One Was Lost(26)

Lucas swears softly under his breath, but I loop my arm through his and start walking backward out of camp.

“Go slow. Don’t run,” he says.

I pause, looking at our teacher’s tent, my voice dropped to a whisper. “I heard Mr. Walker.”

“You probably heard one of the bears,” he replies just as softly.

Something rustles inside Mr. Walker’s tent. A groan and a thud. The bear hears him, scuttles back and then forward, with lots of loud, angry chuffs. She’s agitated, I think. Mr. Walker goes quiet in his tent. He must hear the bear, right?

I start to edge closer. The mother bear lopes behind Mr. Walker’s tent, and the cub we saw patters closer to us. Lucas snags my arm.

“We have to get out of here,” he says. “That cub is too close. If the mother sees us…”

He doesn’t need to explain. Every sound those animals make is ratcheting my shoulders closer to my ears. Still…

“What do we do about the others?”

“Hope to God they’re smart enough to stay in their tents if they wake up.”

It’s the slowest version of running away I’ve ever known. One step. Another. The cub moves closer to us. Another few steps back. I can’t see Mr. Walker’s tent now. Or Jude and Lucas’s. I can only see mine and Emily’s, dark and silent in the night.

We stop by a large oak, listening to the bears moving around the camp. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the soft hush of the river. We’re caught between two terrors, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop shaking.

My vision’s gone smeary. The darkness swirls dead leaves into monsters, the ground into a living carpet. I stay close to Lucas and try not to think of what happened earlier at the river. But when I close my eyes, it’s all I see.

“The bears could come back this way,” I whisper.

“We’ll wait and listen.” Lucas isn’t shaking. He’s warm and calm. Everything I am not.

“If anyone wakes up—”

“It’s better if we stay away and don’t scare them. Black bears aren’t normally violent.”

He’s right. It’s probably more dangerous for us to go back, but the guilt still sits around my neck, heavy as a noose.

The bears take their time. Of course, what feels like ten hours could be ten minutes. I don’t have a phone, a watch, any real indicator of time passing—unless I start counting the beats of my heart. Or Lucas’s heart, I guess. Sometimes, I can hear it too.

We wind up sitting shoulder to shoulder with our backs against the rough trunk of the oak. After a while, I open my eyes. I didn’t know I’d closed them. The moon is maybe half-full, but I can make out the shapes of trees, the shadow a couple hundred yards ahead that must be my tent. We can hear the bears now sometimes. Soft grunts and snuffles. They sound farther away. No one sounds terribly aggressive or agitated. I guess that’s good.

“How long will they stay?” I ask, my whisper sudden and sharp in the long quiet.

“Until they’re full.”

“They found food?” I ask.

Moonlight sends gray-blue shadows over Lucas’s jaw. I see it tighten and jump, like he’s furious. “I’d bet money on it. Whoever left that water might have lured the bears to us, hoping to scare us.”

“But just scare us, right? Black bears don’t usually eat humans, do they?”

“Well, mothers with cubs are up for anything,” he says. “But we’re safe enough here, so try to relax.”

“It’s my watch,” I say. “You were on watch when they came.”

“I’m not tired,” he says.

I mean to argue that I’m not either, but I’ve told enough lies today. I force my eyes open, but it’s like fighting gravity.

It isn’t comfortable. Bark is digging into my back, and I’m smelling my own stink and maybe a bit of Lucas’s too, but my body is nudging me hard for sleep, and I can feel it will win. I will sleep soon, right here, with bears in the camp and the cold air chilling me to the bone and the stupid cut on my leg throbbing like one of the club anthems Sophie blares when she drives. I can still picture her behind the wheel, long brown hair and flared eyeliner. Liv’s in the back with her constant laugh and shiny braids. I drag in a deep breath and try to roll my shoulders.

Lucas swallows and plows his feet through the dead leaves on the ground. Little sounds of nothing, and they lull me like a siren song. I don’t realize I’m asleep until I open my eyes again. The forest is different now. The black sky is replaced with gray haze, mist clinging to the ground and trees around us. Everything is still, so I do not move.

“You snore,” Lucas says beside me.

“I don’t,” I say automatically, but then I frown, pulling my head up. It wasn’t on his shoulder, but I’ve got grooves in my cheek from the bark. Reasonable trade, I guess. Except I think I’d feel better if I wrestled a tow truck.

“Just giving you shit,” Lucas says, lumbering to his feet and pulling an ugly face.

“Where are the bears?” I ask.

“They wandered off east about an hour ago? Hell, I don’t know. They’re long gone though.”

“Why didn’t you wake me? It was my shift to watch.”

“I don’t know much about keeping watch, but I’m pretty sure consciousness is required for the job.”