All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [200]
Team Falcon was the number one team at Paxington. They’d taken an early lead on the course—and then disappeared.
But there’d been no gunshot signaling the end of the match . . . so Scarab still was in the game.
“We’ve got to free them up!” Eliot yelled and pointed to Mitch and Amanda.
Fiona nodded, but stayed where she was, thinking. She didn’t want to rush up there and have the cannon turn on them—get knocked off this slick-with-water ramp.
She traced the water pipes as they snaked back around the supports.
She leaned over the ramp and with care looped her rubber band about the two-inch water main. She eased back, focused her mind along the edge—made the cut.
The pipe ruptured.
Steel twisted into a jagged flower. Pressurized water sprayed high into the air and arced onto the field below.
“Fiona!” someone called from above.
She shielded her eyes from the sun. Jeremy and Sarah were twenty feet above her on the next level. Jeremy’s hands were pitch black.
“We’re stuck,” Sarah cried. “Everything up here is covered with tar! You’ll have to go around.”
For the bazillionth time today, Fiona wished Jezebel were here. Infernal schemes or not—even with all the drama between her at Eliot—it would’ve been worth it. She could’ve easily gotten up there, freed the Covingtons, and then they’d have three team members close to the top. Almost a win.
But no use wishing. It was a fact Scarab was down its best player. Fiona’s job was to figure out how to win anyway with only seven.
Seven: Her and Eliot . . . Jeremy and Sarah . . . Mitch and Amanda . . .
She turned to Eliot. At the same time they both asked, “Where’s Robert?”
“Here!” Robert called. He extended a hand up and over the edge of the ramp; Eliot then helped Robert onto the steaming aluminum surface.
“Are you okay?” Fiona crouched next to him.
She wanted to touch his arm, just to reassure him, but with all the weirdness between them lately . . . and all the stuff happening between her and Mitch, she decided not to.
“I’m just peachy,” Robert muttered. He slicked back his wet hair. “Nice plan—charge straight into a trap.”
She glared at him. “I didn’t see it. And Eliot said it was the way.”
“It is the way,” Eliot replied, annoyed. “I keep telling you.”
“So we keep going,” Fiona said, and then to Robert, “and try not to fall off this time, okay?”
“I didn’t fall.” Robert frowned and his brows knit together, uncharacteristic worry lines creased his forehead. “But we’ve got to go back.” He pointed over the edge. “Team Falcon is there. They’re down.”
Fiona stood and set her hands on her hips. “If they’re down, isn’t that a good thing?”
Robert shook his head. “They cut a gas line to stop the fire . . . and there’s no shutoff valve. They’ve passed out.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she whispered.
Robert narrowed his eyes. “Come on. They might be dead already. I need your help. I can’t do it myself.”
Mitch and Amanda trotted to them. “What’s going on?” Mitch looked back and forth between her and Robert.
“New plan,” Eliot told him.
Fiona’s face burned—not from anger, but from shame that she had actually considered moving ahead and capturing their flag . . . at least getting four of them up there, instead of going back to help people who were dying.
This was not a war. This was just a class. Everything at Paxington was warping her sense of right and wrong.
“Okay,” she said. “New plan.”
Fiona figured they’d been on the gym for about five minutes (she made a note to buy a shockproof, waterproof watch after this). So there’d be time to do the right thing and win. But there was no time for Team Falcon if they were breathing methane—so they were the priority.
“Robert, Eliot, and Amanda get down there,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you. Go!”
The boys nodded, Eliot slung his guitar over his back like a samurai sword, and they clambered over the side.
To Mitch she said: “Get up to Jeremy and Sarah. They would have transformed that tar if they could have, so something’s stopping them. Get them free, and