Day One

by Kelly deVos

  How would you find somebody?

  Even if you were looking.

  “We’ve got two blown out tires,” Navarro comments, squinting at the truck. “From now on, I guess we’re on foot.”

  “Someone should stay here,” Toby says.

  “Absolutely not,” Dad answers. “We stay together.”

  Navarro open his mouth to speak.

  There’s a pause.

  Like he’s thinking what to say.

  He starts again. “Jay. I think he might be right. We didn’t make it as far into the forest as we wanted. We don’t know how far we are from the caves. We don’t know if whoever was shooting at us is nearby. If we end up wanting to come back here, it’ll help to have someone stay here to guard the supplies. Make sure we’re not surprised when we return.”

  Dad appears to be considering this.

  “We have the radios,” Navarro adds. “We can stay in contact.”

  “And enough guns to arm the whole National Police force,” Toby says in a low tone.

  He leans against the truck.

  Casual.

  Off.

  Wrong.

  We’re silent again, the wind filling the space between us. I wish Dad would notice that something is really, really, really weird about Toby. But he’s busy being Captain Commander of our expedition.

  Mom would have noticed.

  “I assume you’re volunteering to stay?” Dad asks my brother.

  Toby swats at a mosquito. “Oh, I long to be covered in insect bites and get malaria as much as the next man. But now that you mention it, I would prefer to stay here.”

  “We have bug spray,” Navarro says through his teeth.

  Jinx frowns at the trees. “I wish Charles were here.”

  I know what she’s thinking.

  Being city folk, it’s always handy to have someone around who can keep you from walking right into poison ivy. And she misses him.

  We all miss him.

  Dad has made a decision. “Okay. You stay here. Keep the radio with you at all times. If the caves are close, we’ll come back for you. If you see anything, alert me immediately.”

  Oh. Hell. No.

  With Toby acting so nuts, there’s no way I’m leaving him out here in the middle of nowhere all by himself.

  “I’m staying too,” I say.

  Toby frowns. “Like hell you are.”

  Suddenly he’s more lively than he’s been in a month.

  I know I’ve made the right decision. His left eye kinda twitches and he’s chewing the inside of his cheek. He’s trying hard to come up with a reason that I shouldn’t stay. Like when we were kids, and he’d try to get out of letting me walk to the store with him.

  He’d make up reasons. Like it was going to rain. Or the walk was too long.

  Mom never let him get away with that stuff—because he acts like this only when he’s up to something.

  I give him a curt nod.

  Because I know.

  I see you, bro.

  “It doesn’t take two people to man the lighthouse here,” Toby says.

  “I’m staying.”

  “She’s right,” Dad says. “It’ll be better for you not to stay alone.”

  Navarro nods. “We need to move out.”

  A second later he steps into the trees and disappears.

  Dad opens his backpack and hands Toby the radio. “Stay alert.”

  Jinx slings her backpack over her shoulders and moves toward where I last saw Navarro. “Call if you need anything. We’re on channel two.” She turns back. “Be careful.”

  “You too,” I say.

  And she’s gone.

  Dad gives me a hug.

  Then it’s Toby and me.

  And the creepy swaying trees.

  And the mosquitos sucking away all my blood.

  And...

  It’s so quiet.

  Something hoots.

  Toby stands there for a few minutes, a scowl on his face. Watching the space between the trees where Dad disappeared.

  “Woo-hoo! Earth to Toby,” I say, in as normal of a way as I can.

  He ignores me, walking past me into the camper.

  “Uh. Hello,” I say. To myself. Or maybe the monkey in the tree.

  I go back into the camper too.

  Toby’s packing another backpack. Filled with food and several more guns. Not the kind of behavior you’d expect from a guy who’d resolved to stay put.

  “Hey! What are you doing?”

  He ignores me.

  “Toby!”

  He lifts up the large, heavy pack and comes toward me.

  I spread my arms out and block the door. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He tries to give me the radio. “I’m leaving.”

  LEAD: Toby Novak leaves sister and deserts doomed mission.

  Over my dead body.

  “Oh hell no.”

  I keep my arms spread out to stop him from passing, and then we’re in a bizarro pushing and shoving match. Like we’re five-year-olds or something. It would have ended with both of us in time-out back when we were little.

  It hits me that we’re doing the exact opposite of what Dad wanted.

  Stay alert.

  It also hits me that I’m out of breath. Again.

  “Wait. Wait. Wait.” I put my hands up in surrender. “This is stupid. Exactly where do you think you’re gonna go?”

  He runs his hand through his dark hair. “Away from here!”

  “Toby—”

  “Mac,” he cuts through me. “What are we doing? Dad won’t even consider a plan that ensures his own safety. You and Jinx are living in some fantasy land that involves somehow getting back into America to—” he makes air quotes “—rescue Charles.”

  “You don’t want to rescue Charles?” I demand.

  “Of course I do!” Toby’s face is totally red. “But in case you’ve forgotten, he’s in the custody of a mass murderer. A superspy with the resources of the government at her disposal. You really think we’re gonna beat Stephanie Marshall at her own game? I want to go back. Go back and do everything over...because I miss...”

  I put my hands on my hips. “You miss what?”

  My brother’s anger threatens to simmer over, but at least he’s showing emotion. Plus. The expression on his face. It’s familiar. From those days when we were tiny, and Mom worked long hours in her restaurant.

  “Is that what this is about? Mom? You miss Mom?”

  I miss Mom.

  “I miss everything!” he hisses through his teeth. “I miss our old house. My old life. My friends. I miss when my shift in the library ended at noon and my next class started at 12:05. My biggest problem was how to grab a sandwich and make it across Cady Mall before Professor Lidell took attendance.”

  I’m losing my brother.

  And. Oh crap.

  “Toby. Don’t tell me.”

  This is about her.

  “Don’t tell me you’re still pining away for that bleach-blonde bobblehead. You only knew her for, like, three days. And she’s Ammon Carver’s daughter.”

  “It’s not about her.”

  Part of me thinks that it is. That, totally stupid as it seems, Toby thinks he’s in love with Annika Carver and wishes he’d run away with her when she offered to take him.

  “You know Dr. Doomsday thought she was totally cutthroat.”

  “He didn’t know everything,” Toby answers quickly. His expression softens. “Mac. You remember our old house? The birch tree?”

  Don’t cry.

  “Uh...yeah. Mom planted all those flowers underneath it. That spot was always cool in the shade. Even in the summer.”

  Toby pats my arm. “I think there must sti
ll be a place in the world like that. Where nobody’s heard of The Opposition. Or The Spark. I’m going south until I find it.”

  MacKenna. Don’t. You. Cry.

  Get angry again. Boil inside. Erupt like a volcano.

  “So you won’t help us? You were gonna sneak off and leave me here? Without even saying goodbye?”

  He shakes his head. “Help you? Help you what? Commit suicide? The border is guarded by the entire Mexican Army and half the National Police. You won’t get back across, and if you try, you’ll be killed.” He lets his hands fall to his sides. “If I thought you’d come with me, I would have asked. But...”

  “What? But what?” I demand.

  Something in the window has caught his attention. “Shh! I think I saw something.”

  All the muscles in my legs tighten.

  He firmly pushes me aside and opens the camper door slowly. “Stay here and be quiet.” He’s getting his gun ready as he steps outside.

  It’s like my feet are made of lead. So heavy. Immobile. I almost have to pick them up. But somehow. I make them go.

  Step. Step. Step.

  Over to the window. Where Toby was only a minute before. I can’t see my brother out the small window. In fact, I can’t see anything at all, other than the tall trees. The lower branches sway gently. Back and forth. Almost teasing me. Like they conceal all the secrets and will never reveal anything.

  Even the monkey is quiet and gone.

  Something silver streaks through the trees. Kinda like tinsel.

  I blink a few times.

  The silver spot has vanished.

  LEAD: Toby Novak vanishes in Macbeth’s creepy, haunted forest of death.

  That was terrible. On top of everything else, I’m losing my skills as a journalist.

  Well. I’ve basically got three options. Stay where I am and do nothing. Call Dad on the radio. Or go outside and look around.

  If I call Dad on the radio and it ends up being a piece of aluminum foil stuck in a tree or something, I’m gonna be super embarrassed.

  What would Jinx do? She’d grab about ten thousand guns and go stomping around out there in her big boots, that’s what. Plus, what if Toby was totally scamming me? Scaring the crap out of me while he ran off into the jungle on foot? The way he’s been acting lately, I would absolutely not put it past him.

  That’s it.

  I’m going out there.

  “Toby,” I whisper as I push the camper door open. “Toby,” I say a tiny bit louder. “I think I saw something too.”

  It seems weird to add the word...sparkly. And yet. That’s what I saw.

  Oh. Crap.

  No answer. And no sign of my brother either.

  Perfect.

  My brother took off and left me here.

  I’m going to have to use the radio.

  I’m going to have to call Dad.

  My finger hovers over the talk button.

  But before I can push it—

  —a thick hand wraps around my throat.

  There is an indelible link between love and loss. We will rightfully always fear losing what we love. But, of course, if you love nothing, you have nothing to fear.

  —PRESIDENT-ELECT DAVID ROSENTHAL,

  pirated national address

  JINX

  We’ve been walking less than fifteen minutes, and already my thighs ache and burn.

  Sinking into the wet mud with each step, I follow Navarro, and the tall grass whacks my calves as he moves forward. He holds a compass up to his face and keeps us moving westward. Jay is a few paces behind me. Each time I glance back, he’s scanning the jungle, no doubt looking for the source of the shots we heard.

  My sweaty hands tremble.

  I want to ask how long we’ll be walking like this, but I know that would annoy Navarro.

  Instead, I say, “What time is it?”

  “A little after eleven,” Navarro says.

  I don’t know how he manages to stay so cool and crisp and not be dripping with humid sweat...and... Focus!

  Another cluster of long, yellow-green grass hits my shins. I remember Charles telling me that grass grows on every continent, even in the polar regions. There’s something called hair grass that grows in Antarctica. I hope my brother is okay. That Mom is checking his blood sugar and making sure he takes his meds.

  My arms and legs are suddenly so heavy.

  The instant that I finished using the satellite dish to hunt for information about Esmerelda Ojos, I ran a search for my brother, and it found...nothing.

  No news headlines. No references on any social media. I even hacked into his old elementary school. His file was archived and marked TRANSFER.

  My eyelids flutter, gummy from tears that won’t fall.

  I’m lost in these thoughts when a spider the size of my palm emerges from the parted grass and comes to rest on the toe of my boot.

  Oh God. Oh. My. God.

  The thing is an off-brown color with long, spindly legs shooting out in every direction and a hairy hourglass-shaped body. It looks like a thinner version of a tarantula. I kick at it and find myself doing a weird little dance, hopping on one foot and making a series of disgusted gurgling noises. The little monster scurries off my shoe and toward a pile of fallen leaves.

  I freeze, unable to take another step.

  I’ve been chased all over the place by the National Police and The Opposition and whoever else. I shot a mercenary soldier in the face, helped deploy a drone loaded up with explosives and got pushed out of a moving truck.

  This was just a spider.

  In an instant, I’m flanked by both Jay and Navarro, who have their guns ready.

  “What? What do you see?” Jay demands, scanning the trees.

  My insides heat up with embarrassment and I feel my face getting red. “I saw... I saw...” I falter. But I know that making something up will endanger our lives. So I finish, “A spider,” in a low, lame, defeated voice.

  Navarro glances around for the spider that I’ve already kicked into the landscape. “A spider? Really, Susan?” His mouth twitches, like he finds this funny. “I thought maybe you stepped on a bear trap or something.”

  I scowl at him and try to save my dignity. “I doubt there are any bears in this swamp.”

  Jay puts a light hand on my upper arm. “Let’s try and keep our composure here, okay? A lot of people don’t like spiders, but we need to stay focused.”

  “You know, we have spiders back at home,” Navarro says with a teasing smile.

  My face gets even warmer.

  He’s right. There’s an entire exhibit at the zoo called Arizona’s Arachnids, and it’s in a huge building. My mom used to take us there on Saturdays in the winter. We’d have cocoa and walk along, taking pictures of giraffes and zebras.

  Those days are gone.

  I go for a casual shrug. “When you’re out in the desert, in the wide-open spaces, you can usually see them before they see you.”

  Navarro puts his hands on his hips and smiles. “Maybe. Unless they crawl into your shoes or find their way into your bag. You know, once when I was camping with my dad, a brown recluse spider got tangled up in his undershirt and—”

  I sigh and give him a warning look. I do not want to know where this story is going. Navarro smiles, but he takes pity on me and doesn’t finish.

  “We need to keep moving,” Jay says brusquely, pushing past Navarro and taking the lead.

  The smile falls from Navarro’s face as he watches Jay move ahead of us. “He’s different.”

  Yes. Yes, he is.

  Desperate to change the subject, I say, “I wish I’d been able to find some information about your parents before we left the bunker.” It was strange. I ran a search for information on Navarro’s family and I found...nothing. Maybe my program
had a bug.

  He resumes walking, so I’m looking at the back of his head when he says, “I wish you would have told me in advance that you had decided to activate that satellite dish.”

  We’re back to that again.

  I take a few quick steps to catch up to him. “Look. I already told you—”

  Navarro turns and waits for me to catch up. He reaches out and pulls a small leaf from my hair. His touch sends a strangely electric pulse through me. It’s always like this. Like I could so easily forget we’re out here running for our lives.

  “I know. I know. I accepted your apology,” he says.

  I feel my lips pucker up in a skeptical expression. It doesn’t sound like he has.

  “It’s true,” he says, his cheeks going a little pink. “I do. I mean, I did. I...well...talking about my family makes me feel... I just... I want to tell you—”

  Jay raises a hand to stop us from talking. He’s about fifteen feet away from us and up to his knees in brush that seems impossibly long. “Hey! You hear that?”

  We quicken our pace to catch up to him.

  Navarro freezes but then relaxes a bit. “Sounds like running water.”

  I swallow as I arrive where the two of them stopped near a wide tree trunk. “Is that good?” I ask.

  Jay nods and addresses his comment to Navarro. “I assume the water is runoff from the caves. Let’s hustle.” He takes off, walking twice as fast as before. We’re moving deeper into the forest. Birds coo and chirp. The tall trees totally surround us.

  “Should we call MacKenna?” I ask.

  Navarro watches Jay for a second. “I don’t know. I mean, we’re headed in the right direction. But we don’t know much more than we did before. We should press on and figure out if the caves are close.” Then he, too, is gone.

  Catching only occasional glimpses of the cloudy sky through gaps in the tree cover, I force my tired legs to push on through the grass. After about ten minutes, we find ourselves at a wide stream running between clusters of trees. It’s filled with gorgeous aquamarine water.

  It almost looks fake, like a jungle river ride at a theme park.

  “Excellent,” Jay says. “We’ll make much better time walking alongside the creek.”

  Navarro frowns. “Maybe,” he says. “But if we run into any hostiles, we’ll be awfully exposed out here. The trees provide great cover.”