One Was Lost(11)

Lucas glares at him. “My guess is this is all thanks to a psychopath who gets his jollies from messing with the heads of privileged asshole out-of-towners like yourself.”

“Careful, Lucas.” Jude’s voice is pure derision. “Your Dangerous is showing.”

“Can both of you knock it off?” I ask. When it goes quiet, I can hear the stream, and a few paces after that, I can see glimpses of it between the trees. I feel like someone’s watching us.

“Do you see something?” Emily asks, voice small.

“No,” I say, “but we should hear them. I have a bad feeling.”

“You’re full of ideas and feelings about this, Sera,” Jude says. “Maybe we should wonder if you aren’t leading us into a trap.”

His eyes are narrow, and the tip of his chin points at me like a finger.

Emily’s shoulders hunch, and she tucks her gaze away.

My laugh hacks like a cough. “You seriously think I had something to do with this?”

“You did say you didn’t want to come,” Emily says softly. “Back at the school.”

“Right, so instead of backing out and going with a different project, I just suffered through this crap for two days and then…drugged you? Are you even listening to yourselves? Do I look like a girl who drugs people?”

“She didn’t drug anybody,” Lucas says.

I throw up my hands. “Thank you!”

His expression is sharp enough to slice. “Don’t thank me, and don’t blame them for thinking it. Everybody heard you arguing with Mr. Walker in the cafeteria. We know you tried to bail after you found out I was on the roster.”

Jude scoffs. “Is this some sort of angst-fueled hormonal fallout for the two of you? Because if so, it’s a little over the top.”

Heat flashes across my cheeks like a slap. “This is not hormonal fallout! What is wrong with you guys? I get that we’re not friends, but you know me. At least you know of me. In what universe do you see me involved with anything like this?”

“In what universe would we have predicted something like this?” Jude holds up his wrist, and I try not to look at the letters scrawled across his skin.

“I didn’t do this!” I’m getting louder. I can’t help it. “It was done to us. To me!”

“OK,” Emily says, but she looks so uneasy. I’m pretty sure she just wants me to stop screaming. “I believe you. Let’s just…do this.”

I press my lips together. Jude says nothing. Lucas watches me until his gray eyes turn to flint. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth like he’s thinking, but my stomach flips all the same. I still can’t look at him without it turning into that. I guess my mom’s DNA is always going to be there, swimming around in my blood, ready to make me a complete idiot.

“Do you want to hand everyone stage directions, Spielberg?” Lucas asks. “Or can we just go?”

I shake my head and swallow back the argument stinging my lips. I can’t afford to care about this right now. We have to find Ms. Brighton, and we have to get out of here. That’s all that matters. I wipe my hands down the front of my shorts and move out of the tree line.

We’re back at the top of the clearing. No rain now, but the river is a swollen artery, pumping mud-brown water and chunks of debris through the forest valley. Half the bridge is gone, sunk deep into the stream. The rest of it sticks out like a mangled ramp, metal supports twisted like bits of aluminum.

No one used that bridge or crossed this river. Not at this spot anyway.

We fan out along the outcropping above the riverbank. No one talks about the claw marks left in the mud from our escape yesterday. No one talks about the fact that we can’t hear or see anybody. We just stand there and stare.

The quiet presses at my ears, but no one moves to break it. We’re all watching with blank faces like storm survivors, stumbling along, looking for someone in a Red Cross shirt to save the day. I spot the word on Jude’s arm, and I can’t help but press my fingers over the black letters on my own wrist. I wish I could scrub it off, but it’s Sharpie, so I know better. I sported black x’s on my hands for a couple of weeks after a summer concert.

“There,” Lucas says, pointing up at a ridge above the water.

I shift closer to him, and I can’t see anything at first. Trees. Patches of blue sky. Then I spot it—a sliver of brown canvas between two trunks. Another swath of green that’s too bright to match the foliage. That’s where they put their tents. The camp is on a rise maybe fifty yards back and twenty feet above the river. It’s behind a small cluster of trees, but it’s definitely their tents.

Lucas calls out, his voice rough but loud. The silence that answers is like a wet towel in my throat. A dragonfly hums past my shoulder, buzzing over the murky water. Jude tries next.

“Ms. Brighton!” he shouts. “Madison! Hayley!”

I hear a rustling from up near what I’m sure is their tent, and I droop with relief. Thank God. I nudge Emily’s shoulder, and she looks up, hope in her gaze. But then it’s quiet again. I wait one beat and then another. Nothing.

“Where are they? Do you see them?” Jude asks, shoulders hunched.

I open my mouth, just waiting to spot a streak of blond hair or Ms. Brighton’s dark braid. Instead, there are just leaves waving softly and an occasional bird flitting through the canopy. A noise rustles, and I tense again.