“I don’t know,” Jude says. “I’m just saying be careful.”
Quiet falls over the forest again. I expect Lucas to start walking, but the minutes stretch on, and my ears ache for some sort of noise. There’s nothing but wind and forest sound and, here and there, a long, shaky breath that belongs to the tall boy next to me.
I sigh and start to move forward, but Lucas leans in until his hair brushes my cheek and breathing becomes a thing I cannot do. His chin scrapes my cheek, and then he’s talking, so low I have trouble pulling the words apart.
“Tell me you don’t think I did this.” Every word is ice lit on fire over my ear and neck.
I nod without thinking about it, swallowing hard.
“Jude tried to blame you at first,” he says. “Now he’s moved on to me. Something’s going on with that. I don’t trust him.”
I nod again, and he leans back a few inches. Thank God. Everything feels spinny, and my face tingles.
I don’t know what to think. I don’t trust Jude either, but that’s not saying much. I don’t trust anyone here. My gaze drifts to Lucas’s mouth, reminding me I don’t trust myself either.
“We need to get back,” I whisper. “We need to tell them what we found.”
“Don’t be alone with him, Sera.”
I nod, though I can’t imagine a scenario where I would. But I’m alone with Lucas right now, aren’t I?
The letters on his arm catch my eye. Dangerous. It fits in more ways than one. If I’m afraid to be alone with any of them, it’s him.
Chapter 10
We go to bed in shifts, and I lie awake for hours, imagining the phantom buzz of flies. I didn’t enjoy our happy little camping adventure before bodies were left to rot by the river while we were violated in our tents. Now? Well, it isn’t really camping anymore, is it?
Emily rolls over. She was pretty quiet once we got into the tent, but I don’t know if she’s asleep. I thought things were better between us. Earlier today, we talked, even laughed a little. Then again, that was before she talked to Jude.
Is that why she’s gone quiet again? Is she afraid of me?
Neither she nor Jude said much when we told them about the bodies. But I caught them exchanging a careful look. Maybe they don’t believe us, or maybe they really think we’re involved. Whatever. We’re all getting paranoid, and Lucas is the biggest and scariest of the bunch, I guess.
Plus, I’m the one with the Lucas history here. I’m also the one who went with him earlier.
I try to push out my memories from the river, squeezing my eyes shut for the millionth time. My mind supplies images of vulture talons and a gooey bit dangling from a black beak. OK. No more closing my eyes. Maybe ever again.
The cold returned with the sunset, so I zipped myself tight into my sleeping bag. The fabric is sticking to my cut, which feels icky and probably looks even worse, but since I have all my fingers, I guess I shouldn’t gripe.
I turn to stare at Emily’s dark hair. I’m sure I can still hear the flies. Impossible. I know the buzz isn’t audible from here. I catalog other sounds to distract myself. Crickets and the low hoot of an owl. A branch snaps outside, and I jerk to attention. Is that the murderer?
Is this when the real nightmare starts?
No one comes, and the noises continue. Eventually, they all fade together: coyote howls and frog songs and the occasional repositioning of whoever is on watch—Lucas now because Jude just finished.
Is that why I didn’t sleep? Because it was Jude guarding us, and I don’t trust him? Maybe. But I’m not sleeping now either, and it’s Lucas outside. I don’t think he’d hurt me.
My cheeks warm because it’s not something I think. I know Lucas wouldn’t hurt me. I at least owe myself that much honesty after everything. After the party…
Outside, Lucas clears his throat, and with absolutely no warning, the memory I pushed so hard to hold back rolls me under. It was hotter that night, and the cicadas were much louder in Sophie’s yard than the crickets are here. I let my gaze drift to Lucas’s faint shadow through the tent wall. But even with my eyes wide open, I remember.
My heart is pounding in my ears, in my fingertips. My hands tremble when I try to push my hair away from my face. Lucas is no stranger to this back deck dance of waiting, but I am.
He cocks his head. “Are you afraid of me, Sera?”
“Yes.”
“After all this time?” His smile makes me shiver. “You don’t need to be.”
I give a half laugh that ends on a shuddery breath. He moves closer, and I look up, finally less nervous, finally feeling a real smile curve my lips. “You’re so tall. It’s ridiculous.”
“I’ve heard that once or twice.” He bites his bottom lip, looking younger than usual. “I’ve got an idea. Ready?”
“OK—whoa!”
His hands are on my hips, gripping tight, and then the decking beneath my feet is gone. He lifts me up, up, up—sets me on the wide wooden plank on top of the deck railing. He waits for me to wrap an arm around the post beside me. My head swims at the change in height.
Maybe I should be afraid of falling, but I’m not. I’m afraid of myself because I don’t do things like this. I don’t, but my mother does.
A crack jerks me back to the forest. The sound is different. It’s less of a snapping and more of a ruckus of branches and sticks. There’s a soft, low noise that goes with the shuffle-crunch. My eyes pop open, ears straining. Outside, Lucas isn’t moving.
Was it him? Or did I drift off? Dream it?
It comes again, a strange whirring—almost like a far-off engine—humming and whining until it dips into a grumble. No, not a grumble. A growl. My breath freezes into a solid mass in my chest.
That’s not far away. It’s close. And it might be a bear.
That stupid story of Madison’s flashes through my head. The bear dragging that girl’s arm to the edge of the woods. Oh God. I scan the dark tent, finding Emily and nothing else. My heart thuds painfully, every beat tapping at my collarbone, the hollow of my throat. I’m panicking. I’m definitely—
OK, stop. Think of Mr. Walker. What were the bear safety rules?
We don’t have any food. We haven’t cooked. I haven’t seen any poop or scat or whatever Mr. Walker called it.
We’re supposed to make noise if they attack. Is this an attack? I crawl out of my sleeping bag and cross the tent on my knees. Emily snores softly, and the growling comes again. Goose bumps erupt on my arms. My ears strain by the door, and my eyes follow the dark shapes moving somewhere beyond the front wall of our tent.
There’s no noise. Nothing.
Nothing.
Grunt, grunt, huff, huff, huff.
Something scrapes along the ground like it’s being dragged. My throat goes dry. Tight. Where’s Lucas? I can’t see anything. Everything is lost in dark smudges beyond the canvas. I push my palm into my chin, trying to hold my chattering teeth still.
I won’t be able to see unless I unzip the tent. Lucas is still out there. If he fell asleep out in the open, I don’t know what the bear will do. I shiver. I can’t think about what the bear will do. I just have to stop it. We’re supposed to make a racket, right?
I don’t want to though. It sounded good then, but now I don’t know what else is in these woods. If the bears are real, are the ghosts real too? I shake my head, trying to rattle some sense back into myself. I can’t dwell on stories; I need to focus. I hold my breath and listen again, catching no sound beyond my own heart, a bass drum trapped in the closet of my ribs.
Another grunt, huff, grunt. Farther away now. Past Jude’s tent, I think.
This is my chance. I pinch the zipper between my thumb and forefinger and hold my breath for one beat. Another. I hear nothing. Unzipping the tent is the loudest thing I’ve done in my life.
No way did that go unnoti
ced. Bears in other counties probably heard that zipper.
It’s done now though. I close my eyes and finish the job, then breathe in the cool air rushing into the tent through the gaping flap.
Huff, huff, huff. I freeze, scanning the camp through the crack. God, it’s so dark. I see flashes of movement that melt into blackness. It’s making other sounds. Somewhere on the other side of camp, behind the tents across from ours. Scraping, pushing, short bellows that send the hair up on the back of my neck.
Where is Lucas? He should be here. I step out, and a warm hand covers my mouth from behind. I bite and scream at the same time. Lucas yelps, and I whirl. There’s huffing again. Oh God, it’s close. So close I swear I can feel the heat of the bear’s breath.
It’s not the bear. It’s Lucas. He clamps his hands onto my arms and turns me, and I can finally see it. Not a shadow or a smear of darkness. A bear.
It’s across from us. Mr. Walker said black bears are small, but it’s not. Maybe for a bear, he’s right, but it’s not even thirty feet away from me, looking like a mass of fur and teeth that could tear me into bits and pieces like our pile of stuff.
I think of the vultures I saw earlier, the sinewy something in its beak. My mouth opens, a scream tearing its way up my throat. But then Lucas’s hands squeeze my biceps again, and I stuff it down deep.
“There are three of them,” he whispers.
“Three?” That’s why I’m hearing it everywhere.
“Mom and two cubs. Just stay still.” I try to duck my head, but he gives me a little shake. “Keep your eyes on her. Don’t look away.”
The bear snuffles. I see another splash of black, smaller than the first. And then another. They are scampering over in an area behind Mr. Walker’s tent now, noses rooting through the grass like we left something over there. But we didn’t. There wasn’t anything to leave.
“Go back inside the tent,” he says.
And sit there in the dark listening and wondering? Sure. I shake my head violently.
Lucas reaches down and zips my tent tight. It’s not much defense for Emily, but I’m glad he’s trying.
“Should we wake the others?” I ask.
“Not unless we have to.”
A barking grunt rips through the air, and I cringe. Mama bear raises up on her haunches, and my whole body quakes. She sees us. I’m sure she sees us.
“Don’t look away,” Lucas whispers. “Keep your eyes on her.”
My knees shake, but I do it, eyes open and bladder on the verge of total failure. She lifts her long brown nose high, testing the air around her. I clench my teeth and pray I don’t smell like food.
Finally, she’s down to all fours again. My shoulders droop.
“Do you think—”
Another growl cuts me off, this time near Mr. Walker’s tent. We step sideways around the camp to put distance between ourselves and the bear. Inside the tent, he groans. I turn, staring so hard at the tent, I half expect it to move an inch from the pressure of my eyes. There’s nothing. Quiet. Maybe I imagined it.
Then another very human groan. It sounds like Hello?
“Mr. Walker,” I whisper.
“No, Sera.”
A shrill cry comes from my right. One of the cubs is wandering our way. No, no, no.
Lucas swears softly under his breath, but I loop my arm through his and start walking backward out of camp.
“Go slow. Don’t run,” he says.
I pause, looking at our teacher’s tent, my voice dropped to a whisper. “I heard Mr. Walker.”
“You probably heard one of the bears,” he replies just as softly.
Something rustles inside Mr. Walker’s tent. A groan and a thud. The bear hears him, scuttles back and then forward, with lots of loud, angry chuffs. She’s agitated, I think. Mr. Walker goes quiet in his tent. He must hear the bear, right?
I start to edge closer. The mother bear lopes behind Mr. Walker’s tent, and the cub we saw patters closer to us. Lucas snags my arm.
“We have to get out of here,” he says. “That cub is too close. If the mother sees us…”
He doesn’t need to explain. Every sound those animals make is ratcheting my shoulders closer to my ears. Still…
“What do we do about the others?”
“Hope to God they’re smart enough to stay in their tents if they wake up.”
It’s the slowest version of running away I’ve ever known. One step. Another. The cub moves closer to us. Another few steps back. I can’t see Mr. Walker’s tent now. Or Jude and Lucas’s. I can only see mine and Emily’s, dark and silent in the night.
We stop by a large oak, listening to the bears moving around the camp. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the soft hush of the river. We’re caught between two terrors, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop shaking.
My vision’s gone smeary. The darkness swirls dead leaves into monsters, the ground into a living carpet. I stay close to Lucas and try not to think of what happened earlier at the river. But when I close my eyes, it’s all I see.
“The bears could come back this way,” I whisper.
“We’ll wait and listen.” Lucas isn’t shaking. He’s warm and calm. Everything I am not.
“If anyone wakes up—”
“It’s better if we stay away and don’t scare them. Black bears aren’t normally violent.”
He’s right. It’s probably more dangerous for us to go back, but the guilt still sits around my neck, heavy as a noose.
The bears take their time. Of course, what feels like ten hours could be ten minutes. I don’t have a phone, a watch, any real indicator of time passing—unless I start counting the beats of my heart. Or Lucas’s heart, I guess. Sometimes, I can hear it too.
We wind up sitting shoulder to shoulder with our backs against the rough trunk of the oak. After a while, I open my eyes. I didn’t know I’d closed them. The moon is maybe half-full, but I can make out the shapes of trees, the shadow a couple hundred yards ahead that must be my tent. We can hear the bears now sometimes. Soft grunts and snuffles. They sound farther away. No one sounds terribly aggressive or agitated. I guess that’s good.
“How long will they stay?” I ask, my whisper sudden and sharp in the long quiet.
“Until they’re full.”
“They found food?” I ask.
Moonlight sends gray-blue shadows over Lucas’s jaw. I see it tighten and jump, like he’s furious. “I’d bet money on it. Whoever left that water might have lured the bears to us, hoping to scare us.”
“But just scare us, right? Black bears don’t usually eat humans, do they?”
“Well, mothers with cubs are up for anything,” he says. “But we’re safe enough here, so try to relax.”
“It’s my watch,” I say. “You were on watch when they came.”
“I’m not tired,” he says.
I mean to argue that I’m not either, but I’ve told enough lies today. I force my eyes open, but it’s like fighting gravity.
It isn’t comfortable. Bark is digging into my back, and I’m smelling my own stink and maybe a bit of Lucas’s too, but my body is nudging me hard for sleep, and I can feel it will win. I will sleep soon, right here, with bears in the camp and the cold air chilling me to the bone and the stupid cut on my leg throbbing like one of the club anthems Sophie blares when she drives. I can still picture her behind the wheel, long brown hair and flared eyeliner. Liv’s in the back with her constant laugh and shiny braids. I drag in a deep breath and try to roll my shoulders.
Lucas swallows and plows his feet through the dead leaves on the ground. Little sounds of nothing, and they lull me like a siren song. I don’t realize I’m asleep until I open my eyes again. The forest is different now. The black sky is replaced with gray haze, mist clinging to the ground and trees around us. Everything is still, so I do not move.
“You snore,” Lucas says beside me.
“I don’t,” I say automatically, but then I frown, pulling my head up. It wasn’t on his shoulder, but I’ve got grooves in my cheek from the bark. Reasonable trade, I guess. Except I think I’d feel better if I wrestled a tow truck.
“Just giving you shit,” Lucas says, lumbering to his feet and pulling an ugly face.
“Where are the bears?” I ask.
“They wandered off east about an hour ago? Hell, I don’t know. They’re long gone though.”
“Why didn’t you wake me? It was my shift to watch.”
“I don’t know much about keeping watch, but I’m pretty sure consciousness is required for the job.”
My cheeks go hot, and I swipe them with my hands, feel those bark grooves again. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I fell asleep.”
He shrugs. “We’re wasted. I fell asleep with Jude watching my back.”
“Scary thought,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says with a laugh.
Out here, in the misty trees and cool predawn air, it’s easy to admit how much I like looking at him, at his hard face and sleepy eyes. Mom used to tell Dad it’s not a sin to look. Maybe she’s right on that one, but she did a hell of a lot more than look.
I pull my fingers through my shorter hair and remind myself that this is not the same. Lucas is not Charlie. I’m not breaking any vows looking at him, and I’m not falling head over heels or getting stupid. This isn’t going to hurt anyone.
But then he smiles, and I’m not so sure.
Chapter 11
Lucas walks me to the camp but then leaves me, claiming a need for a tree. I’m pretty sure he’s trying to find the food that brought the bears closer, but I don’t argue. I spot Emily first, just outside of our tent. She doesn’t ask where I’ve been, and I can tell by the rings under her eyes she didn’t have the most restful night.
“Did you hear the bear last night?” I guess.
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