“Let’s go,” Roz said, starting to walk. “I want a hiding place to nap until morning. There’s going to be one more tricky part before we can stop for a little while.”
“What is it?”
“When we walk past the trail. They could be watching for us there.”
“There’s no other way?”
Roz shook her head. “Not another way with water, anyway. We’re SOL.”
“You also said we were going to stop for a couple of hours. Why?”
“Because we need the light. I won’t know where we’re going without being able to see the water, and we need to move as quickly as possible. Plus, I think we could all use a little shut-eye. We’ll have to keep watch, but even an hour would help.”
They continued in silence. Jill hadn’t said anything since her one question earlier, but she walked along with them willingly enough, her eyes and face downcast, her posture wilted, sagging.
Fiona’s anxiety and fear were back in equal measure, now doubled for the two women she was with. They had to keep going, keep trying, but she didn’t think the people from the camp would let them leave now that they’d seen them and now that she and Roz had tricked them and rescued Jill. Their situation had been life or death since those first shots rang out mere hours ago, but she was certain now of something else.
They would want revenge.
Chapter Eighteen
It was still Fiona’s watch. Too wired to sleep, she’d volunteered first, and as she waited, she decided to let the others keep sleeping.
The trip here had been uneventful. When they’d reached the one dangerous spot, near the entrance to the trail, Roz had suggested with hand motions that they run past it. Roz leaned down, hands nearly brushing the ground, and disappeared almost at once in a quick scurry. Jill and Fiona were forced to sprint to catch up. When they had, Roz had pushed them much harder than before, almost jogging, all the way to the edge of the river. They’d walked along about twenty feet from the water for perhaps half an hour in the direction toward home before she’d led them away some hundred yards to this makeshift campsite.
Roz was motionless and had been since she lay down. Jill, on the other hand, had been twitching and muttering on and off the last two hours. They were all huddled close together to share the poncho, hammock, and emergency blanket, and Fiona was almost hot now. Jill’s head was inches from Fiona’s left hand, Roz’s similar on her right. Fiona’s left shoulder was still trussed up and sore, but she managed to run her fingers through Jill’s fine, knotted hair once or twice to calm her down again.
The dawn’s light was starting to reveal the world. Once a pale, sickly glow coming from the east, the sky overall had taken on a rosy, pink glow. The stars were starting to fade, and the forest was coming to life once more. The birds had grown louder and louder until finally one whistled in the trees above them, startling Jill awake. She sat up, jerking around in terror, and Fiona held out a hand, partially in defense, partially to catch her attention. Jill’s shoulders drooped, and she sighed, rubbing her face and then jerking her hands away.
“Ouch,” she whispered.
Now, with the light bright enough to see her clearly, Jill’s face told most of her story. One eye was completely black with a purple, ringed bruise, and the other was starting to darken, the skin a bluish-green. She had a cut on the bridge of her nose, likely the cause of the black eyes, and the edges of her nostrils were crusted with blood. Her upper lip was cut, and they were both swollen, one of her cheekbones also bruised.
“You look like shit,” Fiona said.
“Gee, thanks.”
They both started giggling, and Fiona had to cover her mouth to keep from braying with laughter. Roz stirred but didn’t wake, and Fiona made a quieting motion with one hand. The backpack was right behind her, and she pulled it closer, extending the water line to Jill. Two hours ago, they’d all had a careful drink before Jill and Roz went to sleep, but Fiona could tell from the weight of that pack that they were almost out. Now, with her own sip, she caught a little air, a telltale sign that they’d reached the bottom of the bladder. She stopped herself, wanting Roz to have at least a mouthful when she woke up.
She dug out one of the emergency ration bars and extended a section to Jill. Jill grimaced but started nibbling it, grimacing harder. The sight made Fiona want to start laughing again, despite everything.
“They’re the worst,” she whispered.
Jill nodded vigorously, and the movement was enough to make Roz stir a little more. Finally, Roz stretched, her hand brushing across Fiona’s knee, and then she sat up, like Jill had, clearly startled. She glanced up at the sky and then frowned at Fiona.
“You were supposed to wake me up.”
Fiona shrugged. “Yeah, well. You were too cute sleeping like that. And I was too worked up to sleep.”
Roz looked like she wanted to argue, but after a quick glance at Jill, her face cleared and she nodded.
“Ahh, ha!” Jill said, grinning widely. “I see.”
“What?” Fiona asked.
“You two are a thing now. I was wondering how long it’d take.”
Fiona couldn’t help the blood rushing to her face. Roz seemed a little embarrassed, too, her eyes downcast.
“’Bout fucking time, you two. Though your timing is a little weird.”
“Breakfast?” Fiona asked, trying to change the subject. Jill snickered but didn’t say anything else.
Roz nodded and took a big bite out of the section Fiona handed her. She closed her eyes, murmuring, “Mmmmm. Gourmet!”
This sarcasm set Jill and Fiona to giggling again. Despite the danger and their horrible night, Fiona couldn’t help it. Roz made a quieting motion at the two of them, but she was smiling, likely recognizing their relative safety. The people from the woods hadn’t followed them yet, or least they hadn’t come near the stretch she’d watched from here. They, like the three of them, would have to follow the river to catch them, and there hadn’t been a single sign of them these last two hours. What this meant or suggested about them was problematic in another way, as they couldn’t know where they were now, but for now Fiona felt almost safe for the first time in days.
Roz drank the rest of the water, and the three of them stared at each other for a moment without speaking. They all knew what this meant. The water they drank from here on out would be dangerous, possibly infectious. How quickly would they fall sick if they caught something?
“Let’s get rolling,” Roz said, getting to her feet. Fiona stood up much slower, her back and wounds screaming with pain. Roz, possibly seeing her face, untied the bandage, pulled her shirt aside, and examined her shoulder.
“It’s okay, though a little inflamed. But like I said last night, it just grazed you. As long as someone looks at it pretty soon, I don’t see it getting much worse.”
“You were shot?” Jill said, pushing Roz aside to peer at the wound.
“Yes.”
Jill’s eyes were huge. “Wow. Talk about badass.”
Fiona chuckled again, and Jill gave her a quick, one-armed hug. Jill helped Roz retie the handkerchief around her shoulder, and when Fiona gingerly rotated it, she realized that the pain had in fact decreased. Now it burned rather than shouted, was stiff rather than achy. She’d be okay.
Jill, on the other hand…
Jill, seeing her inspection, shook her head. “Later.”
Fiona didn’t push it. Jill was right. Story time could happen when they were all safe again. She did, however, have one question.
“Okay. But Jill—where are Sarah and Carol?”
Jill wouldn’t meet their eyes, clearly embarrassed. “They’re back at camp, as far as I know.”
“You left them there?”
Jill’s shoulders rose and she nodded. “Yes. I made a stupid mistake When the two of you left, I decided to follow. But I didn’t see them with those weirdos last night, so they’re probably still back there.”
“Did Carol or Sarah know you
were leaving?”
Jill sighed, meeting Fiona’s eyes. “I put a note in my tent.”
“Jesus, Jill.”
“I know. I was a fucking asshole, okay? And I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing to me for? It’s the two of them you need to apologize to. Sarah’s probably losing her shit.”
“Yeah, but I’m sorry for you, too. For yesterday. For everything. This is all my fault.” She turned to Roz. “I know it is. You tried to warn me, and you tried to help, and I fucked everything up. I’m sorry for all of it.”
Roz stared at her levelly for a long pause before nodding. “It’s okay, Jill, and it’s not all your fault. I should have made us go home after the first camp. Let’s just get through this and put the blame where it belongs.”
Jill grinned, her expression dark. “Damn right. Those wackos need to be taught a lesson.”
In her pathetic, beaten condition, this statement stuck Fiona as absurdly confident, but she agreed with her entirely. It was up to the three of them to bring the hammer down on this, whatever it was. These people, whoever they were, needed to be stopped.
The three of them carefully packed their makeshift blankets and gear, the remains now so pathetic the backpack was practically empty. Once again, Roz donned it.
“At least we won’t have to carry any water,” she said. “We can drink it as we go.”
“How far is it again?” Jill asked.
Roz frowned, looking up at the sky and rubbing her mouth.
“If we were on the trail—about seventeen, eighteen miles. Here on the river, I couldn’t say for sure, but probably at least a few more than that. Twenty-two or three at the very least. We were lucky last night, since it was easy to walk nearby. But in some places, it will be much harder. There’s always a lot of growth near the water, and it sometimes runs through canyons we won’t be able to follow directly. Walk too far away, we’ll be back on the trail, but walk too close and we might leave footprints. We’ll have to weigh our options every step.”
“Do you think we can make it back today?”
Roz shrugged. “If we’re incredibly lucky. I once did almost forty miles in a single day, dawn to sunset, about this time of year, but the trail was in the desert, and it was clear and relatively flat for a good part. Twenty, twenty-five is the max I’ve done in these woods. We’ll have one advantage though.”
“What?”
“We’ll be going downhill a good part of the day.”
They walked in silence, meeting the edge of the water a few minutes later. A small eddy led off from the wild churning of the river, but the water was muddy and unappealing. A few water spiders danced across the surface, and some tiny minnows swam around in the murk. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful sight. The rising sun cast rainbows in all directions across the sparkling surface.
The far side of the river consisted of sheer rock, rising some hundred feet straight up. Fiona had thought earlier of suggesting that they cross and walk along that side as a secondary means of protection, but with the rock face and the wild water, that was clearly not an option here. She knew the river diverted later, so perhaps then the idea would be worth revisiting.
Roz motioned for them to continue, the sound of the water once again too loud to speak over. This was yet another reason to walk a bit away from it, as they would need to hear whether someone was following them.
Some fifteen minutes later, they came to a small pool of water so crystalline and pure she could see the details of every stone at the bottom. It was perhaps four of five feet deep, almost perfectly round, a few purple columbines growing on the edge in the middle of some bright, almost fluorescent wild brush and vines.
All three rushed to the edge of the water, kneeling in a semicircle. Fiona scooped handful after handful into her mouth, wetting her chin and the front of her shirt in her haste. The sensation and flavor were striking, almost cloyingly sweet and painfully cold, and she realized now how dehydrated she’d been. Her body seemed to trill with pleasure and relief. Whether she got sick later or not, she’d never enjoyed drinking something half as much.
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Jill said, grinning again, water running down her chin and neck.
Fiona couldn’t help but grin back. She too had always fantasized about drinking directly from a river. It was tempting to think about diving in and filling up. While it was still fairly chilly in the morning air, this time of year it would warm up quickly, and she craved a bath.
Away from the edge of the river, Jill was now washing her face, scrubbing off some of the crusted blood.
“Try not to get it in your eyes,” Roz warned her.
Jill laughed, water dripping off her face. “We’re drinking this stuff. I hardly think this could be worse. In for a penny and all that.”
Roz didn’t respond, likely seeing the sense in this remark, but Fiona could tell that she was more hesitant than they were, pausing before each mouthful like she was forcing herself to drink it.
“This water’s so clear and clean, I guess it might make sense to try to fill up the bladder,” Roz said. “There might be some stretches where we’ll have to walk farther away, so we might not have access for a stretch or two.”
Or we might need to hide for a while, Fiona thought.
As Roz worked on filling it up, submerging the whole thing in the pool, Fiona splashed the water over her face and the back of her neck with her uninjured hand, rubbing off some of the sweat and grime crusted all over her. She’d forgotten about the cut on her face, and it sang with pain when the water hit it. She gingerly explored it with her fingertips, realizing now, for the first time, how deep it was. She was going to have a serious scar.
Roz pulled the bladder from the pool, twisting the cap closed, and glanced over at Fiona and winked, grinning.
At least there’s that, Fiona thought, returning the smile. At least she still likes me like this.
“Uh-oh,” Jill said.
“What?” Fiona asked.
“You two are getting moony on me. If you don’t watch it, I’ll have to push you in to cool you off.”
“Jill, you wouldn’t dare!”
Jill started walking toward her, hands out as if to push her, and Fiona leapt to her feet, an undignified squeal escaping her lips. Roz, alarmed as well, scooted backward a little and lost her footing. Fiona lunged forward to catch her, but Roz was already pinwheeling her arms before falling backward into the river. Fiona and Jill raced to the water’s edge as she came up, sputtering and shouting.
Roz finally managed to get to her feet, the water hitting above her waist, her expression murderous. Jill’s eyes were huge, her face pale, and Fiona had to fight a wild urge to laugh.
“You asked for it,” Roz said, climbing out far enough to grab Jill’s arm to yank her into the water. Jill came up a second later, howling with laughter, and the two of them splashed back and forth at each other, drenching Fiona’s legs.
“Hey!” she said, jumping back from the splash zone.
Both of them looked over at her, and the merriment suddenly died from their faces. Jill clapped a hand over her mouth and bent in half, almost as if in pain. Roz’s face hardened, her eyes narrowing to angry slits.
“What?” Fiona asked.
Roz pointed behind her. Fiona turned slowly, terrified but already knowing what she’d see.
Three trees behind her had been tagged with the carved patterns that had haunted them for days now. The people from the woods had been here before them.
Chapter Nineteen
Fiona wondered how many times she’d let herself be fooled before this was over. How many times would she relax, start to feel like herself again, only to be caught out, frightened and terrified once more. In fact, having let herself relax back at the pool, the fear seemed worse now, almost like a wound she’d probed open again by accident—familiar, but sharp and startling in its intensity.
No one had spoken during the last hour. Despite the horror she kne
w they all felt, she and the others had been relatively calm about it all, drying off a little with the hammock, getting the water bladder safely back in the pack, and moving on without panicking. Jill examined the trees closely, and before they’d left, she’d given them both a single nod. It was as they’d all suspected: the carvings had been done recently. Whether this meant last night or in the day or days before this hardly mattered. The people from the woods knew they would come this way. They’d been here before and were probably tracking them right now. For all any of them knew, they were being watched right now.
It was hard not to hunch as they plodded along the edge of the water. Although she suspected it was all in her mind, she could almost feel the crosshairs on the back of her head. But why were these people waiting? Why not simply shoot and be done with all this? Maybe it was simply more of the same. They were being toyed with. From the beginning, they’d been herded this way and that, from campsite to campsite, from space to space, a direct line, going wherever they were told. These psychopaths had the power here, and she and her friends were simply their hapless toys.
One thing was working in their favor—they were making good time. Fiona didn’t even have to ask Roz to know that. Their pace was strong and sure, fast without being reckless, careful and certain with Roz leading the way. Without a backpack, Fiona found it almost effortless to move this quickly. Despite her fatigue and her various wounds, Fiona was sure she could keep this up for hours, especially now that they had plenty of water.
They were, in fact, also headed downhill most of the way. Generally, the descent was gradual, so slight as to be imperceptible to the foot or eye, but in other spots, it was steeper, and they all fairly jogged down the longer hills. But Fiona’s knees were starting to hurt a little with the impact going down. In her larger pack she kept a pair of extendable hiking poles for descents to help with exactly this, but she didn’t have them with her now. The tendons on the sides and back of her knees were aching like a sore tooth. Still, the pain was manageable, a minor annoyance. When she got back home, she’d put some ice on them and sit on the couch for a few days.
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