by Kieran Scott
Callie had never been camping in her life. Had never felt the need to go camping. But this was apparently what people did for fun in upstate New York—at least, what her new friends did for fun—so here she was, having loads and loads of fun.
When her boyfriend, Jeremy Higgins—yes, Callie had a boyfriend now, another upside to being newly popular—had picked her up this morning, she’d been so nervous she started up a kind of mantra—four nights, four nights, four nights. That was all she had to get through.
Yet here she was, evening one, about to get eaten alive.
She vaguely wondered if the thing would maul her friends after it was done with her.
“Hey, Callie!” Jeremy shouted from their campsite, which was probably forty yards from where she was standing. “Are you okay out there?”
There was a surprised snort and, suddenly, the thing took off into the woods. Callie whipped around in the direction of snapping twigs and crunching leaves, but saw nothing. Just some low, weak branches crushed in the underbrush nearby. She heaved a breath, bent at the waist, and pressed her hand to her heart.
“You’re okay,” she whispered to herself, tears squeezing from her eyes. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.”
She was going to live. Four nights. By Sunday, she’d be back in her dad’s car and they’d be driving to the airport to pick up her mom after her summer in São Paulo. Then, next week, she and her mom would go to New York City for a back-to-school shopping trip. Callie was going to live to see her mother again. To finish writing at least one of the ten short stories she’d started since June. To read the rest of the Black Inferno series and finish painting her new bedroom now that she’d finally settled on that pretty aqua after three misguided attempts in the purple family. Everything was going to be fine.
Except.
Callie stood up straight and turned around. She had no clue which direction she was facing. She’d lost her bearings when she’d whirled to spot whatever it was that had crept up on her. Was the camp in front of her, behind her? Where was the skinny, muddy trail she’d taken to get here?
A low mewl escaped her lips. Callie brought her hands to her head, the soft triple ply of Penelope’s toilet paper soaking up her sweat. She thought about shouting out for help, but she didn’t want to look like an idiot. Lissa and Penelope had already spent half the day teasing her for not breaking in her hiking boots, for packing her makeup bag and a change of earrings, and for forgetting to bring her water bottle, which she knew for a fact was sitting on the kitchen counter where she’d thought she wouldn’t miss it on her way out the door.
She didn’t want them to think they needed to babysit her every time she had to use the bathroom, too. If that was what you could even call what she’d just done—squatting next to a tree. Ew.
If only she’d had her phone. She could text Jeremy and he would come find her without alerting Lissa and Pen to her total lameness. But she’d left it in the pocket of her hoodie, which was tossed uselessly on a blanket by the fire.
“Callie,” she muttered to herself. “Think. You’re a straight-A student. You survived getting lost on the Chicago L by yourself when you were ten years old. You can figure out which direction to walk to get back to camp.”
It was funny, really. Until now, she’d always thought of herself as a survivor. Her parents had been letting her walk home from school with her friends in Chicago since she was eight. At twelve, she’d flown to Brazil, alone, to visit her grandmother, and hadn’t freaked out or cried once.
With her friends back in Chicago, she was the leader—the one who could navigate the map at Six Flags, order the exact right number of pizzas for a party of fifteen people, and figure out the tip. She hadn’t even crumbled when her parents had told her that her dad had gotten the job at Cornell Law and they were moving to New York, leaving behind the friends she’d had her entire life and the only neighborhood she’d ever called home.
But it seemed upstate New York survival skills were entirely different from Outer Loop Chicago survival skills.
Callie looked up. It was past eight o’clock on an August night. The sky was deep ink blue beyond the tangled canopy of branches and leaves, and every last tree trunk looked black in the darkness. Black and exactly the same.
Okay. Forget pride. Pride was stupid. It was time to shout for her friends.
She opened her mouth just as a hand came down on her shoulder.
Kieran Scott is the author of several acclaimed YA novels, including What Waits in the Woods, Pretty Fierce, the Cheerleader Trilogy, and the He’s So/She’s So Trilogy. She also wrote the New York Times bestselling Private and Privilege series, as well as the Shadowlands trilogy, under the pen name Kate Brian, for Alloy Entertainment. She lives with her husband and children in New Jersey and enjoys working out, baking, and camping. Visit her online at www.kieranscott.net.
Also by Kieran Scott:
What Waits in the Woods
Pretty Fierce
She’s So Dead to Us
He’s So Not Worth It
This Is So Not Happening
Only Everything
Complete Nothing
Something True
Copyright © 2017 by Kieran Viola
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First printing 2017
Cover art © 2017 by Larry Rostant
Cover design by Christopher Stengel
e-ISBN 978-1-338-12312-8
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