He withdrew his hand. He had a cut on his forehead. A stream of blood wiggled down his forehead to stain his eyebrow. It shone bright ketchup red in the sunlight, looking almost unreal. Or too real. “When I heard the shot, I dropped. Hit my head.”
Claire shed her pack. “I’ve got a first-aid kit.” She dug through until she found it. Her hands were shaking as she opened it. Reyva took the antibiotic cream from her, squeezed some on his cut, and then took a Band-Aid and stuck it on. “He could have a concussion.”
Reyva nodded. “Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous?” She sounded so grim that Claire wondered if she had experience with concussions.
Jack shook his head after the first question, winced, and said no to the second, then he stared out at the lake again. “He shot at me.”
“He missed,” Mariana said. “So that’s a good thing.”
“He took the boat,” Jack said, again stating the obvious.
“And that’s a bad thing,” Reyva said. “Now that we’re all caught up, what do we do?”
All four of them looked out across the sparkling lake. The boat bounced over the surface of the water, smacking down in a spray of foamy water.Porpoising, Claire remembered. It left a V-shaped wake behind that spread out into ripples.
“On the plus side,” Mariana said, “at least he can’t shoot at us anymore. So we’re safe? Yay? Is this ‘yay’? I think it is.”
“Except we lost our best escape route.” Claire sank onto the dock. Her muscles felt wobbly. She’d run too much and eaten too little. She was acutely aware of how thirsty, how hungry, how tired, and how sore she was. And how close she’d come to losing it, back behind the rock. She’d held herself together by mere threads this time.
She was not in any shape to begin a days-long hike.
“You don’t happen to have any cheeseburgers in your backpack?” Reyva asked Jack. At the wordcheeseburger, Claire’s stomach let out a loud rumble that felt like an ache. She wrapped her arms around her middle.
His hands closed over his backpack straps. “Um, no?”
“Fresh water?” Mariana asked.
“The lake—” He waved at the expanse of water around them.
“Bacteria, I’m told,” Reyva said.
“Well, yeah, true,” Jack said. He hadn’t stopped staring at the boat, now tiny in the distance. In a few minutes, it would disappear around the corner, where the lake bent around granite cliffs. “I can’t believe he took the boat.”
I can’t believe we’re not all dead, Claire thought. He’d had the perfect chance to shoot them all. Instead he’d been the one to flee.
Odd, she thought.
With him in possession of the boat and the gun, he had all the advantages. She’d been certain he was hunting them before—certain he’d been the one to close the trapdoor, certain he’d waited for them by the cave exit, and certain he’d been targeting them.
So why would he leave them here?
What was he running away from?
Or who?
She tried to look on the bright side, like Mariana: at least it meant one danger was gone, whatever the reason.So that just leaves us with the man with the wild hair, dehydration, and starvation.Also, hypothermia if it rains again.
She had a sudden thought: “Rain! The jars!”
Scrambling to her feet, she hurried off the dock. They’d left the jars by where they’d first attempted to make a fire. If they hadn’t fallen over, they should be full of fresh rainwater—
Yes!
Grateful, Claire sank to her knees next to the jars. The pebbles dug into her skin, but she didn’t care. All the jars, as well as the toolbox, had several inches of rainwater. Clean, beautiful, non-bacteria-laden water!
Reyva and Mariana joined her on either side. “Oh, bliss!” Mariana said. Picking up a glass jar, she drank a long glugging drink. So did Reyva.
Claire wrapped her hands around another jar and drank too. It was cold and sweet and perfect. She swallowed and swallowed until she remembered she should breathe. Lowering the jar, she inhaled. Even the air tasted better now.
