Page 92 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

“You came for me,” Malinka said, looking up at her, tears streaming, eyes grateful. “You saved me.”

“We gotta get out of here,” said Cody, standing. “Likenowbefore this whole place goes over.”

Adele looked up at him. He stood tall and rugged, and she’d never been so grateful to see anyone in her life. She took his helping hand up and then helped Malinka stand.

“Where are we going?” Adele asked as they followed Cody down the path.

“Follow me,” he said.

With an arm around Malinka’s shaking shoulders, she followed Wild Cody into the night.

34

MAVERICK

The players had their hour to hide.

In the trailer, it had gone quiet.

Hector, who looked like he was sleepwalking, had disappeared for a while and, through some magic on his part, got the generator running again. That was one of his superpowers, to fix whatever gear was broken. So they had electricity, at least. Though, the generator was making an odd noise, a kind of strangled sound every few minutes. And the lights kept flickering.

Tavo and Angeline had gone to fix the cameras. Which seemed like a bad idea, given the circumstances. But just try to stop Angeline from doing what she wanted to do. She was a force.

Outside, the sky was growing ever darker, and the pressure in Maverick’s sinuses told him that the barometric pressure was dropping fast. They’d handed out the tracker tiles to each of the hiders, explaining that it was just for safety and that they would not be tracked unless there was a problem. They were asked to put the tiles in the bottom of their packs, and they’d agreed.Cody had given him a look, and Mav wondered how long it would be before he ditched the device. Whatever. Wild Cody was the least of his worries.

“All set,” said Hector faintly, looking at his computer screen. “The blue one is Cody. Malinka is pink. And Adele is purple.”

They had fanned out around the property.

He put a hand on his friend’s thick shoulder, feeling the tension there. He really hoped that Hector wasn’t going to start crying again. Maverick just couldn’t handle it.

“Mav,” said Hector, spinning in his chair so that they were facing each other. He looked different somehow, his eyes serious, dark. “Tell me what’sreallygoing on.”

Hector and Mav had been friends the longest, growing up next to each other in identical split-level homes on the same suburban street. And of all the crew, they were the least alike. There was something grounding about that, the lack of competition. With Tavo, and even Alex, there was always all this jockeying for who was smarter, stronger, faster, more daring. Hector was the one standing on the sidelines, waiting with an ice pack. He didn’t have to prove anything to Hector.

“I’m scared, Mav,” said Hector, when Maverick stayed silent, struggling for the right words. “Things aren’t right. We both know it. Haven’t been for a while. Not since Chloe.”

Hector’s wide-open, nonjudgmental gaze made Maverick want to tell him everything, everything that had gone wrong since Chloe Miranda stepped into his life. That was the thing about Hector: ever since they were kids, he always just knew what to do, what to say. Maybe he’d have some magic fix for all of it, something that Maverick couldn’t see because he was in too deep.

Something the old woman said rang back to Maverick.The bill will come due.

Didn’t Maverick know, even before they’d come here, that it was true?

* * *

Maverick had been drunk the next time he saw Chloe. Like piss-in-your-pants, blackout drunk. She appeared as if out of an icy vision, a figure sauntering out of a blustery Reykjavik night as he stumbled from the rowdy bar up the quiet street toward the hotel. Hector and Tavo had both hooked up. Alex wasn’t with them. And Maverick had been about to get lucky with a superhot plus-size model named Giselle—and what had happened? What words had come out of his mouth so that her smile froze, then dropped? Her eyes went cold. And she slid out from under his arm, excused herself to the bathroom and never came back. What had he said? It was a rare night when Maverick went back to his hotel room alone, slipping along a slick sidewalk, snow falling.

A woman shimmered and wobbled on the path ahead of him like a mirage. He squinted in the dim light; it had been dark since three in the afternoon and would be until after ten the next morning. The sun was only up for about six hours in the Icelandic winter. There was something so weird about that; he felt like they were on the moon. Angeline and he had had their first fight. She wasn’t answering his calls.

“Not looking too good there, Mav,” the woman said, coming closer. He knew her. “Can I help you get back to your hotel?”

He struggled for her name. He pointed at her. “Heeyy.”

“Don’t you recognize me?” she said, just the slightest edge to her tone.

“Sorry,” he said. “I lost a contact. Can’t see a thing.”

Which was bullshit because he had perfect vision. What was her name? One thing was for sure: girls you’d slept with really got pissed when you forgot their names. And he knew he’d slept with her, and that her skin was smooth and warm, her body tight and lithe.Thathe remembered.

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