“I don’t think. I know.” His smile gleams a little bit wicked in the moonlight. “That’s a camper trailer.”
It has a broken window, cinder block steps, and a ripped God Bless America flag, and it is the most gorgeous thing in the world. Or it is until I see the half-tarp-covered four-wheeler parked beside it. Lucas tells me at least ten times to slow down, heading down that mountainside, but I don’t care. I run.
My feet thud to a sudden stop twenty feet or so from the front of the camper. It’s a once-silver cigar with rust and trash around the base and a few thornbushes draped over the front door. I don’t think anyone’s been home in a while.
My smile falters, but I force it to stay put. It doesn’t matter. We don’t need a person really. We just need to get that four-wheeler running so we can get the hell out of here.
I pull in a deep breath and move from the front of the camper to the four-wheeler. Lucas is already pulling the tarp loose, checking over the engine.
“Do you think it’s usable?” I ask.
“Battery would be my first worry.” He starts rummaging around the pile of wood and scraps around the quad. “No keys either.”
“Can you hotwire it?”
“You mean from my stint in Grand Theft Auto: The Reality Show?” He smirks up at me, holding something long and metal. “A few fights does not make me a car thief.”
“I’m sorry.” I bite my lip and look back at the camper. “Do you think they’d just leave it if it’s running? Is that…convenient?”
Lucas shrugs, leaning in. “I don’t know. I’ve got an uncle who lives about seventy miles from here. He leaves a dirt bike at his hunting shack sometimes.”
“Doesn’t he worry about someone stealing it?”
“He always says anyone who could find it would be riding something better. This thing is a rusted piece of junk, so I’m betting the same logic applies.”
He taps the heavy metal file he’s holding to something inside the engine area. There’s a crack and a sudden spark, flaring white and brilliant and brief in the darkness.
“Battery’s good,” he says, dropping the file. “We should check inside for keys.”
Looking at the camper sends spiderweb chills up my back. I don’t know if I want to go inside. “I still think it’s weird it’s out here.”
“Well, they didn’t leave the keys, and I’ll bet the camper is locked tight.”
My eyes drag back to the broken-down trailer, sticking on those long, draping branches, each one covered in thorns. I square my shoulders. Thorns are not going to stand in the way of me getting out of here.
Lucas heads for the steps, swearing before he even reaches for the first sticker branch.
I catch up and pluck at the shirt between his shoulder blades. “Let’s be smart here. We’ll use the file and sticks to push some of this crap away.”
He turns back, chuckling. “See? I knew that bossy side was still in there.”
“No sense in making an easy job hard.”
It’s not an easy job. By the time we uncover the door, we’re both covered in bleeding scratches, my bad hand is burning like I’ve doused it in gasoline and lit it on fire, and I’ve got thorns in my hair.
Lucas rattles the shiny padlock on the front door with a sad laugh. And then his shoulders sag, and he drops his forehead softly to the door. Something in me aches at that gesture. It’s the first time he’s looked weak.
It’s the first time I’ve wondered if he was going to cry.
I reach for him, fingertips grazing his sweat-damp shirt. It feels like slow motion when he turns, tears glittering in his eyes even as he forces that cocky grin back into place.
“Yeah, I’m real dangerous. I can’t even get into this rickety-ass trailer.”
I rest my palm against his chest until he takes a breath that shakes as badly as my fingers. I press harder, hoping to steady him. He leans back into the trailer like I pushed him, watching me with heavily lidded eyes.
“You could have left us two days ago,” I say, only just realizing it. On his own, he would have made it. Lucas is built for this sort of adventure. He’s made to survive.
He snorts. “Sure, I could have just—”
“Yes, you could have. You could have walked north on that first day like you wanted to. Like we all probably should have. You could have left us, left me. And you didn’t.”
His heart thumps at my fingers like a bass line, and I step in close.
“But you’re still out here,” he says. “We’re all still out here, so what does it matter?”
I feel everything I felt on the back deck and more, but I don’t hate it right now. This feeling I mocked and ran from and despised is the thing that’s keeping me going.