This
excerpt is from the day the race starts and Avene is getting ready.
Hours later, when the
birds start chirping, I know it's almost time to wake up. I get out of bed and
change into my special clothes. The ones I've been saving for this day: a
sturdy pair of jeans and a man's blue flannel shirt. Underneath I wear my white
fitted tee-shirt, depicting a crudely drawn skull. I added the crossbones
bearing a set of daggers with a nearly dried-up marker I found a year ago. It
represents my mantra for the race: stay away from me or I'll kill you.
I tie my sheath around my thigh,
re-lace my boots with longer and sturdier cord I found on a pair of men's boots
in the goodie two shoes clothing pile, and then gulp down several handfuls of
water. I wipe the droplets from my mouth while I pace like a caged panther. A
few minutes later I slug down another five handfuls before I remember to fill
my water bottle.
Zita leans up on her elbow.
"You're sure you want to do this?"
"I have to, Zita. It's our only
way out. The only way we'll be free."
She throws off her cover and leaps
to her feet. "Well, we better do something with that hair. They'll start
calling the prisoners out soon."
Zita snatches our slop container
from the table. She fills it with dirt from the corner and mixes in a bit of
water. "I'm not sure how well this will work," she says, stirring it
with her finger. "Sit."
I sit on the ground cross-legged at
her feet. She kneels beside me, takes a small lock of hair, and rubs mud all
through the strands. The stringy tresses stick together, cold and wet against
my cheek. After one side of my head is finished, she steps back and surveys her
work. "Nope, this isn't working. Your roots are still too light."
"Why don't you wash her whole
head in it?" says McCoy.
I stiffen. Leave it to him to think
of dunking my whole head in mud.
"You're a genius!" says
Zita. She grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. "Help me," she says
to McCoy and I cringe at the thought of him touching my head when I'm a direct
competitor. He might send his ninja blade across my neck.
He grabs the sink, half full of
water, water I need to drink, and dumps three quarters of it into the corner.
"Hey, I need to drink that!" I say.
"You can drink ours," says
McCoy.
Right. I'm not going to drink
theirs. He'd love that. Especially now that he's going to have to hunt on his
own and the only way he knows how is by poaching off me.
Zita stops short of pouring in
handfuls of dirt. Instead she goes to the fire pit and scoops out gobs of ash.
She swishes it around with her fingers, stares at it like she's not satisfied,
and goes ahead and dumps in a handful of dirt anyway. "Okay, bend over,
girl."
I lean over the sink while Zita
pours the murky mixture over my hair and massages it in. It's gritty and gross.
"Hand me that old shirt in the
corner," says Zita.
I'm looking upside down at McCoy
while he retrieves the old shirt she uses as her dust rag. She wrings out my
hair and then places the shirt over top and squeezes out the excess water.
"I wish I had a comb," she says, flipping my head up and steering my
behind back to the ground.
"It's okay, I can use my
fingers," I say.
McCoy dashes into their room.
"Boom has one, hold on."
I lean my head back in defeat. He's
determined to help me, to make me feel obligated to help him in return, but his
niceties aren't going to work on me.
Author bio
Kimberly is the mother of two awesome kids, wife of the nicest man in the world, and her dog's best friend. She works by day and writes middle grade and young adult science fiction and fantasy novels in her spare time. She lives with her family in the beautiful Sonoran Desert.
Extra
Title: The Headhunters Race
Author: Kimberly Afe
Series: Headhunters
Publisher: January Sky Publishing
Publication date: January 3rd 2014
Links:
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