I scoot sideways. I’ve almost reached the opening when Ian looks up. His eyes widen when they lock onto my face. He moves forward.
Dirt flies as I launch myself outside. I’m at the edge of the trees when a deep moan stops me in my tracks.
“Shit,” Ian says, stopping on all fours in the shelter entrance.
I slip behind a tree and listen to him empty his stomach into the bushes. An unwelcome twinge of sympathy sneaks through my fear.
What am I thinking? Running off into these creepy woods with zero supplies and even less of an idea of where I’m going? Ian might’ve broken into my truck, but that makes him a thief. Not a serial killer. Also, there’s a chance Charlie gave him my compass after the town disappeared. Am I really going to blow my only lead because I’m afraid of some guy who can’t even stand up without assistance?
The retching on the other side of the tree is replaced by a low groan. It makes up my mind for me. Ian couldn’t hurt me right now even if he tried. He has supplies, and he had my compass, and even if he never crossed paths with Charlie, there’s a chance he saw something that could help me find my family. Either way, I like my odds better here with him than out there in those woods with whatever’s stalking me.
When I slip back around the tree, Ian is sitting against the boulder. Sweat glistens on his brow. Gathering my courage, I circle the campsite to where I stashed his canteen and place it on the ground in front of him.
I think he’s passed out again, when his eyes pop open, hitting me like high beams in the moonlight. He reaches for the canteen.
“Thanks.” Ian’s voice is low and rich with just a touch of gravel. He rinses out his mouth with the first swallow before draining the rest.
“You’ve got a concussion and a nasty gash on your palm,” I say to fill the silence. “The bandages are fine for now, but you’ll need stitches.” I wait for him to say something. He doesn’t. “Do you remember what happened?” I ask at last.
“I fell.”
It’s the exact same non-answer I gave the deputy back at Devil’s Tooth. Under any other circumstances, I might find that funny.
A deep line cuts across Ian’s brow as he takes in our surroundings. It’s easy to guess what he’s thinking.
“The tree’s up that way.” I point in the vague direction of the stream.
“How’d I get here?”
“I dragged you.”
Ian’s gaze snaps back to mine. It lingers there for a second before his attention shifts to our camp. The improvised shelter and dying fire. The paw prints in the dirt.
“There was a bobcat.” He says it like he’s asking for backup. “It felt like a dream…”
“Not a dream. It’s gone now. Something scared it off.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure. I … I think there might be someone out here with us.” Or we’re completely alone, and I imagined the person just like I’ve imagined everything else. Not that this is the right time to get into it.
Ian studies me for a long moment.
“How’d it happen? The fall, I mean?” I ask to redirect his focus away from me. Ian’s got the back and shoulders of a seasoned climber. His crag pack is the real deal too. Something must’ve gone seriously wrong for him to get hurt like that.
I have a sneaking suspicion I know what it was.
“I heard a sound. It was…” Ian rubs a palm over his face. “The clouds started racing across the sky. There was a crack of lightning.”
I inch closer. “Then what?” From up in that tree, Ian might’ve had a view of town. If something happened at the DARC, he would’ve had a front-row seat.
Ian leans back against the boulder. “I don’t remember.”
My chest deflates. I slump down a safe distance away. “I was in Maple when the sound wave hit. People lost it. There was something wrong with them. You could see it. Right here.” I point to my eyes and repress a shudder at the memories. “I was headed back to Fort Glory when I got stuck on the road.”
Ian sits up and winces at the sudden movement. “How? Your battery fail?”
“Uh, no.” A warning bell rings in the back of my mind. How does Ian know about Rusty’s crappy battery? He also has a strange habit of turning up wherever I go. At the diner and the campground this morning. Then later at the high school. Now here in the woods with my compass in his bag. Rowena said she didn’t believe in coincidences.
Well, neither do I.
“There was a problem. With the road,” I hedge, while I decide how best to draw him out. “The cops were pushing us back. Rowena thought—”
“Rowena was with you? She’s okay?” Ian’s questions come rapid-fire. “She’s my grandmother,” he explains when I just stare at him.
The last time I saw Rowena she was facing down Officer Jensen so that I could get away. I decide to keep that particular piece of information to myself. “It was her idea to hike to Devil’s Tooth. She wanted to see what was happening in the town. She was convinced that it had something to do with the DARC.”
Ian’s face gives nothing away. “Doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“When the police found us, they ordered us to evacuate.” I hug Deputy Miller’s jacket tighter around my knees.
“But you didn’t?”
I shake my head. “I couldn’t. Not after what I saw.”
A slight pause. “What’s that?”
Instinctively, I know the next few words will decide everything between us. If I tell Ian the truth, he may return the favor. Or he may decide I’ve lost my mind. It’s a risk, but I picture Charlie kneeling on the side of that Kansas road, and I decide that it’s a risk worth taking.
“The town is gone.”
I wait for Ian to call me crazy. To hurl insults or insist that I’m a liar—like anybody else would in his place. Instead he just closes his eyes. “Yeah.”
“You saw it?”
“I saw something over the town. Hiding it.” He probes the bandages on the back of his head.
A weight I didn’t know I was carrying slides off my shoulders. If Ian saw something from up in that tree, he might actually be able to help me. “Tell me.”
His head falls back against the boulder. “I don’t know how to describe it. Other than scary as hell.”
It’s a cop-out answer. Ian is hiding something. Not just whatever he saw up in that tree. I’ve been sure of it ever since he mentioned Rusty’s battery. It’s had me playing yesterday’s events over and over inside my head, questioning every decision, second-guessing every turn that could have brought me anywhere other than here.
Rusty’s miraculous recovery. The rust shavings on the asphalt. My compass in Ian’s backpack. These are the things I keep coming back to.
“Did you fix my truck?” I ask.
Ian’s silence is as good as an answer.
“Why?” I demand.
Ian rubs the back of his neck. “Because you looked like you could use a break.”
“Try again.”
An invisible current sparks the air between us. “Because your brother asked me to.”
“Charlie? What—When?” I’m crawling toward Ian before I realize what I’m doing. One look from him stops me in my tracks.
“Yesterday morning. I was working on my car when he asked me to replace your battery. He said he needed it to run. That you were—” Ian shifts. “That it was important. It wasn’t a big deal. The battery was easy to get. I did most of the work when you were in school.”
This. This is important, Rosie.
Charlie knew. Somehow, Charlie knew what would happen to Fort Glory, and he made sure I’d be long gone when it did. If he hadn’t asked for Ian’s help, Rusty might’ve died before I could get out of town. I could’ve been lost with the rest of them.
But if Charlie knew, why did he want to come here in the first place? If Charlie knew, why didn’t he try harder to save himself?
“You did all that for a stranger? Some kid you didn’t even know?�
�� My fingers find Charlie’s egg in my jacket. My brother has a way of seeing right to the heart of a person. Of all the people in Fort Glory, he asked Ian for help. Ian.
There had to be a reason.
I take a deep breath, let go of the egg, and hold up my compass. “I found this in your bag.”
Ian meets my gaze without a trace of guilt. “Your brother gave that to me.”
“When?” I know what he’s going to say before he says it, and still, the words are a blow.
“Yesterday morning. When he asked me to fix your car.”
The truth settles on me like a weight. If Ian hasn’t seen Charlie since yesterday morning, it means I’ve wasted all this time for nothing. I run my thumb over the beautiful etching one more time before I toss it over.
“Keep it.” Ian tosses the compass right back. “I only took that because it seemed important to the kid.”
My fingers close around tarnished metal. Why would Charlie give my compass to Ian? And why would Ian go out of his way to help us when, according to everyone, he’s a violent lowlife? None of this makes sense, and I’m suddenly so damn tired of trying to figure it out.
“Your face.”
“What?” The directness of Ian’s gaze leaves me feeling strangely flustered. It’s a minute before I realize what he’s talking about. I touch the bruise on my cheek. “It’s nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
“Some kids at school were giving Charlie a hard time.” I shrug. “It was an accident.”
“You do that a lot?” Ian asks.
“Do what?”
“Fight other people’s battles for them?”
I look at him sharply. “What were you doing out here before you fell?” He’s not the only one who can ask personal questions.
“Getting the hell out of town before I suffocated.”
I blink at him. Most people hide what they really mean under layers and layers of bullshit.
Clearly, Ian Lawson isn’t most people.
“If you hate Fort Glory so much, why’d you come back?” I ask when my thoughts become too loud for the dragging silence between us.
“To say goodbye.” Ian’s hand moves to his head, almost like it’s searching for something. Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t find it. His frown transforms into an expression of loss that hits me right in the chest.
Ian pushes to his feet, but it’s too much, too fast. He drops down with a grunt.
I crawl past him into the shelter. By the time common sense catches up to me, I’m already standing right in front of him.
The second Ian sees the Mariners cap in my hands, the tension drains out of him. “Thank you.”
Somehow, I know he’s talking about more than just the hat. “You’re welcome.”
The silence stretches out between us. Ian rubs a hand across his jaw. “You shouldn’t be out here alone. I’ll take you back to the road in the morning.”
“The road is gone.” This time, I give him the truth without worrying how he’ll take it. “Just like the town. Otherwise I’d be there already.”
Ian grips the bill of his cap in his injured hand. “Where does it stop?”
It’s hard to tell from his tone whether he believes me. Honestly, right now I don’t care.
“Just after the turnoff to Fort Glory. Where that giant billboard used to be. Now there’s nothing but trees and every clown with a badge within a ten-mile radius.”
“That’s where I’ll take you, then,” Ian decides.
I bite my tongue to keep from snapping. Ian doesn’t get it yet. But he will.
“I’m not going to the road. I’m going back to Fort Glory to find my family.”
Ian pulls on his cap. “The thing I saw over the town. Storms I understand, but this … this wasn’t natural. It was like a death funnel or a whirlpool in the sky straight out of your nightmares.” He shakes his head like he can’t believe what he’s saying. “The town didn’t stand a chance. Neither will you if you go back out there.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” I insist. “Don’t you see? The DARC unleashed something. A force that’s been manipulating our minds for weeks. When I looked at the town from Devil’s Tooth there was no monster storm. There was nothing but forest.”
“So you’re saying you saw one thing, I saw another, and we both can’t be right,” Ian concludes.
I nod, relieved he’s getting this. “We don’t know what’s real and what’s not. We won’t know unless we go to Fort Glory and check.”
“Whatever this is, it’s over our heads,” Ian says at last. “Let the authorities handle it.”
His words burrow right under my skin, because I’ve been here before. When Dad went missing. I remember sitting next to Mom in an uncomfortable metal chair, trying to understand how the case officer could stand there, calmly drinking his coffee while my whole world was falling apart. The feeling I got back then was an awful lot like the feeling I had when I fell from the slide with Charlie in my arms. Or yesterday when I lost my grip on Devil’s Tooth. Like I was headed for an impact and was powerless to stop it.
But I am not powerless now.
Charlie and Mom will be nothing more to the cops than two names on a long list. It’s the way it is, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept it. And I won’t. Not this time.
“Is that what you would do if it was your family? Would you trust strangers to find them for you?”
Ian’s expression softens. Or maybe it’s just the shadows playing tricks on me. “I’m sorry. About your mom and brother.”
His sympathy breaches the protective barriers I’ve built around myself. A little bit of truth seeps through. “I heard him,” I say softly. “I heard Charlie calling to me in the woods behind Devil’s Tooth. Right before something knocked me out.” Without thinking, I press my fist against my chest, directly over the source of the strange tugging.
Suddenly, there’s not enough air on the planet to ease the burning in my lungs.
“Is that what you believe, or is it what you want to believe?” Ian asks.
My stomach sinks because I know what he’s driving at. Things are weird out here. Like the tugging and the pain in my eye, there’s a distinct possibility Charlie’s voice was a figment of my imagination. Only I don’t believe it. I can’t.
“It doesn’t matter. There’s still a chance he’s out here somewhere, and I’m not leaving until I find him.”
Even as I say the words, I know how impossible they sound. I have no idea what happened to the town, or what it has to do with the DARC, or how I’m supposed to find my family. I just know I have to try.
Ian stands in front of me. A trail of blood runs from the bandage, down his neck, to his collar. He jerks his thumb toward the shelter. “Get some sleep. We’ll deal with the rest in the morning.”
“Thanks, but I’ll stay out here.” Where I can take off at the first opportunity.
Ian shoots me a look that says he wasn’t born yesterday. “You built the shelter. You sleep in it.” Though their features are nothing alike, the stubborn expression on his face suddenly reminds me a lot of Rowena.
I roll my eyes and crawl inside. Ian tosses me a sleeping bag from his pack and proceeds to make himself a bed directly in front of the only exit. Unless he passes out again, I’m stuck.
Which is completely the point.
Heat creeps up my neck. I don’t care if his intentions are good. That doesn’t give Ian the right to order me around. I’ve been taking care of myself since I was nine, and I’ve survived this long without anyone’s protection.
Ian tosses me an extra blanket. I yank it toward myself and settle down in the corner, where I can keep my eyes on him. I’ll wait him out. As soon as he falls asleep, I’ll figure out a way past him.
I settle myself down on the ground, using the deputy’s jacket as a pillow. It’s surprisingly comfortable.
More movement from outside.
There’s the sharp crackle of a fire. Warmth
wraps around me and despite my best intentions, I crash-land into sleep before I even feel myself falling.
TEN
Something nudges my foot.
I sit up so fast the world spins.
Ian squats in the shelter opening, wearing a gray jacket and an impossibly alert expression for someone who’s recently suffered head trauma. He offers me some trail mix.
“Breakfast.”
My stomach groans at the sight of food. I snatch the bag out of his hand and tear into it like I haven’t eaten in days. Which, I guess, I haven’t.
The morning is chilly and overcast. Mist drapes the forest and blankets the ground in thick white clouds that smell like earth and growing things.
There’s a sharp snap as Ian pulls the roof off our makeshift shelter. Other than some stiffness, he doesn’t appear to be in pain. My eyes drift to the scars on his hands. It occurs to me that he might just be good at hiding it.
“How do you feel?” I ask.
“I’ll live.” Ian thrusts the tarp into his pack and lifts it like it weighs nothing. “The easiest path to the road will take us a mile southeast of here. We should reach it in an hour.”
I crush the empty bag in my fist. “The road is gone. We’ve been over this.”
Ian straightens. “Look, I’m not saying you’re lying about what you saw.”
“Then what are you saying? That I’m delusional? That I’m losing my mind?”
“I’m saying that you’re hurt, and you don’t know what happened to you,” Ian responds with irritating calm. “It’s possible you got confused.”
Deep down, I’m terrified he might be right, but admitting that out loud would be like surrendering to his plan.
That isn’t going to happen.
“This coming from the guy who spent most of yesterday unconscious?” I stand and face Ian across the campground. “Believe me or don’t. Either way, I’m leaving.”
Ian grips the straps of his pack as if he’d like nothing better than to get rid of me.
“You’ll move faster without me,” I continue, but he’s already shaking his head. Frustration bubbles up inside of me. This entire conversation is a massive waste of time. “Are you prepared to knock me out and drag me? Because that’s what it’s going to take.”
Before I Disappear Page 8