With the help of a few stablehands, each guest—with the exception of Jess and a few of the other less able-bodied seniors—was fitted with equipment and a horse. As the guide, it wasn’t part of the deal for me to join in, so I just helped out wherever I could. However, when everyone headed out and the elder guests were taken by the woman who owned the ranch to see the alpacas being shorn, one of the stablehands tapped my shoulder.
“Do you want to ride?” she asked, shyly. Blond hair, freckles, maybe fourteen years old. The sort of awkward young teenager Chrissy should’ve been. “Mom won’t mind. We haven’t seen this much business in, like, ever. And if you keep coming back every other week, you’ll be her favorite person.”
“It’s my boss you should be thanking, not me. But thank you, I’d love to.”
“You’re British?” The girl’s cheeks reddened. “Wow.”
Before I had a chance to correct her, she’d darted away to grab me a helmet, and, of course, a horse. Midnight black, several hands too big for me, with a gentle obedience about him that made me feel at total ease despite not having ridden since I was eight.
“There’s hundreds of kilometers of trails out there, so don’t get lost,” the girl warned. “Quiver knows the drill.”
Right away, it was apparent that Quiver did in fact know exactly what he was doing. I barely had to touch the reins; he just plodded across the paddock and headed into the trails as he must’ve done thousands of times before. The other guests had taken a route farther into town to see some remnants of the gold rush, so heading into the woods meant there was nobody else around. It was quiet in a way I’d never really experienced before, enough so that the clopping of Quiver’s hooves became almost deafening. Every snapping twig, every snort, every time a lingering raindrop fell onto my helmet . . .
Finish the trip as planned. Don’t go back for her.
Planned. It was laughable. Just like the idea of pretending none of it had ever happened.
I sucked in a deep breath of air, fresh and damp after yesterday’s storm, and focused on the horse. The far-off sound of an eagle screeching, the spiderwebs hanging between the trees, the weird creaking of the saddle as Quiver picked his way through the trail . . .
Then Quiver stopped. His ears perked up, swiveling. Muscles tensed.
I tapped his flanks with my heels. “There’s nothing around, mate. Just . . . ”
Maybe it was paranoia, but I felt a flush of apprehension too. The unmistakable sensation of being watched by something unfriendly. But when I glanced around, there was nothing but trees.
“Hello?”
Quiver snorted and tossed his head.
Unnerved, I twisted the reins so we were facing the other way. There were too many animals with too many teeth lurking in the area for me not to take intuition seriously.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a human-shaped silhouette dart through the trees. Then there was a sudden noise like a gunshot, Quiver reared up in surprise, and I was slammed into the ground.
“So graceful. Really, I’m impressed.” The figure bent down over me, their face a hazy blur. “No, you don’t know me, but I know you. Boy, do I ever know you.”
Maybe I hit my head when I fell. When white stars stopped dancing through my vision, there wasn’t one person anymore, but three. A girl of maybe nineteen or twenty with dark eyes and a face that was all sharp lines. Another girl, this one closer to fifteen or sixteen, with a frizzy mass of blond hair that seemed too much for her tiny body. The third was a guy of the same age, who’d spoken before. And everything, from the way they stood to how they were looking at me, screamed hostile.
“What the . . . ?” I gasped, climbing to my feet and dusting the pine needles from my bare arms. “Who the heck are you?”
“Now why,” the guy drawled, “would we give you such leverage?”
“Because you knocked me off my horse, so I think the least you owe me is an introduction,” I snapped, irritation overcoming my apprehension. They were just kids, after all. None of them posed much of a physical threat.
The older girl blinked at the venom in my tone, scowl shifting into a honeyed smile. She’d been holding Quiver by the reins and, relaxing her stance, began stroking the side of his head. “We didn’t mean to startle you. Sorry. I’m Diana, this is Sol, and that’s Ersa.”
The guy—Sol—glowered at her like she’d just told me an embarrassing childhood story of his. The younger girl didn’t react.
“Last names beginning with W, by chance?”
Something dark flitted behind Diana’s gray eyes. She exchanged a glance with Sol. “Well, I suppose that saves us all some time. Hera always did respect every rule except for ours.”
Okay, so they were members of Hera’s ring. If Janus was to be trusted, then these were people working for a greater good, so nothing to worry about. Yet something didn’t feel right. The disdain with which Diana said Hera’s name wasn’t what you’d expect from partners in crime—more like from an enemy.
“Can I have my horse back?” I asked, reaching for the reins.
Diana’s honeyed smile returned and she passed them to Ersa. “Sure. In a minute.”
“We just want to know where Hera is,” Sol said. “That’s it, that’s all. You obviously were in contact.”
“Why?” I asked, suspicion creeping in.
“None of your business.”
“Neither are her whereabouts.”
Sol ground his teeth. He was a typical teenage beanpole, easily over one hundred and eighty centimeters, with the muscle mass of a garden slug. He wore glasses and was desperately in need of a haircut, yet there was a hardness about him that made me believe he was never a target for bullies. A little pinch of mania, maybe, boiling just below the surface.
“We’ve been following you, Lewis,” he said, spitting my name like a curse. “Until you flipped the schedule, anyway. We know Hera was with you. We also know she never came into Quesnel, and we want to know why.”
“We’re concerned,” Diana added.
I considered trying to grab the reins away from Ersa, calculating whether I’d be able to mount the horse before they had time to react. The answer, unfortunately, was no.
“She’s fine. Now, can I—”
“Why do you even care about covering for her?” Ersa snapped, causing Quiver to jump again. “What’s she to you?”
“We saw you come out of a police station,” said Diana, maintaining her sweetness.
“I have an obligation to the tour clients. I can’t disclose any information,” I said, speaking faster than my brain could work. “Sorry.”
Diana brightened. “Oh, we can fix that. If Hera told you anything much, you know getting people out of tight spots is our specialty.”
“I’ll pass, cheers. My horse?”
Ersa took a step back, her knuckles white around the reins.
I didn’t blow our cover! There was already a tip-off before we left.
How did you get her name?
“You backstabbed Hera, didn’t you?” I said with sudden realization. “You stole the money and framed her. The police never managed to track you, and after all those years of being so careful, she wouldn’t have messed up. Someone must have leaked information from the inside. But why?”
Diana stared at me, stunned. Her hand twitched toward an object obscured in the folds of her summer dress.
She had a weapon.
“Look, bud, I’ll ask you one more time. You ditched Hera somewhere between Quesnel and Barkerville. Where?” Sol demanded, edging away from Diana as though he’d also seen her weapon and was afraid of it.
Guns weren’t legal in Canada without a permit, yet I doubted licensing was much of an issue for the likes of them. If it was a knife, I had a better chance of being able to simply overpower them, but if it was a gun . . .
There was nothing else for it. Either way, I was screwed, so I might as well attempt a getaway. Crushing any inhibitions about being rough with a scrawny girl, I y
anked the horse away from Ersa and began running with him, wishing I could swing onto his back like the rogue cowboys did in movies. Quiver dragged me along fast enough that I wondered if I’d actually managed to escape. Then a shot rang out, and the world spun.
MY SISTER WOULD HAVE A FIT, WHAT WITH ME always telling her boys weren’t worth the trouble, then risking my own neck for a girl I’d only known a few days. How am I going to explain it to her? She won’t believe me if I say I was nearly killed after my tour got wrapped up in an underground hacktivism ring. Typical, really, that that was what worried me the most during the moment—how Chrissy would react if something terrible happened—rather than the gunshot itself. Minds were funny things under pressure.
“You little brat, Diana!”
For the second time, I hauled myself to my feet, winded after crashing into a tree. The bullet had missed, but Quiver, again, had startled, and was now circling back around with the whites of his eyes flashing. I knotted my fingers in his mane and faced the ring again, wondering if I was hearing things.
It was Janus, his face flushed a furious red. He had Diana in a headlock, leveling the barrel of a small pistol at her temple. Green eyes locked onto mine.
“Sorry I was late, Lou-Lou. I had a bit of trouble with the ranchers. Apparently good karma isn’t an acceptable form of payment round these parts.” He winced as Diana tried elbowing him in the stomach. Something in the pistol clicked, and she froze again. “Luckily my dear friends here made it quite obvious where you all were. It’s such a nice surprise.”
I opened my mouth and shut it again, too many questions running around inside my head for them to be properly vocalized. How had Janus evaded prison? How had he known to come here? Where was his horse?
“Surprise indeed,” Sol said coolly, not making any move to help Diana. “I wasn’t expecting you, Janus.”
“I try to remain unpredictable.”
“You can let her go,” Ersa said. She, unlike Sol, was clearly uncomfortable with the situation. “We were only trying to startle the horse again. We won’t hurt anyone.”
“Please. I’m part of the ring too—we never shoot to miss.”
A twig snapped a few meters behind me, and I felt Quiver’s muscles tense under my hands. Nobody else seemed to have heard, so as subtly as possible, I peered into the brush. I was already expecting what I saw.
Hera crouched behind a large fern with her finger over her lips.
Are you okay? she mouthed.
I nodded. And you?
Fine. Janus came back. I told him you’d be around here —the rancher pointed us in this direction.
Perhaps fifty meters away, a pair of dappled horses were tied to a tree, too busy gorging on a pile of apples to worry about what was going on over here.
“We’re sick and tired of it,” Sol was shouting at Janus. “They’re a bunch of Goody Two-shoes—you of all people should know how much better life is when you’re not controlled by their stupid rules!”
“What I do on my own time has nothing to do with the ring or ‘their’ rules,” Janus retorted. “And I hate to tell you this, but there really isn’t an ‘us’ and ‘them’. We’re all stuck in this together, and you know it. We’ve got too much dirt on each other to start cutting throats.”
Sol snorted. “If you and that tour guide hadn’t made things so difficult, it wouldn’t have gotten so messy.”
“So what? You systematically get everyone with half a conscious arrested so you can prance around and embrace the flash life?” Janus scorned. “I hate to reduce myself to insults, but you’re a moron, Sol. You all are.”
“I thought you’d agree with us.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but no. I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with someone more.”
Hera watched this with horror, the sense of betrayal evident. Her fists were clenched.
“Your plan has more holes than honeycomb.” Janus made eye contact with me again, then deliberately glanced in the direction of the tethered horses and back again. “I think the worst part about all of this is that at one point, someone decided you were smart enough to join the ring. Probably Pater. Pater’s also a moron.”
“Pater’s next,” Sol said with a hint of pride. “It’s all set up. He and Hera are the biggest sticklers for rules—”
“More like a code of conduct of basic human decency.”
“—and with them gone, swaying the group will be tenfold easier. Think about it, Janus.”
Hera gestured for me to follow her.
What about my horse? I mouthed with a nod at Quiver.
She paused. Wait a second.
Is Janus okay?
Please. It’s the other three I’m worried about.
I watched her, head spinning. I couldn’t see an easy way out in the long run; there was no way to put Sol, Diana, and Ersa away without implicating everyone else in the ring, Hera and Janus included. Theirs was a system built out of paper, and if any one of them turned on the others, the entire thing would come spiraling down. All it had taken was a single name to force Hera into hiding—if someone went to the police with solid evidence, it would be game over.
Except for me. Officially, I’d done nothing wrong. Nothing that could be proven, anyway.
Very carefully, I slipped my phone out of my shorts pocket. There was a network of cracks twisting across the screen from where I’d fallen on it, but it still worked. Making sure to focus properly, while they were arguing, I snapped a picture of Sol. Then Ersa. I hesitated with Diana, realizing there was no way of doing it without capturing Janus holding a pistol to her head.
“Hey!” Ersa cried.
Janus smirked and, with a flourish, released Diana from the headlock. She crumpled to the ground, gasping, and I took a final picture.
“Watch it,” Janus warned, not lowering the pistol. “I’m not feeling the love tonight, and I’m not quite sure how this thing works. I’d hate for there to be an accident.”
Sol glowered at me, keeping half an eye on Janus all the while. “We’ll come for you, Lewis. You better not have those pictures when we do.”
“He’s not invisible like us,” reminded Janus with a weary grimace. “Sorry. You can’t touch him.”
“But you, on the other hand—”
I climbed back onto Quiver, wrapping the reins around my palms, and edged him down the trail at a gallop. Hera was ready on her own horse. Janus, keeping the pistol aimed, walked as fast as he could to where we were waiting.
“Hera?” Diana exclaimed.
Hera responded with a rude gesture, and with a sharp command, the three of us were racing back to the ranch.
They chased us as best they could without horses, but by the time we reached the open fields, they were lost to the dust. By this time dusk had settled, the heat was fading and the stars were glowing brighter in a mauve sky. The woods behind us were black and silent. After handing the horses back to the stablehand, who cheerily asked if we enjoyed our ride, we rushed to the ranch’s dining hall in search of the guests.
“I doubt I’ll ever walk properly again,” Janus panted, struggling to keep up. “That saddle . . . ”
Hera shot him an amused look. “It’s your own fault for wearing skinny jeans.”
“Why, you’re right. How dare I not dress properly? I should have known a simple carpool request would nearly turn into a flipping shootout.”
The property had been set up almost like a hotel, with the cluster of cabins surrounding a larger longhouse-style building. Dinner was included in the stay here, and through a series of glowing windows, I saw the guests sitting around tables, digging into country-style dishes. Hopefully they hadn’t thought my absence to be suspicious. We tried to blend in as much as possible, slipping through the entryway with polite nods aimed at the hosts, making beelines for the few empty chairs. I ended up squeezing between Perle and Hanako, with Hera opposite me and Janus at the other end of the table altogether. Only a few heads lifted before returning to their plates
.
“So you are back on board again?” Perle asked Hera, wryly.
Hera gave a vague response and began heaping her plate with fried chicken. Her hands were trembling so violently that she could barely hold the tongs. When I went to pour myself a glass of water, I missed the cup entirely and realized I too was shaking.
“Anyone would think you were as old and broken as we are!” Perle watched us, incredulous. “Did you have a bad time with the horses?”
“Mm, something like that.”
Perle kept frowning, clearly wanting to push further, but was distracted by something Robbie said from her left.
Aware that others were also giving me not-so-subtle sideways glances, I took a deep breath and tried to will my heart to stop hammering. Everything was fine. Exposure should be enough of a threat to keep the rogue ring members at bay, and presumably Janus had fixed the situation with the police, and so there was nothing else to worry about.
Yeah, right.
Hera kept tapping her foot against a table leg, shredding pieces of meat away from the bones without eating any of it. She looked like she was as desperate to talk to me as I was to talk to her. At least it was as comforting a place as any, humming with dozens of scattered conversations and the wafting of aromas that at any other time would’ve made me hungry on the spot. A chandelier made out of antlers cast a warm golden glow and turned the windows into mirrors as the sun set.
“Excuse me? Who are you?”
There was a clatter as somewhere nearby Janus dropped his knife and fork. It didn’t take long to see why.
One of the property owners had risen to confront three figures silhouetted in the doorway. A tall, thin boy. A small girl with lots of hair. Another girl, lean and wiry.
Nobody moved. I saw Diana’s eyes shift from Hera, to me, to Janus, and to the guests themselves. She had the expression of someone forced to watch their parents embarrass themselves.
“They’re not part of the tour, eh?” the rancher asked me.
“Ah, no.”
“They could do with some feeding up, though,” Jess pointed out. “Especially the young man.”
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