Cold Springs(82)

The Mozart kept playing, bright and incongruous.

Jones looked at the CD player with distaste. “And leave this—the fun, the danger, the good taste in music? Naw, Chad. I'm still your partner. Just don't let me drink that much coffee ever again, all right? I feel like a f**king rocket engine.”

Chadwick's throat tightened. He felt more grateful for Jones' vote of confidence than he cared to admit.

Before he could figure out how to tell her that, she kicked him not-so-gently on the shin. “Come on, man. Let's get out of here 'fore Amadeus give me hives.”

21

“Any questions?” Leyland asked.

We're too damn tired to ask questions, Mallory thought. But she said nothing.

The four black levels stood in a semicircle, looking at the habitat Leyland had constructed—a neat little burrow, scooped out of the soft ground next to a fallen tree. The roof was woven out of branches, covered with leaves and moss.

Mallory didn't love the idea of sleeping in a hole in the dirt, but night was coming with a hard freeze, and she was ready to do anything if it meant getting to sleep.

The other black levels looked just as ragged—Morrison, who'd spent an hour starting her first fire without matches, only to have it die in the kindling stage; Smart, who'd run himself into a record twelve trees during the blindfold compass activity; and Bridges, who'd been practicing remedial knife-throwing with Leyland most of the afternoon and still sucked at it pretty bad. Mallory had proven much more skilled—she could impale the blade on target four times out of ten, which Leyland told her was damn good for a beginner.

The day had been a friggin' marathon, even by Cold Springs standards, and Mallory couldn't help but wonder if Leyland was overcompensating for what had happened the night before—driving them so hard they wouldn't have time to think about Mallory almost dying.

If that was his goal, he'd succeeded. All of them were ready to drop. Even the two counselors—Baines and Olsen—who were the team's designated cheerleaders, looked like they'd just swallowed raw crayfish.

Of course, they had. For dinner, Leyland had made them demonstrate how to catch, shuck and gulp the slimy things out of the river as a survivalist meal. That had been pretty funny, until Leyland reminded the black levels that tomorrow it would be their turn. Tomorrow, each of them would strike out on their own—no food, no shelter, no help for twenty-four hours. So they'd better learn how to fend for themselves.

“All right,” Leyland said. “If there are no questions, go forth and build.”

Mallory moved toward the nearest fallen tree, which she'd been eyeing all through Leyland's talk, but Bridges beat her to it. “Mine, Zedman. Get your own.”

“Working as a team,” Mallory mumbled.

“Screw you.”

The comment would've been enough to get Bridges punished, if Mallory reported it. But she moved on. It wasn't worth fighting about.

Morrison was down by the river, eyeing a rotten log. Smart stood at the north end of the clearing, getting chewed out by Leyland for God-knows-what.

Mallory studied a jumble of car-sized limestone boulders at the base of the hillside. There were lots of nooks and crannies that might serve as ready-made caves.

She tried not to think about what Olsen had told her earlier—a casual comment that the wilderness wasn't as complete as it appeared. That there was a road only a half mile away, toward the setting sun.

Why had Olsen told her that? To make her feel better? To tempt her? Or was it Olsen's idea of revenge for Mallory giving her the silent treatment?

It had been days since Mallory thought about running. In truth, she couldn't imagine going back to San Francisco—to Race, to Laurel Heights, to her parents. But the nightmares still pressed in on her: Talia Montrose, Katherine, the sound of her harness ripping, the dizzying jolt of free fall through the rain.

Mallory was so tired of being scared. She felt a sudden powerful urge to confide in Olsen, to get everything off her chest, to tell her the crazy things she'd been thinking. She should accept the fact that the accident was just an accident, like Hunter said. These people would take care of her. She truly wanted to get through Black Level. She wanted to work with horses all day. She wanted to learn to ride.

But she couldn't escape the feeling she'd been betrayed up on the rope bridge. She was in danger. Olsen and Leyland and Hunter had failed her, just like Katherine had, and tomorrow they would abandon her, send her out into the wilderness by herself. She knew she was being childish, but she'd snubbed Olsen all day, trying to let her know how badly she'd been scared. When she thought about last night, the old he**in hunger twisted her gut. The old anger flared up. And she considered Olsen's road.

Mallory tried to put away the idea. She trudged off toward the rocks, collecting branches as she went.

Before long, the last rays of the sun were cutting through the woods, the shadows of the trees and the limestone boulders as thick as India ink.

She worked so intently she didn't hear Olsen until she crouched next to her.

“The rock is a good idea, Mal, but you're on the cold side.”

Every muscle in Mallory's body tensed. She picked another branch, laid it against the rock.

“Been in the shade all day,” Olsen explained. “The other side has been baking. It'll let off heat for several hours into the night.”