SIX
BACK INSIDE, THE GIRL SAT QUIETLY ON THE COUCH.
“I have an idea.” Jack headed into the kitchen and made a call from the phone. He said a few words, then came back in, clicking it shut. “Get her dressed, something warm. Then meet me in the CC.”
Hoping Jack’s idea was better than the big pile of no ideas rambling around my head, I went down the hall to Vanessa’s room. I dug through some drawers until I found a pair of jeans and a pink cable-knit sweater that looked about the girl’s size. Jack’s sister was shorter but tended to wear her pants way too long anyway. Leaving the outfit the girl had arrived in where it lay on the floor, I carried the other things out to her.
She took them and disappeared into the bathroom. I guess she was remembering how to do things.
Jack was in the CC, which stood for the Columbia Closet. It actually was a closet, but so huge, well lighted, and stocked, it could have been its own Columbia retail store, for all the gear it held. Jack’s family liked convenience. So rather than hauling clothes and stuff back and forth to the cabin, they simply bought a ton of outdoor gear: coats for all seasons, boots, footwear, hats, gloves, enough for them and their guests. Jack had christened it the CC.
He handed me a pink jacket.
I held it up. “Not my color, dude.”
“It’s for her. You can get your own stuff.”
I grabbed an XXL blue waterproof coat with a polar fleece lining, and gloves for the girl. I had worn my hiking boots, luckily, and I found a pair of Jack’s that might work for her. Taking my haul out to the living room, I dumped it all on the floor just as she came out of the bathroom. Wearing jeans, the sweater, and her flip-flops, she looked like most of the girls at our high school.
Except way more beautiful than any of them.
She was so stunning just standing there that it took me a second to speak as I tried to convince myself that this gorgeous creature had actually asked me to hold her all night. I managed to spit out, “You’ll want some socks.” I held up the boots. “And these will be a little better than the flip-flops.”
The girl asked, “Are we going outside?”
“Yep.” Jack walked in. “And we’re not going out the front gate.”
Putting on my coat, I wondered what his plan was, but he kept talking.
“Lucille’s place is about three miles through the trails. We can take the ATVs and then borrow her old Dodge truck. She used to let me drive it before I had my license.” When I raised my eyebrows, he grinned. “My dad pays her for watching out for the place. Which is why she drives a Cadillac now and not the old Dodge.”
Running the trails through my mind, I tried to picture where Lucille’s was. And the only image that came to mind was a house up on the ridge at the end of the trail we had named after Lewis and Clark. Mainly because we’d blazed it ourselves and it was the roughest of them all. “Jack, which trail?”
He donned a black jacket and zipped. “Lewis and Clark.”
Not the best of news. “That’s gonna be a mess with all this rain.”
He nodded. “We’ll go slow.”
When I just looked at him, he held his hands up and let them drop. “Do we have a choice?”
No. I was pretty sure we didn’t, and I shook my head. But then I said, “Are we nuts? What if we just call the police, explain it all?”
The girl touched my arm. “Would they help me? What would they do?”
I didn’t know. “You’d probably go back to Haven of Peace.”
Her light touch became a strong grip. “Don’t make me go back there. Please, I’ll go wherever we need to go.”
“It’s okay.” I rested a hand on hers until she loosened her grip. “But can you tell me about the people out there? I mean, they were with you on the couch at the Haven of Peace.” What I really wanted to know was, was the dark-haired boy a friend? More than a friend? Did she want to go to him?
“I don’t remember any of that. And I don’t feel … scared exactly. I can feel them, hear them. But I don’t want to go out there.”
“That’s settled.” Jack clapped his hands, startling me. “Let’s saddle up, people.”
Jack’s mom was pretty adamant about keeping the ATVs, and accompanying noise, away from the house. So the shed housing all the Arctic Cats was a few hundred yards behind the house, toward the meadow and, luckily, away from the front gate.
The mist had turned into drizzle. Jack and I put our hoods up for the walk. The girl hadn’t seemed to figure it out, so I stepped in front of her. “Wait.” Reaching out, I pulled her hood up to cover her head. “Better?”
She nodded.
Jack unlocked the side door of the shed and we all went inside. With the lights flipped on, the place looked like a mini showroom for an ATV dealer. I went to one of the two red ones nearest the door. Jack handed us helmets and I pulled mine over my head, then helped the girl with hers. Her big eyes shone out and I wondered what she was thinking.
I flipped my leg over and took a seat on the machine. “You’ll have to ride behind me. Can you hold on?”
Her hands clenched my shoulders as she climbed on behind me, the lack of room causing her to nestle right into my back. Not that I minded. Her body molding to mine was like a mirror image of the night before, when I had held her. An experience I could get used to.
Jack rolled up the big door and I turned the key. The ATV came to life under us, and the girl’s arms quickly went around my waist, squeezing. In that moment I realized that starting the engine was a kind of point of no return. Turning that key was a conscious choice, a choice to not take the girl back.
I put one hand on her arm and turned my head to the side so she could hear. “You okay?”
“Yes!” Her voice was right at my ear.
As we moved forward out the door, I hoped I would be able to protect her.
Jack followed with a machine, then went back inside, disappeared behind the door as it lowered, then showed up a minute later. “Ready?”
I nodded.
He led the way across the meadow and into the start of the forest.
The girl held fast to my waist as I gripped the handles, staying far enough behind Jack to stop if he did. Our engines seemed so loud that I worried they’d alert the guy at the front gate. But all we could do was go, move away from there, and cross our fingers that our exit was as quiet as we hoped.
Concentrating as we started going up toward the slick trail, I was pretty sure we’d be okay as long as we went slow. The biggest danger lay in the unexpected—a fallen tree, or if part of the trail had washed out.
Still, despite the strangeness of the day, not to mention the danger of the moment, the grin on my face was automatic. I loved being on the machine, the roughness of the ride. I could have done without the wet and chilly day, but it was the Northwest; more often than not we had rain when we rode the ATVs.
As we climbed and angled upward, trees grew scarcer on our right until they disappeared completely and were replaced by a drop-off into a sizable chasm, lush with vegetation. The girl tightened her hold on me. Turning my head, I called back, “It’s okay, I’ll stay to the other side.” She didn’t say anything, but she did lay her head against my back, tucking in even closer than she had been.
Maybe it was being distracted by her that made me react slower when Jack’s ATV started slipping on the muddy path. Just as I noticed he was having trouble, he started to slide backward, and I couldn’t do anything other than try to turn as I hit the brakes, way too late.
His ATV bumped into mine, but the heavier weight and speed of my machine spun him halfway around and pushed him to the right toward the chasm.
“Jack!”
Flipping the key, I was off the ATV before the engine even died, lunging toward the edge, managing to catch the front fender of Jack’s ATV just as his back wheels went over the edge.
In a squat, I had next to no leverage, just whatever strength I could summon to hold on. But I started to slide, and Jack and the front wheels of the ATV crept closer and closer to the edge.
Then arms went around my middle, pulling me back.
The girl.
But she only pulled like a normal person, not the person who had thrown me over the wall. There wasn’t time to wonder where her strength went, because although my slide slowed, I still headed toward the edge.
Jack was nearly tipped back flat, hanging on to the ATV so as not to fall off. If I let go to try and help him get off and back to the edge, the ATV would plummet before I had a chance. And if the girl let go of me to help him, I’d go sliding over with him.
Jack was yelling, “Don’t let go! Don’t let go!”
“Jack! Hang on!”
A tree root off to my left looked strong. “Try to aim toward that!” With the girl shifting, I succeeded in planting one foot there. The girl still had her arms around my waist.
I knew I couldn’t hold on much longer to the slippery fender.
Jack was still yelling, although I wasn’t sure it was even words anymore.
Although I squeezed until it hurt, I felt the machine slipping away. “No!” I pushed on the tree root with everything I had.
But my fingers gave out and the ATV, along with my best friend, slipped out of my grasp.
The release sent me falling backward into the muck on top of the girl. Rolling off, I scrambled to the edge, where I still heard crashing in the trees. I ripped off my helmet so I could see better.
The foliage was so thick and the light so gray and foggy, I couldn’t see Jack or the ATV.
The crashing stopped. I heard only the rain and a few birds.
“Do you see him?” The girl looked with me.
“No. Stay here.” I started down the side, grabbing for trees to hold on to as I slipped in the mud. “Jack!” I followed the path of broken tree branches. “Please be okay, please be okay.” I kept screaming his name until finally I saw a bit of red at the bottom of the ravine.
I froze, trying not to breathe, and listened.
Nothing.
I ran toward the red and found Jack lying at the bottom of the chasm under the ATV. “Jack!”
His eyes were shut beneath the helmet. “Jack! Jack!” Another moment flashed before me, only I was the one lying on the ground hurt. And in that moment I had just a small idea of how my mother must have felt seeing me so still, my face half ripped off.
Jack didn’t move and I slowly pulled off his helmet and touched his face. “Jack. Jack!” I shut my eyes and dropped my ear to his chest, listening for a heartbeat.
“Please be okay.”