Inside Straight

Spades and Diamonds didn’t achieve quite so spectacular a victory, but they each had their moments. On the Spades side, the Candle used his multipurpose, colored flames to build a glowing red ladder to the second-story windows. The victims within climbed to safety. Metal-skinned Rustbelt withstood the flames enough to save a couple of victims from the ground floor. The team, however, suffered a drawback when Simoon, in an attempt to quell the fire by blasting it in her whirlwind form, only succeeded in fanning the flames. Their rescue effort ended with five victims saved.

Diamonds fared better. The Maharajah, the easily overlooked man in the wheelchair, had telekinetically animated a half-dozen firefighters’ coats from the truck and marched them into the burning house to rescue three victims. Matryoshka had split into four smaller versions of himself, and they controlled the hose as a well-coordinated unit. Their flier, Jetman, rescued several victims from the upper floor. Unlike Brave Hawk, though, he’d failed to catch the man who’d jumped. They’d rescued seven victims.

On the other hand, the editing on the replay of Team Hearts’ trial brought to the fore every mishap, every wart, every fault. Hardhat’s success was reduced to a second or two, making the highlight of the sequence Curveball, Drummer Boy, and Hive yelling at each other, Hardhat and Gardener fruitlessly running around searching for victims to rescue, and Earth Witch and Wild Fox doing absolutely nothing. At least the many bleeps punctuating Hardhat’s speech got a few chuckles.

For a moment, all was quiet. The judges’ weighty silence was worse than any criticism. The Hearts gazed back hopefully, as if they might escape.

Topper shook her head, and it was like an ax falling. “Aren’t you taking this seriously? Do you know how many people would be dead now if that had been a real fire?”

Seven, Ana thought. Seven people, even if one of them had been a fake baby.

The Harlem Hammer continued. “Half of you just stood there. You gave up before you even tried anything because you couldn’t figure out how to use your powers. You think it’s all about your aces? And you didn’t even try to work together.”

Then Downs inserted his own vitriolic assessment. “You guys aren’t a team, you’re a preschool! I wouldn’t trust you to look after my hamster!”

Ana could imagine watching this on TV at home, and how exciting it must be. How gleeful the audience would be, watching Downs cut them to pieces. But even if she’d had a chance to respond, there was nothing she could say. They weren’t wrong about any of it. Her cheeks were burning at the reprimands. Kate’s gaze was downcast, her jaw tight, as if she clenched her teeth.

All the groups were quiet, quivering with tension. Maybe they had imagined what it would be like to lose, what the judges might say to them, but they hadn’t imagined anything like this.

When Topper announced that Team Clubs had won immunity for the first challenge, no one was surprised. Clubs’ members gave each other high fives and hugged in celebration, but didn’t cheer. They looked relieved rather than smug.

Peregrine spoke solemnly, like this was an execution and not network television. “Hearts. Spades. Diamonds. Each of you will now return to your headquarters, where you’ll decide who from your team to discard.”

~ ~ ~

One of the judges accompanied each team to officiate the discard process. Just when Ana thought the evening couldn’t get worse, Hearts was blessed with the presence of Digger Downs, who seemed far too gleeful in his role as the “bad” judge.

Her stomach was in knots, which were tightening with every breath. On the drive back, she and her teammates kept glancing at each other, sizing each other up, making calculations: Who should go?

She wasn’t worried so much about herself. What she really hated was having to make a choice.

In the garage, Drummer Boy lingered by the Hummer and waved her over with a gesture from an upper arm. Uncertain, she went to him, wondering what he could possibly want with her.

His voice hushed—and for such a huge, brusque man, he could make his voice surprisingly muted—he said, “You know who you’re picking?”

Ah, that was what he wanted to talk about. “No.”

“You worried?”

“About what?”

He gave a huff, like he thought she was being stupid. “You didn’t do squat during the challenge. That puts you in danger of getting kicked out, you know that?”

She supposed it did. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“You ought to be making deals,” he said. “Trade votes. Make sure someone else gets it.”

She couldn’t do that any more than she could have stopped the fire by digging a hole under the building. She shrugged. “I don’t even know who I’d pick.”

“Bugsy,” he said. “The guy’s a prick.”

“What do you get if I pick him?”

“Don’t vote me off the next time we lose. It’s that simple.”

Downs called from the house for them to hurry up.

“I’ll think about it,” Ana said, and hurried away from the towering joker.