Page 39 of Tourist Season
“What’s going on?” Nolan asks.
“I heard something. It sounded like a car door.” I duck from under the tarp to look in the direction of the road. There are too many trees and thick bushes to see anything from here. I take a step in that direction, straining to listen for any other sounds. “It could be nothing …” I say. But I never discount my instincts. And my instincts are telling me that I most definitely heard something.
I take another step toward the path that leads to the road.
“Did you see that?” Nolan asks, and he sounds so genuinely freaked out that I spin around to find him crouched down, staring at the lantern with his mouth agape in shock.
Ohshit. “Umm … see something …?”
Nolan edges closer to the lantern, his head weaving side to side as though he’s searching for something within the light. “Itmoved.”
“I’m sure it’s just the wind.”
“No.” He frames the lantern with his hands, disbelief painted across his face. “There was some kind of … creature … inside the light. Did you see it?”
“Shh.” I wave a hand in his direction and strain to listen for anything coming from the direction of the road. “It’s your eyes playing tricks on you. Lack of sleep, probably.”
“No, Harper. I’m not making this up.Lookat it.” The distant sound of a quiet voice reaches through the trees. We’re not alone. “It’smoving—”
I yank the lantern from him, tossing it over the bank and into the water to the sound of Nolan’s horrified gasp.
“It’ll drown, youmonster—”
I drop to my knees and slap my hand over his mouth, catching his distressed protests in my palm. “Listen to me right now, Nolan Rhodes,” I hiss. His eyes are wide with alarm, and I stare into them in an attempt to reach whatever deteriorating clarity might be lurking in their depths. “There is nothing in the fucking light, okay? No creature or fairy or sprite or whatever. It’s all in your mind. I might have … given you something.”
His muffled question vibrates through my hand.
“When Maya said her fake blood will change your life, she wasn’t fucking around.” I keep my hand clamped to Nolan’s face and my eyes trained on him as I reach for the hot chocolate pot in my peripheral vision and toss it into the water. The stove quickly follows. “It contains psilocybin. Magic mushrooms.”
Nolan tugs my hand free of his mouth. “Youdruggedme?”
I shrug. “Maybe a little bit,” I admit, chucking both our cups over the embankment. “And by a little bit, I mean probably a lot. Who knows.”
“What do you mean?”
“I kind of free-poured, you know? It’s not like I measured your BMI beforehand, is it?”
“You’re a terrible person,” he whisper-snarls.
“You already knew that, remember?” I yank the stool from where he’s about to plop himself down so he can probably question all his life choices and hurtle it into the water as his ass hits the damp earth with a thud. “But you can take it up with me later, because someone is here, and we need to hide.Now.”
“I can’t believe you fucking drugged me,” he says, his eyes wandering over our surroundings as though he’s seeing a whole different world than the dark and dreary one that envelops us.
“And I can’t believe you’re moving at a fucking glacial pace when I said I heard someone approaching our little gravedigger situation. Get a move on.” I toss my backpack over one shoulder and his over the other, and then I grab hold of Nolan’s wrist and tug him to his feet. I thrust my shovel into his hand. “You were a dick in the shop today. What did you expect?”
“I was?” Nolan’s brow furrows, his eyes tracking to my hand as I scramble to pull the tarp off the branches. A fresh bandage covers my blistered skin. “I was just worried about you.”
My motion slows as his words take root in my mind, warmth blossoming in my chest. And I’m sure that’s exactly what he’s hoping for, even though he looks as though he’s telling me a truth that’s emerged in a drug-induced haze. But it’s a ploy. He wants the book. He’ll say anything to get it.
I shake my head and refocus on my task in the hope the heat still slithering around my heart will wither and die. “I’m not going to have you sent to jail for a little burn, Nolan. You were weird about the hand, sure, but you were a dick about Arthur.”
I tuck the tarp under my arm and survey the terrain around us, but I’m not sure there’s a good place to hide. The trees are too sparse. The rocks are too exposed. If we make a break for it across the plain, we might be seen, and even if we’re not, we’ll leave a fresh set of tracks behind in the mud.
Nolan takes my hand. “Come on,” he whispers as the voice draws closer. He pulls me along after him, heading toward the bank and the river that snakes through the woods.
“No—”
“It’s the only place left to go.”
