by Lydia Sharp
I’m blessed with a rare Hunter Locklear smile. It makes him look like Kai for once, only emphasizing his absence. He hasn’t been himself lately, and now he’s missing. Should I be worried? Hunter doesn’t seem to be worried. I’ll take that as a cue to tell my nerves to shut up. Maybe this is normal for Kai; I just haven’t known him long enough to see it happen yet. Hunter puts on a coat and shoes, doesn’t bother tying his bootlaces, grabs his keys from a hook on the wall, and then we’re off.
I turn on the car radio to fill the silence, so Hunter doesn’t think he has to talk to me in our forced close proximity. I don’t know if he’s just shy around people he doesn’t know or if he’s simply not a chatty type of person in general, but if he doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t have to. He isn’t the one who has to explain why he ditched me.
“Thanks,” I say when he slows to a stop in front of Jase’s house. Orange strobe lights flash in the windows, cotton has been stretched across the porch like spiderwebs, and a few zombie hands reach up from the ground in front of cardboard tombstones with cheesy names like Diane Rott, Ima Ghost, and Yule B. Next. “You’re welcome to stay if you want,” I tell Hunter. “Hang out. Filch some cupcakes. I won’t tell.”
Headshake. “Celebrating death really isn’t my thing.”
When he puts it that way, I feel like I shouldn’t be here, either. I just thought I should invite him in after he did something nice for me.
“Do me a favor?” he says.
“Sure.”
“Call me when Kai gets here?” He pulls a crumpled napkin out of the center console and scribbles his cell number onto it. “Or if you need to be picked up, okay? Even if it’s late.”
“Okay.” I agree only because calling Dad for a ride isn’t an option after he takes his pills with dinner. I take the napkin from Hunter and reach for the door handle—
“Is that a new necklace?” Hunter says.
Instinctively, I grab the stone. “Kai gave it to me a few days ago. It has our initials on it. See?” I let my hand fall away.
“Yeah.” His face falls and he’s quiet for a moment, just staring at it, before he clears his throat and says, “That was nice of him.”
And that was a weird reaction. But whatever. Everything about Hunter is a mystery.
The party is a blur of music and dancing, eating and drinking, explaining my pathetic costume, asking everyone—even the cats—when the last time they talked to Kai was, sitting around and waiting for my Doctor Who to arrive.
But he never does. No one has seen or heard from Kai in over a week, which means I’ve seen him more recently than they have. That doesn’t help.
Some lanky girl wearing devil’s horns, a skintight red leather skirt, and a lacy red bustier plants her bony butt next to me. I don’t remember seeing her before, but in the last hour more bodies have shown up, forcing me into this corner cushion of the couch. Alone but surrounded by people—just like I was in LA. Though at least here I’m not in my mother’s shadow.
The girl shouts something at me. I can barely make out her words over the music.
“What?” I shout back.
She leans in close to my ear and says, “Are you Kai’s new girlfriend that everyone is talking about?”
People are talking about me? I answer the other part of her question with a nod.
“Where is he? I was hoping I’d get to see him tonight.”
Maybe it’s just because I’m already on edge, but something about this horned tart wanting to see my boyfriend sets off alarms of jealousy. “And you are?”
“Kimber Lee. Me and Kai go way back. Like, all the way to sixth grade? He was my first tongue kiss.” She unnecessarily adjusts her bustier.
If they were still friends, I would have met her by now. “He’s never mentioned a Kimberly before.” And I imagine he has good reason.
“No no no. It’s Kimber. Lee.” Her breath leaves a trail of cheap beer in its wake. She eyes the pendant dipping toward my cleavage, which, unlike hers, actually exists without a push-up bra. “Nice rack,” she says.
Wait, did she say rack or rock? She’s looking at my necklace, I think, but it’s right by my chest. “Uh … thanks.”
“I’m Satan tonight.”
“Clearly.” In more ways than one.
“What are you supposed to be?”
“The TARDIS.”
She blinks. “Is Kai gonna be here soon?”
This is exactly why I hated parties in SoCal. Everyone is either wasted, fake, or a toxic mix of both. She doesn’t want to talk to me. She’s using me to get to Kai, the same way people used me to get to my mother. Is it too much to ask for people to be interested in me?
There is someone out there who’s interested in me for me, though, someone who wanted to get to know me before he knew who my mother is. Someone who would make this party bearable—if he was here.
“Nice meeting you, Kimberly—”
“It’s Kimber.” Dramatic pause. “Lee.”
“Right. See ya.” I hunt for Jase, convinced he knows something about Kai but refuses to tell me, and find him in the kitchen removing his vampire teeth so he can take a swig from the bottle he just cracked open. “It’s root beer,” he says defensively.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that? Oh. Do you want some?”
“No. That stuff rots your teeth. And do you know how many calories are in that thing?”
He eyes me up and down and then grabs another bottle from the fridge. “You could use a few extra calories.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re not in SoCal anymore, so lighten up. No one here cares if you’re a size two instead of a zero, and it’s just a drink.”
“I’m a size four—”
“Still tiny.” He cracks open the second bottle with too much force. The cap goes flying across the kitchen and lands in a bowl of salsa. “Where’s Kai, anyway? It’s weird seeing you without him.”
And it’s weird being around all of his friends without him. No one has talked to me except to ask about Kai.
“Did you guys have a fight or something?”
“No.” I don’t know. Did we? I think back … No. The last time I saw him he gave me this necklace. He told me he thinks about me when we’re apart, thinks about how good I make him feel. That’s not even remotely a fight.
Jase takes a long guzzle of his root beer and lets out an even longer belch.
“That’s disgusting.”
“That’s life. Welcome to the real world, SoCal.”
“Stop calling me that!” I spin on my heel and storm out of the kitchen, ready to spit fire. Jase and all his friends and this whole stupid party can go roast in the Devil’s armpit. The real Devil, not that boyfriend-stealer passed out on the couch. I lived in the real world before, too. Just because I had a gated house and maids and a nutritionist who warned me about the dangers of drinking soda doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. The most unreal thing I ever did in my life was moving to freaking Alaska.
I have to call Hunter to pick me up, which feels all kinds of awkward, but what choice has Kai given me? When I call, Hunter doesn’t give me a chance to even ask for a ride home. Which is good, because I’m having trouble forming words right now. All I get out is, “Kai isn’t here …” and he says, “I know, I’m on my way,” and hangs up.
He knows?
It’s nearing midnight. The outside air is cold as a corpse and dark as my hatred for this godforsaken state. Hunter is way too calm when he leads me to his car, but maybe my confusion and borderline rage are distorting my perception. Anyone not contemplating at least six creative ways of asking Kai what the hell is wrong with him seems calm to me.
“Has he ever done this before?” I say.
“Not exactly this, no. But sometimes he gets tunnel vision on stuff and it … distracts him. Makes him forget there are other things happening outside that tunnel. I think I know what’s distracting h
im this time. Did he ever tell you about our dad?”
And we’re back to this. But I don’t see how it relates. “He’s mentioned your dad a few times, usually just to say that he left last November, but lately he’s been talking about going to visit him.”
Hunter’s grip on the steering wheel tightens. “Kai used those words? ‘He left’ and ‘visit him’?”
“Yeah. Your parents are separated, right?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking.” Hunter sucks in a breath and then lets it out slowly. “Our dad died last November.”
“What?” I feel at least sixteen emotions in the span of a half second. I need something to squeeze. The skirt of this pathetic dress will have to do, because if I grab for the pendant Kai gave me, I might accidentally rip it off. “What do you mean he’s dead?”
Hunter turns his face away from me just long enough to make me feel like a steaming pile of garbage, and then he stares out at the road ahead again. We’re a block from home.
“Hunter, I’m sorry, that didn’t come out the way I meant it to.”
“Not upset at you. It was last November, almost exactly a year ago. Dad went on a trip and died while he was away.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat. But I don’t think Hunter heard me.
Slowly, my brain starts to process what this means. Everything I knew about their dad is wrong. He didn’t abandon them. He died while on some kind of trip. Kai lied. Well, I guess he didn’t exactly lie to me, but he didn’t tell the whole truth, either. Is everything I know about Kai wrong, too?
“I should have known what he was up to,” Hunter mutters. “I was too busy making sure Mom didn’t fall apart. He seemed okay, though. Finally. And then when Aunt Claire showed up, he seemed even more okay. I thought we were all finally gonna be okay.”
He isn’t talking to me anymore, but I can’t not hear what he’s saying. And the more he talks, the less I understand. I still don’t get how this connects to anything that happened tonight, or how Kai thinks he’s going to “visit” his father up north this summer. “Can you tell me what’s going on? Is Kai in trouble?”
“He might be. He might not be.” Hunter parks the car in our shared driveway and kills the engine. “The only thing I know for sure is that he’s not coming home anytime soon.”
I abandon my costume and kick it into the corner of my bedroom, leaving it in a heap. Dad is borderline unconscious, so there’s no need for me to temper the volume of my frustration and confusion. By the time I’ve changed clothes, Hunter has come through the back door and into my kitchen, a folded piece of paper in his hands. I offer him some coffee, but he declines. Fine, more for me. I have a feeling this is going to be a long night.
“Why didn’t Kai tell me your dad is dead?” I blurt, and then immediately bite my tongue.
Hunter looks stunned for a moment. “I don’t know for sure. But maybe in his mind, he didn’t have a reason to.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just confused.” And more than a little hurt, even if Kai didn’t intend to hurt me. I can’t help but feel betrayed, the same sourness flooding my mouth as when I found out for sure that Mom was cheating on Dad—and she hadn’t been the one to tell me. She never once admitted she was in the wrong, let alone apologized for it.
I shake away the memory. Kai isn’t like her. He had to have a good reason for not telling me the whole truth. There’s something I’m still not seeing. “Kai mentioned going to see his dad. Your dad. If he’s dead, then … what was Kai talking about?”
“My guess? He’s visiting his grave.” Headshake. “Grave isn’t the right word.” While I retrieve my mug from the instant coffeemaker, Hunter unfolds the paper and spreads it out on my kitchen table. It’s a map of Alaska. He points to a red dot near the southern coast—Anchorage. “This is where he started.”
“Got it.”
His fingertip trails a wandering path up, up, up, past the green blob that marks Denali National Park, through the giant expanse of nothing that marks the Alaska Interior, and stops just beyond another red dot. “Fairbanks?” I say. “That’s where he went?”
It isn’t as far north as you can go in Alaska—Fairbanks is closer to the middle of the state—but it certainly qualifies as “north of here” like Kai said. The more truth I find in his words, the more my trust in him returns, bit by bit. Maybe this was all just a big misunderstanding. I made assumptions based on what I thought he was saying, not what he’d actually said. But I still can’t remember the part where he said, or even hinted, that he was leaving now instead of later. Our plan was for next summer—
No, my plan was for next summer. Is it possible that Kai never actually agreed to that?
“He’s not there yet,” Hunter says. “It’ll take him at least a week of travel first, maybe more.”
It’s far but doesn’t look that far. Not even as far as going from LA to New York, which I’ve done, and that’s only a six-hour flight. “Why would it take him a week?”
“Because he’s walking.”
I nearly drop my coffee. “The whole way?”
Another nod. How can he be so calm about this?
“When was the last time you saw him?” Hunter asks.
“A couple days ago. Thursday night.” When he gave me something to remind me of him when we’re apart. I didn’t know he meant it like this, though. And I’m the one who told him to go, even tried to make plans to help him prepare. I told him he had to do this, go see his dad, don’t worry about leaving any of us behind.
“Me, too,” Hunter says, unaware of the guilt fizzing in my veins. “I was hoping you saw him later than that and he was just crashing at a friend’s house or something. Two days … where would that put him now? Not too far past Anchorage …” He starts muttering to himself, studying the map.
“Hunter.”
His head snaps up.
“Care to share with the rest of the class?”
“Kai’s an idiot,” he says.
Okay, he’s allowed his opinion on the situation. But that idiot is the only real friend I have in this place. “Why is he doing this?”
“While you were at the party, I ransacked his part of our room. He’s going to hate me for it, but I had to know if I should be reporting a missing person or if my brother is just being an idiot.”
“And you found evidence in support of the latter.” God, I sound like a lawyer. Dad would be proud, if he wasn’t stuck in his warped bubble of post-divorce depression.
“I found a map and a bunch of survivalist stuff he printed off the internet, all of it related to the area outside Fairbanks. His fishing and hunting gear are gone from the garage, too.”
“I didn’t know Kai knew how to hunt.”
“We both do. I haven’t touched a gun in years, but Kai used to hunt with Dad regularly … until …” He sighs, shakes his head. “Anyway, some of the stuff he printed was dated as far back as two weeks ago. He’s been planning this, right under our noses.”
His words suck the air out of my lungs. Two weeks ago, when we talked about his dad by the lake. This is definitely my fault, then. I may not have planted the initial idea in his head, but I insisted he should find a way to make it happen. And his aunt showing up to help gave him the perfect window of opportunity to slip through now. Then I unknowingly pushed him out of it.
“He sold his snowboard and a bunch of other stuff around that same time.” I set my coffee down too hard; some of it drips down the side of the mug and soaks into the map. “He never told me why he needed the money, but when he gave me this necklace, I assumed that was it. Or at least part of it.”
Hunter grimaces, then peers at the initials inscribed on the rock pendant. “Kai didn’t buy this. He made it. It’s just like the one my mom has, that my dad made for her before he left on his first trip up north. They weren’t even married yet. Together always, even when they’re apart—that’s what Mom said it meant.” His Adam’s apple works up and down as he swallows. “She used to wear it only when he was
away, and she kept it on display on the mantel with his when he was home. She’ll never stop wearing it now.”
“You think this was Kai’s way of telling me he was leaving for a while?” I couldn’t possibly have known, but still, I feel stupid for not hearing what he said between his words. Whether I’m on the other side of this wall or the other side of the world … Or, in this case, the other side of Alaska. It seems so clear now. How did I miss it before?
“When he gave this to you, that was the last time you saw him?” Hunter says.
I nod.
“I figured. But I didn’t want to worry you with anything before I knew for sure what he was up to.” He reaches for my coffee mug and then takes a generous gulp. I’m already dropping another single-serve cup into the coffeemaker when he says, “That’s good.”
Either he was just being polite before, or he’s conceded to the fact that he can’t get through the rest of this discussion without the powers of caffeine. “It’s all yours.”
“Thanks.” He takes another sip, then rips a paper towel from the roll above the sink and dabs at the wet coffee ring circling the triangle on the map that marks Denali—the mountain within the park of the same name. I’m assuming Kai has another map like this one on him. “He doesn’t have GPS on his phone. Or any kind of Wi-Fi. It’s just a basic one for calls and texts, same as mine. They’re cheaper that way.”
His phone … “Hunter, I texted him a few times before the party and he didn’t answer. If he’s not that far from Anchorage yet, like you think, then he might still be in cell range. And if he believed I knew he would be gone for a while, then he isn’t hiding from me. Why wouldn’t he text me back?”
His lips hover over the rim of the mug for a second. “Good question. You wanna try texting him again?” He pulls out his own phone, too, and we both shoot Kai a text. I don’t know what Hunter’s says, but mine is to the tune of:
Call me right now if you value your life.
I finish half my new cup of coffee before concluding he isn’t going to respond. It’s late, though. “Maybe he’s sleeping now.” Another thought hits me—where is he sleeping at night?— and with that, a deeper worry settles in my gut. Is he out in the open, exposed to the cold? Or is he staying with people along the way? Strangers …