Saturday, 3:15 p.m.
As soon as Grace was seated in the car, Leyna reached into her pants pocket. Her hand coiled around metal warmed from being held near her skin. She offered the bracelet to her sister, whose eyes welled as she took it.
“For luck,” Leyna said.
Then she laid on the gas. When they approached the highway, the acrid scent of smoke grew stronger, and she could see it now—a gray haze pushing against the car, trying to get in. While the speedometer ticked upward, she closed the windows and vents, but the odor had already seeped into the upholstery.
“She’ll be there, right?” Grace’s voice shook, the desperation as thick as the air around them.
Leyna nodded but didn’t dare answer, afraid her sister might hear her doubt. Grace’s search had been thorough, but she remained as convinced as Leyna that Ellie had returned to the neighborhood. Where else would Ellie go? Rocky had been right. Eventually, Ridgepoint Ranch drew them all back.
“I’ve already checked the clubhouse. Twice.”
Leyna had run through all the possibilities in her head. Then she’d remembered the blueprints. It had seemed obvious in the moment, but if she was wrong…
She couldn’t allow the horror of that thought to take root.
As Leyna drove, she caught Grace stealing glances at her arm. They both held back their apologies. Ellie first, then they’d have time to talk. But still, having her sister that close, Leyna felt her scar burn with memory.
After her sister had shoved her into the ravine, Leyna tested her feet and arms—nothing broken, nothing sprained. She clenched against her unrelenting bladder. She needed to get out of there.
Above her, she heard the scrape of footsteps. Then a deep chuckle. When she glanced up, Adam and Grace stared down at her. Adam carried a bow over his shoulder, and at his hip was a quiver with several arrows. Grace, looking surprised, had been wearing her blue blouse.
“I only meant—” Grace glanced at Adam and her face hardened. She put a hand on his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
Adam shook off her hand, squatted, and stared at Leyna with eyes that made it clear he didn’t intend to help her. The look alone nearly made her wet herself.
“I heard you told your mom about our little shopping trip.” His voice echoed off the sides of packed earth. “Why would you do that?”
He sounded hurt more than angry, but his expression betrayed him. Leyna scurried away from them. Standing on tiptoes, she tried to reach the ground above her, but the crevasse seemed nearly bottomless. Where she reached, the dirt was loose, the leaves slippery.
“We’re friends.” He seemed irritated that she hadn’t immediately apologized. “Your sister and I let you come with us to that market, and you snitched.”
She looked up to find that Adam had tracked her. She hadn’t snitched. Not really. But when their mom found the stolen snacks and beer in Grace’s room, Leyna had laid the blame where it belonged—on Adam.
Leyna leaned against the dirt wall, the crack of sunlight above her seeming to retreat the longer she stared into it. She scratched at the dirt, the flesh beneath her nails instantly raw. The urge to pee grew more insistent.
Adam shrugged his bow from his shoulder. He wasn’t really going to shoot her, was he? And Grace wasn’t going to let him?
Leyna blinked to clear the panic and studied her prison with fresh eyes. There. A spot where the roots of a sugar pine jutted from the earthen wall like broken fingers.
“Not cool, Leyna.”
She sidestepped toward the clump of roots. If she could climb it, she would be on the opposite side of the ravine, and she could run, but would the roots hold? The pine’s trunk remained brown, and needles clung to its branches. But it might be infested with beetles or weakened by fungus.
She forced a breath, grasped the roots, and pulled herself upward, trying to clamber up the compacted earth.
The roots slipped in her hand. She held tighter. Pulled harder. Planted her feet more firmly against the earthen wall.
She fell to the ground. At least on her feet this time. She realized it didn’t matter what she did. With his long legs, Adam would have no problem making the jump across the ravine.
Adam chuckled, but he looked irritated by her attempts to get away. The snake watching the helpless hamster in the maze.
“Stop it, Adam,” Grace said. “You’re acting just like your mom.”
If he was offended by the comment, Leyna couldn’t tell. He pulled out an arrow and touched the tip.
“I was looking to shoot some rabbits or squirrels, so these are blunt tips.” He nocked the arrow on his bowstring. “Don’t get me wrong. It’ll still sting like a bitch.”
Grace grabbed his arm. “I said stop.”
Whether it was the jolt of Grace’s touch or his own intention, the arrow found its mark so quickly, it took a second for Leyna to realize it had grazed her arm. Her bladder released as the blood welled.
Adam instantly feigned concern—a performance for Grace, but Leyna wasn’t fooled. Especially when he smiled at the wet spot that bloomed on her pants.
After he and Grace helped her from the ravine, he’d pulled her close; Leyna gagged on the rotting-fruit scent of his body spray and her own urine. He’d whispered, too quietly for Grace to hear, “The next one goes in your fucking eye, snitch.”
When Grace came in to change her shirt, before Leyna had locked her out, her sister insisted that Adam’s hand had slipped on the string because she’d touched his arm. He’d shot the arrow without intending to. When Leyna told her what he’d said, Grace said he must’ve been joking and accused her of exaggerating. “It’s those books you read, Ley.”
Even at twelve, Leyna recognized her sister didn’t believe what she herself had said.
It hadn’t been such a bad cut, really. If Leyna had cleaned it, it probably wouldn’t have scarred. But part of her thought she deserved that reminder of Adam etched into her skin after leaving Grace out in the cold.
The bleating of the fasten-seat-belt warning snapped Leyna back to the driver’s seat of the car. She ignored it; the thought of being pinned to her seat raised bile in Leyna’s throat. Ash fluttered. Here, the hellish blizzard, lit by sparks, grew so thick that the road blurred. She squinted at a thickening layer of ash coating the windshield.
Leyna flipped the wiper switch, and the blades smeared ash across the glass. She felt the bump-bump-bump of the car as it veered onto gravel. She slowed down and cracked open the window, coughed on a blast of smoke. She forced herself to take smaller breaths.
Stretching her neck out the window, she found the road again. Leaves skittered across the asphalt, their edges glowing. The smoke and shallow breathing left her lightheaded. She blinked rapidly to clear smoke from her eyes.
On the hillside to their left, the flames she’d first believed were imaginary rippled. It was hotter here too, and panic seized her. Any closer to the highway and her car would catch fire.
“We just passed the service road. It’ll save a few minutes.” Grace, who had always spoken confidently about everything, didn’t sound confident about that. Her voice wavered.
Leyna backtracked and, a quarter mile up the road, she slowed beside the old maintenance building, enclosed by wire fencing. The posted sign warned against trespassing. On the other side of the road, an old Chevy rusted not far from a pile of dumped junk, including a sofa and a dining-room set with three broken chairs. They’d been there long enough to mold and stain. Leyna knew they’d be gone by nightfall.
Grace pointed. “I already checked,” she said. “Once we have her, we could snip the fence, or drive through it…”
Her voice trailed off as they both scanned the perimeter for an opening. The squat building blocked a small field that might’ve provided egress, the back of the property ringed by trees and heavy equipment. Leyna clutched the wheel and blinked against the gathering smoke.
No way out here either. At least not by car. And if they attempted it on foot, they would be dead.
That understanding sparked between them even as Leyna tried to reassure Grace. “The fire might not make it here.”
“I’m not an idiot, Leyna,” she said. “Drive.”
Abruptly, the car slowed, the engine overheating because of the smoke and decreased oxygen intake. Then it stalled, two blocks from the clubhouse.