“I get that. But this?” Sam jabbed her finger at the middle of the article. “This is not possible.”
Wreckage and two corpses wasn’t all they found. They’d recovered Kenjii, too, apparently. That wasn’t tough to fake—no one’s going to test a dog. But the article said they’d also recovered DNA evidence that confirmed the death of the seven teenagers on board.
“But how the hell do you pull off something like that?” Sam said.
“They have our DNA,” I said. “They must have made it seem like the crash was worse than it was, that there wasn’t…”
“Much left of us,” Daniel said. “Enough to provide DNA, but not enough to show our parents.”
“Hold on,” Corey said. “Isn’t there one massive flaw in this logic? The search team belonged to the St. Clouds. They have our DNA. They could convince our parents we were dead. But they aren’t the ones we’re running from and they aren’t the ones who found the wreck.”
“They’ve cut a deal,” I said.
“And cut us loose,” Daniel murmured as he worked it out. “There are other kids in this experiment. Probably our whole class. This Nast Cabal discovered the experiment. The St. Clouds realized it. So they negotiated.”
I nodded. “We ‘die’ and the Nasts get to keep us, if they can find us. The St. Clouds get the rest of the kids. They already had one project blow up on them. They weren’t about to lose another.”
“So they negotiated?” Corey said. “Using us?”
“Apparently that’s all we are to them. Assets. Valuable ones, but not worth sacrificing the whole experiment for.”
“So we can’t go back to Salmon Creek,” Sam said. “If we do, they’ll just turn us over.”
“The St. Clouds will. Our parents won’t.” I looked around. “Does anyone doubt that?”
Daniel said, carefully, “I’m not sure my dad wouldn’t … let them have me.”
“I don’t believe that.” I wasn’t so sure, but I certainly wasn’t saying so. “But he won’t be the one we’ll approach. My parents would be best—I’m sure they knew nothing about this. Corey’s mom is fine, too. And Mrs. Tillson isn’t going to hand over Sam and Nicole to the people who killed her husband.”
“Okay, so we still go back—” Corey began.
He stopped, wincing.
“Headache?” I said.
“Yeah, just hold—” He doubled over with a sharp intake of breath.
I grasped his arm. “Corey?”
“Bad one,” he panted. “Okay, just—”
He let out a howl, his head dropping forward, his hands clutching it. Then he retched. Another heave, and a geyser of Coke sprayed the bushes.
I gripped his arm and tugged him until he was sitting, knees up, head between them, panting hard.
“Well, that’s new,” Corey muttered between gasps. “And I don’t think I like it.”
He winced again, face screwed up against the pain as he doubled over.
“Okay,” I said. “Just breathe and keep your eyes shut. The sunlight’s probably making it worse.”
“That would help … if I wasn’t seeing light even with them shut.”
“What?”
“I’m getting flashes of—” A few panting breaths. “Light. Color. Could use a sound track.”
“You’re seeing things?”
He shook his head. “You get visions. I just get random—” Another curse as the pain hit again. “Flashes. Boring flashes.”
Daniel knelt and held out a bottle. I thought it was pop, then saw the label.
“Beer?” I said.
“It helps. I knew his meds had dissolved, so I grabbed a few from the store.”
Corey took it and twisted off the cap. A few gulps. Then a deep breath as he relaxed. Another long drink, then a sidelong glance at me.
“Yes, I’m self-medicating with booze and I know that’s not smart. I wouldn’t do it if I had the meds.”
“So beer … helps?”
He shrugged. “Not as good as the meds. I’ve still got a killer headache. But it doesn’t feel like an icepick driving into my skull.”
I looked over at Daniel. His eyes were dark with worry. If these weren’t just migraines—if they were linked to the experiments—we had no idea how to handle them. No idea if they were a normal part of Corey getting his powers or a sign that something was wrong.
Corey finished the bottle, then closed his eyes. “The puking was new. And the pain was worse. The flashing lights are a recent symptom.” He opened one eye. “See, I said I get all the cool powers. Raging migraines cured by booze. I really will be that guy in a bar—”
The sound of a revving engine made us all look up. We’d been walking parallel to the road. but deep enough in the bush not to be spotted by anyone driving past. This noise sounded like an ATV. We hid, and it passed, went a little farther, then stopped.
“Moreno to base. Moreno to base.”
Someone answered.
Moreno gave his coordinates, then said, “Still no sign of the Morris girl. She can’t have run far, though. I’ll keep looking.”
The ATV started up again.
“Hayley escaped,” Corey said.
“You heard that?” I said.
“Um, yeah. We all did.”
“Because we were supposed to,” Daniel said. “He was talking too loud. He even turned off the ATV so his voice would carry better.”
“Because he’s talking into a radio,” Corey said.
“I bet if we keep going, we’ll hear him do the same thing a little farther down. It’s another trap.”
Corey looked at me.
“It … sounds like it,” I said. “But if it’s a good trap, then they really did let Hayley go. She’s out here as bait.”
“So you think you can outsmart them and rescue her?” Sam said. “No, the smart thing to do is keep going.”
We argued about that, of course.
Finally I said, “I’m going to look for her. Just me.”
“We can’t—” Daniel began.
“I’ve got the super-powered hearing, and I can move quietly. I need to try.”
TWENTY-ONE
AS I MADE MY way through the forest, I’ll admit I was also straining for a familiar bark or whine. I hadn’t said a word about Kenjii since leaving the store. How could I without making it sound like I put her on the same level as Hayley.
I love animals, but I know they aren’t people. I can’t value them the same way. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t sick at heart over Kenjii. So as I walked through those woods, I was listening for her as much as I was listening for Hayley.
It was Hayley I heard, though. Stomping on dead leaves. Muttering under her breath. Kicking aside fallen branches.
Signs of a trap? Or just Hayley, pissed off because she’d escaped and there was no one around to rescue her?
A few days ago, I’d have gone with option two. Now, though, I couldn’t see Hayley being so careless.
I shimmied up a tree and waited for her to pass my way. But once she got close enough for me to see her through the branches, she sat down to rest. When she didn’t come closer, I started crawling along a branch, planning to cross to the next tree.
She started to look up, then caught herself, waited a moment, gave a loud sigh and slumped back against the trunk, giving her an excuse to look up.
I waited until she looked up, then bent to catch her gaze. She held mine and mouthed “trap,” ending it with a yawn to fool anyone watching.
I looked around. I might still be able to rescue her. Whoever was watching couldn’t be too close.
Hayley rose a couple of inches from the ground, rubbed her butt, and scowled, as if she’d sat on a root or a rock. She got up and made some noise, kicking the ground then shaking a young oak, dead leaves rustling. In other words, assuring her captors that she was trying to attract our attention. Then she walked beneath my tree and sat down again.
She picked up a stick and began idling poking aroun
d a patch of bare earth. Then she wrote “Don’t be stupid.” She erased it, doodled a bit, then wrote, “I’m fine.”
I hesitated, but she was right. It was a trap and my chances of foiling it were slim to none. If I got caught, could I trust Daniel not to come after me? No. Could I trust Corey and Sam to make it to safety alone? No.
Finally, I shimmied back along the branch to the trunk. As the needles rustled, Hayley nodded. Then she wrote, “Thanks for trying,” rubbed it smooth, got up, and walked away.
Hayley had sacrificed her freedom so we could escape. She’d refused to let me try to rescue her. If someone told me a week ago that Hayley Morris would do this, I’d have said he was crazy. Or naive, because clearly she had an ulterior motive.
Had she changed? I didn’t think so. The answer was simpler: I’d been wrong about her.
If I’d had a nemesis at school, Hayley was it. Always insulting me. Always challenging me. Always doing her best to run me down, while I’d stood firm and refused to stoop to her level.
Clearly, she was the aggressor and I was the victim. Only … well, it hadn’t started out that way. Back in grade five, I’d caught her cheating. I hadn’t tattled. Maybe, in retrospect, that would have been better, because what I did instead was make it very clear that I wanted nothing more to do with her.
When you accept a leadership role, you take on extra responsibility for your actions toward others. If you shun someone, the effect will trickle down through those who value your opinion. It wasn’t as if Hayley was an outcast. She had her friends, and she was the queen of the “pretty girl” clique. In a bigger school, that would have been enough. In Salmon Creek, it wasn’t.
I remembered what she said about flirting with Rafe to make Corey jealous. I remembered, too, what Rafe had said. That Corey might make out with Hayley at parties, when he could claim he was just drunk and horny, but he’d never actually date her, because his friends—namely Daniel and me—didn’t get along with her. I’d told myself Hayley had been using Corey, too—he was her backup when no summer boys were around. Now, knowing she’d wanted to make him jealous, I realized I’d been wrong.
I’d been wrong about a lot of things. Not just Hayley. I’d misjudged Rafe. Nicole, too. I’d been so sure of my judgments that I’d never questioned them even when the evidence suggested I was wrong.
I’d always thought of myself as an open-minded person. I had no patience with anyone who put down other kids because of their race, religion, or sexuality. But that’s just one kind of open-mindedness. There’s another kind, too, the kind that’s willing to see people for who they really are and admit when you were wrong about them. That’s the part I still need to work on.
I climbed down the tree and started making my way back to the others. I had to put aside my worries for now. Our pursuers could be anywhere. I needed to be careful.
When I was almost back, I heard branches snap as someone barreled through the woods.
I ducked behind a fallen tree. A dark shape sprang, then stopped short, just out of sight. A whine.
Kenjii.
I nudged aside branches until I could see her. She was still wearing the muzzle. A length of rope trailed behind her.
I closed my eyes to listen for the sound of anyone else. More twigs snapped as Kenjii caught my scent and raced around the fallen tree.
I grabbed her and held her close, whispering, “Shhh,” as I kept looking and listening.
Kenjii nudged me, as if to say, That’s no welcome.
I pulled the rope in. The end wasn’t broken, as I’d hoped, but as I ran it through my fingers I saw red smears. I took a better look. Blood. Someone had been holding her and Kenjii had wrenched so hard she’d scraped the skin from his hands as she broke free.
I hugged her. “They couldn’t hold you, huh? Good girl.”
“Maya?”
I stood. It was Sam, coming through the trees. Daniel and Corey appeared behind her. Seeing the dog beside me, Daniel grinned.
“We got one escapee, at least,” he said.
“Only one,” I said as I tugged off the muzzle. “I found Hayley. She managed to communicate with me. It was a trap. There was no way…” I took a deep breath. “I wanted to try rescuing her anyway, but she said no.”
“Too bad dogs can’t talk,” Sam said.
I glanced over at her.
“Um, we’re all feeling bad about Hayley,” Corey said. “Don’t interrupt by wishing we could question the dog.”
“That’s not what I meant. Hayley could tell you it was a trap. He can’t.”
“Kenjii’s a she,” I said.
“Whatever. My point is that your dog has conveniently escaped, just like Hayley did. You don’t think that’s a trap?”
“If it is, then we’ve already been caught.” I looked around. “Huh. I don’t see the guys with guns yet.”
“Because they’ve put a tracking device on her. Or in her.”
I removed the rope. Then I took off her collar and handed it to Daniel to check while I ran my fingers over her, looking for tender spots.
“It’s clean,” Daniel said, handing me back the collar. “If she was still wearing the muzzle and rope, then they—”
“—wanted it to look like she really escaped,” Sam said.
“There’s blood on the rope,” I said. “That means she pulled free from whoever had her.”
“Or they’re very detail-oriented.”
“Oh, please,” Corey said. “Seriously?”
I turned to Sam. “So what do you suggest?”
“Tie her to a tree and keep going.”
I stared at her.
“I hope you’re not serious,” Daniel said.
“How about we tie you to a tree?” Corey said.
“It’s a dog,” Sam said. “I understand it’s Maya’s pet—”
“No, you don’t understand,” I said, barely able to get the words out. “I wouldn’t tie any animal to a tree and leave it to die. Any animal. And certainly not my dog. She trusts me to look after her. I will not break that trust.”
“I’m not saying we tie her and leave her for good. If she’s tagged, they’ll find her. If not, we can come back after—”
“After she’s died of dehydration? Or been eaten by the first hungry cougar or bear that comes along and finds dinner staked out for it?”
Sam backed up and crossed her arms. “This isn’t about doing what we want. It’s doing what we need to survive. You think you’re the only one who’s had to make hard choices?”
“We just made a hard choice,” Corey said. “We left Hayley—”
“There’s a reason I don’t have pets,” Sam went on. “I found a kitten once. I took it from place to place as we ran … until the day we had to run without going back home. My parents said she’d find a way out of our apartment. I’m not sure of that. But there was nothing else to do. Hard life. Hard choices.”
My parents would have made sure the cat got out, called a neighbor from a pay phone or something. As I looked at Sam, though, I knew she wouldn’t agree. She’d been raised to avoid risk at all costs.
“Sam has a point,” I said.
“What?” Corey said. “No way.”
Daniel shot me a questioning look. Not questioning why I was going along with Sam, but wondering what alternative I had in mind, because he knew there was no way in hell I’d leave Kenjii behind.
“She could be tagged,” I said. “And as we agreed earlier, not all of us need to get to safety. That means not all of us need to stay with Kenjii. I’ll take her. You guys go another way.”
Once again, our great escape devolved into chaos, which could be summarized as: “You can’t do that.” “Yes, I can.” “I know you’re upset—” “I’m not upset. We have a problem and I’m solving it.” Expand. Mix. Repeat until one party wears down and surrenders. That party wasn’t me.
Actually, I was surprised by how quickly Daniel gave in. Well, “quickly” being relative. But he did fold fast enough fo
r me to suspect he didn’t plan to actually let me go off alone. So I kept my ears tuned for signs I was being followed. But I didn’t hear any. He’d realized this was the best solution for all.
I’d sent Daniel along the road, which seemed to be slowly veering inland. I stuck to a direct route south, through the woods. Soon I found an even narrower dirt road.
It was dusk when I came across a couple of cottages. They were little more than shacks. Both uninhabited. One was completely empty. The other had furniture. So I broke in and, no, I didn’t feel guilty about that. Couldn’t.
As I discovered, though, the only thing in that cabin was the furniture. No phone. No canned food. I had pop and energy bars from the store, though, so I decided to eat them at the table, which felt oddly comforting. I shared with Kenjii, as I’d done with all my rations.
By the time I finished eating, night had fallen. I considered spending it on the double bed. It was just a bare mattress—a stained and soiled one—but my muscles ached from sleeping on the cold ground, and I’d be better able to escape pursuers with a decent sleep. So I gingerly stretched out, using Kenjii as a pillow.
As everything got quiet, there was only one thing left to do. Think about what happened at the store today. Think about what that man said.
Calvin Antone. My father. I hated the sound of that. Even “biological father” wasn’t much better. As for “bio father,” I’d never used the term, even in my mind. Probably because I never thought about the man who’d fathered me.
I did think about the woman who’d given birth to me. I couldn’t help it. She’d abandoned me. Now, I’d learned that I had a twin brother, and she’d kept him. It didn’t matter if Rafe was right and she’d split us up for our own safety. She’d still chosen which child she wanted to keep, and there had to be a reason—maybe I cried more, maybe I fussed more, maybe she decided she’d rather have a son—but some thought process must have gone into it. She’d chosen him and rejected me.
I flipped onto my stomach and made a noise in my throat that sounded a lot like a growl.
I didn’t want to feel anything toward my biological parents, positive or negative. I remember once my mom showed me an online forum for adopted kids. If I wouldn’t share my angst with her and I wouldn’t share it with a counselor, maybe I’d be comfortable with this. What she couldn’t seem to understand was that I had no angst. On those forums I saw kids bitching about their adoptive parents and how much better their biological ones might have been, and I realized I had nothing in common with them.
The Calling dr-2 Page 13
