One Was Lost(23)

Something we should have thought of before. Still, I strain on tiptoe to peek at the other side of the bank. There’s something behind the shrubs but a good twenty yards from the tents. There are too many leaves to be sure of much, but I can tell it’s dark and large. Maybe wet.

That’s what the smell is coming from, what the flies are after.

I stop dead in the water, feeling the blood drain out of my face.

“Lucas, something’s up there. Can you see it?”

He pauses, looking, I guess, and then he tugs my hand. “I can’t. Switch with me.”

My heel hits something slick when I turn. My foot flies wild, and the current takes it. Everything is twisting, my knee, my ankle, the sharp thing that bites into my leg, carving a hot line into my cold flesh. Lucas pulls my arm with a jerk that makes my shoulder pop. I’m up. Standing like a newborn giraffe, but it’s better than hurtling downstream. Lucas has one hand twisted in mine, another curled into the side of my shorts. We’re both dripping and panting.

“You hurt?”

“No,” I lie, but I don’t think he’ll buy it. The water is shallower here, and streaks of red are swirling into the brown around us. I can’t tell how bad it is. My joints feel OK. I’m sore but intact.

Lucas swears, and I’m sure he’s seen the bloody water, but he hasn’t.

He’s looking at the shore, at the place where I saw the dark thing. One glance and I can see it again, a shadowy lump behind the green. The flies are the only thing moving. The only thing alive on that ridge.

Lucas groans like he might be sick. “Go back,” he says, gagging a little.

I don’t argue. I limp my way to the shore and try to see what he’s seen. I can only see the cloud of flies from here, a hungry web shifting and darting. Feeding.

I turn away, and Lucas gags again. I don’t know if he brings anything up, but his fingers go around my arm, and he starts walking fast.

“We’re done.” His voice is rough. “We can’t help them.”

“We—”

“Sera, we can’t help them. Do you understand?”

I close my mouth so I won’t scream, close my eyes so he won’t see how close I am to crying.

“OK,” he says softly, and somehow, I can tell he knows I understand. They’re dead. There was a body on that hill. Ms. Brighton’s probably. And something else by the tents, where the birds are hovering. It’s them. It can’t be anything else, can it?

He moves back toward the path, and I follow. We’re ascending when my cut brushes a tree. I yelp, and Lucas startles, turning back.

“What is it?”

“My leg. I cut it.”

I turn my leg so we can see. It’s not tragic, a diagonal slice just above my boot line, so it won’t rub the edge at least. It should be fine as long as it’s clean. A sinking through my middle reminds me that water isn’t even close to clean, and I don’t have a thing back at camp that can bandage it. No way I’m wasting bottled water either.

“Do you want me to carry you?” Lucas asks.

“I’m fine.” I bristle at myself as soon as I say it. Maybe I don’t want to be falling all over him, but I don’t want to be nasty either. Why can’t I ever find a happy medium with Lucas?

We head back through the woods toward camp without talking. I can just see the shape of my tent through the trees when Lucas stops suddenly, his hand coming up to slow me down. I open my mouth to ask, but Lucas shakes his head.

He’s listening to something. I cock my head. Voices inside the camp. Emily and Jude.

My fingers snag the side of his shirt, twist in a stranglehold. Are they in danger? Is there someone else there?

“I’m telling you, Darling means something.” Jude. Definitely Jude.

My fingers move to the word on my arm, nails scraping at the G.

“She didn’t do this,” Emily says softly. Gratitude blooms through my middle.

“But she wants Lucas,” he says. “Which means you can’t trust her either.”

Fire roars up my chest and neck even as my face goes cold. I move to storm up the path, to argue, but Lucas grabs me, squeezes my wrist, just a little. He’s still listening.

I can’t hear the first part of what Emily says, but the last few words are clearer.

“…really think he did this?”

“I think he could be involved. They wrote Dangerous on his arm because that’s what he is. He’s violent. Probably desperate. I think he did something to me when we tried to leave. I didn’t pass out for no reason.”

Emily’s muttering too low to hear again. I make out “Tyler” and “in three places,” but everything else is a jumble. I watch Lucas while I try to listen. His jaw clenches until I hear his teeth grind, but he is as still as stone. Waiting for the rest, I guess.

“I don’t know,” Jude says. “I’m just saying be careful.”

Quiet falls over the forest again. I expect Lucas to start walking, but the minutes stretch on, and my ears ache for some sort of noise. There’s nothing but wind and forest sound and, here and there, a long, shaky breath that belongs to the tall boy next to me.

I sigh and start to move forward, but Lucas leans in until his hair brushes my cheek and breathing becomes a thing I cannot do. His chin scrapes my cheek, and then he’s talking, so low I have trouble pulling the words apart.