“But logically, it’s a risk, right?” Emily asks.
“Logic isn’t working out here,” I say. “Believe me, I prefer to have both a method and a plan, but I have to go with my gut here. I don’t think the food will hurt us.”
“You could just be hungry,” Jude says.
“I’m ravenous. But those foods are all my favorites,” I admit. “You could have packed that whole cooler at my house.”
“Since you’re the one who winds up dead, that isn’t comforting,” Jude says. “No offense.”
I wave it off. “It’s fine. It’s a valid point, but I think this is part of the plan. It’s my last meal or whatever or at least that’s his plan.”
“Whose plan?” Emily asks.
“Whoever wrote on us and made these creepy-ass dolls,” Lucas says. Then he bumps his chin at me, and I can see the smile in his eyes, hear the affection in his tone. “The same freak who thinks this walking pistol over here is a Darling.”
“That freak could kill us all instead,” Emily says.
Anger, white-hot and knife-sharp, runs along my skull. I scoop the dolls out and toss them, sending them scattering. “That freak isn’t counting on how hard we’re about to fight back.”
Chapter 17
The food doesn’t kill us, but Mr. Walker’s stench might. I don’t think there’s a bodily function he hasn’t experienced on our sled, and as bad as I feel for him, he smells vile enough to melt my skin right off my face. Emily’s the only one who can get within six feet, and every time she ventures into the hot zone, I wonder a little more about what things are like at her house.
Jude catches me watching and gives me a calculating look. What the hell gives with that? Two days ago, Jude and Emily were virtually strangers—and not overly friendly ones at that. Now they’re so buddy-buddy, he gives me the stink eye for looking at her wrong?
Then again, two days ago, I would have said I’d sooner grow a pair of wings than kiss Lucas. Again.
My lips tingle with the memory. I press them together hard and turn back to the task at hand. Mr. Walker is rousing. Finally. We’ve been chattering at him nonstop, and at first, we didn’t get much—just nonsense noises and head movements, a little kid rolling away from the light in the middle of the night. We all go still when it changes.
He groans out something closer to a word and lifts his head. Then he smacks his lips together, and my shoulders hunch. Is he going to throw up again? God, I hate watching people vomit. His shirt makes me queasy enough.
He jerks his head back a few times like he might, and then his eyes flutter and finally open. He looks at Emily, then Jude, then Lucas. Finally, he looks at me, and his lips stretch into a strained smile. Cue the rising music—we’ve got a live one.
“You all look pretty freaked out.” His laugh splinters like dead wood. “I don’t know what I got in to, but it messed me up plenty. Did we run into bad water?”
I tilt my head. “You could say that.”
“It’s all right,” he says. “I’m alive, so you can stop with the long faces.”
None of us can seem to manage a response to that. Because it’s clear he doesn’t remember the bits we’ve told him. He doesn’t know what’s happened to us.
Mr. Walker gives an awkward laugh, but I can’t force myself to smile back at him. No one says anything, and I have zero idea where to start, but we have to tell him. Because right now, he thinks the extent of our problem is a teacher with a nasty stomach bug.
My heart twists, imagining what he’s going to feel when we fill him in on Ms. Brighton.
“Well, don’t everyone talk at once. What time is it? How long was I out?” he asks, and then he looks around, forehead furrowing. “Wait, where are Ms. Brighton and Madison and Hayley? Are they still on the other side of the river?”
“What do you remember, Mr. Walker?” I ask.
I can tell his brain is prodding at his foggy memory, pushing for answers. His expression turns grave before he speaks again. “Where are the tents? Where are we right now?”
Emily tries to reply, but the words catch and snag on her tears.
I’m done crying for now, so I take the lead. “Things are bad. You’ve been asleep for a couple of days. Do you remember anything? Do you remember us moving you on the sled?”
His brow scrunches, creases forming so fast that I think of one of Mom’s scarves sliding off her dresser, folding over and over, an accordion of silk against the bedroom wall.
“No,” he says. “What’s happened?”