One Was Lost Page 3

  The ground slopes downhill, and there’s a rock under my left shoulder, but when we turn on the lantern and split our coveted candy, it feels a little better. Not great, but all right. We try our phones next, pulling them out of the plastic bags Mr. Walker passed out with the ponchos.

  “They make fine nightlights,” I say, lamenting the No Signal indicator in the corner of my screen.

  “I can use my calculator…or my camera,” Emily says.

  I smirk. “Memories we’ll always treasure.”

  Emily gives the smallest smile and then rolls away, curling into a tiny ball in her sleeping bag. For a second, I see a flash of her slim shoulder and four shadowy bruises on the back of her arm. My stomach tightens as I think about her fear over the broken string earlier. Because those bruises are too old to have happened out here.

  As if she feels me watching, Emily slips her arm inside her bag. I see nothing but black hair and the obvious hint that she’s done talking. Just like the last two nights, the silence swells in the tent until I’m sure the canvas walls will burst. There’s cricket song and night noises, but I’ve never been a good sleeper. Not since Mom left. At home, Dad would be in the living room, reading and eating hummus, and eventually the munching and page-flipping would lull me off to dreamland. But not here.

  Here, I leave the lantern on and stare at the stained tent ceiling, sticky and cold and sick to death of this SLEM trip.

  Senior Life Experience Mission, my foot. I start coming up with new words to fit the acronym in my mind. See Life Endless Monsoon. Sinister Lucas Enjoys Mischief. So Long, Enjoyable Moments.

  I sigh and turn off the lantern. I don’t think tomorrow can be worse.

  But I’m wrong.

  Chapter 3

  I wake up warm. No, not warm—hot. I stretch like a cat, rolling over in my sleeping bag. My eyes flutter just enough to peek at a sunbeam gleaming in from the open tent flap. Wait, why isn’t that closed?

  I open my eyes for real, and my head swims. Pounds.

  I rub a hand over my face and try to sit up. I fail, going down in a heap, that same dull ache throbbing behind my temples. I lick my lips. My mouth is a wad of sand-coated cotton.

  Am I dehydrated? Is that possible? I wonder what time it is because I’m roasting in here.

  I look over, expecting Emily to be gone since the flap is open, but she’s still in her bag, sawing logs. Figures. She probably ran out to pee and forgot to zip us back in, which means a parade of spiders could’ve crawled into our mouths while we slept. Tasty.

  Or maybe Mr. Walker just opened it, trying to wake us up. We obviously overslept. It’s usually freezing in the morning, but the back of my neck is sticky with sweat. I crawl toward the entrance, looking for the telltale stripes on my backpack—where is it? Tell me I didn’t leave it out there in the rain! I fumble on my boots without socks and stand, but the world tilts dangerously. I clutch the side of the open door, my stomach rolling in warning.

  Whoa. What the crap is going on with me?

  My brain feels fuzzy in the sunlight outside. Even foggy-headed and eyes watering in the sudden brightness, I can tell it’s not morning. I think it’s late afternoon, and it looks like a gorgeous day. Blue sky, birds singing, the soft whisper of leaves shifting high in the trees above.

  I squint up at the sun overhead. How did we sleep this late? My vision finally slides into focus, and I look around, seeing a trail of stuff between two of the tents. Is that clothes? Was there a bear?

  My heart leaps into my throat, sits on the back of my dry, swollen tongue. Something’s not right. I spot Jude on the other side of his tent. His curly head is ducked. He’s hunched over, heaving. Oh. Oh.

  I look away from where he’s being sick in the bushes and grab my own churning gut. OK, time to find Mr. Walker. A pile of stuff stops me short.

  That wasn’t there last night.

  We wouldn’t have missed this heap of… My eyes try to pick apart pieces that don’t make any sense. Straps and ripped cloth and papers and bits of plastic and glass. I spot a Broadway keychain dangling off a torn bit of striped canvas.

  That’s my keychain. I take a breath, but it gets stuck halfway in.

  Wait—wait—

  I stagger over on wooden legs and look down at the keychain. That’s my bag. Or what’s left of it. It’s empty, cut into ribbons of canvas and broken straps. And those plastic and metal bits aren’t bits. They’re phones. Our phones. This is our stuff.

  Someone swears, and I turn around, seeing Lucas sitting outside his tent. He’s pulling a shirt on and looking as sweaty and miserable as I feel. When his head emerges from the neck hole, he meets my eyes. I don’t know the expression he’s wearing, but it scares me. Everything I see scares me right now.

  I scan the whole camp, torn up and empty and just…destroyed. This wasn’t a bear. Someone was here. We were sleeping, and they were in our camp. My backpack was in my tent.

  Oh God.

  Someone was in my tent.

  My heart trips itself and then races. I can feel every beat in my head, my pulse counted out in beats of pain behind my eyes.

  Mr. Walker. We need—

  “Mr. Walker?” My voice cracks and crumbles like dead leaves. I swallow hard and try again. “Mr. Walker!”

  This time, I’m louder because his tent flap is closed. I don’t know if he’ll hear. Jude stumbles back toward his tent, then sinks to his knees. He’s shaking all over, one earbud dangling halfway down his T-shirt, the other still in his ear. I can see the cord isn’t plugged into anything. His phone is gone.

  Lucas is on his feet now, moving closer. Coming for me? Paranoid thought, but still, the fear needles into my spine. He turns toward Mr. Walker’s tent, and I can’t move as he unzips the door, throwing it open. Still can’t move when I hear him inside, calling Mr. Walker’s name. Softly first and then louder. Swearing, followed by an awful rustle and grunt.

  He’s hurting him!

  Fear turns to adrenaline, and I sprint for my teacher’s tent, my steps landing fast and sloppy. I don’t know what I’m thinking when I throw open that flap, but I freeze at the entrance, some ancient nameless instinct holding me back.

  “There’s something wrong with him,” someone says. I can’t tell if it’s Mr. Walker or Lucas. It’s too dark in here. My eyes strain for focus, my brain still sloshing around, trying to find sense in something.

  “Come help me!” It’s Lucas.

  My eyes adjust, shadows forming into shapes. Lucas is bent over Mr. Walker. I crouch just inside the door. Our teacher looks awful. Pale and slack, half on his sleeping bag and half propped on Lucas’s knees. Is he breathing?

  “Sera!” He looks urgent. “Help me!”

  I jerk at the sound of my name, and our eyes lock. It’s as close as we’ve been since the party, but this is different. Seeing him like this—face blanched and breath shaky—sends goose bumps up on my arms.

  “Wake him up,” I say, the words as hollow as my middle.

  “I can’t.” Lucas shakes his head. “I can’t.”

  Outside, someone screams.

  My feet and legs wobble when I stand, and the world is topsy-turvy back in the sunlight beyond the tent door. I blink sweat out of my stinging eyes and take a step, searching for the source of the wailing. Trees. Trees. Emily.

  She’s in shorts and a T-shirt, her hands bunched in both sides of her hair, her mouth stretched wide, even though her scream has dribbled into silence.

  I grit my teeth against my swimming head and start walking. Emily sucks in another breath. I think she wants to scream again, but she’s empty. She backs up, up, up until she’s against a tree near the pile of our stuff, the color drained from her face.

  Is she going to pass out? I think she might, so I move faster, feeling the ground go wobbly. My steps thud off rhythm. Emily spots me and yelps.

>   I reach for her, not sure if I’m trying to comfort her or hoping she’ll catch me. She scuttles beyond my reach, her eyes like bits of coal.

  “Emily, it’s OK!” I say, lifting my hands.

  She flinches again, and I hear footsteps coming my way.

  “You’re freaking her out.”

  Jude, of all people. Puke down the front of what I’m betting is a sixty-dollar T-shirt.

  He crouches, and I follow his lead. We’re treating her like a cornered dog, and I don’t like it. What are we going to do, offer her a Beggin’ Strip?

  “All right?” Jude asks her.

  Emily’s face hardens at him, but she nods.

  I swipe a shaky hand through my hair, and my knees are too weak to hold the crouch. My butt hits the ground, so I just sit, trying to breathe. Trying to think.

  “Mr. Walker’s alive, but he’s not conscious,” Lucas says, his heavy footsteps behind me.

  “Did he get sick?” Jude asks.

  Lucas sneers. “Apparently, that’s just you, little girl.”

  “Don’t be a jerk,” I snap, then to Jude, “I feel raunchy too.”

  “Like, hungover raunchy, right?” he asks.

  I wouldn’t know, so I shrug, but Lucas mutters something that sounds agreeable. Jude’s shoulders hitch down a notch, and he finally takes that last earbud out.

  “What the hell happened to us?” he asks as he’s coiling the white cord, examining the bare plug with a frown.

  “They did it to you too,” Emily says. We all turn to her. She crosses one arm over her middle and juts her chin at Jude’s arm. “Your word is different.”

  “What w—” He never finishes. Because when he turns his left wrist up, we all see it. The letters are ornate like a tattoo. Or maybe henna. His reads Deceptive.

  Emily lifts her wrist, and I have to squint to make out the letters.

  Damaged.

  Lucas checks his and snorts. “Of course.” Then he flips his wrist up so we can all see.

  Dangerous.

  My turn. I swallow against the lump in my throat, and it goes down hard, bruises my insides. Just do it. Do it.

  I turn my wrist up, praying so hard for a familiar olive stretch of clean skin. I see the black marker ink immediately. My mouth goes watery and sour before I even read it. I hold it up but close my eyes because I know they won’t like it.

  My word is Darling.

  Chapter 4

  No one says a thing. Maybe what’s written on our wrists is all the words we need. Or maybe we’re all trying not to throw up. It’s probably both. We need to think. We need to do something.

  I lumber to my feet, still spinny and sick. Lucas steadies me with a hand to my hip, and I recoil. “Don’t!”

  He backs away, palms raised. “Calm down, Darling.”

  “Yeah, I’d love to know why you get the nice word,” Jude says, voice rough.

  The letters on my wrist burn. “It’s not like I wrote this.”

  “Then who did?” Emily asks. She’s not accusing me—she’s scared. “Who did this?”

  Lucas palms the back of his neck. “My money’s on the asshole who ripped all our stuff to shreds.”

  My eyes drift over the other campers. The thing is, at least some of these words fit. Lucas is dangerous, and one look at Emily makes it clear she’s got issues. Whoever did this could have known that. They wouldn’t have bothered if they didn’t know, right?

  Not that someone knowing us would make this logical. Nothing about this makes sense, not the destroyed supplies or the fact that we slept away the day or the fact that we’ve got personalized tattoos branded on our wrists. The only thing I’m sure of is that it all adds up to something bad.

  “What’s his word?” Jude asks, nodding at Mr. Walker’s tent.

  Lucas shakes his head. “He doesn’t have one.”

  “How can you be sure?” I ask, feeling my eyes narrow.

  His expression sharpens. “Because I think I would have noticed when I was hauling his ass around. He’s wearing a T-shirt. I saw his lily-white arms pretty well.”

  “But why wouldn’t he have a word?” I ask. It bothers me, and I know that’s stupid. I’m acting like someone’s made a list of rules, and in those rules, everyone gets a word.

  “We need help,” Emily says.

  Lucas exhales. “Yeah, and we need to figure out where—”

  I inhale sharply, interrupting him. “Ms. Brighton.” Her name tastes like salvation. Jude looks up, and I take a breath and look at everyone. “We need to find her and Madison and Hayley. They have their phones! They can help us.”

  Lucas tilts his head with a wary expression. “Unless they’re in the same shape we are.”

  “The bridge was practically washed out,” I say. “Someone couldn’t have gotten to both sides of the river.”

  “We couldn’t cross,” Jude says. “That doesn’t mean no one could.”

  “Fair point,” Lucas says. “If there’s another bridge or even a zip line, it wouldn’t be an issue. Maybe this is the mountain equivalent of cow tipping or whatever.”

  My face scrunches. “What?”

  Lucas shrugs. “This feels like a prank, doesn’t it? Destroying our crap, writing creepy words on our arms. Let’s see if we can scare the city folk.”

  I cock my head. “We’re from Marietta, Ohio. Wouldn’t exactly call us city folk.”

  Emily frowns. “This is pretty elaborate for a prank anyway.”

  “Good pranks are elaborate,” Lucas says. “Do you know how much planning it took to get the statue of Arthur St. Clair suspended from the rafters in the school auditorium?”

  Jude turns to Lucas, brows arched. “That was you?”

  He shrugs, and my head throbs. Of course it was him. I don’t know how blind I was this summer, but I should have put it together. It’s not like I haven’t seen his type before.

  My mother left my dad and me over a guy like Lucas. Hot-headed and prone to snarkiness—and mischief—but still somehow charming. Funny. They’ve even got the same tall, dark vibe going, though Charlie looked like he belonged in a sweater on a Macy’s catalog, and Lucas…well, I can’t even imagine him inside a Macy’s.

  Jude and Emily are grinning at Lucas as he explains the intricacies of the plan, but I’m thinking of when I met Charlie. It was after one of Mom’s shows. He played opposite her in 42nd Street—her biggest role—and my mom swore I’d love him to death. She was right—I really liked him.

  Until I really didn’t.

  “I’m almost impressed,” Jude says, sounding like he wishes it weren’t true.

  Lucas glowers at him, and I grit my teeth. We don’t have time for this. “Can we all stroke Lucas’s ego about his many impressive crimes after we find Ms. Brighton?”

  “You can stroke my ego anytime, Sera.”

  Emily gasps before I can retort, her eyes on Mr. Walker’s tent. “What happened there?”

  “He’s not dead, remember? Just knocked out cold,” Lucas says.

  Emily clenches her fists, looking suddenly pale. “Not that. Look.”

  Lucas and Jude must see the fear in her eyes because they follow her gaze. She’s looking at something beside the tent, something we missed.

  I step sideways and see it: a square formed by sticks laid end on end. The ground in the middle has been cleared of leaves, and a careful number three is gouged into the soft soil. I squeeze my eyes shut for a beat, wanting it to disappear and knowing it won’t.

  Lucas takes a breath. “What the hell is that?”

  Jude gestures to the number and adopts a preschool teacher voice. “That’s a number three, Lucas. Preceded by number two and followed by—”

  A muscle in Lucas’s jaw jumps. “What’s it doing there?”

  “That’s how many days we were supposed
to have left on our trip,” I say.

  “I don’t think that’s about our camping trip,” Emily says, reading my mind. Then she looks around, shoulders hunched. “It’s too quiet. Isn’t it?”

  A chill is rolling up my back because I think I know what she means. “You mean we should hear the others, right?”

  “They’d be calling for us,” Emily says. She’s not wrong.

  “There are three of them,” Lucas says, still staring at the number in the ground.

  “We should hear them,” Jude says, tipping his chin to Lucas. “Madison would be bleating your name like a goat.”

  It’s true, and the absence of said bleating is suddenly pressing fear into me. There are three of them. But the number on the dirt makes me wonder. Are there still three?

  “OK, let’s not jump to conclusions,” Lucas says. “They probably took off when we didn’t answer. Maybe they think we left without them. Or that we need help.”

  “He’s right. They could have even given up earlier when we were still unconscious. We’ll figure it out when we get there,” I say.

  “I don’t want to go back to the water,” Emily says.

  I don’t need to ask why. The terror is obvious in her tone. She’s afraid of what we’ll find there. A cold prickle in my center tells me I’m afraid of that too.

  My eyes drift to Mr. Walker’s tent. We left the flap open so he’d stay cool, and I can see the faint rise and fall of his olive-green undershirt. But he’s still too pale. Worry pricks at my throat. He should be awake by now.

  So why isn’t he?

  I lick my lips. God, I’m thirsty. “Let’s try to wake him up, like Emily suggested. Just one more time. Can’t hurt anything, right?”

  I must look desperate. Either that or Emily and I aren’t the only ones hesitant to return to the water alone.

  We close in near his tent door, calling his name softly and then louder. Lucas even shifts him a little closer to the edge of his tent.

  Hope springs through my chest when he groans. He’s waking up! Everything will be all right! It will make sense! But his eyes don’t open, and no more sound comes from his lips. I snag the front of his shirt, desperate.