“We just need to get there first,” I said. “And now we have a head start and also, you know, a car, which is something Blythe is definitely lacking at the moment.”
Bee made a little noise in the back of her throat, turning to look at the rain-slicked road ahead of us. “I still wouldn’t count her out.”
Determined, I thought again, remembering the look in Blythe’s eyes.
“Me, neither,” I told Bee. “But we just have to get there first.”
Chapter 31
“DO Y’ALL need a map?”
The park ranger in front of me was maybe the perkiest person I had ever seen in my life, and seeing as how I had been a cheerleader and in a pageant, that was saying a lot.
“Yes, please,” I said, trying to smile and not shatter into about a billion pieces. Because David was here. I could feel it, and I thought Bee could, too. It was like a constant weight in my chest, a second heartbeat thudding away in there. My Paladin strength and quickness might be gone, but it was clear some thread still connected me to David.
I had to admit he’d chosen a good place, too. The visitor center was a tall, octagonal room with the information desks against one wall, but windows surrounded the rest of the space. They looked out on a wall of green, branches pressing so close to the glass it felt like we were in a tree house. And beyond the trees were the mountains, even though we couldn’t really see them from here. The peaks weren’t especially high, and the heavy forest blocked most of the view. Still, the mountains were there, and in those mountains, there were caves, like the ones the ancient Oracles had lived in in Greece.
Who knew that David Stark of all people could be such a drama queen?
Bee had wandered to the big display in the middle of the room, a low table containing a topographical map of the region, and once I had my own paper map, I joined her. I ran my fingers over the ridges and valleys of the mountain—okay, really, the super big hill—we were about to climb, and wished I’d eaten more this morning. I hadn’t eaten when Bee, Blythe, and I had stopped yesterday at the motel, either, and my stomach had been too jumpy to even think about anything more than a bag of trail mix from a gas station. But now, looking at this hill, I felt like something more substantial had been called for.
Especially if it was going to be my last meal.
Turning away from the model, I took in a deep breath through my nose. I couldn’t think like that, not right now. I was so totally not going to die. David was so totally not going to die. I was going to save David or at least talk him out of going all mega Oracle and destroying Pine Grove . . . somehow, and then we were all going to go home and put this behind us.
I just hadn’t figured out the how yet.
Bee and I left the visitor center, stepping out into the thick heat of late-July Tennessee. Despite the fact that we were technically in the mountains and there was a cover of green over everything, the leaves blocking out almost all of the direct sunlight, this was still summer in the South, which meant I was sweating every place a girl can sweat.
Next to me, Bee shifted her backpack and slid her sunglasses down from the top of her head. “So . . . we’re doing this?” she asked, and I looked up at the trail stretching in front of us. It started just beyond the parking lot, a cheerful brown wooden sign reminding us that we were taking our lives into our own hands, and I nearly laughed at that. Of course, whoever had put up the sign was worried about people falling or possibly getting mauled by black bears, not facing down a supernatural boy in a cave.
I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. “We are,” I said to Bee.
We’d joked about this whole thing being a quest right from the very beginning, like we were knights-errant on an impressive journey, not a group of girls driving through the back roads of the South, eating gas station food and staying in creepy motels. But as Bee and I started climbing up the trail leading into the woods, for the first time, it genuinely felt like a quest. The forest was quiet, and there were no other people on the path, probably because it was hotter than Satan’s armpit. Or maybe they’d felt something. Not as strongly as I felt it, of course, but something nonetheless, a sense of “wrongness,” like Saylor’s brother had described.
I could feel something, too. The higher we climbed, the deeper we got into the woods, the stronger the feeling got. I wasn’t sure how long we hiked, ignoring hunger pangs in my stomach and the scratches of thorns and brambles. I was glad I’d decided to wear jeans even though they were heavy and damp with sweat. But that discomfort was nothing compared to every other sensation. I knew David was close. I couldn’t explain how I knew, exactly. Just that the feeling, almost as though I had two heartbeats, seemed stronger, heavier.