AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Thirty-Nine
BROOKE
One by one the other teams boarded the train, all except the Ice Cousins who’d bitten the dust. They simply couldn’t polish off enough fermented shark to beat out Think Tank, a team from five seasons ago. The four perfect GPA students from four different ivy league schools had all graduated college and grown into professional men and women by now. Two were successful business owners, one was a neurosurgeon, and Sahana, the shy, mousy girl from MIT, was now a full-fledged rocket scientist.
Before that Need for Speed had climbed on board, followed closely by the Slow-Motion Ninjas: two lifelong friends and martial arts instructors plus their two husbands, from Seattle. Their team had run dead center in the middle of the pack throughout the race, never finishing anywhere near first or last. Because of that they’d flown under the radar, and that made them dangerous. Their inaugural season had been so long ago that none of us could remember how good or bad they actually were.
And of course behind us sat the Banshees, their hoods pulled up over their heads. Their body language invited no conversation, nor was there anything to say. At this point we were all spent past words, really. Although in the back of my mind, I silently cursed myself for having helped them in the first place.
They could be out by now. Totally gone.
Damn, it was all my fault too. My stomach still felt queasy enough from the eating challenge, but just thinking about the Banshees beating us out — all because of me — made me ten times more sick.
The guys will blame you.
Maybe, but maybe not. I mean yes, the all-female team of seasoned Race-veterans were still here because of me. But the guys… they weren’t the type to play the blame game. Everything we’d done so far had been a team effort, with each of us shining brightly in places where the others might dim.
The train was heated nicely, and was finally warming us up. But it made me drowsy, too. Between the rhythmic hum of the tracks passing beneath us and the sheer exhaustion stemming from the double-leg, I was looking forward to a nice soft bed.
“Everyone, grab you stuff!”
Noah’s voice called back loudly from the doorway to the car in front. Our journey stopped just short of an hour, exactly as he said it would.
I reached for my bag, but Hayden already had it. He gave me a tired smile as he slung it over one big shoulder, and I nodded gratefully.
“What do you think they’re putting us through next?” one of the fighter pilots leaned in and asked me. He was a handsome blond with a cleft chin, who barely took off his sunglasses — even at night. Right now though I could see the bags under his eyes.
“Lunchbox, right?” I asked, vaguely remembering his callsign.
“Yup.”
“How’d you get that name?”
He chuckled wearily. “While I was in flight training I used to raid the auxiliary kitchen a lot. I ate anything that had been in the fridge more than a day.”
I laughed much harder than I should’ve. For some reason — maybe the delirium of exhaustion — I found the story hilarious.
“Well Lunchbox, hell if I know,” I shrugged. “But whatever’s next, it had better involve a pillow.”
We stepped down in groups, filing our way forward and into two separate busses. Another short, fifteen-minute ride later, we were standing before something right out of a science-fiction movie.
“What in the world…”
It was a large, low-slung structure of glowing blue glass, surrounded by snow. There were snow walls. A snow roof. A snow floor. All of it, glowing beautifully from within.
“NO WAY!” someone in Think Tank shouted. They ran excitedly forward another few paces before dropping to their knees. “Nofucking way!”
The cameras were still on the guy, even knowing they’d have to censor half his reaction. But his reaction was genuine. He knew what this glass house was. And then somehow, I knew it too:
No, not glass.
My breath was already coming out frost — puffs of crystalline white against the nighttime darkness. All of a sudden I gasped, sucking my latest breath back in.
Ice.
“Welcome to the Jukkasjärvi ice hotel!” shouted Noah, twirling with his arms out in a dramatic circle.
“H—hotel?” one of the Ninjas stammered.
“Yup!” Noah grinned. “You’ll all be sleeping here tonight… onice beds.”
