Hey guys, so today I'll be sharing with you the first ever excerpt reveal from Fire & Flood by Victoria Scott! *Woot woot!*
FIRE & FLOOD by Victoria Scott
Scholastic, February 2014
Blurb:
A modern day thrill ride, where a teen girl and her animal companion must participate in a breathtaking race to save her brother's life—and her own.
Tella Holloway is losing it. Her brother is sick, and when a dozen doctors can't determine what's wrong, her parents decide to move to Montana for the fresh air. She's lost her friends, her parents are driving her crazy, her brother is dying—and she's helpless to change anything.
Until she receives mysterious instructions on how to become a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed. It's an epic race across jungle, desert, ocean, and mountain that could win her the prize she desperately desires: the Cure for her brother's illness. But all the Contenders are after the Cure for people they love, and there's no guarantee that Tella (or any of them) will survive the race.
The jungle is terrifying, the clock is ticking, and Tella knows she can't trust the allies she makes. And one big question emerges: Why have so many fallen sick in the first place?
*First Excerpt Reveal*
I
drove across the US of A, left my family without an explanation, and now I’m
either too late or there was never anything here to begin with. F my life.
Rearing back, I kick the door as hard as I can. Then I wrap both hands around
the door handles and release a noise like a wild banshee as I pull back.
The
doors swing open.
I’m
not sure whether to celebrate or freak out. I decide to do neither and slip inside.
As I walk around the inside of the museum, listening to the sound of my
footsteps echo off the walls, I imagine I am moments from death. It’s sad, I
think, that this is all it takes to break my sanity.
Two
curling flights of stairs bow out from the first-floor
lobby, and red and white tiles cover the floors. There are gilded picture
frames everywhere. So many that I think the placement of the frames — and not
their contents — is the real art. Everything, absolutely everything, smells
like wax. I mosey up to an abandoned reception desk and leaf through the glossy
pamphlets littering the surface. I hold one of the pamphlets up to my nose.
Yep, wax.
I
glance around, having no idea what to look for. Will there be a sign like at
school registration? Students with last names A–K this way?
On
my left, I notice a long hallway dotted with doors on either side. Nothing
looks particularly unusual. But when I glance to my right, I spot something.
There’s a door at the end of the corridor that has a sliver of light glowing
beneath it. I’m sure it’s just an administration office, one where someone
forgot to flip the switch. But I’ve got nothing better to go on, so I head
toward it.
I
pause outside the door, wondering if I’m about to get busted for B&E. Then
I turn the handle and find myself at the top of another winding staircase.
You’ve got to be kidding me. What is
this, Dracula’s bachelor pad?
I’ve
watched a lot of scary movies, and I’ve learned nothing good is ever at the
bottom of a winding staircase. Pulling in a breath and preparing myself to be
eaten alive, I head down. My shoes are loud against the steps. So loud, I
imagine they are intentionally trying to get me killed.
When
I reach the final few stairs, I ready myself to look around the bend. My heart
is racing, and I secretly pray the worst I encounter is an angry janitor with a
wax addiction. I turn the bend — and my eyes nearly pop from my skull.
The
enormous room is perfectly circular, dotted with candles to light the space.
Surrounding the walls are rows and rows of dark, rich mahogany bookshelves. A
large round table stands in the center of the red-and-white-tiled floor. The
room is spectacular, but what it holds is so jarring, my ears ring.
Across
every shelf, every spot on the table, every tile on the floor — are small
sculptures of hands. And in a few of those hands — the ones still performing
their duty — are eggs. There are only nine eggs left, it seems. For a moment, I
imagine how amazing it would have been to see each hand holding an egg, but
it’s enough just to see these nine.
The
eggs seem to dance in the candle flame, and as I move closer, I realize why.
The surfaces of the eggs are almost iridescent, their colors changing depending
on how you look at them. They are different sizes, too; some as big as a
basketball, others as small as a peach.
I
don’t need the device in my pocket to tell me what my gut already knows.
This
is the Pandora Selection Process.
***
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Victoria Scott
Victoria Scott is a teen fiction writer represented by Sara Crowe. She's the author of THE COLLECTOR trilogy (Entangled Teen) and the FIRE & FLOOD series (Scholastic). Victoria lives in Dallas with her husband and hearts cotton candy something fierce.
