The Last Time I Lied(102)

Another thump arrives from inside the root cellar. The door shimmies. “Are you here yet?” Miranda calls. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”

“In a second!”

I rap on the door, announcing my presence, before giving the slide bolt a mighty shove. It rasps past the door itself, allowing Miranda to open it a crack before being stopped by the boulder. A thick, sickly odor drifts out. A mix of damp earth, sweat, and urine that makes my stomach roil. Miranda presses her face to the crack. I see one bloodshot eye, a red-rimmed nostril, her parted lips sucking in fresh air.

“Help us,” she says with a gasp, giving the door another desperate rattle. “Why aren’t you opening it?”

“It’s still blocked,” I say. “I’m working on it. How are Krystal and Sasha?”

“Awful. We all are. Now please let us out.”

“One more minute. I promise.”

I crouch, place my palms flat on the boulder, and give it a push. It’s so heavy I can barely move it. I try again, this time gritting my teeth and grunting with exertion. The boulder doesn’t budge.

Using the flashlight, I scan the ground for anything that can help. I grab a rounded rock that had chipped off the crumbled wall nearby. Then I spot a fat branch on the ground that’s almost as long as I am. It looks sturdy enough to be used as a lever. I hope.

I shove one end of the branch as far under the boulder as it can go and place the rock under it a few feet away before grasping the other end of the branch and pushing downward. It does the trick, setting the rock rolling the tiniest bit. I drop the branch and run to the boulder, pushing again, continuing the momentum until it’s past the door.

“All clear!”

The door flies open, and the girls burst out. Sweaty and dirt-smeared, they suck in fresh air, stretch their limbs, give dazed looks to the sky. Without her glasses, Sasha is forced to squint. Her nose is swollen and colored a brutal shade of purple. Rust-colored flecks run from her nose all the way to her neck. Dried blood.

“Is it really night?” she says with almost clinical detachment. Shock, with a dash of hunger and dehydration thrown in for good measure.

Rather than hug her, I run my hands up and down her arms, checking for injuries. I feel stupid for not bringing food. Or water. Or a damn first-aid kit. All I can do is use the hem of my T-shirt to wipe some of the blood from Sasha’s face.

“How long were we in there?” Miranda says as she spreads out on the ground, her arms and legs akimbo, panting with relief. “My phone died before noon.”

“Almost a full day.”

Hearing that makes Krystal’s legs buckle. She staggers a moment before plopping down next to Miranda. “Damn.”

“Tell me what happened,” I say. “From the moment you left the cabin.”

“We came here to look for your friends,” Krystal says. “It was Miranda’s idea.”

Miranda sits up, too spent to be ashamed. “I only wanted to help. You were so upset last night. I could tell you needed to know what happened. And since this is where you found that diary, I thought there might be more clues here.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because we knew you wouldn’t have let us row here by ourselves.”

I finish wiping Sasha’s face. The dried blood leaves a dark-red stain on my shirt. “You came here and then what?”

“Someone jumped us,” Miranda says, fear peeking through her exhaustion. Tears cling to the corners of her eyes.

“Who?”

“None of us got a good look.”

“Miranda and Krystal went inside,” Sasha says, nodding toward the root cellar. “I didn’t want to, so I stayed out here. But then someone came out of nowhere.”

She croaks out a sob. It’s followed by more words that tumble forth in a rush, that clinical tone now long gone. “They punched me and my glasses fell off and I couldn’t see who it was and then they shoved me inside and slammed the door.”

Someone followed them here, attacked, trapped them rather than outright killing them. It makes no sense.

Unless whoever did it wanted them alive.

Which means they might be coming back any minute now.

Fear zips through me. I yank my phone from my pocket to see if I can call the police. There’s no signal. Which explains why Miranda couldn’t do the same right after they were trapped.

“We need to go,” I tell the girls. “Right now. I know you’re tired, but do you think you can run?”

Miranda climbs to her feet and shoots me a worried look. “Why do we need to run?”

“Because you’re still in danger. We all are.”

A beam of light hits my face. A flashlight. Bright enough to both silence and blind me. I put my hand over my eyes, shielding them from the glare. Behind the flashlight, I can make out a silhouette. Tall. Masculine.

The glare falls away. My vision blurs, eyes adjusting. When they come back into focus, I see Theo, flashlight in hand, taking a step toward us.

“Emma?” he says. “What are you doing here?”





38


Seeing Theo here feels like a minor earthquake. The ground under my feet trembles. Only it’s me who’s really trembling. A seismic shifting in my body I’m powerless to control.