“Yes. I’m glad you’re all right.”
“The bears spotted Lucas and me, so we backed out of camp. We thought we’d be less likely to piss them off.”
She nods and pushes her hair behind her ears. “I heard you guys leave. Thanks for zipping the tent closed for me.”
“That was Lucas.” I pause. Let it sink in before I go on. “Did you hear Mr. Walker?”
She nods slowly, lips thin. “I was excited at first. I thought he was coming to check on us. I almost opened the tent, but then I heard the bears again, so I stayed quiet.”
“I almost thought I’d imagined hearing him,” I say. “I heard him say ‘hello,’ but then the bears walked close to his tent. That’s when Lucas and I ran. The cub was getting close to us too.”
She shakes her head, lips downturned. “No.”
“No?”
“I heard all that, but I heard him after you left. He came outside.”
Something slithers in my belly. “Wait a minute. He came outside of his tent? Are you sure?”
“I heard his tent unzip. It was loud. As loud as ours was when you left. I thought I heard footsteps, so I figured it was him, but then the bears were sniffing all around.” She flushes, like she’s embarrassed to continue. “It freaked me out, so I didn’t leave. But his tent is zipped back up now, so he must have gone back to sleep.”
“Or maybe you just imagined it. Maybe it was the bears making noise.”
Her eyes lock onto mine. “I know what I heard.”
I can barely muster a nod before I’m back up on my feet and heading out of our tent. If Mr. Walker was awake enough to walk, he was awake enough to help. He’ll know what to do, how to get us out of here. I’m fizzy with hope as I make my way across our camp.
Jude opens his tent and sticks his head out. His eyes are squinty, and his hair is mashed on one side. “What’s going on?”
“There were bears in camp last night,” I say.
He startles and looks around, then scrubs a hand over his face. “I didn’t even hear them.”
I don’t answer. I just stop in front of Mr. Walker’s tent, listening to the quiet.
Jude is stretching, and birds are waking up in the trees. They chitter softly in the murky canopy. I clench my fists and swallow my fear.
“Mr. Walker?” I call out. No answer. I say his name again, louder.
By now, Jude is with me, brow arched. “Did you hit your head last night? Mr. Walker is in a coma, remember?”
My mouth thins to a hard line when I look at him. “He woke up last night. We heard him moving around and talking.”
“We? You mean Lucas and you?” He quirks his lips in a way that insinuates loads of filthy things.
My eyes narrow. “Everyone here but you, actually.”
His expression shifts at once, gaze drifting to Mr. Walker’s tent. He calls his name next, and I stare at the Deceptive on his arm. Well, I know one of his secrets. As cool and collected as he acts, Jude isn’t any different from the rest of us. He’s scared, and he wants the teacher back in charge. He wants someone else making the decisions.
I lean in and start tugging the zipper up to open the tent. It’s still dark inside, and the smell wafting out nearly knocks me over. Vomit. Jude backs away cursing, but I try to push that odor into a teeny-tiny corner of my mind. I have to wake Mr. Walker up. If he was awake last night, he can be awake again.
He’s in the corner, slumped over sideways, but he was conscious at some point. Long enough to pull on a black long-sleeved shirt and to be sick all over his sleeping bag. My eyes drift to another mostly empty bottle of water I know I didn’t leave inside this tent. It’s not one of the new water bottles. It’s like the old ones.
He was awake long enough to get drugged again too.
“The son of a bitch came back,” Jude says. “He was here again, wasn’t he? He did something to him.”
I cover my nose with my sleeve and ignore Jude, calling Mr. Walker’s name. I move close enough to nudge him. Nothing. His breathing seems fine, but when I prod at his neck, it’s hard to find his pulse. I’m not a doctor, and it’s dark in here, but I don’t think his color is good.
Emily slips in next with zero reaction to the potpourri of sweat and puke that’s about to make my eyes bleed. It must not bother her the way it does us. After a fleeting glance at the mess on the sleeping bag, she moves much closer.
“That bottle wasn’t here,” she says simply, indicating an empty water bottle next to him. “I zipped his tent closed last night. It wasn’t in here, unless it was stuffed down inside his sleeping bag.”
“Seems more likely someone decided to pay another visit,” I say.
Emily holds up the bottle and frowns, trying to examine the dregs of water left.
“So they drugged him again and just left?” I ask. “In the middle of a bear visit? What is the point of this?”
My hands are shaking, and I have too much saliva in my mouth. The smell is getting to me. I tip my head up, but there’s no fresh air to be found, just the cool musty tent smell.
“We should look for bottles or pill casings,” Emily says. “Maybe we can figure out what he’s taking or what they’re giving him. And we obviously can’t leave him alone again.”
“Right. OK.”
Emily nods and goes right for the sleeping bag to search. She doesn’t even flinch. God, I don’t know what that girl is used to cleaning, but it’s got to be bad if she can handle this. Maybe she’s got a future in medicine.
I wimp out, checking around the edges of the tent closest to the door. I’m grateful for something to do though. Panicking isn’t helping. I find parchment-dry leaves, his boots, and—gross—a dead daddy longlegs.
“I’m going to check outside,” I say, hoping Lucas is back so he can…I don’t really know. I’d just feel a little better knowing he hadn’t wandered off a cliff. Or been eaten.
Emily doesn’t call me on my quick exit, but one more second in there, and I would have added to Mr. Walker’s mess. Jude wanders off to his tent, so I’m not the only wimp. Outside, dawn is finally breaking in full, turning everything pink-yellow happy and burning the mist from the sky.
Lucas still isn’t back. What the hell is he looking for? Should I try to find him?
Jude emerges from his tent with his T-shirt on and something slim and white in his mouth. I pull in a sharp breath.
“What’s in your mouth?” I ask.
“What?”
“What is that?” I point at the white thing. “There were bears in the camp, Jude! They can smell food, and you’ve had that in your tent the whole time?”
“It’s not food!”
I cock my head. “Then what is it?”
“It’s…” Jude sighs and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a small Ziploc bag of—glory Jesus hallelujah. Are those toothbrushes?
“Are those what I think they are?”
Jude wrinkles his nose. “Practically worthless travel brushes? Yes.”
“Worthless?” I laugh a little breathlessly, already imagining the idea of slick, minty teeth. I think I’d give a kidney for anything resembling a toothbrush. “Can I please have one?” He looks at me like he has to think it over, and I scoff. “Really? You have, like, a dozen.”
“Eight,” he corrects, handing me two. My heart soars at the tiny dot of blue in the center of the white brush. “I have eight. Six now.”
I laugh. “I can’t believe you have any. I mean, who has these?”
“Pop’s a dentist.” He cuts his gaze to Mr. Walker’s tent. “Is she finding anything in there?”
I shake my head, bringing myself back. “Don’t think so. I’m still looking for some sort of evidence of what they’re putting in the water.”
He shrugs. “Roofies probably.” He opens his mouth again but doesn’t say anythin
g more. Instead, his eyes drag over the camp with purpose. “Where’s Lucas?”
“Bathroom,” I say because I know Lucas doesn’t trust Jude. Everything about Jude’s narrowed eyes tells me he’s not buying it, even if it’s the only thing I’m selling. I relent with a sigh. “I think he’s trying to find out what the bears were after. He thinks somebody might have left food to lure them, so he’s looking for whatever was left, hoping to find some sort of clue as to what the hell is happening to us.”
Jude’s nod comes a second too late, but he doesn’t ask more questions, and when I resume my search, he looks too. The only thing I find is bear tracks. It’s hard to miss the claw punctures in the muddy ground around the back side of the tent.
“I found something,” Emily says inside the tent. She emerges, and the three of us convene at the entrance. Her word arm is outstretched. I notice the Damaged before I see that she’s cupping something in her hand. It’s tiny. Like a bit of bone or a chipped tooth. Please let it not be either of those.
“What is it?” I ask.
She tilts her palm so I can see better. Not a bone. Thank God. The chip is flat and bluish and sort of oval on one side—definitely a pill. So that settles the drug question once and for all.
“Do you recognize it?” she asks.
Recognize it? The extent of my medicinal experimentation would be trying three Advil on a brutal headache day. I shrug and look at Jude, who’s studying the pill carefully. His eyes narrow as he leans closer.
“There’s an HA,” he says. “It’s not familiar to me.”
“Let me see it.” Lucas’s voice booms from the other side of the camp, jarring us all. Emily turns, and Lucas crosses the camp in three long strides. He’s holding something too, but I can’t tell what from this angle. Whatever it is, it’s behind Jude.
Lucas flips his hair out of his face and looks at the pill for a few seconds, checking the lettering. “That’s Halcion.”
“It’s what?” I ask.
“Halcion,” he says. “It’s a sleeping pill.”
Jude arches a brow. “Watch me not be shocked you know this.”
“As much as I’d love to go toe to toe with you again, we’ve got bigger fish to fry,” Lucas says. He shifts to show us his hidden hand, where I find five crumpled protein bar wrappers.
“What is that?” I ask.
“Bear bait,” he says. “Also known as the granola bars in Madison’s backpack. I found them scattered all around the woods south of our tents.”
“How are you sure they’re Madison’s?” Emily asks.
Jude nods, looking grim. “Same cheap brand. Crap ingredients.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t think the bears minded,” Lucas says. “And I’m betting your special people food will turn up too, Jude.”
“What do you mean mine will turn up?”
Lucas points off in the woods. “There was a section of ground that had trampled plants. The ground was all torn up and smeared too, like someone tried to cover tracks. It was almost directly opposite of the bars and, if I had to guess, upwind.”
“Was it one of us?” I ask.
“Don’t think so. I’m not a tracker, but it looked like someone was waiting there. Every time we leave, we head toward the path or the river, to the east, right?” He points again, and I shiver because he’s right. And if he found a spot where someone was just standing around…
Jude tenses. “Are you saying you think somebody was watching the camp last night?”
“After they baited the bears closer with Madison’s stuff,” Lucas says. “I imagine they have your bars too and any other food from our packs.”
“Well, whoever it was, they snuck into camp in the middle of a bear encounter,” I say. “Mr. Walker was drugged again. There was a new bottle of cloudy water, and Emily found that pill.”
Lucas narrows his eyes, scanning the horizon, maybe looking in the direction he found the footprints? “That’s ballsy as hell.”
“Sneaking in while there are bears here?” I say. Then I laugh because ballsy doesn’t quite cover it. “I mean, you’d have to really know your way around animals, right?”
Lucas shrugs. “Or you’d have to be batshit insane.”
Emily rubs her temples. “All of this is insane. I still don’t understand how someone could hurt Ms. Brighton and then get over here to us. How did they cross the river?”
We all turn like we’re not sure what she’s asking, but we are. We just don’t have any answers.
“Maybe there’s another bridge,” I say.
Lucas nods. “There’s some way across obviously.”
Jude looks off in the direction of the river, like maybe he’ll spot it through the trees. “We should find that way.”
Lucas groans and shakes his hair out of his eyes. “We have no idea how far that way might be or in which direction. It’s a wild-goose chase, and being close to the river ups our chances of running into the bears again. Feels like a bad plan.”
He’s right. I remember Mr. Walker’s warning about camping too close to the river. Hiking along it feels dangerous.
Lucas straightens. “We should head north to the road like we planned.”
“What about Mr. Walker?” I ask.
Jude points at me. “Are you planning on carrying him, Darling?”
“Obviously not, but we’re not leaving him.”
“I agree,” Emily says.
Lucas swears softly. “I don’t have time for this fight again. If you want to bring him, we need to build a sled or something, and we need to do it now.”
Jude nods. “All right, then we need two long sturdy branches and a bunch of shorter ones and then some rope or tough vine. We can steal some rope from the tents.”
I feel my brows lift in shock. I’m not alone. Emily covers her mouth, but I can still hear the chuckle she tries to hold back.
“What?” Jude asks.
“Uh, nothing,” I say.
Emily laughs harder, and Jude crosses his arms.
“Is it so funny that I’d know something you find useful?”
“No, no, of course not,” Lucas says too brightly. “We just didn’t know you had a Boy Scout badge in search and rescue. Or is it a first aid certification?”
“Shut up,” he says. “And it was Civil Air Patrol.”
Lucas bites his lip, but I can see the smile in his eyes. Closest thing to civility I’ve seen between them. Lucas claps his hands together, a sudden pop against the bubble of quiet.
“All right, let’s invent some shit. I want out of here before the next visitation.”
It takes a ridiculous amount of time to build the sled. On TV shows, a plane crashes on an island and boom, they have tents and rafts set up on the double. In reality, we have to tear two of the three tents down to get enough rope, and then Jude, for all his Civil Air Patrol training, is useless with knots. So Lucas does it, shirt off and fingers nimble with the string. He’s good at it, but he’s even better at strutting around like a peacock so God and everyone knows we’re all so lucky he’s here to save us.
I really want to hate him. For being shirtless and annoying and most of all because he’s right. We are lucky he’s here because I don’t think we could have gotten Mr. Walker out of camp without him.
Emily and I disassemble the final tent while the boys work to secure Mr. Walker to the sled. It’s all a sloppy mess. We’re not good at this survival crap. We don’t have backpacks, and we’re running low on water again. The only thing that’s going right is that the cut on my leg is managing to not get infected. Still, I can’t shake the feeling we’re not alone.
As we’re heading out, I hear something snap behind us. I’ve been hearing breaking branches and crackling leaves all day long. But then a bird flies overhead, shrieking an alarm—a blue jay warning us that something is out there. The
jay is gone soon enough, but the tingling at the base of my skull remains.
“Come on,” Lucas says, leading the way out of camp with the awkward, heavy sled behind him.
It’s Jude who finds the number first, maybe forty feet outside of our tents, forty feet from the place where we’ve talked and laughed and tied knots all day. Lucas starts swearing when he sees it; Jude too. But I don’t scream because if I do, I’m not sure I’ll stop.
A dead tree stands, a skeleton sentry with no arms or flesh left to cover the bleached white core of its trunk. Is this what the jay was warning me about? That someone was here, right here, carving a number two into this tree while we worked on, oblivious?
I swallow the rock that has grown in my throat. It scrapes its way down as Lucas clenches his jaw and marches on.
No one says a word. We all know what this means. Yesterday, it was three, but now it is two. It is a countdown.
We are running out of time.
Chapter 12
There is no easy way to drag a two-hundred-pound man up a hill. We’d probably make better time climbing this mountain on greased roller skates than we are with this sled. Lucas and Jude aren’t bad at it, but they’re taller and stronger, and I can still see the dark sweat stains between their shoulder blades.
I’m pretty sure they expect to have to handle it the entire time, but we’re all shaky and hungry, so after maybe half a mile heading north, Emily and I offer to take a turn. Lucas doesn’t seem inclined to drop the heavy work on two exhausted girls, but Jude is ready for a break. They watch in quiet disapproval as we shift back and forth, trying to find a way to hold the branches that form the sled’s handles. Emily’s lucky. Her half has a piece broken off, a nub she can hook her thumb over. For me, it’s just sheer force of will. I’m sure my hands will burn for days from gripping this stupid thing.
We start out dragging it behind us. At the first hill, we try a few ways before deciding we’ll have better leverage climbing backward. Bent over, we inch our way slowly, slowly up, pulling the sled as we go.
“I can help,” Lucas offers.
“We’ll at least get him up the hill,” I say.