Jude’s eyes are cold slits. “Because I don’t think you’re a darling.”
Can’t argue with that.
“Enough,” Lucas says. “First off, nobody here could have crossed that river, and second, let’s stop pretending Sera got the lucky word in this mess.”
A chill runs up my arms. Jude looks at his shoes, so I turn to Lucas.
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” Lucas says.
I whirl on him. “It’s not nothing. What are you talking about with the lucky word?”
Lucas points at everyone but me. “The rest of our words are problems, Sera. We’re dismissed or defective. Whatever you want to call it.”
“I don’t—”
“Deceptive, Damaged, Dangerous.” He shakes his longish hair out of his eyes. “The three of us were found lacking, but you weren’t. Your word makes it sound like you’re chosen. Or special.”
“It’s true,” Emily says, but she doesn’t look at me. She looks right past us, her eyes so cloudy, I can’t tell if she’s seeing anything at all.
“These could be random,” I say. “Think about it. Everyone’s damaged, right? Everyone lies now and then.”
“So someone just happened upon us and spent God knows how long destroying our crap and inking these words onto our wrists?” Jude asks, obviously not buying it. “No. The words fit. This isn’t random.”
“Why not?” I ask because I don’t want to be chosen or special. I still want to believe it’s nonsense. “Because you have a secret? Who doesn’t?”
His face shutters. “Don’t start with me.”
“Don’t bite my head off! I’m just asking.”
Lucas rolls his eyes. “Ignore him. He obviously wants the damn primetime interview about it. Like anyone gives two craps.”
“For people who don’t care, you’re all pretty obsessed with figuring me out,” Jude says.
“We’re not obsessed,” Emily says. Her focus is sharp now, slicing away at the attitude Jude’s wearing like a second skin.
“Please,” Jude says. “People watch me constantly. They’ve always watched.”
Lucas throws up his hands. “What people?”
“Don’t be obtuse.” Jude bumps his chin. “A black kid with two white dads and you think people don’t ask questions? Everybody has always wondered about me. I couldn’t pick between a pink or blue crayon in preschool without someone making a tick mark in a book somewhere.”
I furrow my brow. “What book?”
Lucas scoffs. “What does any of that have to do with whether or not you’re gay? You do realize you go to an art magnet school, right? Nobody cares, Jude!” Then he leans in, eyes going wide. “Unless you care. If we’re still wondering, you’re still interesting, right?”
Jude’s gaze could leave frostbite in its wake. His voice is deadly low when he speaks. “I don’t give a shit what you find interesting.”
“You are such—”
I touch Lucas, and he goes silent, his gaze moving to me before I can pretend it was an accidental brush. It should have been an accident. I shouldn’t touch him at all.
“Please stop,” I say.
“Protecting him now?” Lucas asks me softly, but it feels like he’s asking me something else. He’s staring so hard, and I’m staring right back, and I can feel all the things that happened before simmering in the smell of moss and dirt and wood. God, is this what I’m still about? When you peel back my layers, is it still my mother hiding in the center?
“Let’s just drop it. Leave him alone,” Emily says.
That grabs my attention. Emily’s been pretty cool toward Jude since we started this trip. The sudden switch is weird.
“Don’t tell me you’re playing into his pity party,” Lucas says, but he’s not angry now.
“I’m not,” Emily says. “But this isn’t the time. And it isn’t our business.”
Jude lifts his head, watching Emily with an expression I can’t read.
The breeze has gone cooler, and the sun is below the tops of the trees. It’s later than I thought.
“We need to decide what we’re doing,” Lucas says.
“I don’t think I can walk,” Jude admits. “Not far.”
And then I get it. All this crap he’s starting. All the anger. It isn’t about what he’s hiding or even who’s after us. It’s just that he can’t leave. He’s afraid of being left behind.
“Me either,” I lie. I could walk now. If it meant getting out of here, I could probably fly. But if I’m not leaving Mr. Walker, I’m not leaving Jude either.
“I can barely stand up,” Emily says.
“I have two granola bars left,” Jude offers. An olive branch if I’ve ever seen one.
“Good idea,” Lucas says. “Let’s divvy up snacks while the serial killer closes in.”
I glare at Lucas. “Enough!”
He points at the remaining three bottles of water. “Someone is out there, Sera. Yeah, they left water, but they drugged us last night. Probably after they killed the other half of our group.”
I storm toward him. “We don’t know that! We haven’t even checked on them, and they might be like Mr. Walker. Maybe the drugs affected them worse. Maybe they’re over there right now, alone and scared, while you sit here having a pissing contest with anyone who’ll listen.”
Lucas pushes his hair back, and his smile is predatory. “Fine. Let’s check that river. Right now. Because if you’re right, then maybe they need help. And if I’m right, we’re going to find dead bodies, and maybe then you’ll agree it’s time to get the hell out of here.”
“Stop talking like this. Can we just try to hope for something good to happen?” I ask. “Maybe we’ll find them and help them.”
Lucas sighs. “The only thing that can help any of us is a way out of this hellhole or a phone to call for help.”
“They might still have their phones on the other side of the river!”
Lucas stalls at the argument, his eyes flashing with interest. “All right. We’ll check the river.”
I laugh. “Just like that?”
“The phones are a decent point. We’ll check. You two stay here with Mr. Walker.”
Before I can ask which two, Lucas nudges past me, plucking at the edge of my sleeve. I take a breath I swear smells like Sophie’s yard and makes my stomach fall like a Ferris wheel going over the top. God, that night was so long ago. And still not long enough.
Chapter 9
At the river, the finger is gone. My stomach tries to stuff itself into my throat as soon as I see it. Or don’t see it, I guess. There are flies buzzing by the string but nothing else.
“Did he come back for it?” I ask.
Lucas shakes his head. “Birds probably.”
Birds. I hear them in the trees up on the rise, big heavy things with dark bodies and talons that scrape at the bark on the branches. My eyes pick out a few individuals. One bobbing its head, another fanning its dark wings wide. A third turns its head, and I spot something stringy dangling from its beak. I turn away with the sting of bile in my mouth.
“What are they?” I ask.
“Turkey vultures.”
Scavengers. And obviously, they’ve found something to pick clean. Someone?
Lucas is waiting for me to say something, but I’m not going to. I can’t. I look down at the stream, and my head swims like the river below, brown and slick and moving fast.
“OK,” I say. It’s not OK. I take a step, and the world tilts.
My hand catches on a tree, and there’s a weird, gray humming behind my ears. I hold on tight. Breathe slower.
“Hey, you all right?”
Lucas. He’s closer. I catch a whiff of something earthy, but I think of spiked punch and that night this summer when his eyes held me hostage at the
cast after-party.
He is not what I’m supposed to want. He is long hair and ripped jeans, and none of it matters when his smile curls above the rim of his plastic cup.
I can’t just stand here staring. I should thank him, as the director, because he did his job.
Lucas lowers his drink to his thigh when I get there. Condensation rolls down the side, right into a hole in his jeans, just above his knee. I have the ridiculous urge—
Stop it! Just…I have to stop this.
I raise my Coke. “The set was amazing, Lucas. You outdid yourself.”
“You didn’t give me much of an option, did you?”
I bite back a smile. “A good director gets what the show needs.”
“What about what you need?”
My chest and neck go from warm to hot. I look to my friends, who are too busy with an impromptu sing-along to look back. “I should go.”
Before I can, his hand is around mine, fingers at my wrist. I’ve been thinking of this more than I want to admit. His hands are even bigger and rougher than I thought. Better too.
“Sera?”
His look rises up through me like steam from a shower. He crooks his head toward the kitchen, toward the back door. And I follow because even I know what this means.
“We can just go back,” he says, dragging me back to the present. But we can’t go back. Not from that night at the party and not from this either.
I open my eyes and look up at him. He is not conventionally pretty, but I’m not the only girl who can’t seem to help looking.
“I’m sorry.” My voice cracks on both words.
Lucas sighs. “Let’s just head back. We can go up the path, maybe make double time.”
“No, we have to check on them,” I say. “If Ms. Brighton is dead, then they’re alone. Probably terrified. We have to try.”
“That river is still dangerous,” he says, voice low and gentle. “And those birds are telling us everything we need to know about what’s going on over there.”
My stomach constricts as I think about the stringy bit I saw dangling. “We can’t be sure unless we go. I’ll never forgive myself if—”
“Sera, be serious.”
“I am serious. If one of them is hurt, if they can’t talk and we just—we can’t just—” A sharp breath severs my words. Tears smear my vision, but I refuse to even acknowledge them with a swipe of my hand.
“Shit.” He swallows hard and throws up his hand, mouth going thin. “OK. We’ll try. Be heroes or whatever.”
Something swims up through my chest. I’m not sure if it’s relief or terror or something else. I swallow it down.
“But I don’t trust that current,” he says, “and the bridge is out of the question.”
“So what do we do?”
He looks around, hand at the back of his neck. “All right, I’ll loop my belt around that tree. I’m going to keep a hold on that, and you’re going to hold on to me. If the water goes over either of our knees, we’re done. If it’s freakishly shallow, we’ll…”
“Let go?”
He looks like he hates the idea but shrugs. “I guess that’s the only way to do it, yeah?”
I nod and try not to watch as he shucks his belt, briefly revealing one hipbone and the hollow in front of it. He finds a tree right on the edge of the river and secures the belt through the buckle around the trunk. One hand on the leather strap, he steps into the water.
“We’re not going to get close enough to the halfway point,” he says. “We’ll have to go back for the other two to help us.”
“Let’s just see how bad it is,” I say because I can’t leave here without doing something. Without trying. Maybe the water will be lower than it looks. I hope so because something tells me Emily won’t cross this again. I’m not sure Jude would do it either, not with the vultures hovering or that weird noise that’s drumming at my ears.
What is that anyway? I didn’t notice it before, a tinny droning that skates along the sound of the rushing water. The drone rises and falls a little, and when I look up, I see a black mist clinging above some of the underbrush.
Flies. It’s flies.
Don’t think about why they’re there. Don’t.
But it’s hard not to think about it when the smell suddenly hits me, so pungent, I cover my nose and eyes at once. The scent is unfamiliar and unmistakable at the same time. Death is on the other side of this river. I’m sure of it.
“Let’s head back,” Lucas says. “Let’s get the others.”
I want to go back more than anything, but if it were me over there, I’d want someone to try. I step farther into the water. It’s maybe ten inches deep here, but it’s dragging at my ankles. The current is a shock, and instinct sends my hands flailing. Lucas catches one, and I lock my gaze onto his.
“Don’t you dare let go,” he says.
I won’t. I inch my way deeper, the current rushing up my calves, not quite to my knees but close.
Really close.
“Too deep,” Lucas says. “You’re not even a fourth of the way across. Look.”
“It’s not that deep,” I say, and it’s not. Still below my knees. And all I can think is that they could be over there. Bears could eat them. Carry their parts away just like Madison’s story. “Just another couple of steps so I can get a good look up the ridge toward the tents.”
“Then switch with me. I’m taller.”
Something we should have thought of before. Still, I strain on tiptoe to peek at the other side of the bank. There’s something behind the shrubs but a good twenty yards from the tents. There are too many leaves to be sure of much, but I can tell it’s dark and large. Maybe wet.
That’s what the smell is coming from, what the flies are after.
I stop dead in the water, feeling the blood drain out of my face.
“Lucas, something’s up there. Can you see it?”
He pauses, looking, I guess, and then he tugs my hand. “I can’t. Switch with me.”
My heel hits something slick when I turn. My foot flies wild, and the current takes it. Everything is twisting, my knee, my ankle, the sharp thing that bites into my leg, carving a hot line into my cold flesh. Lucas pulls my arm with a jerk that makes my shoulder pop. I’m up. Standing like a newborn giraffe, but it’s better than hurtling downstream. Lucas has one hand twisted in mine, another curled into the side of my shorts. We’re both dripping and panting.
“You hurt?”
“No,” I lie, but I don’t think he’ll buy it. The water is shallower here, and streaks of red are swirling into the brown around us. I can’t tell how bad it is. My joints feel OK. I’m sore but intact.
Lucas swears, and I’m sure he’s seen the bloody water, but he hasn’t.
He’s looking at the shore, at the place where I saw the dark thing. One glance and I can see it again, a shadowy lump behind the green. The flies are the only thing moving. The only thing alive on that ridge.
Lucas groans like he might be sick. “Go back,” he says, gagging a little.
I don’t argue. I limp my way to the shore and try to see what he’s seen. I can only see the cloud of flies from here, a hungry web shifting and darting. Feeding.
I turn away, and Lucas gags again. I don’t know if he brings anything up, but his fingers go around my arm, and he starts walking fast.
“We’re done.” His voice is rough. “We can’t help them.”
“We—”
“Sera, we can’t help them. Do you understand?”
I close my mouth so I won’t scream, close my eyes so he won’t see how close I am to crying.
“OK,” he says softly, and somehow, I can tell he knows I understand. They’re dead. There was a body on that hill. Ms. Brighton’s probably. And something else by the tents, where the birds are hovering. It’s them. It
can’t be anything else, can it?
He moves back toward the path, and I follow. We’re ascending when my cut brushes a tree. I yelp, and Lucas startles, turning back.
“What is it?”
“My leg. I cut it.”
I turn my leg so we can see. It’s not tragic, a diagonal slice just above my boot line, so it won’t rub the edge at least. It should be fine as long as it’s clean. A sinking through my middle reminds me that water isn’t even close to clean, and I don’t have a thing back at camp that can bandage it. No way I’m wasting bottled water either.
“Do you want me to carry you?” Lucas asks.
“I’m fine.” I bristle at myself as soon as I say it. Maybe I don’t want to be falling all over him, but I don’t want to be nasty either. Why can’t I ever find a happy medium with Lucas?
We head back through the woods toward camp without talking. I can just see the shape of my tent through the trees when Lucas stops suddenly, his hand coming up to slow me down. I open my mouth to ask, but Lucas shakes his head.
He’s listening to something. I cock my head. Voices inside the camp. Emily and Jude.
My fingers snag the side of his shirt, twist in a stranglehold. Are they in danger? Is there someone else there?
“I’m telling you, Darling means something.” Jude. Definitely Jude.
My fingers move to the word on my arm, nails scraping at the G.
“She didn’t do this,” Emily says softly. Gratitude blooms through my middle.
“But she wants Lucas,” he says. “Which means you can’t trust her either.”
Fire roars up my chest and neck even as my face goes cold. I move to storm up the path, to argue, but Lucas grabs me, squeezes my wrist, just a little. He’s still listening.
I can’t hear the first part of what Emily says, but the last few words are clearer.
“…really think he did this?”
“I think he could be involved. They wrote Dangerous on his arm because that’s what he is. He’s violent. Probably desperate. I think he did something to me when we tried to leave. I didn’t pass out for no reason.”
Emily’s muttering too low to hear again. I make out “Tyler” and “in three places,” but everything else is a jumble. I watch Lucas while I try to listen. His jaw clenches until I hear his teeth grind, but he is as still as stone. Waiting for the rest, I guess.