Partially consumed. I flip the page open, pain buzzing through my bad hand, for the rest of the article, scan the paragraph for anything helpful. There isn’t much. A few quotes from the community. Tragic loss. The principal’s heartfelt condolences. And then a single name that stands out like a beacon. Peter Walker, a new, local teacher who grew up near the site of the incident.
“Hannah was a special girl,” Walker said. “I hope her death serves as a warning. People die in those woods all the time.”
The paper drops from my hands, rippling through the air like a falling bird. It lands in the dirt, and I leave it.
“What is it?” Lucas says, picking up the paper. He reads for a minute and then says, “Mr. Walker’s in this article.”
I nod, and he pulls in a long breath, tracing his finger under our teacher’s name.
“He killed that girl, didn’t he?” I ask, pacing three steps left and then back again. “He killed Hannah, and now he’s coming after me.”
Because I look like her. And I look like my mother. My face has brought me nothing but trouble.
I laugh. It dissolves into a shriek. And then a sob. I cover my mouth and shove it all back down.
Lucas drops the paper and wraps an arm around my back, his gaze flicking from tree to tree, shadow to shadow.
I grind my muddy boot into the newspaper. In the corner, the number one twists, and my eyes drag to the date on the paper. It’s tomorrow. There’s one more day left.
“Hannah died tomorrow,” I say. “Tomorrow eighteen years ago.”
Lucas’s soft mouth goes impossibly hard. “Well, you’re not Hannah.”
Chapter 24
We make our way through the valley quickly, but there isn’t a road on the other side. More mountains. More trees. Neither of us says a word as we weave our way through undergrowth that’s denser with every step.
Shadows stretch longer as we walk. It’s hard not to think about the figure I saw. Harder still to not imagine Mr. Walker in every rustle of leaves or snapping branch I hear. I’m jerking my head back and forth so much, I’m about to get whiplash.
“I don’t think he’ll come tonight,” Lucas says. “I think it’ll be tomorrow.”
“Because that’s the anniversary?”
“Makes sense, right?” he says. “None of this was spur of the moment. This all leads up to something, I think. And the article said she died tomorrow.”
True. Doesn’t mean he’s not in the trees right now, waiting for midnight. Watching us walk. We crest over one mountain and collapse just past the top. It’s grown dark, and the terrain is rough. The mountains are sharper here, rocky outcrops jutting up more often, the occasional drop-off reminding me of Ms. Brighton’s ghosts.
Lucas offers me our remaining water. Thirsty as I am, I’m not sure I shouldn’t use some of it on my hand. That situation is getting worse by the hour. It’s throbbing up to my elbow now. The moon is high and bright, but I still can’t see well enough to assess redness or swelling.
“Hand bothering you?”
“It needs to be dealt with.”
“We’re getting close,” he says. “We’re heading north again. I bet the road cuts right through one of those valleys up there. I’ve got a good feeling.”
I don’t feel good about anything. I’m convinced that even if we do manage to avoid Mr. Walker, we’ll end up lost out here until my arm falls off and I die of gangrene.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he asks.
I smirk. “I wouldn’t say I’m drowning in optimism.”
“I could climb a tree when we get a little higher. I might be able to spot headlights.”
“You’re suggesting climbing a tree. In the dark. Do you want to end up like Hayley?”
“Good point.” Lucas downs another few sips and stands up. “I don’t like all the cliffs now that it’s getting dark. We could fall if we’re not careful.”
It’s a real risk. The drop-offs barely have rhyme or reason, cliffs that run along the ragged mountain ridges and fissures—those are even worse—that spring up without warning. Tree, tree, three-hundred-foot fall to our deaths.
Something snaps in the distance, and I flinch, scanning the darkness. Leaves rustle, and then I hear the scrabble of tiny claws on a trunk.
“Coon probably. Maybe a possum,” Lucas says. “They come out at night.”
I don’t talk about who else could come out at night, but we’re both thinking it.
Far in the distance, something calls in a rhythm. Once. Twice. Low and long in a way that makes me think human.
“Do you think…?” I ask him.
“An owl again? That one we heard made crazy noises.”
When we hear it again, he doesn’t look so sure. It’s two-toned and too low to be a bird, and it’s coming from the direction we came. Through the pass between the mountains, I think. I can’t think of any animal that could make a noise like this. It sounds human.
It sounds like my name.
I stand up, knocking over my almost-empty water bottle.
Lucas saves it fast and rests a light hand on my leg. “Relax. Mr. Walker wouldn’t go through all this stalking just to start screaming for us, right?”
I try to smile and ignore the cold sweat breaking under my arms as Lucas stretches and tightens the caps on the water. We’re just moving when the noise comes again.
I clamp a hand over Lucas’s arm because it is my name. Someone is calling my name.
“Do you hear that?”
He stops, and I can tell by his expression he did hear. I bite my lip and feel a mosquito puncture the back of my arm.
“Sera! Emily! Lucas! Jude!”
My blood frosts over in my veins. It’s him—Mr. Walker.
Chapter 25
Lucas doesn’t say a word—just grabs my good hand and starts marching. We’re going faster than before, sloshing across ground that feels marshy. I smell old rain and rot, but it fades as we climb. Another mountain—we’re heading up diagonally—and my legs are burning. Aching.
“Sera! Emily!”
I bite down a whimper and speed up. Mr. Walker’s closer now. Below, I can hear the occasional thump of a footstep. God, can he hear us too? Lucas is silent as he climbs, but I’m panting too loud. My thighs shake with every step. I’m terrified I’ll collapse and roll down this dark mountainside. And Mr. Walker will be waiting for me at the bottom with permanent markers and a knife.
I let go of Lucas’s arm to grab at the trees, hauling myself up even though every muscle is shuddering. I have to get over this ridge because…because if I don’t, I’m giving up. One step. Another. Another.
“Hey! Hello! If you can hear me, make some noise!”
Mr. Walker sounds a bit farther north of us now. He’s continuing on the way we were going to go. But whatever, he’s moving away, and thank God because I cannot take one more step. I cling to the tree, and the pain screams across my wound. I’m sucking air so hard, I can’t tell Lucas to wait. He sees I’ve stopped. Maybe he can’t go either.
Again, Mr. Walker calls our names, one after the next like he’s doing a roll call. He sounds desperate.
Lucas moves closer and looks up the steep mountainside and then back at me. Is he thinking of carrying me? Please. He’s sheet-white and soaked in sweat already.
Mr. Walker hollers again. “If you can hear me, stay where you are. I’m coming for you.”
I shudder and watch Lucas’s throat jump when he swallows. Funny he would use those words—rescuer words. Is he using them to lure us in? Lucas nods up at the mountain again, and I shake my head. My legs weigh two thousand pounds. Two million pounds. I am sinking into this forest floor, waiting for Mr. Walker to come for me.
“Sera, we have to keep going,” Lucas says.
“He’s going to get to the road first.” The whispe
r comes out of me on the edge of a sob. “He’ll cut us off. I can’t keep going.”
“Yes, you can,” he says, and then his hands are on my face, and he’s smiling at me like I’m chickening out on a ride at the fair. “It’s a big road. We’ll find another part of it. No option, right? The show must go on. Isn’t that what you people say?”
My fumbling step forward is my answer. It’s not easy going. We scrabble our way up, tree by tree, root by root. It’s so slow that it’s laughable, but the next time Mr. Walker calls, his voice is a distant echo to the north.
We reach a small clearing at the top, and Lucas waits, searching through the darkness for some indication that things are going right. I watch too, seeing nothing but a hazy white moon overhead and the veiled blinking of countless stars. The forest slopes down below us, and a cloud drifts away from the moon.
I see something. Something pale in the woods. I go very still, scanning the trees carefully. Nothing, nothing, and then I find it again. Pale and Twinkie-shaped and almost but not quite swallowed by the forest.
I clutch at Lucas’s shirt and point down the slope. He follows my line of vision, and I can see the moment he spots it. His wide shoulders tense, and a low breath comes out of him.
“What do you think that is?” I ask.
“I don’t think. I know.” His smile gleams a little bit wicked in the moonlight. “That’s a camper trailer.”
It has a broken window, cinder block steps, and a ripped God Bless America flag, and it is the most gorgeous thing in the world. Or it is until I see the half-tarp-covered four-wheeler parked beside it. Lucas tells me at least ten times to slow down, heading down that mountainside, but I don’t care. I run.
My feet thud to a sudden stop twenty feet or so from the front of the camper. It’s a once-silver cigar with rust and trash around the base and a few thornbushes draped over the front door. I don’t think anyone’s been home in a while.
My smile falters, but I force it to stay put. It doesn’t matter. We don’t need a person really. We just need to get that four-wheeler running so we can get the hell out of here.
I pull in a deep breath and move from the front of the camper to the four-wheeler. Lucas is already pulling the tarp loose, checking over the engine.
“Do you think it’s usable?” I ask.
“Battery would be my first worry.” He starts rummaging around the pile of wood and scraps around the quad. “No keys either.”
“Can you hotwire it?”
“You mean from my stint in Grand Theft Auto: The Reality Show?” He smirks up at me, holding something long and metal. “A few fights does not make me a car thief.”
“I’m sorry.” I bite my lip and look back at the camper. “Do you think they’d just leave it if it’s running? Is that…convenient?”
Lucas shrugs, leaning in. “I don’t know. I’ve got an uncle who lives about seventy miles from here. He leaves a dirt bike at his hunting shack sometimes.”
“Doesn’t he worry about someone stealing it?”
“He always says anyone who could find it would be riding something better. This thing is a rusted piece of junk, so I’m betting the same logic applies.”
He taps the heavy metal file he’s holding to something inside the engine area. There’s a crack and a sudden spark, flaring white and brilliant and brief in the darkness.
“Battery’s good,” he says, dropping the file. “We should check inside for keys.”
Looking at the camper sends spiderweb chills up my back. I don’t know if I want to go inside. “I still think it’s weird it’s out here.”
“Well, they didn’t leave the keys, and I’ll bet the camper is locked tight.”
My eyes drag back to the broken-down trailer, sticking on those long, draping branches, each one covered in thorns. I square my shoulders. Thorns are not going to stand in the way of me getting out of here.
Lucas heads for the steps, swearing before he even reaches for the first sticker branch.
I catch up and pluck at the shirt between his shoulder blades. “Let’s be smart here. We’ll use the file and sticks to push some of this crap away.”
He turns back, chuckling. “See? I knew that bossy side was still in there.”
“No sense in making an easy job hard.”
It’s not an easy job. By the time we uncover the door, we’re both covered in bleeding scratches, my bad hand is burning like I’ve doused it in gasoline and lit it on fire, and I’ve got thorns in my hair.
Lucas rattles the shiny padlock on the front door with a sad laugh. And then his shoulders sag, and he drops his forehead softly to the door. Something in me aches at that gesture. It’s the first time he’s looked weak.
It’s the first time I’ve wondered if he was going to cry.
I reach for him, fingertips grazing his sweat-damp shirt. It feels like slow motion when he turns, tears glittering in his eyes even as he forces that cocky grin back into place.
“Yeah, I’m real dangerous. I can’t even get into this rickety-ass trailer.”
I rest my palm against his chest until he takes a breath that shakes as badly as my fingers. I press harder, hoping to steady him. He leans back into the trailer like I pushed him, watching me with heavily lidded eyes.
“You could have left us two days ago,” I say, only just realizing it. On his own, he would have made it. Lucas is built for this sort of adventure. He’s made to survive.
He snorts. “Sure, I could have just—”
“Yes, you could have. You could have walked north on that first day like you wanted to. Like we all probably should have. You could have left us, left me. And you didn’t.”
His heart thumps at my fingers like a bass line, and I step in close.
“But you’re still out here,” he says. “We’re all still out here, so what does it matter?”
I feel everything I felt on the back deck and more, but I don’t hate it right now. This feeling I mocked and ran from and despised is the thing that’s keeping me going.
“It matters,” I say, and I kiss him softly, stretching up so high on my toes that the arches of my feet ache. I taste the salt on his lips and maybe a little dirt, but then his hand is so soft on my neck that everything goes feather-light at the edges. The darkness and fear melt away. Even my stupid hand dulls to a throb.
Lucas pulls back. I can feel his eyes on me, but his expression is hidden by the camper’s shadow. He brushes a thumb over my lips and then takes me back down the concrete block stairs that wobble under every step.
“Stay down here for a minute.”
I’m opening my mouth to ask when he launches back up the stairs, grabbing the file off the ground. He wedges it in the seam beside the door. After grunting and shifting, he slips it farther into the frame and pushes against the end for leverage. Metal and wood creak. I hold my breath—the file slips with a pop.
Lucas cries out, yanking his hand back and shaking it. Blood is dripping from his middle finger.
“Lucas—”
He waves me off, and then he’s pushing until he’s groaning and the door is groaning and I’m biting my lip. A snap rocks through the air, and something clatters on the concrete steps.
The file. Half of it. It broke off in the door.
Lucas explodes, fists and feet and words flying at the door like bullets. I step farther back as he rages, kicking one of the concrete blocks in the steps three feet away as he brutalizes the door. I don’t even think he notices it’s gone. He’s too busy cursing a blue streak and rocking the camper on its deflated wheels.
My heart climbs into my mouth, trapped there by my gritted teeth. I have to do something. Stop him before Mr. Walker hears and comes back. We’re in a valley, but it could echo, couldn’t it?
“Lucas,” I say.
He doesn’t stop, shoving and punching at the door lik
e it’s all he sees. The frame splinters a little, but he’s still slamming over and over, muttering to himself.
“Outofhere. Outofhere. I’mgettingheroutofhere!”
“Lucas!”
He doesn’t stop, throwing his shoulder, his whole body, against the door. Once, it rocks. Twice, something snaps underneath the trailer. A third time, and the door gives with a symphony of snaps and rips.
Then there is quiet. The door dangles off one half-busted hinge. Lucas lands on his side, shoulders and head inside the darkness of the camper.
Chapter 26
I make my way up the stairs on Play-Doh legs, crouching at his side and helping him sit up inside the busted door frame.
He looks up at me, cuts on his face and a dazed look in his eyes. “Shit, I actually got in.”
“You did,” I say, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “You really did.”
It’s so dark inside that the trailer is mostly things I feel and smell. A sticky floor under our boots and sleeping benches I bump into with every step. It smells like spilled beer and cigarettes, but it does not smell like blood or death or trees. And I am grateful.
There’s a plastic-wrapped carton of bottles on the counter, mostly empty. I find a couple of bottles of Gatorade in the back and crack one open. I offer the first to Lucas before opening my own. For a while, we stand there in the dark and quiet, staring at the door he destroyed while we drink our fill.
Lucas finds a flashlight strapped by a window, and the sudden brightness is disarming, illuminating duct-tape-repaired cushions and cracks on the tiny metal table hinged to the wall. Someone moves across from me, and I flinch. Nope, not a person. A mirror.
I stare, Lucas’s left shoulder shielding the worst of my stained clothes. My view of my face is clear as day though, and it’s the face of a stranger. My dark eyes are sunken, my hair clumped around my neck in dull hanks. I have a scrape under one eye I don’t remember getting and sweat and dirt ground into my forehead and chin. I sure don’t look like my mother now.
Do I still look like Hannah?