She pushes him away suddenly, her face and hair splotched with stains.
“Hurryhurryhurry.” She says it all together, her raspy voice crawling up my spine like centipedes.
“Are you hurt?” Emily asks.
I try another angle. “Where’s Hayley?”
Madison pushes clumps of hair back from her filthy face and starts to pace and mewl. “She’s back—she’s—hurry. Hurry.”
Goose bumps prick up my arms in angry rows. She sounds bad. Half-crazy. Lucas must hear it too because he frowns when she takes his arm in her filthy fingers.
I move closer, but my stupid hand whacks another tree, pain lancing into my shoulder socket. I bite back a howl, and Emily slows beside me, her face pale and round in the darkness.
“I think it’s infected,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say because I already knew that. And there isn’t one thing I can do about it until we get out of here, so I focus on our newest mess. Madison definitely fits the word.
Head to toe, she’s streaked with dark stains I don’t want to identify. Her knees droop, and her legs are pale and thin as sticks. I force myself to reach for her, and my hand shakes at even the barest pat at her sticky, slender arm.
“We’re here now,” I say. “Everything’s all right.”
“No,” she says, licking cracked lips with a swollen tongue. Her eyes are like bruises. She’s dehydrated. I reach for my water, but she can barely hold it. “Ms. Brighton—she’s—Ms. Brighton is—”
“It’s OK.” I pat her again, try to ignore her tacky skin. “We know. We saw.”
Emily pulls her away, and I can see the way Lucas’s face relaxes. Jude still holds back, staying a few feet behind us with his arms tightly crossed over his middle.
“Madison?” It’s Jude. His expression reminds me of Before Jude, the one with attached headphones and eyes that drifted over us like wallpaper. “How did you get across the river? Where is Hayley? Did you see Ms. Brighton?”
“There was a zip line.” Madison clenches her fists with a sharp breath, and my stomach doubles up. “We followed the river for a while and found a zip line.”
“Where is Hayley?” I ask because she’s not here. I don’t ask about Ms. Brighton. I already know too much.
Madison’s eyes go huge and round.
“Where is she?” I ask again.
“It was an accident,” Madison whispers. “Help me.”
She says it again, and blood drains from my face until my cheeks ache and my lips go cold. Mr. Walker’s words ring in my ears. Words about a dead girl and everyone getting it wrong. Is Hayley dead too? What do we have wrong this time?
“Hurry,” Madison says, her voice scratching again like sandpaper. “Hurryhurryhurry.”
Chapter 20
Emily and Jude take the lead following Madison, partly because my lungs are burning and partly because Lucas is holding my hand and keeping us back from the group.
I step over something. A root, a branch, some horrid nature thing. I hate trees now. The smell of them, the feel of them. I’m pretty sure as long as I live, I’ll never voluntarily step foot in a forest again.
Emily falls with a cry, clutching her ankle. She’s back up fast but obviously favoring her left foot. I knock into Lucas’s side. He scrapes past a briar. No sleep makes you clumsy, I guess.
Lucas pulls me closer, “You all right? Your hand?”
“I’m fine,” I say softly. “Better than Emily. A hell of a lot better than Ms. Brighton or even Mr. Walker.”
He leans in, those rough fingers grazing the back of my arm, his hair brushing my neck briefly. “We could head north, Sera,” he whispers. “Right now. Just you and me.”
“What?” I catch myself and drop my voice, pulling even closer. Our gait is awkward like this, but I can’t let them hear us. “We can’t do that. We can’t just leave them.”
“We can.” He looks around, shakes his hair out of his eyes. “I’m getting paranoid as shit around here. Especially with you at the center of all this.”
“So?”
“So, I’m growing a chivalrous side or something,” he says, stepping over a log. He helps me next, whispering, “I want you out of here, Sera.”
“Because I’m too weak to take care of myself?”
He stops dead, his mouth so soft that I’m tempted to test it with my thumb. “No,” he says. “Because you’re the only one here who matters.”
I hold my breath, and Lucas looks up at the sky like he’s praying. Maybe he is. I can hear the click of a hard swallow. The hollow of his throat is right in front of me. Right in front of me.
I feel druggy and heavy, like I’m going to lean in. At the last second, I put up my hand, and it lands on his stomach, palm flat and fingers spread. I feel his heartbeat in my knees.
“Whatever this is, it’s seriously messed-up timing,” he says, sounding strained.