One By One by Freida McFadden(28)

Noah shakes his head. “Lindsay was your best friend. I don’t blame you.” He sighs. “It all doesn’t feel real, you know?”

I nod. I look ahead again to the others. I feel awful about what happened to Lindsay. But it could’ve easily been me lying on the ground right now. I dodged a bullet.

For now, at least. The scary reality is we don’t have much water. And we can’t survive long without water. I imagine Penny telling my children that their parents didn’t make it home. That they’ll have to grow up without us. I imagine the way their faces would crumble.

I have to keep moving. For Emma and Aiden.

“I think we should stay with the others,” I finally say.

“Okay,” he agrees.

I pick a wildflower from the ground. It’s Lindsay’s favorite color—purple. I gently lay the flower down on her chest. I kiss my fingertips, then gently press them against Lindsay’s cheek. She still feels warm, but in another hour or two, her body will be cold. I don’t want to think about it. I straighten up and start walking in the direction the others went. Noah follows beside me, although keeping a respectful distance.

“Thanks for offering to stay,” I say to him.

He’s quiet for a moment. “I’m really glad you didn’t eat any of those berries.”

Me too.





Chapter 15


CLAIRE



We’ve been walking about another hour when I hear a woman’s scream from up ahead.

After what happened to Lindsay, my pulse immediately shoots up. I’ve been walking alone for the last half hour or so. Noah was staying beside me initially, but then he went ahead to see how the navigation process was going. I can’t even begin to read the map and the arguments about which way to go were stressing me out, so I stayed behind. I don’t feel like talking to anybody anyway—all I can think about is Lindsay. Every time I shut my eyes for a moment, I see her pale face.

My eyes have been mostly downcast, trying to keep from tripping on any branches. But now I look up sharply, trying to figure out what just happened. The only other person in our group who could have screamed like that is Michelle.

Did she see a wild animal?

I jog to catch up with the others. As I get closer, I see that Michelle is sitting on the ground, clutching her left ankle. Her face is pink and her jet black bun has even become a little bit unraveled. Even her lipstick has rubbed off. That’s a first.

“Are you okay, Michelle?” I ask.

“Do I look okay?” she snaps at me.

“Michelle tripped and twisted her ankle,” Jack explains.

Suddenly I don’t feel so stupid for keeping my eyes on the ground.

Michelle moans and pulls up her pants leg. The ankle already looks swollen—soon it will probably turn purple. I wince at the sight of it. “I can’t believe I did that…” she groans.

“Can you put weight on it?” Warner asks.

“I’ll try.” She holds out a hand to Jack, who hauls her to her feet. She gingerly attempts to stand on her left leg, and she screams again. “Oh my God…”

“It might be broken,” Warner says.

“No.” Michelle grits her teeth. “I can’t have a broken ankle.” Her eyes fill with tears. “You don’t get it. I do not have time for this. I don’t have time for any of this.” She lowers herself down to the ground. “I should never have come on this stupid trip. I only came because…”

She lifts her black eyes and stares at me. It’s impossible to miss the accusation in that stare. Does she know about me and Jack? Did she only come on the trip so she could keep an eye on us?

I drop my eyes. I can’t deal with this right now. I need to focus all my energy on making it to that inn. On surviving so I can get back to my children.

“Does anyone have a signal?” Jack asks.

I take out my phone from my purse. I’ve been checking periodically, but I haven’t looked in at least half an hour. I hold it up—still no service. Worse, the battery is dying. I should probably turn the phone off so I don’t drain the battery completely while it’s searching for a connection, but I can’t make myself do it.

“What am I going to do?” Michelle moans. “I can’t walk like this…”

“But we’ve got to find the inn,” Warner says. He looks down at his watch. “Once we find it, we’ll come back for you.”

The panic on Michelle’s face is unmistakable. She reaches out and grasps Jack’s arm hard enough that he winces. “You can’t leave me.”

He squirms. “Michelle…”

Her fingers bite into his forearm. I wouldn’t be surprised if she drew some blood. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Okay, okay.” He forces a smile. “Look, we’re all really tired. I think we should camp here for the night and then start up again when we’re fresh in the morning.”

“Camp here?” Warner looks at the woods around us, densely populated with trees and branches. Now that it’s dark, it’s hard to see more than about six feet ahead of us. “You’re joking.”

As much as I dislike Warner, he has a point. This doesn’t seem like a good place to be setting up camp for the night.