Chapter Fourteen
The air was getting cold, and I wished I had a jacket, too, even if it did belong to a thief. Morgan wanted Garret and Edward by his side, so he told Trent he was on babysitting duty. So much for the moment of kindness. Trent fell back behind Holly, Noelle, and me while the rest of the group walked ahead of us. Noelle’s eyes were glued to Edward like she was trying to figure him out.
The sun was setting, and I couldn’t see very far in front of me. I wasn’t sure how we were going to find shelter.
“I hope they don’t make us sleep in a cave,” Holly said, visibly shivering under Morgan’s jacket.
“It would be better than sleeping in the open.”
“Not if there’s a hungry W-O-L-F in the cave.”
“Well, as long as you keep your mouth shut, the forest won’t create one.” Why couldn’t she get the hang of this place? It was scary, but it wasn’t that complicated. You didn’t talk about the frightening things you imagined while you were here. Of course, I was convinced the forest put those scary thoughts into our heads, hoping we’d say them aloud.
I saw something shiny out of the corner of my eye. Trent was swinging his knife back and forth in the air, like he was fighting someone who wasn’t really there. He grunted and stabbed the knife straight out in front of him. I rolled my eyes. He was like a child in a big, scary, muscular body. At least he wasn’t paying attention to Holly and me.
“Why do you think Morgan saved me back there?” Holly asked. “He only needs one of us. He could have let me drown. Or get eaten.” She lowered her head. At least she realized she was the one who had put herself in danger of both being shark food and drowning.
“Morgan’s sudden mood swings can only mean one thing,” I said. “He wants that painting so much he was willing to save you to get it. He knew I wouldn’t help him if he let you get eaten by that shark.”
“But why did he give me his coat? That was weird. You don’t think he has a daughter, do you? Maybe I remind him of her?”
“This is a family thing—searching for the fortune. She’d be here.”
“You’re probably right. Father of the year over there, taking his kids with him to this dangerous forest to search for some fortune that may or may not be here.”
“At least they’re together. Dad’s never taken me to work with him,” I said. The Grimaults may be dysfunctional, but they acted like a family. I glanced at Edward and Garret. They looked at their father like he was the greatest man on earth. For a second I envied them. Then my eyes fell on Noelle who was walking very close to Edward. She seemed to almost fit in with them—well, with Edward at least.
Holly patted my shoulder. “If it makes you feel any better, Dad’s somehow involved in this. So we’re not that different from Morgan’s kids.”
“Except Dad didn’t tell us about it.”
“No, he didn’t,” Holly agreed. “But do you know what the worst part of all this is for me? I’m ashamed of Dad.”
I didn’t know what to say. Part of me agreed, but I didn’t have time to think about it because everyone suddenly stopped walking. I looked around to see if Morgan had found a place to sleep, but all I saw was wide-open space. The thieves took off their boots and claimed trees to lean against.
“What are we doing?” Holly asked, looking as confused as I was.
“Camping for the night,” Garret said. He walked over to Holly and me, holding two red bandanas in his hands. He looked at Trent, who was still swinging his knife in the air. As soon as Trent noticed Garret staring at him, he put his knife back into its holder on his belt.
“There was a bee,” Trent said.
Garret rolled his eyes. “Sure there was.”
“We can’t camp here. There’s nothing to shelter us from wild animals,” I told Garret.
“We’re going to take turns standing guard.” Garret rolled one of the bandanas long-ways. “Turn around.”
“Huh?” I couldn’t see the point in blindfolding us.
“You don’t think we’re going to let you escape the minute we fall asleep, do you? We’re tying your hands behind your back. That way you won’t even think about trying to get away.”
“But you said someone would be on guard. We wouldn’t be able to escape.” I didn’t want to have my hands tied. My mind flashed with images of all the scary things in the forest that could attack me while I was helpless to defend myself.
“The purpose of the lookout isn’t to keep an eye on you. His job is to protect the rest of us from wild animals. Now turn around,” Garret said.
As much as I didn’t want to, I turned around and placed my wrists together. Once Holly and I were tied up, Garret pointed to the ground next to a tree about six feet away. I walked over and leaned my back against the bark. I inched down to the ground to avoid falling hard on my butt. I was happy to see Holly do the same. At least that was one injury averted. At the next tree over, Edward was tying Noelle’s hands. He whispered something to her before walking back to his father. Noelle turned in my direction and shrugged. Then she squatted down and leaned against her tree.
The thieves fell asleep almost instantly. Noelle and Edward were sharing a tree, but she was leaning as far away from him as possible. Maybe she didn’t trust him after all. She was so difficult to read. Trent was on guard, walking around us in a big loop. He had his knife out in front of him, but he wasn’t swinging it around this time. He looked serious. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. I heard Trent’s footsteps on the gravel. After a few minutes, I opened my eyes just enough to peek at Trent. He wasn’t circling the camp anymore. Maybe he’d heard something and gone to check it out. I nudged Holly.
“We have to get away from these guys.”
“We can’t walk around with our hands tied,” Holly said.
“We need to steal a knife to cut off these bandanas.”
“Definitely.”
I looked around. Out of Edward, Garret, or Morgan, my options weren’t good. I decided Edward was my best bet. The other two flat out scared me. Edward was lying on his back with his arms behind his head. The knife on his belt was exposed.
Holly nodded and mouthed, “Go ahead.” I was about to ask why I had to be the one to steal the knife, but I didn’t because I knew Holly was too clumsy to do it. She’d probably fall face-first into Edward’s armpit.
I took one last look around for Trent, and I scooted on my knees over to Edward. It wasn’t going to be easy to get the knife with my hands tied behind me. I couldn’t see what I was doing. Holly tilted her head to the left, so I scooted over, feeling for the knife. As I wrapped my fingers around the handle, Edward stirred. I froze. I was leaning awkwardly over Noelle, and I was afraid I was going to fall on her. Her body shook for a moment, and she opened her eyes. I was shocked she didn’t scream. Instead, she sat up and effortlessly slipped the bandana from her wrists. Then, she removed the knife from Edward’s belt loop and cut me free. We tiptoed over to Holly, and Noelle cut her free, too.
“How’d you get yours off so easily?” Holly asked Noelle.
“I told Edward I wanted to help them find the fortune and that it wasn’t necessary to tie me up because I wouldn’t run away. I guess he believed me,” Noelle said.
“I saw you shake. Are you okay?” I asked.
“I do that when I dream sometimes.” Noelle looked away like she was embarrassed, so I took the knife from her and returned it to Edward’s belt. Having a knife for protection was probably a good thing, but I’d never be able to use it.
I decided we should keep following the path we were on before we’d camped. We tiptoed around the side of a large tree and heard a rumbling sound.
Holly gave me a look, as if to ask, “What is that?”
“Wait here,” I whispered. I peaked around the tree. In the moonlight, I could see Trent slumped on the ground, sound asleep and snoring. I waved the girls on, and we passed with no problem.
“Wait until Morgan finds out he le
t us escape again,” Holly said once we were too far away to wake Trent.
“Forget Morgan. Garret will kill Trent long before Morgan gets to him,” Noelle told us.
“Why aren’t you staying to help them find the fortune? You told Edward you would,” Holly said. Her voice was full of attitude.
“Sorry, but I’ve been trying to figure these guys out. Like Edward,” Noelle said. “He’s—odd. One minute he’s all wrapped up in his dad and the search, and then the next, he’s being nice to me.” She kicked a pebble on the ground. Did she feel bad about breaking her promise to Edward by escaping with Holly and me?
We walked for a few minutes in silence. I hoped we were heading toward the park, and the familiar sight up ahead let me know we were. Unfortunately, this was a familiar sight I didn’t want to see. About twenty yards in front of me were the three green, leafy bears Holly had accidentally created on our way into the forest days ago. I froze, hoping the bears wouldn’t be able to see us in the darkness, but I heard them snort. They’d picked up our scent.
“What do we do? We don’t have granola bars this time,” Holly said, grabbing my arm.
“We’ve got to climb this tree and fast!” I motioned to the oak tree beside us.
The bears turned and charged. I pushed Noelle forward after Holly.
“Hurry!” I shouted, climbing up the tree behind Noelle.
“Bears can climb trees!” Holly yelled. She was having trouble climbing. Morgan’s jacket was weighing her down.
One of the bears was already climbing the tree, and Holly was right. It was a good climber. The bear stopped just below me and swung its huge paw at my leg.
“Go higher!” I yelled.
“I can’t! The branches are too thin,” Holly said.
The bear growled and swatted at my leg again. My jeans ripped, and razor sharp claws sliced my skin. “Ow!” My jeans took most of the damage, but if the bear swung again, he’d probably shred my leg.
Holly squirmed out of Morgan’s coat, almost falling in the process.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
“Lean as close to the tree as you can. I have an idea,” Holly said, holding the jacket away from her body.
Noelle and I hugged the tree. What was Holly doing? The bear wasn’t going to chase a coat.
Holly dropped the coat, and it fell on the bear’s head. The bear flailed its paws and tumbled to the ground, jacket and all.
“That was awesome!” I said. I watched the bear wiggling on the ground, whining from the fall.
My celebration was cut short because the other two bears had reached the tree. They fought for a minute, but the larger of the two won, and it started to climb.
I was about to become dinner, but then I heard a loud noise. I looked down and saw someone hiding behind a big boulder. He was banging a canteen against the rock. The noise startled the two uninjured bears, but they didn’t back away. They advanced on the rock to investigate. I heard wood snapping and saw the flicker of a flame. Whoever it was had lit a tree branch on fire and waved it at the bears. The flames licked at the leafy bears, and the one’s nose caught fire. It whined and ran off with the other bears following.
Trent walked out from behind the boulder. I hadn’t thought the sight of a Grimault thief would make me even a little bit happy, but we would’ve been bear food if it weren’t for Trent.
“Get down!” Trent yelled as he stormed up to the tree. “You kids have made me look bad for the last time!” He threw the flaming tree branch to the ground and stomped out the fire.
Holly gave me a worried look and squeezed herself against the tree.
“You can’t hurt us,” I said. “If you do, Morgan will know you let us escape again. What do you think he’ll do to you if he finds out?”
“Yeah, maybe he’ll tie you up and leave you to the wolves,” Holly taunted. I suspected her confidence would disappear the minute she stepped back on the ground where Trent could reach her.
Trent stared at us. Morgan would never forgive him for losing us a second time. Trent needed to get us back to the camp before everyone woke up.
“This is what’s going to happen,” he said. “You’re going to climb down from that tree and come with me back to our camp. Then I’m tying you up again so no one will know you escaped.” He took his knife from his belt and pointed it in our direction. “If you even so much as think about telling Uncle Morgan what happened here, I’ll kill you before you can get the words out.” He looked at Noelle. “Got that, sweetie?”
“Don’t call me sweetie,” Noelle growled back at him.
We didn’t have any choice, so I climbed down from the tree. Trent picked up Morgan’s jacket and threw it at Holly. “Put this back on.”
“It’s ripped,” she said as she placed the jacket on her body. A large gash ran down the side from the bear’s claws. “Morgan is definitely going to notice a rip this big. What are we going to tell him?”
Trent thought for a moment. “Tell him you rolled on a sharp rock while you were sleeping. Now come on! We have to get back before anyone notices you’re gone,” he said, shoving us in the direction of the camp.
The others were still asleep, so Trent used new bandanas to tie our hands. He was really rough and tied the bandanas so tight my wrists burned.
“Tight enough for you, sweetie?” Trent said as he tied Noelle’s wrists. She looked like she was about to scream, but she turned and walked back to the tree where Edward was sleeping. Her eyes flickered in my direction before she shut them.
Trent shoved Holly and me to the ground. He sat against a tree facing us and polished his knife with a bandana. I knew he was trying to intimidate us with the weapon, but he was also keeping himself busy so he wouldn’t fall asleep again. He wasn’t going to let us get away a third time.
Curse of the Granville Fortune Page 14
