I wince. “I can’t just leave them. Not Emily and Jude.”
He grits his teeth, shakes his head once. He won’t argue with that. Things are different now. “You’d better have Emily look at that hand.”
Emily can’t do anything for my hand, but it’s a good enough way to end the conversation.
Dawn is just starting to smudge pale prints on the gray sky when we reach Hayley. She’s by the river, propped up on what looks like a sleeping bag. That’s what hits me first—
They have some of their stuff. They might have called for help.
“It happened yesterday,” Madison says. She’s sounding a lot less crazy now that we’ve given her some water. Or maybe it’s because we’re back with Hayley. “We followed the stream, and it started winding north. I remembered from the map that it followed the trail pretty closely.”
“Did you try to call?” Lucas asks.
“No phones. We woke up with a lot of stuff missing, and Ms. Brighton…” She stops, looking stricken before she goes on. “We had to leave a lot behind when we woke up to all that blood. We tried to scream for you guys, but no one heard us.”
“Because we were drugged,” Lucas says. I can tell Madison wants to ask, but he waves. “We’ll fill you in soon. Go back to how you got over here. What happened to her?”
She nods, and for a moment, that manic gleam flashes over her expression. “I figured there had to be another bridge. Something. A way. We found a zip line.”
“A zip line?”
“It seemed like it would work. I got across OK. It was bumpy, and I lost our water, but I made it. But when Hayley went, it broke. She fell.”
I tear my mind off the possibility of a phone and try to figure out what happened to Hayley. Emily’s crouched over her now, and Jude’s beside Emily, so I can’t see much. When he finally steps to the side, I wish I hadn’t tried so hard.
Hayley moans and turns her head on the wadded-up sweatshirt serving as a pillow. Her pale hair is soaked to the sides of her face, and the flesh under her eyes looks puffy and bruised.
My body goes cold when I see her injury. It’s not good. Her left arm is strapped across her torso in a makeshift sling—a pretty good one from the look of it, but one glance tells me it won’t help.
I don’t think a registered nurse could help on this one. She needs a hospital. Probably surgery. Her hand is the color of a plum, and though the splint has her lower arm wrapped, I can see the misshapen lump in the center of her forearm. I can see the stain of blood too. Her bone has broken through the skin.
“It’s a compound fracture,” Madison says. “I tried to splint it to keep it steady. It broke when she fell.”
Lucas startles. “Wait, how close is the river?”
“Not far. Maybe a twenty-minute walk. I wanted to go farther. I was hoping to hit that road on the map. I figured if the stream was heading north, we’d already cut out some of that distance.”
I blink, surprised at how smart she suddenly sounds. That sing-song lilt is gone from her voice, and shaken as she is, she sounds completely calm.
“We’re trying to get to the road too,” Lucas says. “Do you have a map?”
“No, but I don’t think it should be much farther. I wanted to keep going, but Hayley had to stop.”
“The sling looks great,” Emily says, clearly reaching for something positive. “It’s what I would have done too.”
“Did you check for Ms. Brighton’s phone?” I ask.
She shudders. “No. When we woke up that morning, ours were gone. And she was—we were too afraid to go near her tent. There was a trail of blood, and I saw the edge of something in the bushes. She wasn’t moving. I know it sounds bad, but we just ran.” Madison twists at the edges of her hair with filthy fingers. In the growing light, I can see the smudges and streaks all over her are blood. Hayley’s blood, most likely.
“You actually saw her?” Jude asks.
“Barely. I could just see something…”
“Something that looked skinned, right?” Lucas asks.
I flinch. I didn’t see that clearly, and now I’m grateful. My stomach rolls itself into a hard ball. He’s been holding this in. All this time, he’s had to live with that vision.
“I couldn’t see much, but yes,” Madison says.
“Me too,” Lucas says. “Looked like her back.”
“Where were you?” she asks, and for the first time since we got here, her voice wavers to that crackling edge that scared me before. “We screamed and screamed. We thought he killed you. We were sure he must have killed you just like her.”
“We’re OK. We were drugged. There’s been weird stuff, but…” Jude trails off, gazing at Hayley. Because the four of us are alive. I’ve got an infected hand, and Emily is limping, but we’re all basically intact. More than we can say for Hayley.
“We thought for sure he got you,” Madison says, the words rippling across a sigh.
“Wait.” I look up, my mind catching on that. “Wait. You keep saying he.”
Lucas gets it at once, slipping up next to me with a steely expression. “Madison, do you know who killed Ms. Brighton?”
“Who?” She laughs then, and her serene expression splits like an overripe tomato. “Mr. Walker, who else?”
Something in me cracks. This shouldn’t be a shock. It shouldn’t be, but the world has turned to quicksand beneath my feet.
“You saw him?” Jude asks. “You saw Mr. Walker do this?”
“Mr. Walker is with us,” Emily says, playing her hand closer to the vest. “He’s very ill.”
Madison’s nostrils are flaring with every breath. She makes me think of frightened horses. “He’s the only one who could have done it.”
“Why?” Emily asks. She seems genuinely curious.
“Because he knows the land. Because he brought us out here. He left us on the other side of that river. He planned all of this.”
Behind us, Hayley’s soft groan rises in volume, turns to a scream that hooks through my middle. Madison’s mouth forms a small O, but she doesn’t move to help. Doesn’t move at all.
Hayley’s eyes pop open, and she scans our faces blearily, breathing hard, as if even moving her eyes hurts. It looks like it hurts. I feel a phantom ache just watching her.
“Thank God,” she croaks. “Help me. Help me.”
Emily eases forward with soft, hushing noises, but then Hayley’s eyes lock onto Madison behind her, and her face goes impossibly paler.
“No,” she whispers, her eyes still on Madison. “No more! Please, noooo!”
She draws out the last word until it is a scream, a wail, a sound that goes on and on, turning me to ice and then to stone. I want to run or cover my ears. I want to bury myself down into the leaves and dirt and rot beneath my feet because anything is better than that sound.
Hayley struggles wildly, like she’s going to try to get up. She passes out suddenly, her ragged breath the only thing left to puncture the quiet her scream left behind. I recoil, backing right into Lucas’s chest. He wraps an arm around my middle, and I hold it there, pushing my fingers into his wrist until I know I’m leaving nail marks.
But my eyes never leave Madison. Hayley was terrified when she saw her. She was afraid of Madison.
Chapter 21
My vision has tunneled, narrowing to a thin point of focus somewhere across the stream. Night has given way to a pink-tinted morning. I can see a squirrel on the opposite bank. Smooth pebbles. Muddy water. Trees.
“Sera?”
Lucas. He’s right behind me, squeezing my shoulder and pulling me away from that far-off place in my mind. I don’t want to come back, but I do.
Their little makeshift camp is silent chaos. On the surface, we are soft words and polite conversation. Madison tells us that putting the sling on was very painful for Hayley, that sh
e’s in shock, associating Madison with that pain. We pretend all morning that we believe her, but I don’t think we know what to believe.
The only thing I’m sure of is that we need to get out of these woods, and yesterday is not soon enough. We haven’t figured out a strategy yet, and running isn’t going to be a good enough plan. Hayley needs us, and Madison…I just don’t know what to think about Madison.
My eyes drag to Emily and stick. She’s still limping around—apparently, she twisted her ankle pretty good. Running, maybe even walking, is out for her.
Lucas offers me a water and leans in until his hair brushes my jaw. “I think we need to get the hell away from here.”
I shiver and look to where Jude is pressed to a tree, eyes scanning the forest, his mouth a thin, hard line when he looks at Madison. I feel it too, but could she really be involved in this? It seems crazy. Until I remember the way Hayley looked at her.
“I think we should go,” Lucas whispers, probably thinking I didn’t hear him the first time.
“Jude and Emily,” I breathe. Once, we were all one big school group. Now it is us and them, even though I know that’s probably not fair.
Jude is not the problem. He’s so ready to bolt, it’s a wonder I can’t see turbines spinning behind his brown eyes. We’ve got to do something about Emily though. I don’t think either of the boys is strong enough to carry her for very long. And then there’s Hayley. Pale and sick and in and out of consciousness. No way can we move her.
I look at Hayley now, and a lump grows in my throat. Emily and Madison are sitting near her, and I can tell Emily’s scared to death. Her smile’s stretched so tight that I’m sure it will snap.
Lucas pulls me to his chest again. I lean into him and listen as he picks at the bark on the maple behind us.
“Any ideas?” He says it so softly that I’m not sure I didn’t imagine it, but he’s looking down at me, eyes half-mast, though a muscle in his jaw is jumping. “What should we do?”
“I don’t know how we could leave,” I say.
“Shh,” he says because I’m too loud. He glances over my shoulder, where I’m guessing he can see Madison. He swallows hard and moves in until our foreheads kiss.
“Maybe you should get a room,” Jude teases.
I lurch back, but Lucas’s hand splays on my back, and he gives the barest shake of his head as he pulls us a couple steps away. We stop by an oak, and I let him curl me closer.
“He’s trying to help us,” he says softly. “So we can talk like this. Figure out a plan.”
I close my eyes and feel the sting of my exhaustion. I’m almost swaying on my feet, but he’s right. We have to do something. We all saw the way Hayley looked at Madison. We heard what she said.
What do I believe though? Madison’s story is logical enough. It would have been excruciating, and Hayley’s clearly in serious shock. But Hayley’s expression? It looked bigger than reliving a traumatic moment. It looked like she was afraid for her life.
I dare a quick glance around Lucas’s shoulder. Madison and Emily are both leaned over Hayley again, tending or whatever. But then Madison’s eyes shoot up and fix on Lucas and me. The envy in her gaze is almost palpable. I turn away quickly, my cheeks hot.
“Do you think she’s involved?” I whisper.
Lucas frowns, his thumb rubbing a slow circle on my spine. The touch turns my head even foggier. “She doesn’t strike me as the type. My money’s still on Mr. Walker. He likes you.”
“He doesn’t. Not like that,” I whisper. “I know you think I’m not seeing it, but I’m telling you, I don’t think it’s there. There’s zero motive. And the words? The dolls? That feels girly.”
Lucas cocks his head and leans in again. “Sera, this is Madison. She got excused from gym over a bad hangnail. Plus, if she’s doing this, why would she be calling us in to help her?”
“No idea. But she’s also the only one from her camp who’s not dead or heading that way in a hurry. Maybe she called for us to bring us closer.”
It isn’t as hard to imagine as I’d like. Madison has a car. She could have gotten down here, set this all up beforehand. She’s proven she’s capable with first aid, that she’s smarter than we thought. Plus, we found her granola bar wrappers around our camp. This whole nightmare isn’t an exercise in brute force. It’s just planning. Really careful planning.
“She could have done it,” I breathe, and this time, I believe myself.
Lucas sighs. “OK. What motive?”
I’m pretty sure I already know. I look over my shoulder and catch Madison glancing our way. I lift my hands to Lucas’s shoulders, and her mouth thins.
I drop my hands like he’s on fire. “You. You’re the motive.”
“Then why am I Dangerous?”
“Because you could hurt her?”
He quirks a brow. “You’re reaching. And why the hell would you be Darling?”
“Maybe in her eyes, I am a darling.” I swallow hard enough to hear it. “Your darling. Does she know about us? About the party or last spring when I hung out in your shop?”
His expression clouds, and I can’t hear his next breath. “She knows I’m out here for you. She tried to talk me into signing up with her, and I said no until…”
“Until you saw me on the list?”
It’s his turn to swallow hard. His grip on my waist tightens. “OK. It’s possible. Anything is possible. So I’ll take her down. Right now.”
I shake my head hard. Maybe too hard. The world spins, and this time, I grab Lucas’s shoulders for real.
His eyes are wide with concern, but he says nothing.
“We’re exhausted,” I say. “We’re stabbing in the dark, and we could be wrong. Plus, if it is her, she’s almost definitely armed. It feels too risky.”
“You’re letting your tired talk,” he says.
I scoff. “You’ve got bags under your eyes I could pack a lunch in.”
He laughs. “I still think I can take a hundred-and-ten-pound girl.”
“It feels like a bad idea. She could have a gun. She could have a partner.” I dare a quick glance, but Madison’s behind Emily, ducked low near Hayley. No way can we get to her without going through them. Could we call her out? Would she see it coming?
“Break it up already,” Jude says. I didn’t even hear him slip up, but he’s suddenly right beside us. He drops his voice lower than a whisper. “Someone’s paying awfully close attention to your sexual tension.”
No way did Jude come over here just to pick at how close we’re standing. He’s got something on his mind. I watch his gaze move over Emily, his mouth going thin every time she limps. He’s afraid for her. Afraid for all of us probably.
Jude isn’t who I thought he was. Not that it would matter if he was. He’s one of us now, which makes me wonder when we became an us.
Emily adjusts her spot beside Hayley. Madison is still crouched close, but I can see that Emily is moving awkwardly. Whatever’s wrong with her ankle, it’s bad.
“She won’t be able to walk,” I whisper. “And Hayley is wrecked.”
“Plus, Mr. Walker could be following us,” Lucas says with a sigh.
Jude nods, and something in his expression cracks when he looks back at Emily. I know that look. It’s the way I look at Sophie when she’s in the midst of a panic attack. Or the way Dad looks at me every day.
It’s compassion. Worry. And it’s so much bigger than the nine letters on his arm.
“I’m sorry for trying to define you.” I say it because I’m not sorry for whatever now. I know what I did wrong.
Jude just raises his brows, his expression revealing nothing.
I scrape a nail across the D in Darling. “Whether I meant to or not, I did wonder about you. I made my guesses too, even though I didn’t know you at all. I had no right. Your dating preferenc
es have nothing to do with me. That’s what I’m sorry for.”
I force myself to meet Jude’s eyes, and he watches me for what feels like forever. It isn’t comfortable, but I don’t look away. Looking away would cheapen everything I just said, and the words aren’t worth much as they stand.
“Better,” he says, and his sudden smile surprises me as much as his soft words. “I don’t talk about it because I’ve seen the way people react to my dads.”
“Is it hard?” This from Lucas. His soft sincerity surprises me.
“Not always. Lots of people want to be supportive, and most people try. But there’s always this moment when they hesitate. They’re thinking about it, trying to sort it all out. Should Pop go in the dentist box or the gay father box?”
“More labels,” I whisper.
He shrugs. “I was born into a stack of them. Cello prodigy. Person of color. Gay dads. I just want this part of me to be mine for now.”
My chest blooms with warmth, and I try to bite back my smile. And fail spectacularly. “I think I get that.”
“No, you don’t,” he says, but he smiles just enough that his words don’t sting.
There’s a rustling across camp, and I see Emily waving her hands gently, softly encouraging Madison to head out. My stomach flutters. Tightens.
“What’s happening?” Lucas asks.
No one really answers. Madison checks Hayley one more time, pushes a hunk of her own sticky hair behind her shoulder, and stumbles into the trees. Her footsteps are loud at first but then softer and softer until they fade.
I lock on to Emily’s gaze, and for one split second, I think this is it. We’ll all run. We’ll be out. Then Emily struggles to her feet, like she wants to approach. Her ankle buckles, and her face contorts. Jude swears, and we trip over each other trying to get to her.
I crouch down next to her, smelling sweat and blood and fecund things from the forest floor. Emily’s letting out short puffs of air with a little whine at the end of each one.