Page 49 of Leave No Trace
‘There,’ I whispered, stumbling out of the far side of the woods at the exact spot where the rope was tied to the fence. ‘You first. Don’t argue.’
He hoisted himself easily. He was becoming more lucid by the second, temporarily winning the drug war I’d waged in his veins. He dropped lightly to the ground on the other side, wearing the backpack. I grabbed the highest knot I could reach and tried to lift myself up, which made pain shriek through my body and tore a groan from my throat.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
He reached through the fence, searching for the wound.
‘Don’t touch it. Give me a boost.’
I’d barely said the words before his hands swept down and I stepped into them automatically, feeling the wind rush by my mask as he pushed me up into the night. I grabbed the rope and pulled, gritting my teeth. Lucas guided me from below and I climbed to the top, wobbling precariously over the spikes as the guards broke through the trees.
‘Jump!’ Lucas shouted and I did, without any thought for the fall or the consequences of the ground rushing up to meet me.
Lucas caught me, taking my weight easily, and carried me as he jogged across the street. The guards’ shouts faded as they retreated back toward the main entrance to pursue either by foot or car, not even bothering to attempt climbing the fence. They were calling the cops if they hadn’t already.
‘Turn here. Half a block. Down the alley.’
He followed my panting instructions as I reached behind him and pulled the car keys out of the backpack.
‘Here. Stop.’
He dropped me by the Chevy and opened the door.
‘You’re hurt. I’ll drive.’
‘Nice try.’
I pushed him through the driver’s seat and fell onto it, slammed the door closed behind us, and turned the car on, throwing it into gear and shooting out of the alley with the lights off. I took us two blocks down and swerved into another alley, working our way north in that zigzag pattern as police sirens blared in the distance. Pulling the ski mask off, I sucked in a deep breath of air and flicked the headlights on, slowing to a sedate twenty miles an hour as we pulled out in a completely different neighborhood and headed toward the University campus. We crested the hill past Amity Creek and Hawk Ridge, and we kept going until we were driving due north on a single country highway where the houses spread further and further apart.
The clock on the dash inched toward midnight and the more the woods took over the skyline, the more I accelerated, speeding away from the city. In Duluth the street kids would be roaming the shipping yards looking for the next unlocked door, Jasper would be pacing the perimeter of the house, growling as the wind beat against the windows, and the bars would be in full swing, ejecting the belligerent too-drunks into the chaos of downtown. I could hear the bustle and traffic, smell the water as it lapped against the shore, see the glow of red and yellow on the neon peninsula that jutted into the lake, the world I was leaving and might not see again. After another ten minutes the homes began receding further into the forest, distant lights shrouded in branches, and Lucas
finally turned to face the front of the car. He’d spent the entire drive crouched against his seat watching our tail for anyone in pursuit, but now he reached out and touched the dash.
‘This isn’t your car.’
‘No.’ I answered shakily, fighting against the black edges of the pain. ‘Butch, my dad’s first mate, lent it to me. He won’t find that out until they get back.’
‘No one’ – the road started to fade in the headlights – ‘will report it’ – my view of the road slipped lower and lower as I slumped against the driver’s side door – ‘missing.’
The last thing I remembered before the darkness swallowed me was the jolt of the car hitting the ditch and my body slamming into the steering wheel.
23
Idrifted ina world where clouds descended over tree covered cliffs, spreading their mist in pockets that roiled with dank threat. Clutching the agate, blood ran up my hands and into my eyes, coloring the forest red. Something stalked me from within the mist, something that was both Derek and not-Derek, dead and not-dead. It closed in behind me, readying for the kill. Running over moss covered boulders and rotting logs, I stumbled and fell at the water’s edge, losing the agate in the waves. I jerked around, sightless and terrified, trying to find the teeth that had clamped into my side, slicing my flesh apart.
‘Get off! Get off me!’ I woke up screaming in the backseat of the car, clawing at the pain and finding only soft, wet cloth and a smooth line of tape fastening it to my stomach.
‘Maya!’ Lucas’s voice came from the front seat. Slowly I began to register things. The staccato of broken pavement bumping underneath the car’s tires. The scratch of upholstery against my cheek. The chill of freezing air leaking in from the doors.
I looked down and saw a white square of bandage under my rib cage, peeking out from a twisted belt of red-splattered fabric that I recognized as my shirt. The contents of the first aid kit I’d brought were spilled over the floor like a gale had caught it in a fury. I tried to sit up, failed, then took a deep breath and forced myself vertical, bracing my feet and shoulders between the front seat and backseat of the car.
‘Don’t get up. You’re still bleeding.’
Lucas’s hand reached backward and the car swerved as he tried to force me down to the seats. I leaned out of the way.
‘Where are we?’ I huffed. The road was a dark, two-lane stretch of asphalt lined with trees clawing in at the edges of the headlights.
‘Lie down.’
