Four steps later, Lucas staggers left and then snorts. “This is ridiculous. I could fireman carry him faster than this.”
“Lay off,” Jude says. “They’re helping.”
“I’ll be sure to get their participation medals ready.”
I’d like nothing more than to kill him really dead, but all four of my limbs are shaking so badly, I can’t expend the energy to even snap at him. I’m going to collapse or maybe burst into flames because my muscles are burning hotter with every foot we climb. And my hands—I can’t even think about them.
The forest around us mocks my misery on every level. It’s like the whole place has gone Disney. Birds trill softly, and sunbeams slant through leaves just this side of golden. Everything smells fresh and earthy and warm. Well, everything but us. I’ve met hockey bags that smell better than we do.
I glance over my shoulder. Oh thank God. We’re almost there. This was bad enough on the straight path, but we’ve been heading uphill for four hundred miles. Or forty feet. Whatever. My hands slip on my handle, so I tighten my grip, even though my left palm is scraped raw. It feels way worse than the cut on my leg, and it hasn’t had a day to really get nasty.
We reach a clearing at the top, and sweat trickles down my brow, stinging my eyes. I blink and keep pulling until the sled is on level ground. Then we ease Mr. Walker down, and I look at Emily. I think she might want to cry. If she does, I’m joining in.
“We need a break,” I say.
I’m surprised when Lucas doesn’t taunt us. He just takes the sled and hands me my half-empty water bottle. We move into the shade of an enormous maple. There’s a gnarled root jutting up from the ground. Lucas leans the sled against it so Mr. Walker isn’t flat on his back.
We split up the last bottles of the water, which worries me.
“We’re low on water,” I say. “How long until we hit the road?”
“Hard to tell,” Lucas says. “I know we’ll cross the intersection way before we reach the end point on the trail. But we’re obviously not at full speed.”
“We’re not leaving him,” I say.
“No one’s saying that,” Jude says, his eyes moving over Mr. Walker’s prone form. “Do you think…”
He trails into silence, his gaze still fixed on our teacher’s face like he might wake up and join in the conversation at any second.
“We should try to wake him up again,” I finally say.
The statement falls like a gauntlet. We all nod and look at each other because no one wants to get too close to Mr. Walker. He peed himself while the boys were carrying him. I saw the thin trail of liquid seeping out of one of his pant legs and onto the trail. I’d sucked in my breath, hard and fast, completely appalled, but Emily just stepped over the trickle with a shrug. So it doesn’t surprise me when it’s Emily who strides forward. She calls his name three times and then shakes his shoulder a bit. I think his brow furrows.
“Mr. Walker, we need you to wake up now,” she says. Firm, not angry.
“Tell him I’m going to kiss him if he doesn’t wake up,” Jude says, and Lucas smirks.
Mr. Walker’s face is definitely moving, his eyebrows and this time his mouth.
I step forward, feeling woozy. “Mr. Walker?”
“Mr. Walker, can you hear me?” Emily asks.
I stop where I am because he doesn’t smell good, but she scoots really close and squeezes his hand. His eyes flutter.
“Holy shit.” Lucas sounds awed.
When Emily says his name again, Mr. Walker’s eyes open. His pupils shrink tight, trying to adjust to the brightness, but he can’t seem to hold his focus.
And then he does. He licks his chapped lips and looks at the girl in front of him.
“Emily?”
He’s really awake.
Or was awake.
He’s out as suddenly as he woke, head drooped to the side and thin lips parted.
Emily keeps trying, but after a few groans and a few more slurred attempts at our names, he’s out cold.
“He’s still really druggy,” she says. “How long does Halcion last?”
“Like four hours,” Lucas says. “I can see it knocking him out but not keeping him out like this. My mom takes something else with it or she’ll wake up.”
“Then why use it at all?” I ask. “Seems like something else would be better.”
Lucas shrugs. “It’s strong. It’d knock him out. Maybe he was taking something else anyway. Or maybe whoever is doing this wanted him out longer and gave him something else.”
“He was taking pills when we woke up the first day,” I say. “For allergies, I think. But something prescription too, I thought.”
Emily nods. “If it’s a heavy-duty antihistamine, it might cause this kind of sedation, right? I mean, an over-the-counter allergy pill can knock me out cold.”
“Or whoever did this could have just given him a cocktail of sedatives,” Lucas says. “Or roofies. It’s probably a miracle he’s still breathing.” Lucas drops into a crouch, scoffing.
“Any ideas on how long a mix like that might last?”
“I think it should wear off if he doesn’t get more,” Emily says.
My head pulses with the promise of a ripping headache. “He was drugged last sometime before dawn, right? When the bear was there.”
“Yeah, and why the hell is that?” Jude asks.
Lucas tilts his head. “I’m not following.”
“I mean, I can’t figure out why Mr. Walker’s the only one getting drugged. Why are we being left alone now?”
“Because whatever crazy thing this is, it’s about us. He’s not part of it.” Emily tucks her hair behind her ears, her expression blank.
“He doesn’t have a word,” I say. I run my thumb beneath the Darling on my arm and look at Emily’s Damaged.
Jude tsks. “Since you brought it up, doesn’t it seem strange?”
Lucas brandishes his Dangerous. “Tell me the strange factor isn’t just occurring to you.”
“Yeah, but everything is about the four of us,” Jude says. “Why? What the hell do the four of us have in common? We might as well be strangers on a street.”
“We aren’t all strangers,” Emily says.
My gaze moves to Lucas, and he’s already watching me. I think of the first scene in The Phantom of the Opera—all those curtains pulling back, back, back. That’s what Lucas’s eyes do to me.
“But we really aren’t strangers,” I say. “We live in the same town, go to the same school. We obviously have things in common. Maybe we need to figure out what other things that includes.”
“Apparently, someone thinks we’re all messed up in some way,” Jude says. “Well, except you, princess.”
Lucas stands up. “All right, let’s think. Did the four of us ever share a class?”
We didn’t. We go down the line, offering every possible connection we can think of. Nothing matches. Not where we live, who we hang out with, where we’re thinking of going to college. There are connections but nothing that carries all the way through. Emily and Lucas frequent the Last Drop, but Jude and I hate coffee. Emily and Jude and I share Mr. Walker’s math class, but Lucas is on the other side of the school during that period.
The threat of a headache is culminating in a splintering throb behind my left eye. Please don’t be a migraine. Please. I lean back against the tree and try to take deep, slow breaths. Yoga breathing.
Mom’s face materializes in my mind’s eye, long black lashes and a wide, perfect smile. She’d position her mat across from mine and sit there like an older version of my own reflection. Mirror images of each other, she always said. She talked a lot about finding my balance and releasing negative energy. Of course, she didn’t seem to care about energy when she took off with Charlie, leaving a metric ton of negativity behind.
&
nbsp; Something drags in the dirt. I search for the noise, seeing Emily tuck her legs closer, her chin settled on her knees.
“The sun’s dropping. That’s west. It’ll be dark again in a few hours.”
“We lost a day building that sled,” I say, my voice wobbly. “An entire day.”
And we only have one left. But one left until what? I don’t ask because I know I don’t want that answer.
“Nothing else has happened today,” Emily says. “Maybe it’s over.”
“Pretty sure our little carved messages are an indicator that this isn’t over,” Lucas says. “Somebody didn’t go through all this just to change their mind. We should keep moving. It’s not dark yet.”
“I agree,” I say. “I just wish it wasn’t so…mountain-y.”
“It’s going to get worse,” Lucas warns, nodding north where we can all see the shadows of mountains rising higher.
“Perfect,” Jude says.
I sigh. “I just wish we knew how far the road is.”
Lucas opens his mouth to respond, but the words never come. I can tell he’s heard something by the look that crosses his face. Emily lifts her head, and Jude cocks his chin. Then I hear it too. A faint whir whines through the air to the east.
It fades away, and Jude starts to speak, but we hush him, straining to hear. It couldn’t have been our imagination. We all heard it. Unless the water drugs are coming complete with mass auditory hallucinations.
After a tense silence, it comes again, rising in pitch and then falling off. It’s definitely east, and it’s not an animal. It’s too steady and even, more machine than beast. I look up, feeling a hard swell of hope rush into my chest.
It sounds like an engine.
Chapter 13
Dirt bikes. We thought quads at first, but Lucas was sure that wasn’t right. He’d ridden both and said this engine was higher in pitch. Either one could make it through the tangles of ferns and moss-covered rocks around here.
“We need to head that way,” Jude says. “If they have dirt bikes, then they have a truck. A trailer. They came from a road somewhere or at least a path that leads to a road.”
“I agree,” Emily says.
I nod because I agree too, even if I’m not sure how I’ll actually stay upright to head anywhere. I pull myself up using the maple tree behind me for support. The bark digs into my raw palm, but it’s OK. The pain gives me something to hold on to.
“Maybe I’m a cynic, but I don’t trust it.” Lucas stretches his arms wide, pointing in opposite directions. “The road is north, and whatever we’re hearing is southeast. How do we know it isn’t a trap? We’ve probably only made it a couple of miles at this point. Following that noise could erase what little we’ve done.”
“Seems like a pretty poor trap to me,” Jude says. “We could just as easily ignore it.”
The engine grows a bit louder, and we all look up. I can feel myself leaning toward the sound, the idea of vehicles. People. Civilization. Home. It pulls me like a june bug to a porch light.
“Ignore it, huh?” Lucas’s voice stiffens my spine. He’s shaking his head at all of us. “If I weren’t here, the three of you would be tearing through those woods.”
“Because it makes sense to tear through those woods,” I say. “There are people over there. Probably people with phones. We would be insane not to try.”
“I agree,” Jude says. “That sounds like a way out of here.”
“Sound travels weird in the mountains. We could be wrong. Mishearing it. Or worse, they could be long gone by the time we get there,” Lucas says. “And then what? How much time will we have lost? How much longer can we go?”
“We’re going,” Jude says. “Well, I’m going.”
“I’m with you,” Emily says.
“Be smarter than this,” Lucas says, but he isn’t talking to Jude or Emily. He’s given up on them, and that searching look he’s wearing? It’s for me.
In the distance, the engine starts again. Emily shifts on her feet, waiting for me. How am I supposed to make a choice like this? We can’t move Mr. Walker without Lucas, and everything about the way he’s crossing his arms tells me he knows it.
Do they think I can talk him into it? The Darling on my arm itches. I run my thumb over the letters and bite my lip.
“We’ll just give you two a minute to decide,” Jude says, and somehow, he’s woven a smirk into his tone. I suck in a breath to snap at him, but he holds up a hand. “Emily and I are going on ahead. We’ll stay in shouting range.”
Emily won’t look at my eyes, but she’s edging closer to Jude. My mind goes back to their conversation last night. I thought things had changed between us, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe they still think Lucas is in on this, that he’s trying to keep them from getting help.
“Maybe Lucas has a point.” I’m not sure I agree with his points, but they’re making choices about Lucas’s character that are just wrong. He isn’t the bad guy here. Lucas is notorious for a smart mouth and a quick punch, but I can’t imagine him behind something like this.
“Yeah, you two talk all you want about those points,” Jude says.
“Emily?” I ask.
She looks up at me, chin trembling. “I want to get help, Sera. He needs help. We all do.”
They disappear into the trees without another word. When I hear them break into a jog, my eyes drag up to Lucas’s face. He’s watching me with a blank expression, arms open and shoulders relaxed.
“It’s up to you, Spielberg,” he says, and I know from his tone he means it. I’m in control. I have been since we stood on that deck two months ago.
Lucas isn’t moving closer or touching my hair. He isn’t convincing me. He’s waiting.
Is this why my stomach is tumbling end over end? Is this why I don’t back away from the choice I know my mother would make? I swore to never be this girl, but here I am, so swept up in this boy that my insides are coiling tighter with every breath.
Lucas is all that I am not, shoulders relaxed and a smile in his eyes as he asks, quite suddenly, “Do you want to kiss me, Sera?”
The words sling into me like hot bullets. I swallow, and he touches me—just his hands on my hands, leading them to his shoulders.
“Because you can kiss me.” His eyes bind me to this moment. “And you can not kiss me. You’re in charge here.”
I shake my head. I’m just like her right now—all impulse, no thought. I’m not in charge of anything. And kissing him is an inevitability.
Lucas calls my name and drags me back. Nothing that happened on that deck should matter here. Hormones rage. Hearts lie. And I’m not stupid enough to fall for it because I am not my mother. Not even out here.
But what if here and now is all you have left?
“I don’t know what to do,” I say. Not about the engine we’re hearing or the kiss we shared or any of the rest of it. I never know with Lucas, do I? He blurs my world.
“We should go north,” he says. The tone that snapped and bit at me before is all softness now, like the time he taught me how to weld. Or tried. “We’re running out of water, and even if these people could help us, if they leave before we find them—”
“We can scream for help,” I say because even if I don’t know what’s best, I want to go to those engines. I want to sprint after Jude and Emily and find someone. I want to go home. “If we can hear them, they’ll hear us soon too.”
“It feels too easy,” he says. “Doesn’t it?”
I can’t read his tone or his expression, so I sigh and drop my head.
“You want to go,” he says. “Chase the noise.”
“Yes,” I say. What I don’t say is that I won’t go without him and Mr. Walker, but he knows it. He has to know, or I wouldn’t still be standing here.
He blows out a sigh and picks up the sled. I don’t wait
for him to change his mind. I move out, and he follows, dragging our fallen teacher behind. We follow the noise and catch up to Emily and Jude sooner than I would have guessed. But I’m rushing. God, I’m rushing.
When the engine noise comes again, Jude and Emily shift direction, following the sound. It’s not hard because it never moves left or right. The rumble just keeps coming, dead ahead.
The forest is thicker here, thin saplings growing in clusters and tall, prickly plants sprouting up instead of the broad, sweet-smelling ferns around our campsite. The three of us push back the bushes we can’t avoid so Lucas can duck through. One branch whacks Mr. Walker in the face, and he groans, offering a slurred curse word before he’s out again.
My arms are scraped and my throat is dry, and none of that compares to the waves of dizziness rolling through me. I’m hungry, I think. My mouth waters at the idea of food. An image of Madison’s granola bar wrappers flashes through my mind, and it hurts.
We start calling for help when we catch snatches of other sounds between the engines. They’re indistinct, but they might be voices. So I lick my parched lips and join the others.
“Help! Can anyone hear us?”
“Hello!” Jude adds. “We need help!”
Mr. Walker groans again when we descend over a bumpy ridge. His eyes roll, and he slurs out something. Maybe, “Careful. Careful.”
“Just rest.” Lucas is panting hard, even though Jude is helping him again.
Mr. Walker groans after another awful jostle, and Emily looks back at him. “We’re going to get help now. It won’t be long.”
Mr. Walker tries to nod, but his head just rolls to the side, and I stare at the crimson thread of blood the bush left on his cheek. Red like strawberries. Cherries. My stomach gurgles. God, I’m so messed up.
“He’s getting better,” I say to Emily, mostly to distract myself. “Mr. Walker. He doesn’t seem so…out of it.”
She nods but keeps her focus ahead. I can’t blame her. The engine is clear as day now, but the sky is growing darker. We don’t have much light left. We’re getting closer though. Another murmur filters in through the drone of the engine.
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