“You wanted to trade us for him,” Claire said, remembering the phone call. “You wanted it to possess one of us instead.” She stumbled over the wordpossess. It was absurd. Yet... very hard to argue about possible versus impossible while being chased by a dead man.
“I thought I could save him, if I followed its instructions, if Ipretended there was a camp and helped it.... I thought it would leave him, if it had you, but instead... I was wrong. There’s no escaping it. We’re going to die.”
It began to rain. Suddenly. Impossibly.
They could escape in the deluge, Claire realized. If the spirit had sent this storm, it had made a mistake. Veering away from the trail and heading past the tennis court, she ordered, “This way.”
The others went with her without arguing.
Together, they plunged into the forest.
The rain continued to pour down as they forded through the trees. Claire didn’t look back. Maybe they could lose it in the storm.
They had to try.
The journey seemed endless—the green ahead of them, the rain pounding down on them—but they kept going, deeper and deeper into the forest, away from the Lake House. Claire’s side ached, her legs ached, her head ached. She felt every bit of hunger gnawing inside her, warring with the fear.
It was the fear that threatened to choke her. She tried to think about it logically, and rationality skittered away. None of this should be possible. It didn’t make sense. Except that it did. Every little thing she’d tried to explain away about this place... the fire, the cage, the cracked tennis court and unmaintained airstrip, the odd weather, the way they’d walked in a circle and hadn’t noticed.
At last, Reyva halted. “Can’t. I can’t anymore.”
The others stopped too.
“Did we lose him?” Mariana asked.
“Don’t know,” Claire said. She scanned the forest. She didn’t see anyone. With the rain, she couldn’t hear any birds. “Maybe?” Or maybe he’d come lurching out of the shadows.
“Maybe we should go a little farther,” Mariana said. “Like, as far as we possibly can.”
Beside them, Jack swayed.
“Whoa, what’s wrong?” Claire said.
“Dizzy,” he managed, and then he collapsed. She half caught him on the way down, as did Mariana. He hung limply between them, as if he’d melted.
“I think we have gone as far as we possibly can,” Reyva said grimly.
“We need shelter,” Claire said.
Mariana pointed to an outcropping of rocks. “There?”
It would do. They hauled him as best they could, aiming for what looked like an alcove. They stuffed him under the ledge and all of them squeezed together. Rain poured down in a sheet in front of them. Stray drops spattered them within the alcove.
Claire shivered.
“He’s breathing,” Mariana said.
“He could have internal bleeding,” Reyva said. “Definitely has a concussion.” She winced as she adjusted her arm. Claire couldn’t imagine how much pain she had to be in, but there was zero she could do to help either her or Jack. And Jack very obviously needed help. “If we don’t get him to a hospital soon, he could die. Can you fix the phone?”
Mariana stared down at the cracked plastic. “Let’s see what’swrong with it.” Bending over it, she unscrewed the back casing with her fingernail and pried it open.
There were wires pulled out of wherever they were supposed to be, but that wasn’t the major problem. Inside the phone was a circuit board—and it was smashed. The case had splintered, and shards of broken plastic had pierced the innards. It was ruined beyond repair.
All three of them stared at it, and Claire felt her last wisp of hope evaporate. She’d been trying so hard to stay... if not positive, then at least determined. But this? It was too much. She buried her face in her hands, unable to look at either Reyva or Mariana, and she, for the first time ever, wished her mind would spiral and take her into the oblivion of unconsciousness.
But it didn’t, and the rain continued to fall.
Twenty-Three
