Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(13)

I scrambled for options, but they all came to dead ends. All except for one. I drew in a shaky breath.

“No,” I said. “You won’t. But I think I know somewhere you will be.”

I nodded toward Lucy’s Promise.

“Me and my friends live up there. In a camp on the mountain. You can stay with us until we find out where you belong.”

By then the girl’s arm had started shaking. She was having trouble holding up the rock. Having trouble standing, it seemed. Still, she didn’t say anything and she didn’t move. Who could blame her? Minutes earlier she’d nearly been kidnapped by two strangers, and now another one wanted to take her away to an isolated mountaintop. As far as she knew, Tommasulo and I were just using slightly different versions of the same con.

Voices came from somewhere in the neighborhood. Men’s voices. Three or four of them, shouting to one another. Tommasulo’s friends, no doubt. They were a few blocks away, but closing in fast. I did the only thing I could think of.

The girl jumped back when I pulled my knife from its sheath. She was about to run, but I flipped it so the blade was in my palm and the hilt was facing her.

“Take it,” I said. “This way you’ll be the only one who’s armed.”

She didn’t make a move. I set the knife on the ground and backed away.

“If I try anything, you have my permission to stab me.” I forced a nervous laugh. “You can even kick me a few times while I bleed out on the trail. Okay?”

Footsteps and shouts echoed among the houses, growing louder as they closed in. The girl dropped the rock and snatched up the knife, holding it out between us. The key around her neck glistened. She nodded toward the mountain without taking her eyes off me.

“You first.”



The tip of the knife hovered near the base of my spine the whole way up the mountain. We never slowed down and the girl never spoke. When we came around the final bend in the trail, Greer’s voice boomed through the trees.

“Throw, DeShaun! Throw the ball! No! To Carrie!”

He was watching the kids crash into one another in the space between the cabins. DeShaun threw the football to Carrie, who was brutally tackled by Makela. A whistle blew.

“Okay, everybody! That was an awesome first half! Let’s all go get hydrated. Astrid, your team is in the lead, so when we get back, you’ll start the dance-off.”

We’d stopped at the edge of the camp. “That’s Greer,” I said over my shoulder. “The halftime dance-off is one of his innovations. Funny thing is, we actually have a rule book. He just thinks it’s more fun to—”

I turned around, but the girl was gone. I thought maybe she’d run off, but then I caught a flicker of movement in the trees. While I’d been watching the game, she’d slipped into the woods and hidden herself behind a boulder.

“It’s all right,” I said. “You don’t have to hide. We—”

“Yo! Cassidy! Where the hell have you been, man? The kids were about to send out a search party.” Greer was jogging toward me.

“Sorry. I, uh—I got sidetracked.”

“Sidetracked? Dude, you left before the big announcement!”

“What announcement?”

“The one about the Marvins.”

“What? Who are the Marvins?”

“Those guys we saw with the blue hazmat suits,” said Greer. “Martinson Vine? Mar Vin? The Marvins? Kids all thought it was pretty inspired. Anyway, the Guard announced that they’re going to—”

He cut himself off.

“What?” I asked. “The Guard is going to what?”

Something had caught Greer’s eye, and he was looking into the woods behind me. “Uh, buddy? Is it just me or is there a green-haired girl with a big knife hiding behind that rock?”

I turned and called back through the trees. “You can come out. Greer’s a friend.”

There was a pause, and then she came out from behind the boulder. The knife was at her side, but she was gripping it tightly enough to make the tendons in her hand stand out in sharp ridges.

“I found her on my way back,” I said. “She’s just been infected. A couple guys were running the lost wife scam on her.”

Greer leaned to the side to address the girl. “Hi. Welcome.” He held up one finger. “Can you excuse us for just one tiny second?”

“Greer, I . . .”

He marched off. I motioned for the girl to wait where she was, and then I followed him.

“Look, Greer—”

“You know what’s weird?” he said when we were a safe distance away. “I keep having crazy flashbacks to a conversation you and I were having just this morning.”

“What was I supposed to do? You know what those guys would have done to her.”

“What did Gonzalez say about it?”

My stomach flipped. “I, uh, I didn’t see him.”

“You didn’t see him? That was the whole point of you—what about how bringing anyone else up here jeopardizes all of us?”

“And what about you not giving a crap about that?”

“I care,” Greer said. “But if we’re going to ignore the rules, I’d kinda rather do it for a couple six-year-olds starving to death in a swamp than for some girl who looks like she’d like to knife us all in our sleep.”