One Was Lost

by Natalie D. Richards

  We shout his name, grab at his arms and hands, but it’s worthless. He’s back out quickly, head tipped to the right and a pool of saliva glistening at the corner of his slack lips.

  How the hell is he drooling? I don’t think I could spit if someone offered to pay me. My eyes fall to the empty water bottles beside him. Two empty bottles. The rest of us only had one.

  The rest of it rolls through me—my groggy wake-up, Jude’s puking. Did someone put something in our water?

  “Did you drink the water last night?” I ask suddenly.

  Lucas and Emily nod, and Jude’s brow puckers. “Yeah, why?”

  I hold up Mr. Walker’s empty bottles. “I think we felt drugged because we were drugged.”

  Chapter 5

  No one argues about going to the river now. Mr. Walker isn’t waking up, so we’re out of options. We lumber to our feet carefully and search for the path we used to get up here. Everything is trees and heat and misery now, yesterday’s rain leaving the air thick and sticky. Maybe we went the wrong way. Maybe the forest swallowed up the trail overnight. Or maybe—

  We find it, a narrow strip of mud that will lead back to the river or—if we head the other way—to the dirt lot with Ms. Brighton’s car. That’s the end of the trail, but it’s also a three-day hike from here.

  Jude steps on the path, but Lucas lifts a hand and frowns.

  “Hold up. Are all these footprints ours?”

  “There are footprints everywhere,” I say, gesturing at the muddy tracks all over the path.

  “Yeah, but if they’re not ours, maybe they belong to whoever did this.”

  A chill runs through me as I look around. It makes sense. Someone who wasn’t us was in here, unzipping our tents, destroying our supplies, writing on us. I catch a glimpse of the word on Lucas’s wrist and swallow hard.

  “Should we check the camp too?” I ask.

  “What does it matter?” Jude asks. “Knowing who it is doesn’t make it unhappen.”

  He’s right, and frankly, I have no idea how forensic crime people do this. I can barely tell what smears and indents are footprints, let alone actually pick them apart and assign them to different members of our camp. But I look around anyway, hoping I’ll miraculously spot a boot print with Bad Guy imprinted somewhere in the tread.

  “I have no idea what I’m looking at,” Emily confesses.

  Lucas snorts. “Me either. OK, bad idea. Let’s go.”

  I fall into step behind him, but my eyes drag back to Mr. Walker’s tent. He hasn’t roused again, and I’m afraid to leave him. If anything, he seemed more deeply asleep. That can’t be good.

  “I wish I knew what they used to knock us out,” I say, but I mean him. Mr. Walker is the one who isn’t waking up, so he’s the one I’m worried about.

  Lucas swats at a cloud of gnats around his head. “That’s the thing. Mr. Walker had the water in his pack the whole time. Who could have gotten to it before we drank it?”

  Behind me, Emily scuffs her foot at the ground. “We left all the packs by that overhang when we checked out that gorge yesterday. It was raining, remember?”

  “Right,” Lucas says. “Because he didn’t want the packs to throw off our balance with it being so slippery.”

  “So this is all thanks to his poor decision-making skills,” Jude says with a sneer.

  Lucas glares at him. “My guess is this is all thanks to a psychopath who gets his jollies from messing with the heads of privileged asshole out-of-towners like yourself.”

  “Careful, Lucas.” Jude’s voice is pure derision. “Your Dangerous is showing.”

  “Can both of you knock it off?” I ask. When it goes quiet, I can hear the stream, and a few paces after that, I can see glimpses of it between the trees. I feel like someone’s watching us.

  “Do you see something?” Emily asks, voice small.

  “No,” I say, “but we should hear them. I have a bad feeling.”

  “You’re full of ideas and feelings about this, Sera,” Jude says. “Maybe we should wonder if you aren’t leading us into a trap.”

  His eyes are narrow, and the tip of his chin points at me like a finger.

  Emily’s shoulders hunch, and she tucks her gaze away.

  My laugh hacks like a cough. “You seriously think I had something to do with this?”

  “You did say you didn’t want to come,” Emily says softly. “Back at the school.”

  “Right, so instead of backing out and going with a different project, I just suffered through this crap for two days and then…drugged you? Are you even listening to yourselves? Do I look like a girl who drugs people?”

  “She didn’t drug anybody,” Lucas says.

  I throw up my hands. “Thank you!”

  His expression is sharp enough to slice. “Don’t thank me, and don’t blame them for thinking it. Everybody heard you arguing with Mr. Walker in the cafeteria. We know you tried to bail after you found out I was on the roster.”

  Jude scoffs. “Is this some sort of angst-fueled hormonal fallout for the two of you? Because if so, it’s a little over the top.”

  Heat flashes across my cheeks like a slap. “This is not hormonal fallout! What is wrong with you guys? I get that we’re not friends, but you know me. At least you know of me. In what universe do you see me involved with anything like this?”

  “In what universe would we have predicted something like this?” Jude holds up his wrist, and I try not to look at the letters scrawled across his skin.

  “I didn’t do this!” I’m getting louder. I can’t help it. “It was done to us. To me!”

  “OK,” Emily says, but she looks so uneasy. I’m pretty sure she just wants me to stop screaming. “I believe you. Let’s just…do this.”

  I press my lips together. Jude says nothing. Lucas watches me until his gray eyes turn to flint. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth like he’s thinking, but my stomach flips all the same. I still can’t look at him without it turning into that. I guess my mom’s DNA is always going to be there, swimming around in my blood, ready to make me a complete idiot.

  “Do you want to hand everyone stage directions, Spielberg?” Lucas asks. “Or can we just go?”

  I shake my head and swallow back the argument stinging my lips. I can’t afford to care about this right now. We have to find Ms. Brighton, and we have to get out of here. That’s all that matters. I wipe my hands down the front of my shorts and move out of the tree line.

  We’re back at the top of the clearing. No rain now, but the river is a swollen artery, pumping mud-brown water and chunks of debris through the forest valley. Half the bridge is gone, sunk deep into the stream. The rest of it sticks out like a mangled ramp, metal supports twisted like bits of aluminum.

  No one used that bridge or crossed this river. Not at this spot anyway.

  We fan out along the outcropping above the riverbank. No one talks about the claw marks left in the mud from our escape yesterday. No one talks about the fact that we can’t hear or see anybody. We just stand there and stare.

  The quiet presses at my ears, but no one moves to break it. We’re all watching with blank faces like storm survivors, stumbling along, looking for someone in a Red Cross shirt to save the day. I spot the word on Jude’s arm, and I can’t help but press my fingers over the black letters on my own wrist. I wish I could scrub it off, but it’s Sharpie, so I know better. I sported black x’s on my hands for a couple of weeks after a summer concert.

  “There,” Lucas says, pointing up at a ridge above the water.

  I shift closer to him, and I can’t see anything at first. Trees. Patches of blue sky. Then I spot it—a sliver of brown canvas between two trunks. Another swath of green that’s too bright to match the foliage. That’s where they put their tents. The camp is on a rise maybe fifty yards back and twenty feet above the ri
ver. It’s behind a small cluster of trees, but it’s definitely their tents.

  Lucas calls out, his voice rough but loud. The silence that answers is like a wet towel in my throat. A dragonfly hums past my shoulder, buzzing over the murky water. Jude tries next.

  “Ms. Brighton!” he shouts. “Madison! Hayley!”

  I hear a rustling from up near what I’m sure is their tent, and I droop with relief. Thank God. I nudge Emily’s shoulder, and she looks up, hope in her gaze. But then it’s quiet again. I wait one beat and then another. Nothing.

  “Where are they? Do you see them?” Jude asks, shoulders hunched.

  I open my mouth, just waiting to spot a streak of blond hair or Ms. Brighton’s dark braid. Instead, there are just leaves waving softly and an occasional bird flitting through the canopy. A noise rustles, and I tense again.

  “It’s not them,” Lucas says, sounding strained. “Whatever that was wasn’t big enough.”

  Sure enough, the sound of skittering leaves drifts away from the tents, and then we hear something scrabble behind the tree. A passing thought of our ghost stories sends icy fingers up my spine. I should know better, but still.

  “We should go back,” Jude says. “Check later.”

  “Where the hell are they?” Lucas says it so softly, I’m not sure who he’s asking.

  I twist my hands together. “Maybe they went for help like you said. If they called and we didn’t answer…”

  “But they just left their tents up like that?” Lucas asks. He doesn’t look convinced. “They might try to go back to our starting point, but that’s a two-day hike.”

  “Maybe whoever came for us came for them too. Maybe they’re still sleeping,” Emily says.

  “Someone would be up,” Lucas says, sounding grim. “At least one of them, right?”

  Jude takes a step backward and releases a shuddery breath. “Let’s just go. I want to go.”

  Lucas whirls and lifts his chin, looking at Jude. “Why?”

  He lifts his hands, eyes too wide. “Because this is pointless! Obviously!”

  “It doesn’t feel pointless to look for the rest of our group,” I say.

  “Not unless there’s something we shouldn’t see,” Lucas says. “Do you know something about what’s going on here, Rich Boy?”

  Jude’s lips thin. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Lucas takes a step. “You. I’m talking about you. Tried to paint Sera as the problem, but suddenly, you’re twitching around like you’ve got a secret. If you do, you should know I will break every single one of your talented little fingers to find out what it is.”

  Jude’s lips twitch, his gaze flicking toward Lucas’s arm. “And just like that, you make it crystal clear why your particular label was assigned.”

  “You have Deceptive written on your wrist,” I say, chin jutting. “Why would that be?”

  “Because he’s hiding something,” Emily says, accusation in her soft voice lending a chill to the air.

  “It’s an interesting point,” Lucas says, smirking. “Until now, I figured that was because of the ridiculous ‘is he or isn’t he’ crap.”

  “Is he or isn’t he what?” Jude practically snarls the words, but no one answers. I think it’s a rhetorical question. He’s good-looking, talented, and super tight-lipped about his romantic preferences. He can’t think that girls and boys all over Chevington High don’t wonder.

  Last year, my friend Sophie wanted to send him a letter pledging her support to his coming out, but I told her that was totally weird since (a) they aren’t friends, and (b) we have zero idea if he’s gay.

  “Oh, come on,” Lucas says. “Are you going to pretend that not one person has asked the boy with two dads if he’s gay?”

  Jude’s eyes narrow, and his voice drops. “What the hell do you think you know about me? What could you possibly know about me?”

  Lucas laughs and throws up his hands. “Well, since we’re going daytime TV here—”

  “Lucas, don’t,” I say.

  “Don’t what?” He shakes his head at Jude. “This isn’t a controversy in our school, Jude. Do you not get that? No one’s going to beat your ass or write shit on your locker. But maybe that’s why you want to keep it so hush-hush. Hoping to amp up the drama?”

  Jude lunges without warning, and Lucas lowers his chin. The look in his eyes is a threat. In a fraction of a second, I know how this will end. Jude is a brilliant cellist with a chip on his shoulder. Lucas is in the office so much for his temper, it’s a miracle he hasn’t been expelled. He will eat Jude alive.

  Jude lands one punch to Lucas’s jaw before I shove my way between them. Emily yelps and ducks away. The guys pull back, but Lucas has long enough arms to go right around me. I hear his palm connect with the side of Jude’s head in a hard slap.

  “My hand stays open once,” Lucas says. “Once. Next time, you lose one of those perfect teeth of yours.”

  “Stop it!” I shout, plowing both hands into Lucas’s chest. It’s like pushing a truck, but he relents, stepping back with a confused look at me.

  “What is wrong with you?” I ask.

  Jude shakes his curls out of his eyes. “Nothing we can fix. I think it’s genetic.”

  Lucas goes red. “You mother—”

  I push at him again. “Hey! We have bigger crap to deal with right now!”

  Emily whimpers softly, and Lucas takes a step back, running long fingers through his hair.

  “You’re right,” he says, then nods at Emily. “Sorry.”

  “You’re apologizing to her?” Jude starts turning toward him, and I can practically see the next fight starting. But then it’s gone. The anger, the violence—it disappears as his mouth falls open, pupils shrinking to pricks of black. “Holy shit.” He breathes the words quietly, backing up so fast that he slams my shoulder into a tree.

  I protest, but Lucas follows his line of sight, and then his face goes sour too. His soft mouth goes as thin as I’ve ever seen it. “What the hell…”

  I scoot sideways to see what they’re looking at, but there isn’t anything. Just trees and branches and—is that something over the river? Something hanging in one of the trees?

  It is. Something’s dangling there. Hard to see in the sunlight.

  “Don’t, Sera,” Jude warns me. “Don’t look.”

  But I look. Though every instinct in me tells me not to, I can’t tear my eyes from whatever thing is dangling. It’s swaying at the end of a string, swinging gently, fifteen feet above the muddy water. Dark at one end and a strange purpling gray. Like a lonely plum-colored wind chime, long and thin and—

  My thoughts flatten to a static hiss when I make out the shape, when I spot the little flash of bright lavender at the top.

  No.

  My stomach shrinks into a fist and squeezes. I want to look away, but I can’t. I want it to be something else—anything else—but it isn’t.

  It’s Ms. Brighton’s finger.

  Chapter 6

  We run and scream, like there’s somewhere to go or someone to hear. Come to think of it, there might be someone. And if there is, we probably don’t want them to hear us.

  An image forms in my mind, a stage scene with low lights, all filtered blue. I’m curled in the muted spotlight as something enters, stage left. In real life, I’m still running, but in my mind, I’m frozen in the spotlight, and that something is edging into my ring of light. A long arm reaches for me. Spidery fingers ink a D onto my upturned wrist, then raise a knife to the base of my finger.

  My cheek smacks a branch, my eyes tearing as pain flashes through me. I ignore it. Move faster until the fire in my lungs and the pain in my face burn the images away.

  Thornbushes scratch at my arms, and something snarls in my hair. I’m off the path. Am I alone? Am I even going the right way? I run harder.
Harder.

  Stop.

  I don’t know if I hear the word or feel it, but I don’t stop. Not even close.

  “Sera, stop!”

  This time, it clears the fog in my head. Someone’s calling me. My feet stutter-step, and someone grabs me by the arm. I jerk myself loose, stumbling back until my head smacks a tree. My tongue goes slick and coppery. Lights dance in front of my eyes.

  “Freeze!” Lucas says. “Just everybody freeze!”

  My outsides are stopped, but my insides are running wild. I grip a tree and hold on. If I don’t, I’m not sure I’ll stay still. I look around, spotting the others. Jude, shoulders heaving. Emily, sweaty hair plastered to her temples. Lucas, breathing hard and hair in his eyes.

  “What happened?” Emily pants. “Is someone following us? Did you see someone?”

  The three of us who are not Emily look at each other.

  She doesn’t know.

  She didn’t see the finger.

  None of us needed the seven-letter word on her wrist to tell us she’s got anxiety issues, so what do we do? What will she do if we tell her what we saw? Sob? Panic? We can’t deal with either of those. We can’t even deal with what we’ve already got.

  Lucas takes a slow breath. “I think we ought to get back to the path. We’ll stick together. Talk about it in a bit.”

  “Agreed,” Jude says, looking sick again.

  “No,” Emily says. “Not until you tell me. You saw something.”

  Lucas’s sigh blows any chance at a cover-up.

  Emily crosses her arms. Stares us down one by one.

  How do you say this? There is no way that feels right, and the boys are looking at their feet. What the hell? Does explaining things default to me because I have ovaries?

  Fine. Fine, but where do I start? I exhale hard. There’s no way to pretty this up, so I lift my hand in an awkward gesture and get on with it. “There was a severed finger hanging over the creek. Purple nail polish.”