White Rabbit(86)

“On the count of three, right?” I inch forward, moving to the edge of the shadows, on the precipice of a milky-blue oblivion. “One. Two. Three.”

We charge out into the fog, knees churning, feet coming down hard on the knotted ground as we race in what I hope to be the direction of the parking lot. I’m operating purely on instinct, and as soon as the picnic shelter dissolves behind us, a tremor of anxiety ripples through me. Without visible landmarks, we’re like the victims of a capsized ship, swimming aimlessly and just hoping to find land.

We sprint past an unfamiliar flower bed, a stand of birch trees, and a forlorn picnic table etched with graffiti and decoupaged with bird crap. The amber beacon of the emergency phone blazes like St. Elmo’s fire somewhere in the distance ahead of us, and I correct course to the left. Air whistles past my ears, my shoes slip in the damp grass, and my lungs burn as frantic nerves gobble up my oxygen faster than I can suck it in.

Then, the grayness before us darkens and solidifies, a barricade of trees materializing out of the mist like Brigadoon, and we skid to a panting stop. I start to turn, so I can look behind us—convinced I’m about to see Race flying at us out of the gloom—but Sebastian grabs my shoulder and gives it a tug.

“Over there,” he gasps. “Parking lot!”

Without waiting, he takes off again to the left, where a telltale border of concrete wheel stops is just barely discernible at ground level, a family of alligators lying patiently in the grass. I hurry after him, but we slow to a cautious walk the second our shoes hit the paved lot, fragments of rubble and damp grit scratching the hard surface with intolerable volume beneath every footfall. With each sound we make, I feel increasingly vulnerable.

Suddenly, Sebastian draws up short, and I collide with his back. His voice is high and stiff as he forces out, “Holy shit, dude.”

Rising out of the mist before us, glistening with a delicate sheen of moisture and faced away at a daring angle in the center of the lot, is a sleek white automobile. Tracks crushed into the grass show where the vehicle jumped the curb, neatly circumventing the padlocked gate that guards the entrance to the parking area, clambering over the low wheel stops. I take in the car’s dramatic spoiler and the dark, angular lines painted along what’s visible of its side panels, and my heart launches so far up into my throat that it bounces off my uvula. It’s Race’s Camaro.

“He’s here,” Sebastian says tonelessly, shoulders taut and raised. “That was him. That was him, Rufus.”

“Where’s Peyton?” I ask worriedly, eyeing the car as if it might explode. It felt like eons passed while we stood alone in the picnic shelter after she ran off, but it could only have been a few minutes before we followed after her, and this is the only way out of the park; she must have come by here. What did she do when she saw the car? Keep running? Stop to look for her boyfriend, convinced they were still on the same side? Did she even make it this far at all?

“Shit. Shit.” Sebastian swings around, eyes doing a nervous dance. The Camaro’s rear windshield is tinted, impossible to see through, the black glass like a portal to some lonely hell. Is he in there? “We need to get the fuck out of here. We’ll get to the Jeep, and we’ll call the police.”

I nod my mute agreement, still trying to burn a see-through hole in the rear windshield with my eyes, finally eager to trade my problems up to a higher authority. Only, that’s when I notice something that makes my heart stumble in my chest and a strange noise escape from my mouth. “Sebastian, wait.”

“What? What is it?” Clearly anxious to keep moving, he stops long enough to follow the line of my arm as I point, to see what I’ve spotted: a fold of soft, gray fabric protruding through the thin seam where the lid of the Camaro’s trunk meets the body of the car. Sebastian shakes his head. “That’s … it’s nothing, Rufus. Come on—”

“It’s Peyton’s hoodie.”

“It looks like Peyton’s hoodie,” he corrects, fear mounting in his eyes, “which looks like a million other hoodies. Every player on every sports team at Ethan Allen has one that same color—including Race. He’s probably got a whole stack of ’em jammed in that trunk. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“She might be in there,” I whisper, unable to move. “We have to—”

“To what?” He gets in front of me. “Haul her ass out and carry her half a mile to the Jeep? If Race comes after us, we’ll never get away from him! If she’s hurt, she needs the police, Rufus; we need to get the police.”

“She might be dying, or—”

“And she might be already dead with a knife in her face!” Sebastian exclaims, his voice rising to a point where it almost cracks, and I can’t resist the urgency in his tone; he’s not just arguing with me at this point—he’s practically pleading for me to listen. “It could even be a trap—think about it! We need to get the hell out of here.”

He’s right, and I know he’s right. If that is Peyton in there, the odds she’s still alive are tremendously slim. The car is motionless, the air silent—nobody is kicking and screaming for help in the trunk. Leaving without so much as checking feels wrong, but wasting time is a risk we can’t afford. I let Sebastian pull me around the vehicle, but the driver’s side window drags my gaze as we pass, and I cast a fearful look inside, terrified that I’ll see Race grinning dementedly back at me.