I throw up my hands. “Thank you!”
His expression is sharp enough to slice. “Don’t thank me, and don’t blame them for thinking it. Everybody heard you arguing with Mr. Walker in the cafeteria. We know you tried to bail after you found out I was on the roster.”
Jude scoffs. “Is this some sort of angst-fueled hormonal fallout for the two of you? Because if so, it’s a little over the top.”
Heat flashes across my cheeks like a slap. “This is not hormonal fallout! What is wrong with you guys? I get that we’re not friends, but you know me. At least you know of me. In what universe do you see me involved with anything like this?”
“In what universe would we have predicted something like this?” Jude holds up his wrist, and I try not to look at the letters scrawled across his skin.
“I didn’t do this!” I’m getting louder. I can’t help it. “It was done to us. To me!”
“OK,” Emily says, but she looks so uneasy. I’m pretty sure she just wants me to stop screaming. “I believe you. Let’s just…do this.”
I press my lips together. Jude says nothing. Lucas watches me until his gray eyes turn to flint. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth like he’s thinking, but my stomach flips all the same. I still can’t look at him without it turning into that. I guess my mom’s DNA is always going to be there, swimming around in my blood, ready to make me a complete idiot.
“Do you want to hand everyone stage directions, Spielberg?” Lucas asks. “Or can we just go?”
I shake my head and swallow back the argument stinging my lips. I can’t afford to care about this right now. We have to find Ms. Brighton, and we have to get out of here. That’s all that matters. I wipe my hands down the front of my shorts and move out of the tree line.
We’re back at the top of the clearing. No rain now, but the river is a swollen artery, pumping mud-brown water and chunks of debris through the forest valley. Half the bridge is gone, sunk deep into the stream. The rest of it sticks out like a mangled ramp, metal supports twisted like bits of aluminum.
No one used that bridge or crossed this river. Not at this spot anyway.
We fan out along the outcropping above the riverbank. No one talks about the claw marks left in the mud from our escape yesterday. No one talks about the fact that we can’t hear or see anybody. We just stand there and stare.
The quiet presses at my ears, but no one moves to break it. We’re all watching with blank faces like storm survivors, stumbling along, looking for someone in a Red Cross shirt to save the day. I spot the word on Jude’s arm, and I can’t help but press my fingers over the black letters on my own wrist. I wish I could scrub it off, but it’s Sharpie, so I know better. I sported black x’s on my hands for a couple of weeks after a summer concert.
“There,” Lucas says, pointing up at a ridge above the water.
I shift closer to him, and I can’t see anything at first. Trees. Patches of blue sky. Then I spot it—a sliver of brown canvas between two trunks. Another swath of green that’s too bright to match the foliage. That’s where they put their tents. The camp is on a rise maybe fifty yards back and twenty feet above the river. It’s behind a small cluster of trees, but it’s definitely their tents.
Lucas calls out, his voice rough but loud. The silence that answers is like a wet towel in my throat. A dragonfly hums past my shoulder, buzzing over the murky water. Jude tries next.
“Ms. Brighton!” he shouts. “Madison! Hayley!”
I hear a rustling from up near what I’m sure is their tent, and I droop with relief. Thank God. I nudge Emily’s shoulder, and she looks up, hope in her gaze. But then it’s quiet again. I wait one beat and then another. Nothing.
“Where are they? Do you see them?” Jude asks, shoulders hunched.
I open my mouth, just waiting to spot a streak of blond hair or Ms. Brighton’s dark braid. Instead, there are just leaves waving softly and an occasional bird flitting through the canopy. A noise rustles, and I tense again.
“It’s not them,” Lucas says, sounding strained. “Whatever that was wasn’t big enough.”
Sure enough, the sound of skittering leaves drifts away from the tents, and then we hear something scrabble behind the tree. A passing thought of our ghost stories sends icy fingers up my spine. I should know better, but still.
“We should go back,” Jude says. “Check later.”
“Where the hell are they?” Lucas says it so softly, I’m not sure who he’s asking.
I twist my hands together. “Maybe they went for help like you said. If they called and we didn’t answer…”
“But they just left their tents up like that?” Lucas asks. He doesn’t look convinced. “They might try to go back to our starting point, but that’s a two-day hike.”
“Maybe whoever came for us came for them too. Maybe they’re still sleeping,” Emily says.