One Was Lost(16)

Our eyes drag to the number three beside Mr. Walker’s tent.

“The only one we know was hurt was Ms. Brighton though,” I say, trying to hope.

Emily frowns. “It’s weird. Ms. Brighton wasn’t even going to do this. It was supposed to be Ms. Appleton, but something changed. Maybe Mr. Walker requested her? It was kind of eleventh hour, but I know he was in charge of the whole thing.”

“How do you know it changed?”

Her head ducks, and the tips of her ears go pink. It looks like there’s a tiny short spot of hair behind her ear. Like she’s cut off a lock for someone. Creepy.

“I was in the counselor’s office,” she says. “They were reprinting the assignment sheet in the hallway.”

Counselor’s office. Questions burn on the tip of my tongue, about the word on her arm or maybe the gray-black bruises, even about the little missing chunk of her hair. Everything about her posture says closed book though. I take a breath and look around instead. “Maybe we should just get started.”

“Not much else to do.”

Emily keeps vigil over Mr. Walker while I go through the heap of ruined supplies, trying not to dwell on the visual of someone cutting our packs apart, busting our phones. I force myself to treat it like a trip to a thrift store for costume supplies. It’s all about potential.

Easier said than done. Everything is wrecked. Cell phones and notebooks and a leather bracelet I remember my fingers tracing around Lucas’s wrist at Sophie’s. I drop that like a cockroach and move on.

Jude’s top-of-the-line phone is painful to look at now, shiny white pieces scattered all through the pile. I try to imagine someone slipping it out of his pocket, try to picture the fingers plucking his earphone cord out and leaving it dangle. Why leave the cord?

Then again, why write on our arms? Why cut off a finger?

Why only one finger?

Or was it just one?

Every answer I can think of leads me to a scarier question, so I stop thinking. I should focus on getting home to my dad and on trying to find anything in this heap of crap that might help me do that. Like this sock. A sock could come in handy.

This is depressing.

I work anyway, finding bits of electronic stuff here and there. The pile is overwhelming, so I make smaller piles: trash, maybe useful, definitely useful. That one’s the smallest. I found a corner of the map, the size of a deck of cards, but it’s on the river. I also have some rope and a couple of empty water bottles that make me painfully aware that my tongue feels like a giant sand-coated raisin.

I’m careful with the electronics, separating them into several tiny stacks of similar-looking items. Maybe if I organize it enough, I’ll suddenly develop a competency for computer engineering?

Who am I kidding?

I have zero idea what any of this is. The only thing I know for sure is that I haven’t found a single bit of yellow plastic. As far as I know, Mr. Walker’s GPS is still intact, sending out signal after signal to tell the world we are A-OK.

I abandon my engineering project and do another pass through ripped bits of backpacks. I manage to score a couple of breakfast bars in a side pocket, so I offer one to Emily and sit beside her at Mr. Walker’s tent entrance. It’s like eating sand. I’d do anything for a bottle of water.

“Doesn’t look like you found much,” she says.

“Nope. Not one trace of Mr. Walker’s GPS, so that’s not great. Has he changed?”

“No.” Then she frowns. “If anything, he seems worse than before. I’ve tried to move him a little, but he doesn’t even groan. He’s out cold.”

We trail into silence because there isn’t much to talk about. All I can think about is how thirsty I am, but I doubt she wants to hear it. I’m going to have to come up with something. It’s not like Emily’s going to—

“What happened between you?” she asks, then lifts one shoulder. “You and Lucas, I mean.”

“Nothing.” I press my hands to my cheeks and find them just as hot as I’d suspect after a lie like that. “Nothing.”

She wrinkles her nose. “But everybody—You know what? Forget it. It’s not my business.”

“It’s not that,” I say, but where do I go from there? If it isn’t that, what is it? “It’s just stupid. Not worth talking about.”

“Oh.” Her tone implies things that never happened, but I can’t exactly correct her either because something did happen, even if it’s not what she’s thinking.

I close my eyes and push my sneakers into the dirt, and just like that, I’m back at school, helping Lucas carry the set up the stage stairs.

“Don’t break anything,” he says when I grunt under the weight of our load.

I huff. “I’m not made of glass.”

His laugh does something to my insides. “I’m aware. Just trying to be polite.”

We set it down on the empty stage and join the new piece to the other half. It’s a metal mess of angry lines and dark shadows—an abstract version of a fire escape. Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t imagine any West Side Story without it.

“It’s crazy good,” I say, gesturing at the set. “You’ll be working Broadway one day.”

He laughs. “I’ll be welding on a construction site. Nobody pays for shit like this.”