SALT & STONE Victoria Scott (excerpt and giveaway)

What would you do to save someone you love?

In Fire & Flood, Tella Holloway faced a dangerous trek through the jungle and across the desert, all to remain a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed for a chance at obtaining the Cure for her brother. She can't quit--she has to win the race, save Cody, and then fight to make sure the race stops before it can claim any more lives. In the next legs of the race, across the ocean and over mountains, Tella will face frostbite, sharks, avalanche, and twisted new rules in the race.

But what if the danger is deeper than that? How do you know who to trust when everyone's keeping secrets? What do you do when the person you'd relied on most suddenly isn't there for support? How do you weigh one life against another?

The race is coming to an end, and Tella is running out of time, resources, and strength. At the start of the race there were one hundred twenty-two Contenders. As Tella and her remaining friends start the final part of the race, just forty-one are left--and only one can win.

Excerpt :

I swallow and stare at him in the dark, my entire body itching to feel his touch. When I see the anticipation in his stance, the way he looks at me as if I’m both infuriating and appealing — it makes me feel powerful. But when he takes a step in my direction, that power plummets to some place untouchable. Now I’m a seventeen-year-old girl again, standing in the shadows with someone who feels like he’s lived three lives to my one.

“Come with me,” he orders.

There’s no room for refusal, and I don’t want there to be. He takes my hand to help me step over sleeping bodies, both human and Pandora. When I stumble, he leans over and sweeps beneath my knees. I’m brought into his arms with the same ease I may use to curl a rabbit to my chest. But I’m not such an innocent, silent creature.

I’ve got spirit and fire in spades. Though, right now, as he carries me to the single back bedroom, I have neither. I’m somebody else now. I’m Tella Holloway, Boston girl turned Montana transplant, sitting on the edge of her bed, awaiting her very first date with the boy who makes her parents uneasy. A boy who doesn’t speak nearly enough, but when he does, this girl stops and listens. In my mind’s eye, I’m wearing the silver-sequined dress that’s hibernated in my closet far too long. I feel beautiful and confident, and who cares if he said we’re going to the lake at night? I want to glimpse the look on his face when he sees me. I envision how his entire face will light up as if it’s lit from within. How his full lips will part slightly and his cold blue eyes will soften.

Guy sets me on my feet, and I gaze up at him.
Oh yes. Right there. That’s the look I imagined.

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© 2015 Victoria Scott. From Salt & Stone by Victoria Scott, published by Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.