“Hey, wait up,” Lauren shouted, wriggling her foot into a sandal.
Kris impatiently waited for her to get ready. Finally, she joined him, panting in panic. “This is bad, isn’t it?”
“It’s not good.” He wished he had his cell to call the mainland. There was still a chance Ed could pick them up before the storm got out of control. After a certain point, however, it wouldn’t be safe for anyone to be on the water and they would have to hunker down.
Lauren stumbled and cried out in pain. “Damn tree roots. I think I twisted it.” She was bent over, clutching her ankle.
“Are you okay?” A meaningless question. He just wanted her to say yes.
She tried taking a step and winced. “No. Hurts like hell. I can’t walk.”
Through the trees ahead he could make out a dark sliver of ocean. The path was too narrow for her to lean on him, which left only one option. He would have to carry her.
“All right. This is what we’re going to do.” He knelt. “Hop on my back.”
“What?”
“Please, Lauren, I want to get out of the woods before the lightning hits us. This is the fastest way.”
She hobbled over, slid her arms around his neck, and leaned against him. As he lifted her legs, she whispered, “My knight in shining armor.”
Good thing she couldn’t see his eye roll.
They emerged from the woods to two revelations: the clouds had temporarily parted to reveal blue sky, and waiting on the shore for them was Ed.
“I turned around when I got the weather alert. Wicked storm rolling in.” He helped Lauren slide off Kris’s back. “What happened to you?”
“Twisted my ankle on a tree root. Kris had to carry me.”
Ed arched an eyebrow at Kris, who responded with a neutral shrug.
“We barely have enough time to make it back,” Ed said, heading to the moored boat.
Lauren groaned. “I can’t believe it. Another experiment ruined. I’m never going to get that extra credit.”
“Worry about that later. Be glad you’re not stranded here. They’re saying it’s a nor’easter, which means you would have been socked in for three days.” Ed gave her his arm so she could lean on it.
But at the water’s edge, she refused to take another step. “I can’t. Those jellyfish. I mean, I just can’t.”
So for the third time that day, Kris had to carry her. He had just managed to get her on board and was about to pull himself in when Ed said, “Did you see Addie?”
Kris dropped into the water, stunned. “She’s here?”
“Supposed to be. It’s her experiment, right? She was watching you guys.”
Watching? So she must have seen him in the pond with Lauren when she was . . .
And then he thought of the crash in the woods. “I know where she is.” He pushed off the edge of the boat and swam back to shore.
Lauren called after him. “Where are you going?”
“To find Addie. She’s in the woods.”
“I can’t stay,” Ed shouted. “The Coast Guard wants everyone in.”
“And I can’t leave her.” Kris motioned for him to leave. “Go!”
Ed gave him a thumbs-up. “Good luck, man. I’ll come back for you when the storm’s over.” He hoisted up the anchor, started the engine, and zoomed off, relieved that Kris couldn’t see how wide he was grinning.
TWENTY-THREE
Well, this would mess up her schedule. Just went to show that all the planning in the world couldn’t prevent the odd bout of misfortune.
She refused to call it bad luck.
Bad luck did not cause you to fall out of a tree while you were attempting a close-up photo. Sure, landing on the rock was unfortunate, as was the impact of a dead tree limb falling on top of said leg. Neither was a cause for celebration.
But they could be chalked up to gravity and, okay, her general physical awkwardness. Not for nothing was she forbidden from playing field hockey.
Addie spit out a mouthful of pine needles and craned her neck to check over her shoulder, where the heavy log lay across her calf. Tentatively, she reached down to touch her shin, and was chagrined to find it sticky with blood, mostly likely due to scratches from the tree.
Super. Things were just getting better and better.
She had to get out of here and find the first-aid kit in the shelter. How she would get to the shelter was in itself a daunting prospect. A walking stick and a splint to secure the broken bone were essentials because, if the radiating pain was any indication, this was a fracture.
Summoning all her courage, she tried to squirm free, only to be rewarded with a sharp stabbing sensation in her femur, as if her leg was breaking all over again.
“Oww!” she cried, tears springing to her eyes.
Now what was she going to do? She was trapped. The wind was picking up, with gusts expected to reach over seventy miles per hour on the outlying island, according to the weather reports she’d read that morning, and Kris and Lauren had left.
Her phone and camera had landed on cushioning underbrush and might be okay if she could get them inside the shelter before it rained. Unfortunately, they had fallen right outside the range of her fingertips.
Did she mention that the pain was excruciating?
Ed probably assumed she was A-OK, waiting for Kris so they could be alone for a night. This he had agreed to reluctantly on the grounds that Kris, having ditched her for Kara, deserved to be stranded solo on the island, where he could hunker down in the shelter to be devoured by a nest of hidden black widows.
“You don’t have to go through with it. You can’t stay on the island in a deadly storm with that loser,” Ed told her on the drive back from Harvard while Mindy slept in the backseat. “I’ll come clean with Tess about what we’ve been up to and why and she’ll let you use our case for the Athenian project. She’d do anything for you. You know that.”
Addie was moved by his support. Ed had been a loyal friend to her from the beginning, setting up the whole kayaking rescue scenario with Emma and Shreya, dragging out the mechanical shark and steering it from his boat. By happy coincidence, Kris had already been down at the beach waiting for her, so there’d been no need to concoct some excuse to get him on the water.
However, Ed could take full credit for coming up with the idea of loosening the harness so it would detach from the rope while they were climbing the rock wall. And he spent his entire Saturday afternoon setting up the final experiment on this island, all because he was so grateful to Addie for Tess, who remained blissfully unaware of her boyfriend’s hijinks.
Which was why she couldn’t use their relationship as a case study for the Athenian Award.
“Tess’s mothers,” Addie said last night. “You know how they are about privacy. They’d sue me if I mentioned their daughter at a national meeting of neuroscientists.”
His lips twitched. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I wouldn’t place the Athenian Committee on the same level as the Grammy Awards. Besides, you’re going with aliases, right?”
That hadn’t occurred to her, though she supposed she could. “Except when I get to the experiment with Kris and me. Then I will insist on full disclosure.”
“And that won’t get you disqualified, for running an experiment on yourself?”
“Was Werner Forssmann disqualified from winning a Nobel Prize?”
Ed stopped at a light. “Who was Werner Forssmann?”
Oh, how quickly our heroes fade into obscurity, she thought. “He developed a theory that you could open coronary arteries by running a catheter through them. So he did. On himself. Threaded a tube from a cut in his arm all the way to his own heart.”
“Ouch!” Ed stepped on the gas. “I guess making Kris fall for you is a piece of cake in comparison.”
“Was,” she said. “After what just happened, I think I’d rather have cut my own flesh.”
And now here she was with a broken bone. How did the saying go? Be careful what
you wish for because it might come true.
Now what she wanted more than anything was for Ed to sense that something was wrong and turn around to rescue her. But that wouldn’t happen. Already, the storm had moved inland and he was transporting Lauren and Kris to safety.
She rested her head in the pine needles. One night. That’s all she had to survive was one night, and then she’d be safe. She yawned, exhausted from lack of sleep and stress and no doubt shock. Rest would do her good and it would help pass the time and keep her mind off Kris.
If only she weren’t so cold.
“Addie! Aaaaadeeeeee!”
Addie was having a dream. She was Snow White in a forest and a prince was coming to rescue her from a deep and deadly sleep. He was searching and searching, calling for her to no avail. She heard his footsteps. So close. But he couldn’t see her because she was hidden among the pines. She would need to rouse herself to make a sound. Otherwise, the prince would give up, leaving her to die alone.
“Hello!” she cried feebly. Her eyelids were so heavy. If only she could open them a peek she could break through the fog. “Helloooooo.”
The rustling stopped.
“Ed?” Consciousness proved too elusive. “I’m here, Ed,” she mumbled.
The rustling resumed. Feet pounding through brush.
“Oh my god. Addie! Are you okay?”
Not Ed. Different prince.
Someone was slapping her cheeks. “Wake up, Addie. Come on. Open your eyes.”
All right, she thought, just this once. Then I’m going back to sleep. She hoped he would be satisfied with a flutter of eyelashes. Mission accomplished. Back to snoozing.
“You’re alive. Oh, thank god. You’re alive. We’ve got to get you out of here. A huge storm’s coming.”
So tell me something I don’t know, she thought, drifting off peacefully.
“Stay with me, Addie. Don’t go back to sleep.”
Why not? Sleep was easy. You didn’t have to think when you were asleep and she was always thinking.
Thinking. Thinking. Thinking.
“You think too much,” her father once said. Yeah. Right. As if.
A weight was lifted off her leg and a rush of fresh searing pain invaded her consciousness, startling her to alertness. Then she remembered the fall. The tree limb. The break.
“Owwww!”
She opened her eyes fully to see Kris there, examining her calf. She was mad at him, but she was thankful, too. Emotions were ridiculous. Never uniform or logical. Had no respect for a schedule. That’s why they called them emotions, she supposed.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, her mouth so dry it was almost impossible to speak.
He opened a water bottle and brought it to her parched lips. Water had never tasted so good. “What happened?”
“I fell and a limb snapped off and landed on my leg.”
“I got that. What were you doing in the tree?”
“Later. I broke this thing.” She pointed toward her leg.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, getting up. “Have to find a splint.”
The wind was crazy. Leaves and twigs were flying and thunder rumbled. In a daze, she watched him vanish and then return with a sturdy stick.
“Felled by a tree, saved by a tree.” He took off his T-shirt, revealing a lean, tan chest lined with muscles.
Addie swallowed some more water. The pain was annoying. But Kris’s body wasn’t. “Aren’t you going to be cold?”
“I could take off your shirt, if you’re concerned.” He winked.
Winking was a signal of intimacy. Or a speck of dust in the eye. In this wind, it could be either.
“Is it compound or simple?” she asked.
He bit the collar of his T-shirt and tore it in two. “Hard to tell. No bone poking out. Thank god for small blessings, right?”
“Very small.”
“Okay, this won’t be fun.” He hesitated. “Not that any of this is a party. I’m going to roll you over onto this splint. Then I’m going to tie your leg to it with my T-shirt. I’ll try to work fast. It would help if you didn’t scream.”
“I won’t.”
She did.
For a good ten minutes, she let out a howl louder than the gusts of wind. It was as if someone had taken a knife and was piercing it over and over into her shin. The pain ran up her leg and thigh and set her entire right side on fire.
Kris worked methodically, aligning the leg on the splint, tightly wrapping strips of cloth from his T-shirt.
“Where did you learn to do that?” she asked, panting.
“Nepal. They taught us basic first aid, though, honestly, this is something any Webelo should know.”
“What is a Webelo?”
“A very small Boy Scout.”
She giggled a little. The dopamine. Quite a dose, if her loopiness was any indication.
“Ready?” He slid one arm under her back and another under her knees.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m carrying you to the shelter. Then I’m calling the Coast Guard if we can. I found your phone but we’re too far inland to get a signal.”
He crouched down and lifted her from his knees, wobbling slightly to avoid a blowing branch. The pain in her leg was so brutal that Addie buried her face in his neck, taking comfort in his steady pulse, his strong sinews, the fresh smell of his skin.
“I’ll try not to bash your leg on the way there,” he said. “Hold on tight.”
She wrapped her arms around him and tried to steady her breath. It would not help the situation if she passed out. They walked silently for a time, Kris swiveling sideways down the narrow path, being careful not to drop her on the downhills.
He said, “I’m sorry.”
“That I got hurt?”
“No, well, yes, of course. But I’m talking about what Kara said last night.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I want to tell you how it happened.” He ducked under a low-hanging branch. “Kara was really upset by the way animals were being treated in the lab. She complained about it constantly, even cried. And to be honest, Addie, it made me mad, too.”
“I guess.”
He let that lie and kept moving. “So one day, while we were sitting around listening to another of Kara’s rants and raves, I said, ‘We should do something. We should get all the frogs and the gerbils and set them free.’ Only . . .” He massaged his brow as if the memory alone caused a headache. “Kara and Mack—especially Mack—took it to extremes. Mack showed up with a crowbar and spray paint and went ballistic.”
Addie felt herself slipping and gripped him harder. “Dr. Brooks said the damage was in the thousands.”
“Yeah, which is why I’m not getting paid this summer. Working my debt off one hour at a time.”
She bounced along and thought about this, the pain in her leg so intense that thinking felt like an Olympic sport. “How come you weren’t expelled when the others were?”
“I almost was. I tackled Mack . . . and stopped him from doing even more damage. And I came clean right away. I went to Foy that same day and took the blame for everything.”
“But you didn’t smash up the equipment.”
“No, but Mack wouldn’t have done that, either, if I hadn’t come up with the bright idea to sneak into the lab in the first place.” He lifted a leg over a fallen tree. “It really was my fault, Addie, no matter how you spin it.”
The world was beginning to fade and Addie worried she might throw up. There was one last question she needed to ask. It lingered in the back of her mind, almost unreachable, until Kris stopped to see how she was doing.
“Oh, Addie,” he said, frowning. “I’m really, really sorry.”
She looked into those dark brown eyes, so familiar now, and felt a tug. “Kara. Is she . . . ? Are you two . . . ?”
Kris went back to walking. “Try to forget her. Kara will never come back to the Academy.” He readjus
ted Addie on his back. “And I’ll never go back to her.”
Good enough, Addie thought dreamily before being startled by a new wave of crushing pressure on her shin.
“Almost there,” Kris said softly, sensing her agony. “You’ve done great.”
They arrived at the end of the path. Up ahead, she could make out the churning gray sea, the billows of black clouds. They were soaked. But they were going to be okay.
“But did you have to spray-paint the lab walls?” she asked.
Kris trudged across the wet sand to the shelter. “I didn’t paint those. I’m sure you don’t believe me, but I’m telling you the truth. I had the can in my hand because I was covering up the graffiti.” He kicked in the door and laid her down gently on the floor. “You can ask security. They found me trying to cover it up.”
The floor was hard and smelled like mildew, but they were dry.
“There are sleeping bags in the corner,” Addie said. “Ed and I put them there yesterday, just in case.”
He unrolled one sleeping bag and then folded another under her head. “How’s that feel?” he asked, brushing back her hair with his fingers.
“Painful, but okay. Is there a signal?”
He checked his phone. “Nuh-uh. I’m going to walk along the beach and see if I can find one. Will you be okay by yourself? I’ll prop open the door so it’s not so dark.”
She grimaced. Her leg had begun to throb, indicating the possibility of internal bleeding and swelling. “I’m good.”
He stuck a piece of driftwood in the hinge and trudged off. One gust of wind and the door slammed shut, leaving her alone in the darkness to listen to the roar of the wind and waves.
She must have suffered a concussion, too, because her head ached and she was sleepy. Soooooo sleepy.
After minutes, or maybe hours, the door swung open and Kris stepped in, clapping his hands. “Wake up, Addie. Ed called the Coast Guard. They’re on their way with Foy. I told him about your leg and that you hit your head. We’re going to get you to a hospital, okay?”
“Okay.”
He knelt beside her. “Look, I don’t know when I’m going to see you again.”
“We’ll see each other on the boat. And you’ll come to the hospital, right?”
This Is My Brain on Boys Page 22
