deep. I glance up to — what? — show the two people left my wound?
    But when I look up, there is only one person.
    My heart stops.
    The guy looking down at me is very tall, or maybe he just seems so because I’m still on the ground. He appears to be about my age, though the broad width of his shoulders tells me he may actually be a couple of years older. His eyes are blue. Not in the way that makes me buckle at the knees and start naming our children, but the kind of blue that makes my breath catch. A cold, hard blue that looks more like a statement than a color — one that says, “Back the fuck off.”
    His hair is so dark, it looks like wet ink, and is spiked around his scalp in soft tufts. He has a strong jawline, and right now that jaw is clenched so tightly, I’m afraid this guy is about to kick me when I’m down.
    “They’re all gone,” I whisper. I hadn’t thought to say anything, but it just slips out.
    He narrows those chilling blue eyes at me, and in an instant, they flick toward the floor near one of the bookcases. He looks back at me, and I wonder if maybe, even though he looks a little like a serial killer, he’s going to help me up.
    His gaze lands on my hair, on the feather woven into it. Then he turns and walks toward the stairs, carrying a colossal egg under his arm. I contemplate fighting him for