Lucas isn’t much better. He’s like an extra from a zombie movie, his features beyond hollow and patches of stubble showing through on his chin. He’s rooting around in cabinets, hunched over because he’s too tall to stand up in here. He takes up every inch of available space, like a cartoon character in a too-small bed.
“Let me see that hand,” he says, reaching for me. I can see a red metal box in his other hand. First aid kit.
I turn over my hand and let out a low breath. It isn’t pretty. Like the worst case of road rash I’ve ever seen. It’s puffy and pink, and I see places where it’s weeping yellow pus.
Lucas opens a bottle of peroxide and looks at me. I can tell his jaw is tight, but he just tells me to grit my teeth and hold on to the table. Nothing has ever hurt like the peroxide he pours over my hand. It hits my tender flesh like lava, flashfire painful and leaving a loud throb in its place.
“Breathe, Sera,” he says.
I do, and I cry a little too but try to hide it because Lucas knows me as the girl with her crap together. I had clipboards, flouncy dresses, and a plan. Even when our rotating Les Misérables set broke mid-show last year, I held my shit together and got us all to curtain call.
Now I cry over every damn thing and swoon when Lucas glances at me sideways, and I’m going with my gut so much, I should hate myself. I really should.
I feel cool pressure and look up to see him pressing a white gauze pad over the palm of my hand. He frowns at it.
“I squirted a bunch of antibiotic ointment on it. It’s not perfect.”
“It’s better than nothing.”
“It’s not good enough.” He rummages in the kit again, finding a ratty-looking ACE bandage, and starting at the webbing between my thumb and forefinger, he wraps my entire hand and wrist. “It’ll keep it padded and clean. Cleaner anyway.”
I pick at the table. Stare at my lap. Think about the last time I cut my hand. It wasn’t as bad, of course—just a paper cut—but it was in that tender webbing between my thumb and index finger, and God, it hurt for a week.
I got it on the one and only thing my mother has sent me since she left. I’d ripped open the envelope so fast, desperate for some sort of explanation. A letter. Maybe a late birthday card. Or at least a check.
It was a holiday card, one of those preprinted photo things you can order from the drugstore. This one featured Mom and Charlie by a palm tree strewn with Christmas lights. On the back, she wrote four words—Always thinking of you—and a little ink heart.
I look up at the mirror, and now I can see her. Just a spark in my eyes, but it hurts. What did I expect though? There aren’t enough scrapes and bruises in the world to take her out. She’s in the marrow of my bones. Some part of that person who believes a greeting card somehow makes up for four years of not being there—it’s inside me.
“Are you OK?” Lucas asks.
I stand up abruptly. “Sorry, got distracted. We should find a key for the quad, right?” Then I turn to the four doorless cabinets and hinged counter over the cooler. I guess it’s supposed to be the kitchen, pathetic as it is. There’s a camping set and something made of grass and sticks that’s too shadowy to investigate in the corner of the counter. It’s probably a nest.
“There’s got to be one somewhere,” I say.
“Got it.” I hear him stand up, feel him move behind me, all strength and heat and absolute patience. Lucas is always patient. Always waiting.
He reaches past me, hand grazing my hip. My whole body goes tight, heat surging behind my rib cage. Something jingles, and then I see the keys in his hands.
“How did you see that?” I ask, looking behind me. There’s a small hook screwed into the edge of the counter I’m leaning on. They must have been hanging there.
“Lucky spot,” he says.
“Thank God! So, we’re going north?” I turn for the door, eyes on my feet as I try to edge past him in the narrow space.
He steps in front of me, a simple move that stops me in my tracks.
“We can’t leave until dawn.”
“Are you kidding? Mr. Walker could be out there right now!”
“You know what’s definitely out there? Cliffs. A shit-ton of them.” He shakes his head. “Dawn is four hours away, tops. Mr. Walker was headed north, so he’s probably to the road already, unless by some miracle the Cherokee ghosts led his ass off a cliff.”
I bite my lip. “I’m afraid to wait.”
“Me too,” he admits. “But I’m more afraid to go when we can’t see. We’ll keep watch. We’ll hear him coming long before he gets here, if it comes to that.”
“And then what? What if he does come?”
“Then we fire up the quad and take our chances with driving off a cliff,” he says. “We have to be smart, Sera. Driving in the dark around cliffs is how people die.”
“It feels crazy to just sit here.”
He nods, and I can tell he’s still watching me. I try not to fidget, but it’s hard.
“Sera, what were you thinking back there? When you were sitting at the table, you were a million miles away.”
I stop, arms crossed around my middle and hair covering my face. I can see his shirt move as he breathes. In and out. In and out. I feel like a diva with a broken voice. This isn’t me marching across a stage, laying out battle plans and leading the charge. I have no control here.
“This is almost over,” he says, misreading my fear. “Dawn will come. Mr. Walker will look for us at the road, not here. We’re going home.”
“I know.” And that’s part of why I’m terrified.
He steps close enough to thumb the edges of my dirty hair. He traces the scrape under my eye, a touch that leaves a trail of liquid fire in its wake. His fingers graze the place in my neck where my pulse races.
“Long way from that night on your friend’s back porch, huh?” His voice is rough.
“Yeah.” The word comes out too breathy. I try to force a laugh, pushing lightness into the heavy air. “I really was so screwed up after that. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Let’s just call this the beginning if you want.”
I do. Even though it terrifies me, I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
He leans in slow, thumb stroking my chin down to the hollow of my throat. When we kiss, there isn’t darkness or panic to muddy the reality of what I’m doing, the contact I’m craving with him.
Every look he gives me makes me want another. Every brush of his hand spins my world into more pieces.
We scoot back on the narrow floor, shoulder to shoulder and backs against the filthy cabinets. I feel the sigh he lets out, close my eyes at the tickle of his hair against my temple.
“It’s almost over,” he says again.
“Yes.”
With Lucas beside me, I can almost believe it will be different this time. That I’ll be brave enough to be with him and good enough to not turn out like her. That I’ll find some sort of balance in the middle.
But will I? Out here, it’s another world. It’s easy when it’s life and death and he’s laying everything on the line to keep me alive. But at home with my life and my friends and my father? I don’t know.
Maybe I can find a way to be with Lucas without feeding the part of me that is like my mother. Or maybe that part will grow like a cancer, quietly snagging bits and pieces of my organs, taking me over cell by cell until there’s nothing good left.
Chapter 27
“A bacon cheeseburger,” he says.
“Bleh. Too much meat for me.” I wrinkle my nose, checking the window again, willing the sky to grow lighter. It doesn’t. We’re leaned against opposite sides of the camper now, his back to the bench seats, mine to the camper wall. My calves are on his lap, feet dangling off his knees. His legs are everywhere. He’s a praying mantis in a matchbox.
“So, what do you want?” he asks, drumming his fingers on my shin. “Food-wise.”
“Tabbouleh.” I close my eyes at the idea. “Tons of it.”
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a salad with parsley and mint and lemon—”
“This is your comfort food?” he asks. “It sounds like the contents of a tea bag.”
“It’s not a tea bag. It’s healthy and fresh and way better than the crap granola bars and—” I clutch my growling stomach. “We have to talk about something else. This is torture.”
Something cracks outside. My shoulders jerk back, hit the side of the camper.
Lucas is already up, staring out the broken window, his neck tendons roped tight.
“Raccoon,” he says. “It’s almost time. The stars are fading, so dawn’s close. The second we can see, we’re out of here.”
He’s right. This will be over. And then what?
I watch him through my lashes, trying to sort out what will happen back in the real world. In Marietta. Will I…date him? Is that where this is going?
“You’re thinking about what comes next, aren’t you?”
I tip my head, trying to decide how to answer. “I think I know. But I’m…I might spook. It could be messy dating me.”
“Who said I wanted to date you?” he asks, but he’s grinning, and then I’m grinning too.
Lucas kisses me, quick and hard on the mouth. “I don’t need all the answers. We can feel our way one day at a time.”
My laugh feels good. “Of course you’d say that. So are we getting out of here or what? By the time you get it started, it will be light enough.”
He should get a patent for that grin. “Hell yes. Let’s do this.”
Going back outside is scarier when I stand up. Dread settles heavy in my chest. Lucas joins me, still half hunched over in this too-small space. Outside, the air is cool and damp, and my stomach sinks at the first smell of leaves. I’m checking every tree, every shadow—waiting for something to jump.
Lucas is watching too, but he’s moving toward the quad with steady strides. He’s done hiding, jangling the keys in a way that pricks my hope to attention.
He slides behind the handlebars and tries the key. Once, and the grinding sets my teeth on edge. Again, and it’s trying to turn over, but no go. Lucas hops off and messes with wires. A hawk cries out as it soars overhead, and I think I’m going to come apart. This really has to work. I can’t handle a universe where this doesn’t go right.
He’s crouching now, adjusting this, muttering about that. Then he’s back in the seat, and the engine is grinding with a little phutphutphut before it goes dead again. Lucas isn’t stressed, but I’m so tense, I’m probably going to snap a shoulder blade in two. He blows on something on the side of the engine, knocks something else, and heads back to the key again.
I hold my breath. It has to work. It has to—
The motor starts, and I nearly collapse with relief.
Lucas’s smile is as wide as I’ve ever seen it. The engine is an almost deafening roar, and when he revs it, I laugh, my spirit lifting like birthday balloons. A hawk takes flight from a nearby maple, and my laughter catches in the back of my throat, sticking on sudden fear.
We aren’t alone out here. And that engine was probably heard for miles.
“We should go,” I say.
Lucas climbs off, grinning, then his eyes catch on my hand, and he frowns. I check the bandage, which is red in a few places. I’m bleeding through.
“I should probably see someone about that.” I laugh, but Lucas’s expression is grim.
“Yeah. Sooner the better.” He nods at the trailer. “I’m going to grab the first aid kit just in case.”
He dashes inside before I can argue. I can hear his heavy feet thunk-groaning on the sloping floor. My insides tighten, praying for it to hold. All around me, the leaves twitch and flutter. Birds flit at the very edge of my vision, leaving me jumpy.
“Lucas, I really want to go.”
He reappears in the doorway, grin in place. “Keep your pants on. Mr. Walker isn’t going to catch us on this thing.”
I try to smile, but I’m shaking too hard. It slides right off my lips. “Let’s just get moving.”
He chuckles on his first step out of the camper, and I see it before it even happens. The stair wobbles, and then his left foot searches for the next step, but a huge chunk is gone. Missing from where he kicked the cinder block out yesterday. I can’t even scream before it’s happening. He’s falling.
His balance pitches, and the first aid kit flies. Bandages flutter like moths as Lucas hurtles down. His fingers flail for the door frame, but he misses. The impact is awful, shoulder first into the dirt and limbs falling every which way.
Everything is screaming. Me and Lucas and the engine of the quad, still idling, ready to carry us to safety. I crouch beside Lucas, afraid to look or touch anything. He rolls over, face twisted in agony. When he tries to sit up, he’s gone ash-gray. Something’s really wrong. I look for a head wound first. No. It’s his shoulder. It’s crooked or his arm is too low or—
Oh no.
His eyes are screwed shut, and he’s pulling his arm across his middle like that will fix this, but it won’t. I’ve never seen a dislocated shoulder, but I’m pretty sure that’s what this is. And it’s way beyond fixing with the yellowed bandages and boxes of rolled gauze in our first aid kit.
Chapter 28
“Lucas,” I say, feeling close to tears.
His eyes pop open, searching the sky and finally landing on my face. “My shoulder.”
“I know.”
He groans, then lets out something that’s supposed to be a laugh, I think. “Escape a killer, get taken down by a stair.”
Technically, it was the absence of a stair, but it’s not important. I touch his stomach, afraid to get anywhere near his misshapen shoulder. “What do I do? What do we—”
He grits his teeth and braces his good arm on the ground, and I can tell he’s going to try to stand up. “We get the hell out of here.”
“You can’t drive like this,” I say.
He laughs, not looking like he’s inclined to disagree.
My face goes cold, lips numb as I stare at the rumbling four-wheeler. “I have no idea how to drive that, Lucas.”
“You can do anything, Sera,” he says, and he believes it, so I have to believe it too. “I’ll tell you how.”
My hands shake as I help him onto the seat. My whole body is rattling when I settle in front of him. I will do this. We don’t have any options left, so I follow his instructions and put it in gear.
We keep it in lower gears because there isn’t a trail. There’s barely enough space between the trees to weave in and out. At first, it was awful—I was bad with the clutch and worse with the brakes, and Lucas gritted through cries that made me flinch.
I learned fast. Maybe I’m not doing it like a pro, and maybe I’m going slow, but we are crossing through the forest fast enough to let the wind hit my face. We climb straight up when it gets steep. I tried to take it at a diagonal, and Lucas hollered about that right away. Too much danger of rolling. Instead, we have to stand up and kind of lean forward. It was uncomfortable for me, so I can’t even imagine what it was like for him.
At the top of one crest, I catch my first glimpse of the road, a winding gray snake with a yellow stripe, cutting its way through the green mountains. My heart bubbles up. It’s really happening. Help is one mountain away. We just have to get there.
The forest isn’t making it easy on us. The backside of the mountain is treacherous, stone ledges rising up so sharply, it’s hard to find a path down from the rim of the peak. In other spots, the mountain drops off a cliff and into nothing.
I turn left around a line of rocks that jut up like a hobbled fence. We’re comp
letely turned around—this is not getting us closer to the road. I tighten my grip and try to ignore the stabbing bolts of pain shooting from my hand to my armpit. I also ignore the tightening in my chest because I know panic won’t help. There has to be a way through. I just need to find it.
Clouds are gathering, thick and gray in the sky overhead. It brings me right back to our early days here, when we were annoyed by a storm. Back then, rain was the low point.
My eyes scan the horizon in hopes of a break in the rocks—a place where I can shift us north so we’re back on track. I catch another glimpse of the road, and my heart clenches.
“Damn these rocks,” I mutter.
Lucas doesn’t respond. He’s tense and sweating behind me, and his good arm has gone damp around my middle. My whole body aches, imagining what he’s going through back there. There can’t be words for pain like that.
I ease the throttle as we finally start down the opposite side. The terrain turns even worse. A sharp, rocky outcropping flanks the west side, and the trees are thicker here. We’re forced to curve to the southeast, and my stomach is dropping into my feet. If Mr. Walker followed the valleys, he might have walked through here. If he kept moving at night, he might be ahead of us. Waiting for us.
But we are faster, and I’m not above running him over if it means saving our lives.
The quad crawls over dead leaves, and I keep our speed slow, picking the smoothest path I can as I search the sharp slope on the left. There’s got to be a way through this. A gap in the rocks or—
“Sera!”
Lucas’s grip releases my waist, his fingers jabbing in front of me to tug the left handlebar. The quad hurls left, and my body slings against it. Something sprays underneath the tire, and I yelp, spotting the drop-off just inches from the right side of the quad.
Oh my God, we almost went over. The earth drops into nothing right there.
I pull the brakes when we’re a few more feet away, my stomach heaving into my mouth as my eyes drag to that narrow gorge we almost slipped into. I can’t see the bottom. I could have killed us. We could have died, and we are so close to living.