Louder, Claire said, “Don’t.”
Reyva stopped halfway up the ladder.
“It wasn’t the wind.”
“Of course it was the wind,” Mariana said. “What else—oh.”
Jumping down, Reyva backed away from the ladder. All of them stared up at the trapdoor. Claire felt as cold as if she were still soaked through. She couldn’t stop shaking. “I left it open all the way. Flat on the ground. No wind could’ve blown it shut. Wind doesn’t work that way. It wouldn’t have had the leverage to flip it. A person, on the other hand...”
“We don’t know it’s the killer,” Mariana whispered.
Claire raised her eyebrows, and Reyva gave a snort. No one friendly would have closed the hatch. There was no reason to do it, except to trap them down here.
“Maybe we can talk our way out of this?”
Reyva whispered, “I’m calling it: white, middle-aged male in a tank top or camo.”
“So if itisa walking cliché who is the killer—” Mariana continued.
“A cliché for a reason,” Claire said. “Eighty-eight percent of homicides are by men, with the highest rate among men ages twenty to thirty-nine.”
“Okay, not going to even ask why you know that,” Mariana said. “So ifheis up there, then odds are he’ll underestimate us. Everyone always underestimates and undervalues teenage girls. Especially white middle-aged men in tank tops or camo. So we use that. We act like we think he’s our hero. Greet him like he’s saving us. We pretend to be scared and helpless. Use sexism to keep him off-balance. If he sees us as harmless—”
“We have one Swiss Army knife between three of us,” Claire pointed out. “Weareharmless.” Besides, it wasn’t as if she had experience stabbing anyone. It didn’t exactly come up in ballet class.
“MMA girl can throw a punch.”
“I do have an excellent right hook,” Reyva admitted.
“He has agun, in case you’ve forgotten,” Claire said, slightly louder than a whisper. And then quieter: “And he’s already proved he’s willing to use it.”
He was most likely up there right now, waiting to see whatthey’d do, ready to pick them off one by one as they emerged from the bunker. Or else he was waiting for the rain to stop, and he’d come down at his leisure, with his gun.
She sucked in air. It felt like there was less oxygen than there had been. She told herself to quit being absurd. There was plenty of air. Unless there wasn’t. Unless the lid was airtight. Unless they really were buried alive.
Stop it, she told herself.Just breathe.
Taking even breaths, Claire tried to think.Solve the puzzle.“If he comes down the ladder...”
“... then we’ll have the advantage,” Reyva finished, even though that wasn’t what Claire had planned to say. “He’ll have to hold on with at least one hand. And he’ll be feetfirst, not gun-first. We’ll know he’s coming long before he has any angle to fire.”
Mariana nodded. “Okay. Great. I like the way you think. So what do we do?”
“Hit him in the back of his knees,” Reyva said. “Knock him off the ladder.”
Claire pictured the possibilities. They’d hear the trapdoor—he couldn’t surprise them. If they could incapacitate him before he could attack them, they might have a chance. She cast around for anything they could use: clothes, toiletries, the bucket... “Look for weapons. Anyone have anything we can spray in his eyes?” Kneeling next to her supplies, she pocketed the Swiss Army knife, as well as the broken blade.
“Spray-on suntan lotion.” Freeing it from her pile of discarded items, Mariana held it up in the air like a trophy. “Stingslike hell if it gets in your eyes, says personal experience.”
“That’ll work,” Claire said.
“There are three of us,” Reyva said. “One of him. We can do this.”
With her suntan lotion, Mariana joined Reyva at the base of the ladder. Reyva stood in a fighter’s stance, both hands curled into fists.
Claire paused her search through her pack to look at them. So ready. So brave. They weren’t panicking or dissolving into puddles like she wanted to do. She felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. She liked these girls. A lot. She wasn’t certain when that feeling had started, but she was certain about one thing:I don’t want to watch them die.
This was a terrible, desperate plan with a high probability of failure. Odds were she wouldn’t have to see them die, because she’d be dead too.
