I wondered if Shaun had gone outside to look for Mason. Or maybe he'd fallen asleep. I wondered if I should take my chance and run now.
I was about to press my ear to the door and listen for Shaun, when it opened.
Shaun held a metal folding chair in one hand and a beer bottle in the other. He sank into the chair and stared at me, his face twisted into a scowl.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
He pointed his finger at me, his lips twitching in anger. "Don't you talk to me."
Any chill I'd felt vanished; immediately, sweat popped out on my skin. Shaun's mouth formed a downward seam, and those slotted eyes. They were glazed with hatred. He flung the door shut, and my heart started pounding so hard I was sure we'd both hear it.
He took a slug of beer and continued to glare at me. "Mason's not back."
I hesitated, not sure he really wanted me to speak. "How long has it been?" I asked carefully.
"Over three hours. It's after one in the morning. Did you lie to me, Britt? Did you lie about where you left your car?"
"Maybe he got lost," I quickly offered. "Maybe the gear is heavy and it's slowing him down."
"He took a sled. The gear's not the problem."
"If you had let me go with him--"
Shaun was out of his chair so fast I didn't see him coming. His hand lashed out at my throat, propelling me backward. He shoved me against the wall. I was so startled, it took a few moments for the pain to sink in. As I scratched frantically at his hand, his knuckles dug harder into the soft underside of my jaw, cutting off my airway. The room blurred at the edges.
"You lied."
He eased up enough for me to gasp air. It wheezed down my throat. I shook my head no, no, no.
"If Mason's lost, it's because you sent him the wrong way. He's out there looking for a car that's miles away. Isn't that right, Britt? Thought you'd level the playing field? Take him out so it's you and Korbie against me? Maybe you're stupider than I thought, pulling something like that."
I wrenched at his hand, trying to tear it off my neck. I couldn't breathe. I didn't know if he'd kill me. I was terrified he might.
"You took Mason away from me, maybe I should take Korbie away from you."
My eyes widened with alarm.
"If we're playing games, I know a few." His face was close enough that I could make out the blue stones of his eyes. Rage burned at the back of them. "That's right, Britt. You played your hand, now it's my turn, isn't that how it works?"
He loosened his grip, and I choked down a breath. As soon as I swallowed air, he pushed my neck to the wall again. "Did you send Mason in the wrong direction? If you did, I won't like it. But if you tell the truth right now, that's something we can work with. Nod if you understand."
Light-headed, I nodded.
"You're ready to start telling the truth?"
Yes, yes, I nodded. Pain raked inside my lungs. It felt like I had a cement block sitting on my chest.
Shaun's hand eased up, and I cried out in relief.
"Another half hour, give Mason that, please," I begged. "It's still snowing. It's deep, and it will take him time to get to the car and back, plus he's dragging the gear. He's okay, he's just moving slower than we thought."
I waited to see if Shaun would fly into a rage.
The storage room door rattled in its frame, as though the pressure in the cabin had changed suddenly. Not a moment later, a blast of arctic air shot under the door. Immediately, Shaun and I both turned in that direction. The front door closed with a heavy slam, and footsteps carried across the wood floors of the den.
"Ace?" Shaun called out. "That you, buddy?"
The storage room door opened. Shaun's hand dropped innocently to his side, and I recoiled, pressing my back into the corner, wishing I could disappear through the wall.
Mason patted the wall inside the door until he found the light switch.
"What's going on?" he asked, his gaze shifting between us. His face was ruddy from cold, beads of melted snow glistening on his hair and eyebrows. The shoulders and arms of his coat bore a thick dusting of snow.
"Just having a chat," Shaun said in the most ordinary voice. "Isn't that the case, Britt?"
I didn't answer. My breath came in choppy spurts. The air seemed to scrape my throat as I drew it in. Gingerly, I fingered my neck, my eyes filming at the bruises that burned under my skin.
I looked at Shaun, and a disturbing smile inched across his face. I nearly threw up. I felt the lingering steel of his hand vising my neck. When I shut my eyes, it only made his hate-filled eyes glow that much more vividly.
"You got the gear?" Shaun asked Mason.
Panicky, irrational thoughts bombarded my mind. I had to get out. I had to run. Maybe I wouldn't freeze in the forest; maybe I'd survive. I'd risk it, to get away from Shaun. I would run and run, until I was safe.
"The gear looks decent? It'll work?" Shaun prompted Mason.
Mason didn't answer right away. I felt his gaze continue to press down on me. I wanted to burrow through the wall and run into the forest. The first chance I got, I had to take it, because I might not get a second one.
"What happened to her neck?" Mason asked.
"I caught her tying her scarf around it like a noose," Shaun said with a chuckle, motioning at my red scarf on the ground. I'd taken it off before falling asleep. I'd rolled it into a ball and cuddled it against my chest for something comforting to hold. "Would you believe it? Another couple minutes alone, and she'd have killed herself. Gonna have to put this one on suicide watch."
I flinched when his cold hand patted my cheek. "No more tricky stuff, Britt. You might know these mountains better, but your friend is turning out to be the better houseguest. Maybe I'll change my mind about you."
"Can I talk to Korbie?" My voice was a thin, hoarse whisper.
"What kind of question is that?" Shaun said irritably. "What do you think I'm going to say?"
"I want to make sure she's okay."
"She's okay."
"Can I please see her? I won't try anything, I promise." I had to tell her we were going to run. First chance we got. There was no saying what Shaun would do as the hours wore on.
"I don't know that," Shaun said. "You already tried to kill yourself. The only thing I know is that I can't trust you."
Mason hadn't spoken in a long time, and I looked over to find him turning my scarf in his hands. His sharp brown eyes fixed on the fabric. Maybe I was imagining it, but his body seemed to draw taut and the set of his jaw appeared to harden. Did he believe Shaun? I wasn't sure. If the rift between him and Shaun widened, it might help Korbie and me. Maybe we could turn Mason to our side. Maybe he'd help us escape.
Once again, I tried to untangle Shaun and Mason's mystifying relationship. Shaun had lied to Mason to cover up his own actions. It seemed like another clue. More proof that Shaun didn't hold all the power. Did he fear Mason would retaliate if he hurt me? I knew nothing about Mason, definitely not enough to trust him, but I did know that I was less frightened of him than of Shaun. Whatever happened, I had to stay close to Mason. If I was right about him, he wouldn't let Shaun hurt me again.
"We should inventory the gear," Mason finally told Shaun. "Figure out what we need and what we can leave behind."
"You shouldn't have brought any gear we don't need," Shaun criticized.
"I was freezing and grabbed everything in a hurry," Mason snapped. "Have you looked out the window? The snow is coming down hard. It took me twice as long to get there and back because of it. We can sort through the gear now."
Shaun grunted his compliance. "Fine. We've got time. We're not taking off until the snow stops."
As Mason followed Shaun out, he glanced over his shoulder, as if he'd had an afterthought. His brown eyes met mine briefly. "By the way, I found Korbie's insulin. It wasn't frozen. Looks like I got to it just in time."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Alone in the storage room, I stood frozen in place, my heart skipping e
rratically. I dragged my back down the wall and sat on the floor. This time, I didn't care about the cold bleeding through the concrete. My mind reeled. There wasn't any insulin. Because Korbie wasn't diabetic. Mason had to have figured that out. He'd found the gear, so he must have searched the Wrangler. He'd lied about finding the insulin, but I couldn't figure out why.
I considered what Mason was trying to tell me.
I reviewed his exact words, the tone of his voice, his body language. With one hand resting on the doorknob, he'd raised the issue of the insulin casually, but deliberately. As if he'd needed to ease my mind on the subject. Your secret is safe with me. For now.
I felt a sudden necessity to get Mason alone. I had to find out why he was covering for me, what he wanted in return. I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand. I also had to prepare.
When the snow stopped, we were leaving. We'd strap our gear to our backs and I would lead us down a mountainside I'd never hiked. I pulled out Calvin's map, careful not to tear it along the worn folds. Then I crouched by the ribbon of light at the bottom of the door. I studied the markings on the map carefully. Off-trail hiking routes, caves, streams, abandoned huts once used by fur trappers--every place Calvin had explored and carefully recorded.
I quickly located Idlewilde and the highway--Calvin had labeled both. The longer I studied the map, the more certain I became of our current position. Calvin had marked a cabin to the south of one of the bigger lakes, far off the main road, and jotted the note "vacant/furnished/electricity." If the cabin was in fact our current location, I'd driven too far. I'd overshot Idlewilde by approximately five miles.
I stopped. What if instead of leading Shaun and Mason to the highway, I tricked them into following me to Idlewilde? But Idlewilde was at a higher elevation, and they would be immediately suspicious if I led them uphill. For now, I would have to guide them downhill toward the highway. Away from Idlewilde and farther from Calvin.
Staring through the window, I told myself that when the snow stopped, and the clouds cleared, the stars would come out and the darkness wouldn't seem so encompassing or hopeless.
I traced my finger over the frosted glass. H-E-L-P. The letters streaked through the condensation before evaporating. I wondered where Calvin was. I wanted to believe he'd found the Wrangler and was piecing together our next steps. I had to hope it was possible. But would he find us before we left? I closed my eyes and said a desperate prayer. Guide his steps, and quickly.
Calvin knew the mountains better than anyone. And he was ingenious. He could outsmart Mason and Shaun--if he found us. He'd gotten average grades in school, but only because he hadn't tried. Mostly to goad his dad, I knew. Calvin had coasted through high school, doing the minimum required work, and the more Mr. Versteeg tried to punish him, the more lax Calvin became about school. Once, after a really bad report card, Mr. Versteeg kicked Calvin out of the house. Calvin checked into a hotel for three days, staying until Korbie convinced her dad to let him come home. When Calvin scored a 31 on his ACT, followed by an astounding 2100 on the SAT, instead of being proud or relieved, Mr. Versteeg was infuriated that Calvin had proved him wrong--that he could get into a top-tier university like Stanford his own way.
A rumor had circulated in school last year that Mr. Versteeg had donated a substantial amount to Stanford and bought Calvin's admittance, but Korbie swore it wasn't true. "My dad would never help Calvin, especially not after the way he went about getting into Stanford," she told me privately.
I paced the tight quarters of the storage room, trying to battle the cold manifesting itself in hundreds of goose bumps springing up on my arms. At the far end of the room, I was about to turn and march back, when my eye landed on a large antique toolbox sitting on the lowest tier of the plastic shelving. I'd been so distracted and scared, I hadn't noticed it before. Maybe there was something I could use as a weapon inside.
Careful not to be heard, I dragged the distressed toolbox, mottled with rust, out onto the concrete floor. I opened the latches and raised the lid.
Familiarity enveloped me like a cold, damp cloud.
My mind tried to make sense of the shapes inside the box. Long, pale shafts and a sphere with two large sockets below the curve of the brow, and a third hole, a nose, centered below them. The limbs were bent at the joints to fit in the box. Hard, leathery skin and connective tissue held the largely decomposed body together.
Paralyzed, I gasped feebly. Logically, I knew that it--they--she, judging by the soiled black cocktail dress, couldn't hurt me. The body was a remnant of a departed life. It was more the knowledge that someone had died in the storage room that I found horrifying. Someone like me, trapped here. It was as if a window appeared in my brain and I looked through it to glimpse my own fate.
I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them, the dead body was still there. The skull's toothy grin seemed to jeer at me. You're next.
I shut the lid. I backed away. A scream stuck in my throat.
I could not tell Mason or Shaun what I'd seen. They likely knew about the body. They had probably put it there. I didn't need another secret of theirs to keep. My life was already in the balance enough.
Pushing the image of the body deep down, I bit my quivering lip, and tried not to think about death.
CHAPTER NINE
I've heard that when people are close to death, memories flash before their eyes. While I was waiting to see what fate Shaun and Mason had in store for me, my mind brought up memories of Calvin, who I desperately hoped was on his way to find us.
The first time I went camping with the Versteegs, I was eleven years old and Calvin was thirteen. It was July, and the mountains were a cool relief from the heat of town. Korbie and I were finally old enough to sleep outside alone, and Mr. Versteeg helped us pitch a tent on the deep green lawn behind Idlewilde. He promised to leave the kitchen door unlocked, in case we needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Korbie and I had tubes of lipstick and colorful tubs and pots of blush and eye shadow spread on the tent floor, and we were taking turns giving each other Katy Perry makeovers. When we finished, we were going to film our own music video of "Hot N Cold." Korbie had aspirations of fame, and couldn't wait to get started.
Korbie was applying Candy Apple Red to my mouth when we heard fake ghost noises coming from outside. A beam of light danced erratically through the tent fabric.
"Leave us alone, Calvin!" Korbie yelled.
"Calm down," he said, unzipping the tent and crawling inside. "I'm dropping off the flashlight. Mom said you forgot it."
"Fine," Korbie said, yanking the flashlight out of his hands. "Now get out. Go play with Rohan Larsen," she added in a mocking tone.
Calvin bared his teeth at her like a dog.
"What's wrong with Rohan?" I asked. Korbie had invited me on the camping trip, and Calvin had invited Rohan. I thought Calvin and Rohan were friends.
"My dad made Calvin bring Rohan," Korbie announced with smug superiority, "but Calvin can't stand him."
"My dad likes Rohan because he's good at tennis and he's smart, and his parents are loaded," Calvin explained to me. "He thinks Rohan will rub off on me. He won't even let me choose my own friends. I'm in junior high, and he's arranging playdates for me. It's stupid. He's stupid."
I looked worriedly at Korbie. "Did he make you invite me?" I couldn't stand the thought of Calvin and Korbie snickering at me behind my back.
"He only does stuff like that to Calvin," Korbie assured me.
"Because you're his princess," Calvin said in a dark, loathsome voice. "He doesn't care what you do."
"Get out," Korbie snapped, leaning forward so her face was nose to nose with her brother's.
"Sure I will. But first, you guys know what tonight is, don't you?" Calvin said.
"Friday," I answered.
His eyes glittered. "The thirteenth."
"Friday the thirteenth is a stupid superstition," Korbie said. "Get out before I start screaming. I'll tell
Mom you were trying to look at Britt's underwear. She'll ground you from video games all weekend."
Calvin looked at me and I blushed. I was wearing my old white underwear with holes under the elastic. If he did see them, I would die of embarrassment.
"Britt wouldn't rat on me, would you?" he asked me.
"I'm staying out of this," I muttered.
"If Friday the thirteenth is just superstition, how come hotels don't have a thirteenth floor?" Calvin asked his sister.
"Hotels don't have a thirteenth floor?" Korbie and I echoed at the same time.
"Nope. Too unlucky. That's where the fires, suicides, murders, and kidnappings happened. Finally, people got smart and cut out the thirteenth floor."
"Really?" Korbie asked, wide-eyed.
"Not with a saw, stupid. They relabeled the thirteenth floor. They all became 12A. Anyway, there's a reason you should be scared of Friday the thirteenth. It's when ghosts rise from the grave and deliver messages to the living."
"What kinds of messages?" I asked, feeling the skin at the back of my neck crawl with delight.
"Even if we believe you, which we don't, why are you telling us this?" Korbie demanded.
Calvin reached through the tent door and dragged a blue duffel inside. I could tell by the way the fabric strained that something with sharp angles was zipped inside. "I think we should see if the ghosts have a message for us."
"I'm gonna tell Mom you're trying to scare us on purpose," Korbie said, glancing warily at the duffel before rising to her feet.
Calvin grabbed the sleeve of her pj's and dragged her back down. "If you'd shut up for five seconds, I'd show you something cool. Really cool. Wanna see?"
"I do," I said. I glanced at Korbie and knew I'd said the wrong thing, but I didn't care. I wanted to keep Calvin in the tent as long as possible. His skin was golden brown from spending days at Jackson Lake, and he'd grown almost as tall as his dad. Korbie told me he'd started doing push-ups and sit-ups over the summer, and it showed. He was way better-looking than any of the boys in the fifth grade. He looked like a man.