“They're tracking you,” Kathryn told Joule, looking her in the eyes. “And they know now right where the four of us are.”
“How is there even a cell signal reaching out here?” Joule was grasping at straws.
“They bounce.” Kathryn shrugged. “You'll get a random signal in the middle of the desert sometimes. You walked into one and they found you.”
“Unless it's Cage.”
“I doubt it's your brother. Any new text messages, any indication that it's actually him?” The same things she’d asked last time.
Desperate not to have been this stupid, Joule scrolled through as much as she could, trying to hold on to whatever little signal she had.
She shook her head at Kathryn. “Why would ‘they’—” She held up her fingers in air quotes, “—be tracking me?”
“It's what the cartels do. If someone won't comply, they'll get their family members involved.”
Joule had an idea that get their family members involved was the kindest way that Kathryn could say they intended to kidnap Joule and hold her to make Cage do whatever they wanted.
What had her brother done? And fucking good for him.
“What if I shut the whole phone off?” Joule asked.
“You can. But unless we shut down the entire cartel, they can track you forever on that thing.”
Joule was reaching for the power button anyway, but it was David whose hand came out to stay her.
Kayla looked at David, the two of them seeming to share an idea. That was happening more and more. Joule always thought she had a logical mind, but Kayla's put hers to shame. Somehow, Kayla and David had found the same wavelength.
“Leave it on,” Kayla said. “We need to throw it away somewhere.”
“Well, they'll be able to track it to here,” Joule motioned to the ground, and then to the footprints around her. If this was where Cage had gotten away, she didn't want them to find it. If she threw the phone in the direction she'd been going, how far could she throw it? Would it do anything?
It looked like some of the escapees had gone off in that direction. Joule absolutely did not want to get them in trouble. Particularly her brother.
“No,” David said. “Don't throw it. We’ll make it look like you're walking off in some other direction.”
For a moment she froze. Were they asking her to sacrifice herself to the cartel to save them? Maybe she should. Kathryn had specifically told her to delete the app and she had thought that if she just turned it off, it would be okay. That if her brother ever got his phone again, or if she ever needed to track his phone to prosecute someone, she could turn the app back on and get them.
Fucking fuck balls.
But David wasn't looking at her like that. “We need a rubber band, something to tie it.”
They all checked pockets, and no one seemed to have anything.
“Wait,” Joule was already digging into her backpack. “Ponytail holders!”
“Excellent. Give me the phone.” David held out his hand but then told her to take off the case.
The drone was a small, light thing. She worried about her phone being on it even though the phone wasn't that heavy.
It wasn't much but she peeled the casing, watching a paper flutter out of the back. She picked it up, brushed off the sand, and stuck it into her pocket. She had to keep that.
Then she handed the phone over to David. Even as he hair-tied it on to the back of the drone, she wondered how far it would get.
“That'll weight it down. It won't get very high.” She hated to be negative but she had to.
“I'm guessing that your tracking app doesn't have an altimeter. Because why? But it’s probably better if the drone stays low to the ground. Just in case.” David finished strapping the phone on top. He set it on the ground and added, “It gets as far as it gets. Even with the extra weight, we should be able to get it relatively far away.”
Joule breathed in a little too deeply, the dry air sucking moisture from her lungs, even as it gave her oxygen. Then she watched as David steered her phone away, and all she could think was they had to do it. They couldn't lead the cartel directly to them.
She could only hope that she found her brother before he tried to contact her. Because she wouldn't be on the other end of the line now. Maybe in a couple of hours, the cartel would be.