I nod, my tongue moving again inside my tacky mouth. “But we know who brought that water. It could be drugged. Or worse.” I force myself to say it because if I don’t say it—don’t think about it—I will tear off the cap and suck down that entire bottle. Looking at it makes the thought of it almost painful, cool and sweet on my mouth. I could drink two bottles. Maybe three. No, no, I can’t. There are five of us and only six bottles, so I have to—
“There are six more bottles inside,” she says.
I swallow and my throat clicks. “It could be drugged. It’s probably drugged.”
“Maybe it’s not,” she says, sounding young. Emily always seems young, though I know that’s not fair. I barely knew her before we started sharing a tent, and it isn’t like we spent the first two days bonding out here.
“Emily…”
I don’t know what to tell her. We’re both staring at each other because we could drink this and end up like Mr. Walker. Or we could take our chances with whatever biological nightmare is cooking up in the river. Either way, water is a roll of the dice we can’t avoid much longer. I don’t need a medical degree to know we have to drink, and we have to do it soon.
“Would the river be better?” she asks.
I open my mouth and then hear something snap and crack in the woods. It’s a ways off. Could be nothing. My ears strain, catching bits of birdsong and the hush-hush of leaves rustling. And then another snap. Maybe a grunt.
Emily lets out a shaky breath. Her knuckles go white on the water. Another crack, and we both flinch. I stand up.
Someone’s coming.
Chapter 8
Rescuers? No, they’d call for us. We’d hear them. Besides, even if no one’s using the check-in function on the GPS, we only sent a message once or twice a day. We’re not late enough for anyone to be here yet.
I flex my hands, look around as adrenaline tries to kick-start my limbs. We need to do something. Run.
The footsteps are coming closer, and I catch sight of the Damaged on Emily’s arm. Whoever wrote that could be coming for us. Maybe the water is drugged and they are hoping we already drank it—that we’re passed out again right now.
A flash of Ms. Brighton’s severed finger washes through my mind. We can’t be here. We’re like sitting ducks.
I wrap my hand around Emily’s wrist and start walking, finger to my lips. She doesn’t need to be told twice to follow, slipping past Mr. Walker and to the edge of our campsite clearing. I still hear the footsteps. The grunts.
My eyes drag over the trees. Better cover there, but we’ll be noisy as hell. Our chance is better on the path. We’ll head back toward the river.
Back toward the finger?
My limbs go heavy. More noise, stomping. It’s like a herd of elephants. They won’t hear us over their own racket. We step back into the trees, my finger at my lips to remind Emily to stay quiet. She’s better at this than me. Her steps whisper quiet as we edge into the trees.
Whoever’s coming is close now.
“Sera! Emily!” The shout is loud, coming from the woods on the other side of camp. I start moving faster backward, my heart tripping like my feet. “Hey! Sera!”
I deflate. It’s Lucas. I turn back, shoulders dropping in relief. They hunch when he calls my name again with a grunt. Why isn’t Jude calling for us? Where is Jude?
Emily’s already striding back for the camp before I say anything. We see Lucas as soon as we come closer. Jude’s there too, one arm slung over Lucas’s shoulder and head lolling.
Lucas takes another step, and Jude’s feet drag-thump along, his knees bending too deeply. He’s only on his feet because Lucas is holding him up. He looks awful, hollow eyes and sunken cheeks. His skin has a strange ashy tinge. His lips are cracked and bleeding.
“What happened?” I ask.
“No idea. He said his head hurt. A little later, he collapsed. He’s barely making any sense.”
“Dehydration,” Emily says decisively. “He was vomiting, so he’s worse than us. We found water. I’ll get it.”
“Emily, you can’t!” I turn to look between them. “Someone left that here. It’s not ours.”
“Someone left it?” Lucas asks. “Who?”
“The same someone who we think drugged Mr. Walker again.”
Lucas’s expression turns dark. Emily ignores my protests and retrieves the water. She’s back with it before I can form a new argument. A plastic crack pierces the quiet when she twists off the cap. My throat bobs at the fat drop of water that rolls down the side of the bottle. I know I had something to drink last night, but it’s probably dinnertime. Maybe later. Maybe it’s only been twelve or fourteen hours, but it feels like it’s been a week.
“We can’t give him that,” Lucas says, but his gray eyes are tracking that bottle like a predator. “No way it’s safe.”
“He’s sick. It’s only going to get worse,” Emily reasons.
“Then we get some water from the river,” I say. “They make antibiotics for whatever’s floating around in that, right?”
“Hell no,” Jude croaks.
His eyes are half-open, and I feel a pang of worry. I’m thinking of his dads, especially Thomas, who’s always nice, even when people aren’t nice back. If he saw me handing Jude this water…
I shake my head and turn for the path that leads to the river.