One Was Lost(21)

“You are such—”

I touch Lucas, and he goes silent, his gaze moving to me before I can pretend it was an accidental brush. It should have been an accident. I shouldn’t touch him at all.

“Please stop,” I say.

“Protecting him now?” Lucas asks me softly, but it feels like he’s asking me something else. He’s staring so hard, and I’m staring right back, and I can feel all the things that happened before simmering in the smell of moss and dirt and wood. God, is this what I’m still about? When you peel back my layers, is it still my mother hiding in the center?

“Let’s just drop it. Leave him alone,” Emily says.

That grabs my attention. Emily’s been pretty cool toward Jude since we started this trip. The sudden switch is weird.

“Don’t tell me you’re playing into his pity party,” Lucas says, but he’s not angry now.

“I’m not,” Emily says. “But this isn’t the time. And it isn’t our business.”

Jude lifts his head, watching Emily with an expression I can’t read.

The breeze has gone cooler, and the sun is below the tops of the trees. It’s later than I thought.

“We need to decide what we’re doing,” Lucas says.

“I don’t think I can walk,” Jude admits. “Not far.”

And then I get it. All this crap he’s starting. All the anger. It isn’t about what he’s hiding or even who’s after us. It’s just that he can’t leave. He’s afraid of being left behind.

“Me either,” I lie. I could walk now. If it meant getting out of here, I could probably fly. But if I’m not leaving Mr. Walker, I’m not leaving Jude either.

“I can barely stand up,” Emily says.

“I have two granola bars left,” Jude offers. An olive branch if I’ve ever seen one.

“Good idea,” Lucas says. “Let’s divvy up snacks while the serial killer closes in.”

I glare at Lucas. “Enough!”

He points at the remaining three bottles of water. “Someone is out there, Sera. Yeah, they left water, but they drugged us last night. Probably after they killed the other half of our group.”

I storm toward him. “We don’t know that! We haven’t even checked on them, and they might be like Mr. Walker. Maybe the drugs affected them worse. Maybe they’re over there right now, alone and scared, while you sit here having a pissing contest with anyone who’ll listen.”

Lucas pushes his hair back, and his smile is predatory. “Fine. Let’s check that river. Right now. Because if you’re right, then maybe they need help. And if I’m right, we’re going to find dead bodies, and maybe then you’ll agree it’s time to get the hell out of here.”

“Stop talking like this. Can we just try to hope for something good to happen?” I ask. “Maybe we’ll find them and help them.”

Lucas sighs. “The only thing that can help any of us is a way out of this hellhole or a phone to call for help.”

“They might still have their phones on the other side of the river!”

Lucas stalls at the argument, his eyes flashing with interest. “All right. We’ll check the river.”

I laugh. “Just like that?”

“The phones are a decent point. We’ll check. You two stay here with Mr. Walker.”

Before I can ask which two, Lucas nudges past me, plucking at the edge of my sleeve. I take a breath I swear smells like Sophie’s yard and makes my stomach fall like a Ferris wheel going over the top. God, that night was so long ago. And still not long enough.





Chapter 9


At the river, the finger is gone. My stomach tries to stuff itself into my throat as soon as I see it. Or don’t see it, I guess. There are flies buzzing by the string but nothing else.

“Did he come back for it?” I ask.

Lucas shakes his head. “Birds probably.”

Birds. I hear them in the trees up on the rise, big heavy things with dark bodies and talons that scrape at the bark on the branches. My eyes pick out a few individuals. One bobbing its head, another fanning its dark wings wide. A third turns its head, and I spot something stringy dangling from its beak. I turn away with the sting of bile in my mouth.

“What are they?” I ask.

“Turkey vultures.”

Scavengers. And obviously, they’ve found something to pick clean. Someone?

Lucas is waiting for me to say something, but I’m not going to. I can’t. I look down at the stream, and my head swims like the river below, brown and slick and moving fast.

“OK,” I say. It’s not OK. I take a step, and the world tilts.

My hand catches on a tree, and there’s a weird, gray humming behind my ears. I hold on tight. Breathe slower.

“Hey, you all right?”

Lucas. He’s closer. I catch a whiff of something earthy, but I think of spiked punch and that night this summer when his eyes held me hostage at the cast after-party.

He is not what I’m supposed to want. He is long hair and ripped jeans, and none of it matters when his smile curls above the rim of his plastic cup.

I can’t just stand here staring. I should thank him, as the director, because he did his job.