by Kaitlin Ward
The sound of a foot snapping a branch echoes down from somewhere up the hill. Cara and I look at each other like startled deer for a fleeting moment, and then we’re on the run. We’re not quiet and we’re not graceful; we just sprint.
The fear of someone following you, someone who wants to kill you, it’s all-consuming. My brain is a series of panicked exclamation marks, and my limbs tremble and threaten to give out, while I beg them not to fail me right now.
We zigzag through the trees, tumbling downhill, snagging ourselves on branches. A twig slaps me directly in the eye, and I just blink really hard as I continue to run. I can’t afford to stop, not if someone’s after us.
And then, almost without warning, we’re at the Haven.
We both stop, utterly shocked.
“How are we … there’s no way we should have been able to get back here so fast,” says Cara, confused. “Right? There’s no way.”
“Definitely not. We haven’t even touched how long it took us to get to the Cave in the first place. This is … I don’t know, whatever. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
We sprint toward the buildings, to the shack where Cara was living when she stayed here overnight. We need her keys, and then hopefully we can find some way to get her car past mine where it’s stuck in the road. Or at the very least, drive a little ways to get us an incremental head start over anyone following.
“My keys are gone,” says Cara, pawing through the small structure. “They’re not where I left them. They’re not here anywhere.”
I want to scream. “So he took your keys, too. In case I, like, got to you or whatever.”
“Dammit, Mailee, I can’t believe I got us into this.” She sinks to the ground and grips the sides of her head with clawed hands.
I crouch in front of her and yank her hands away. “Stop it. Don’t do the blame thing right now, okay? I knew it felt wrong here, but this wrong? How could either of us ever have guessed? Let’s just … let’s go to Firehorse’s shack and see if we can find anything that’ll help. Otherwise … ”
Otherwise we’re in for a long, long walk.
Firehorse’s shack is basically stripped bare. I mean, there’s stuff in it. His bed, some clothes, things like that. But aside from some generic trinkets, his personal effects are gone. We tear through it anyway, driven by adrenaline and desperation.
Drawers, pockets, everything. And we find nothing. Until—
“There’s something stuck in here!” Cara exclaims. She’s pushed a tall filing cabinet away from the desk that sits next to it, and between, there are a few papers that obviously at some point just got shoved too far aside and slipped down.
It’s not keys and it’s not a communication device, but maybe it’ll be illuminating nonetheless. There are six or seven sheets of paper. She splits them between us, and I scan mine quickly.
The first one is nothing I can make sense of. Some kind of unskilled drawing, labeled with Firehorse’s freakishly neat handwriting. It looks like a map, maybe. I turn it in all directions, but I still can’t make sense of it. I set it aside to come back to.
The next page is a printout from some website about electromagnetic fields. Firehorse highlighted portions and wrote disorganized notes in the margins about the government and waves and listening to all our conversations. Paranoid stuff, basically. I touch the necklace he gave me. I still think it’s crap. I feel no different and I don’t understand how frequencies from a necklace could protect me from other frequencies anyway. It’s all hot nonsense.
The third page is torn out of a notebook. More of Firehorse’s perfect handwriting. Shorthand notes to himself, obviously, because it’s all in little snippets that don’t mean anything to me. I return to the map. Hold it far away from my face. Suddenly, it clicks.
“Hey, Cara, come tell me if you think I’m right about this.” I set the map on the desk and point with my finger. “So it looks like this is the road leading up the mountain. And this is the commune. And then … this is where I’m not so sure. He labeled this ‘Cave,’ but doesn’t it look like it’s … really nearby?”
Cara gazes silently at the map for a long moment. Her finger traces a line out from the cave, one that makes a big, big loop. “Do you think it’s possible that the cave is just up that steep hill, but he made the path so confusing that no one knows it’s actually this close?”
“That’s exactly what I was wondering.”
We both go peer out the open door at the hill over by where the road comes in. Honestly, it makes perfect sense. The part alongside the road is basically a cliff. On the side that faces us, it evens out slightly, becomes a treacherous hill. There are too many trees, especially conifers, for anything up top to be visible from down here, even in the dead of winter. It’s kind of brilliant.
“I bet he watches them from up there sometimes,” I say. “Remember that day we visited? And they were all swimming and relaxing and having a great time, and then Firehorse returned early from his little jaunt in the forest? I bet he was watching and he saw that they weren’t doing what they were supposed to, and he decided to intervene.”
“I bet you’re right.” She frowns.
“Anything interesting in yours?” I ask, gesturing to the papers clutched in her fist.
“Not really. A bunch of information on electromagnetic fields. Something about GMOs. And this one’s a wedding announcement about some guy—wasn’t he one of the ones from that text Gavin sent you?”
I glance at the printout, from some Missouri newspaper’s website. It’s a totally cliché wedding announcement photo, where the couple gazes lovingly into each other’s eyes while bracing themselves against a wooden fence. The face and name of the man do look vaguely familiar. He owns a hardware store now, apparently. And is some kind of “pillar of the community.” Which, of course, doesn’t mean he’s a good guy. But based on the giant X Firehorse drew over the whole thing, I’m guessing he’s not involved anymore in whatever he and Firehorse were both once part of. I wonder if anyone is. If maybe they all figured out it was one hell of a bad idea. Except Firehorse.
“Yeah, looks like one of the guys. Guess Firehorse is keeping tabs on all his old friends.”
Cara shudders. “Let’s go, okay? Let’s just … get out of here. We’ll tell the police what we know and let them deal with this.”
“I could not be more on board with that plan.”
We leave the papers on Firehorse’s bed and leave the commune behind us. If we had better knowledge of the area, we’d sneak through the woods a little more, but honestly, we’re lucky we didn’t get ourselves turned around wrong and die already. So we follow the road out of here.
I really wish we had a car.
And weren’t so physically exhausted. We start out jogging, but I get a stitch in my side pretty fast, and after that, we just walk as fast as we can, sweating and panting.
We make it to where my car’s still stuck. I think it’s even deeper than it was when I left it. Which sucks. Not that I could do anything about it anyway.
“Wow,” says Cara. “You really got this thing in there.”
“Yeah, I know.” A terrible thought dawns on me. “Do you think … the mud is really deep right there? Do you think it was on purpose? I mean, my car’s stuck here, no one can get in or out around it, you know?”
“Yeah.” Cara frowns. “Wouldn’t put anything past Firehorse at this point.”
I brush my hand along the door of the car, wishing so badly I could get in and drive away.
“Good news is, I think it’s only another couple miles before we start to have cell service,” I say.
“That’s … something.” Cara has lost her optimism altogether.
So have I, inside, but I guess that’s why I’m the actress.
“We’ll get out of here, Cara,” I say softly, taking her hand.
“Will you?” says a female voice, just inside the trees.
I whip around and there’s Alexa, aiming a pistol at my face.
&nb
sp; My heart stops.
“Alexa,” I whisper. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m stopping you.” She clicks off the safety with her thumb. My stomach turns into a knot, painfully tight. If she pulls the trigger right now, I’ll be dead so fast, I won’t even know it happened.
I’m in such shock that I can’t process whatever emotions I’m having about this. But Cara, beside me, is crying.
“Do you know what he’s doing, Alexa?” she sobs. “Please let us go. Come with us.”
“If I didn’t know what he was doing, do you think I’d be pointing a gun at someone?” Alexa asks. Her expression is grim, determined. “Listen, I’m sorry. I know what you thought we were, and I know you’re not bad people. But sacrifices have to be made sometimes. And unfortunately, it’s gotta be you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, my voice hoarse. “No one needs to get hurt. What do we need to get hurt for?”
“For people to pay attention.” She lifts her chin. Her hand, with the gun, is unwavering. “People aren’t paying any attention to how close the world is to the brink of disaster. We’re all going to annihilate ourselves. We need to make them pay attention.”
“By being even more violent?” I ask through gritted teeth. The longer the gun points at my face with nothing happening, the less real this feels. It is real, though. I have to remind myself that it’s real. I could die.
“Yes. And it needs to come from someone the world isn’t expecting.”
“But is it?” I start to fold my arms and then decide against it, letting them drop back to my sides. I don’t want her to think I’m trying anything. “Firehorse is—”
“Oh, Firehorse isn’t responsible for this. At least, not as far as anyone who lives to tell the tale will know.”
I swallow hard. So the plan is, I’m not going to live to tell the tale. Got it.
Knowing this makes me feel a little reckless. Cara’s still crying beside me. But there are two of us and just one Alexa. If I moved fast, could I—
“Don’t even think about it,” she hisses, cupping the pistol now with both hands, in a practiced, steady grip.
Guess I was too transparent.
“So what happens now?” I ask boldly.
She doesn’t break eye contact with me, but she does slip one hand off the pistol, reaching for something in her pocket. A walkie-talkie of some sort, looks like.
“Firehorse,” she says into it. “I’ve got them. By Mailee’s car.”
Distant crashing noises tell me someone’s coming our way through the trees. My heart sinks into my toes. We were never getting out of here. Never. It was foolish to even try.
Firehorse is here, and so are Richelle and Brian, the boy who shared a tent with Finn. I guess I can’t be surprised. I shouldn’t have been surprised about Alexa, either. But I still feel so betrayed, by all of them. They know Firehorse is a monster, and they’re going to let him hurt us anyway.
I guess that makes them monsters, too.
All the kindness has gone out of Firehorse’s eyes. His fake, jovial demeanor has been replaced by something sinister. We should have seen through his glamour on day one.
We’re surrounded, and Alexa still has that gun—the others probably have them, too—but I keep my chin lifted, my posture defiant. Inside, I am ice shards that’ve melted into a useless puddle of water, but outside, I don’t want anyone to see how scared I am.
“Take Cara back to the Cave,” Firehorse says darkly. I don’t know which of them he’s speaking to, because his eyes haven’t left my face. “I’ll take care of this one.”
“No,” Cara whispers. Richelle grabs her hard by the arm. “No, don’t—you can’t hurt Mailee, you can’t hurt her. She shouldn’t be here, let her go.”
Firehorse’s eyes flick to Cara, over my head. A smirk crawls across his face. “It’s too late for that, my dear. Much, much too late.”
I turn around, try to leap for Cara. Firehorse catches me by the shoulders, his fingers digging bruisingly into my flesh. They can’t have her. They can’t take her, can’t kill her.
“Cara!” I scream, but they’re dragging her away, even as she kicks and screams and fights.
Something comes alive in you when there’s nothing left to lose. We both know we’re headed to our executions. We don’t know exactly when or how it’ll happen, but we know it’ll be soon and it’ll be horrible.
I kick Firehorse hard in the shin, and he calls me a word that sets my veins on fire with rage. I try to run, but he catches me by the waist, throws me down. My chin slams into a rock. I taste blood on my tongue, and my vision swims.
He picks me back up by my hair; I stumble to my feet.
“You never believed in me, in anything I had to say,” he sneers, like it’s an explanation for why this is happening.
I wipe the blood that drips down my chin. “Doesn’t sound to me like I’d be any better off if I had.”
He smiles, and it’s like jumping into a black hole and knowing you’re going to fall and fall and fall and nothing will stop it no matter how much you scream. “There are all kinds of ways to die. Some are easier than others.”
And then he drags me after him. I don’t say anything else because I’m sick with fear. It clogs my throat, turns my blood to sludge. He’s dragging me down the path, the one I found when I got here on Friday. No. Oh no.
I dig in my heels, try to fight against him, but he’s bigger than me. Stronger. And he’s better at this. Still, my fear is a wild thing inside of me. It flips the switch on my rational brain, and it takes over with the animal part, the part that’s been wired in there for millennia, the part that let us survive back before we were at the top of the food chain. I have to get away. Have to escape, have to.
Firehorse grabs my wrists, wrenches my arms behind my back, and pushes me forward ahead of him. I can’t break free no matter how I try. When I kick at him, he lets me fall onto my face, then pulls me back to my feet. I spit dirt and rock.
And now, here we are. Standing in front of the concrete building I saw before. Now I know what it’s used for, I guess. Firehorse opens the door, and I look up at his face, twisted with hatred and rage.
“Do you even believe in any of this?” I ask in a small voice.
“I believe in the aspects that matter. I believe in cutting myself off from the poisoned world, and protecting myself from all the ways the government tries to spy on us. Although … ” He pauses, smirking at my necklace. “Sometimes spying has its merits.”
I clutch at the pendant. “So you know this whole thing about protecting yourself from electromagnetic fields with special frequencies is garbage—you just convinced everyone it wasn’t so you could get them to wear tracking devices?”
“Oh, it isn’t garbage at all. No, it’s very real. Adding tracking devices doesn’t make it any less so.”
“Whatever you’re planning,” I say in my smoothest, coldest voice, “I hope you get caught, and I hope you rot away in prison for the rest of your life.”
“One of us will be rotting,” he says, chuckling hard at his own joke.
And that’s it. Firehorse shoves me roughly inside the concrete cell. I fall to my knees. And when he closes the door behind me, I have only one thought: I am going to die in here.
It’s pitch-black. The kind of dark so deep that it feels like a physical force weighing on your eyes. I squeeze them shut and then open them as wide as they’ll go, but of course neither of those things helps.
My phone’s still in my pocket. I yank it out, fumbling to turn it on. It’s my only hope right now. Truly. My hand trembles while I wait for it to power on. It feels like forever. I still have 37% battery, so that’s good, I guess. But no Internet connection, and no service.
I shouldn’t have bothered to hope. Firehorse is a lot of things, but he sure isn’t stupid. He would have made sure his cage was as impenetrable as possible, technology included.
“Please,” I say, face pre
ssed against the crack of the door. “Please let me out. I’ll do anything you want.”
I’m pretty sure he’s gone. But either way, no response.
It’s dead in here. Sound is muffled; I can’t hear anything outside. Not wind or footsteps or anything.
Of course, maybe it’s just that there’s nothing to hear.
I dig my fingers into the tiny crack between the metal door and the concrete wall, shove my shoulder hard against it. Nothing moves, not the tiniest bit. One of my nails does break, though, painfully. I put the tip of my finger into my mouth and taste blood.
Now I’m starting to panic. There is literally nothing I can do. I am trapped and there’s no way out.
I pound hard on the door and let out the longest, most bloodcurdling scream of my life. Nothing happens except that now my throat feels torn to pieces. This is bad. This is so bad.
I sink to the floor, edge back into the corner farthest from the door. Curl up with my phone. I don’t want to waste the battery on the wildly improbable chance I’m able to use it later, but I need comfort right now, more than anything.
I open up the pictures I have saved on my phone and scroll through them, and I start to cry. There’s a lot of Gavin and me. About twenty from the day we tried to take an attractive picture of us mid-kiss, which is not as easy as it looks. One I took of him while he was doing homework on my bed, his brow furrowed in concentration, dark hair mussed because we’d just been making out. One his dad took of us crouching on either side of a fuzzy, pudgy three-day-old beef calf at his ranch. A triple date we went on with Sam and Margaret and Cara and Jackson. Tons of group shots with my other friends. Even a few from when my brother visited this summer. He thinks he’s too cool now to take selfies with his little sister, but I managed to get him to hold still for a couple, even if he’s scowly. Pictures of Cara and me, millions of those, too, of course. Making faces at the camera. Putting on makeup. Ridiculous poses. I have more pictures of the two of us by far than I have of me with Gavin. When I go back far enough, there are even some of us with Harper. Those hit me like a fist to the heart.