The Kairos Games

Chapter 17

Andrea can smell the smoke. She pulls herself up just high enough to see over the creek bed. BOB is on fire. Why? She scans the roof. Jared is still there -- asleep, by the looks of it. She looks down at her new friend, Francisco the lizard. “Well? Should I wake him up? Or do you think he’s done for either way?”

    Francisco sticks his tongue out and scurries under a rock.

    “You’re right. The arsonist may still be nearby. Who do you think it is? The only person I know is dead is Nicole. Paige wouldn’t do it. That leaves quite a few suspects…” She sees someone running away from the front door. Her blond hair whips out behind her as she circles the building, lighting more fires. “Is that Mesa? Weird. I did not see that one coming, Francisco.”

    Jared is still sleeping. Francisco burst from underneath his rock and runs past Andrea’s head. “Wait! Fran, you’ll blow our cover!” Andrea hoists herself out of the creek and follows the lizard to a nearby tree. “Fran, he hasn’t even eaten anything in t-three days. He’s probably in the process of dying already. We can’t save him.”

    Francisco is not listening. He darts off, running straight across the street and onto the baseball field. Andrea looks both ways for witnesses, then runs off after her little friend. She catches him under the bleachers and cups him in her hands. “What did I tell you about running off, Francisco? You’re g-going to get us both killed.”

    “Andrea? Who are you talking to?” Andrea jumps and nearly drops the lizard. She turns around and notices another person hiding under the bleachers with her.

    “Paige? W-what are you doing over here? I thought you were off somewhere with Dani. What happened?”

    “You saw me with Dani? Wow… I didn’t even know you were still alive! No one has seen you since the beginning of the games. Where have you been hiding?”

    “I can’t give away that kind of secret. It’s nothing personal, Paige. I like you, but you’re still eventually going to try and kill me. Something tells me you aren’t the sort of person who would just step down and let someone else win.”

    Paige nods. “I understand. Ha. You’re probably right, anyway. If I don’t kill you now, I might have to later.”

    “You never told me what happened with Dani.”

    “You never told me who you were talking to.”

    “Oh -- right. I was just talking to this guy!” Andrea holds out the lizard, as if expecting Paige to pet it. Paige grimaces. “His name is Francisco. I found him in -- well -- anyway. He’s my friend.”

    “Oh. It’s a lizard. Figures… I mean -- um. Anyway, you should’ve seen it. The Gamemakers set up a Euchre game.”

    “Euchre? Like, the card game Euchre?”

    “Right! The card game! They sent out these letters to four of us -- Becca, Dani, Amanda and me -- that told us to bring some sort of food item to Humanities in return for a chance to ’play for our lives’ or something. It said the losing team would be killed automatically -- by them, not any of us -- and the winning team would get to keep the food and have access to the entire Humanities building. I didn’t really think it was legit, but I figured I might as well give it a shot. Killing people is not my forte, but c’mon. I can totally win a game of Euchre!”

    “So did you win?”

    “Well… Not exactly. I got stuck with Amanda as my partner… and a lot of bad hands. Anyway, turns out it didn’t matter. When the game was over, the entire building caught on fire and exploded! I just barely made it out of there alive… Dani made it out, too, but she ran off to kill Hannah. Hannah was the mastermind! Can you believe that?! Sweet little Hannah actually managed to kill Amanda and Becca, and burn down a building!”

    “Wait -- Hannah was the mastermind? Did she send you the letters?”

    “Well, okay, mastermind is a stretch. I still don’t think she sent the letters. They came down in those parachute things that the game makers send out. But she definitely had something to do with it. Maybe her sponsors cut her some sort of deal, I don’t know. Regardless, Dani is about to kill her, so it won’t matter how much influence she had. I would not want Dani hunting me down.” 

    Andrea nods. “Yeah, yeah, I can see why that would be undesirable. So what are you doing now? Hiding?”

    “No! Well, okay sort of, but not really. I came over here to check on Jared. I figured if he was still on the roof, he was probably screwed, anyway, but if not, he might be helpful. Looks like he’s doomed now, though.”

Andrea sighs and pets her lizard. “Yeah, I really don’t think there’s much we can do now. He’s starving, anyway. We might as well let him die in his sleep instead of watching himself burn to death.”

    “I feel like he’s probably going to wake up when he catches on fire…” Paige stands up. “Wait! Is that him? What’s he doing?” She tiptoes through the bleachers over to the edge of the sidewalk. Jared is standing on top of the roof, looking right at her.

    “Is he yelling something? I can’t hear him.”

    “Shh! I think he’s trying to tell me something. Hang on; I’ll move closer.” Paige runs from one set of bleachers to the next, staying as quiet as she can. Just as she reaches the edge of the bleachers nearest the building, she hears him.

    “PAIGE!” He waves his arms frantically. Paige covers her face from the heat of the flames and waves an arm. He grabs his chest and sits down. He appears to be struggling to breathe. With the last of his strength, he lets out his final message. “Paige! The bobblehead! Do you still have the bobblehead?”

    Paige nods, then lets out a cough. The flames are contained to the building, but the smoke is spreading rapidly.

    “You need to use it! You need to use the bobblehead! There’s a button on the back of his neck! Wait until your enemies are right in front of you, then push the button, and say the word ‘hellbender.’ The second you let go of the button, throw the bobblehead at your target and run! It’ll save your life, I promise!”

    Paige coughs again. She gets down on the ground, searching for a breath of clean air. Finding it, she looks up to reply. “Jared! I’ve got it! I’ll do it! Now, can you get down?”

    Jared shakes his head. “No. I’m a dead man, Paige. Leave me here! The sound effects on my phone will keep me company!”

    Paige tries to think of all the things she wants to tell him before he dies, but their time is up. She takes one more difficult breath and screams, “Goodbye, Jared! I’ll win this! I’ll win this for you!” The building is collapsing. Paige turns around and runs away, not wanting to see Jared fall. She runs as far as Storms, with Andrea and Francisco on her heels, before she stops to take a breath. She collapses to the ground and lays out on the asphalt, staring at the smoke-filled sky.

    “So… what did he say? Did he tell you anything important?”

    Paige nods, still breathing heavily. “Yeah. He did.” She rolls over on her side and looks up at Andrea. “He gave me a weapon.”

    Andrea instinctively takes a step back. “Well, w-who are you going to use it on?”

    Paige shakes her head. “Not you… I won’t use it until there’s a crowd. He said it would save my life in a fight, so as soon as I find the fight, I’ll use it. I would suggest that when that happens, you stay out of my way.”

     Andrea nods. “Absolutely. Here, can I help you up? Something tells me this is not a good place to hang around…” She points to the broken glass on the back door and the barricade on the other side. “Someone else has been here, and they probably haven’t gone far.”

    Paige takes her hand and gets to her feet. “Not to mention we still haven’t found our fire starter. I’m pretty sure it was Mesa, but I never saw her face. She ran off towards the SMC, but she may have hung back a bit to make sure the fire was successful.” Paige winces. “And by the sound of that cannon, I’d say she was.”