—@beckywiththebesthair
Not only did Cara feel like the grim reaper in Day-Glo orange, but her own survival was growing less likely by the hour. The mountain lion clearly preferred deer meat; what about the next carnivorous creature? Humans—furless and soft—had to be the fast food of the animal kingdom. At her next encounter, she had no idea whether she was supposed to make herself big and loud, stand completely still, or run like hell.
As dusk fell and she continued to propel herself into the unknown, Cara spotted clusters of light from houses set into hillsides and ramshackle rural neighborhoods. She would have given anything to sleep indoors. Simply having heat and running water—no matter how rusty, broken-down, or double-wide the accommodations—sounded downright luxe. Of course, she couldn’t risk being spotted by a guard dog, Ring camera, or whatever people out here in the country used to deter criminals.
Criminals likeher.
She wanted to cry, but somehow held out hope that she might stumble upon an abandoned lean-to, decrepit mining cabin, or even an unoccupied cave—anywhere she could curl up with her beach towel and catch a few hours of badly needed sleep.
As it grew dark and chilly, Cara thought about Karl’s elderly Aunt Evelyn, the woman who’d raised him and whom Cara had come to think of almost as a grandmother. She’d come to the trial every day her ailing body allowed, offering winks and supportive nods even as the supposed evidence of her guilt mounted. After the verdict was read, Evelyn had leaned over and hugged Cara, saying, “Don’t worry, they’ll find the person who really did this, and you’ll be exonerated. I’m sure of it.”
Her rose-tinted positivity, which she’d passed down to her nephew, was really all Cara had to hang onto as she was led away in handcuffs.
But when Aunt Evelyn heard about the accident, even she would be worried.
If only for her sake, Cara knew she had to shift her perspective to survive. She decided to think of her increasingly dire circumstances, not as a matter of life and death, but as if she were in a game. Back when she was dating, she’d certainly spent enough hours pretending to care about Xbox to knowHalowas dumb and that she had no intention of settling down with any guy who had a gaming room in his Hollywood Hills pad. She did, however, remember the rush she’d felt after unlocking various “accomplishments” and clearing each stupid level. It wasn’t so different from the strange elation she felt after each of the feats that had gotten her to this moment in the middle of nowhere, needy and miserable, but still very much alive.
Like she’d earned points in a real-life game of survival.
Escaped from Fatal Crash: New Level Unlocked
Stole Towel, Shoes, and Food from Angry Skinny-Dippers: Mission Achieved
Avoided Attack by Lethal Mountain Lion: Invincibility Points Awarded
She decided she was now attempting to complete an invisibility challenge, which required her to feel her way around a darkened labyrinth. She was at the mercy of anything and everything that clawed, bit, or shot bullets, but she’d figure her way through.
She couldn’t worry about what awaited her there.
Not until she survived whatever came next.
TWELVE
JORDAN
Texting While Driving Is Not That Dangerous (Reddit thread)
I’m texting and driving rn and I’ve never had an accident.
—/u/Dull_Pickle
Charles Darwin would like a word with you.
—/u/Rationalvoice
Jesus.
—/u/Jesushimself
The extended family in the rambling alpine lodge was having some kind of a boozy reunion and had not seen Cara Campbell. True, they probably would have been too drunk to notice even if she had pressed her face against the glass and peered in their windows, but the sheer noise and size of their gathering wouldhave likely caused her to give the place a wide berth anyway. If she had even made it this far away from the highway. After warning them to extinguish the fire burning in the pit on their back patio, Jordan moved on.
The next house was smaller, a single-story modernist box nestled into the trees, obviously very expensive. He imagined it was the kind of place Cara Campbell would have felt very at home, live-streaming her wine-and-cheese cocktail hour from the Brazilian Ipe wood deck.
No cars were outside, and when no one answered the door, he circled the place on foot, checking the windows for breakage and the dusty ground for signs of her presence in the glare of the motion-triggered security lights. He was tempted to stake the place out for a while and see if she showed—there was a more or less natural path to it from the crash site, if she was smart enough to follow the folds of the land—but he decided to keep moving.
He hated searching blind. He was covering ground as methodically as he could, but the odds of finding her while they were both on the move were getting smaller and smaller, especially while darkness was falling. The bougie cottage made him wish there was some kind of trap he could set. He could bait it with a gourmet gift basket from Whole Foods or that place down in LA with the twenty dollar smoothies that Amber was always going on about in mock horror.
Which reminded him of that term Amber had explained to him:thirst trap.
