the flashlight app, and I shine it inside. The backpack is almost directly in front of me but at least six feet away. “It’s there. I’m going in,” I say, taking a deep breath. I don’t dislike closed spaces as much as heights, but I’m not a fan either. As soon as my head is inside the crawl space, though, I can tell the rest of me won’t fit. Nobody would ever call my shoulders broad, but they still won’t make it through. I reverse course and sit on my haunches next to the opening.
“Maybe we should tell everybody to leave,” I say, wiping my chin against my shoulder. My face is a gross combination of sticky and gritty from just a few seconds in the crawl space. “Something bad is in that backpack, or he wouldn’t have put it there.”
Maeve drops to her knees beside me. “Let me try.” She ducks her head through the opening, twisting her body so her shoulders are at a right angle. She’s a lot narrower than I am and manages to slide the rest of the way through. The backpack emerges soon after, shoved out of the crawl space by Maeve’s dirt-streaked hands. She follows, forcing her shoulders through with a painful grimace as I lift the backpack by one strap. It’s a faded tan color, ripped along one side and heavy. I tug at the zipper and shine Maeve’s phone inside.
Maeve coughs and brushes a cobweb from her hair. She’s covered in dirt, and her right arm is bleeding from a long, jagged scrape. “What’s in there?”
“Something round and metal,” I report. “It has a lot of wires and…switches, or something.” Alarm starts coursing through my veins, making me sweat. God, I wish I’d paid more attention to my father when he used to explain how stuff works. “I can’t be sure, but this looks a lot like somebody’s idea of a homemade bomb.” My voice cracks on the last word.
Maeve’s eyes get wide and scared. “What do we do?”
I’m frozen, indecisive. I want this to be somebody else’s problem. I want Eli to check his damn phone. He’s up there somewhere, and if I yell loud enough I could probably get his attention. But I don’t know how much time we have.
“We have to get rid of it,” I say, scanning the area. We’re in luck, sort of, because the space behind Talia’s is nothing but grass until you get to a bike path a hundred yards away. Tall bushes line the back of the path, and if I have my geography right, the Bayview Arboretum is right behind them. Which closes at six, so it has to be deserted this time of night.
I sprint for the bike path, Maeve right behind me. That’s not what I intended—I thought she’d stay by the deck, but there’s no time to argue. I’ve never run so fast in my life, and it still feels like it takes me forever to reach the edge of the path. When I get there, I pause for a few seconds, panting. Is this far enough? I really hope so, because I’m afraid of hanging on to this thing much longer, especially with Maeve next to me.
I hold my arm out to one side, the backpack dangling from my hand like I’m getting ready for a discus throw. “I wish Cooper were here,” I mutter. Then I take a deep breath, twist my body halfway with my arm fully extended, and hurl the backpack as hard as I can over the bushes lining the edge of the arboretum. I watch it sail into blackness and I grab Maeve’s hand. “Okay, let’s get out of here and get help.”
We’re about to turn and run when a faint, familiar voice floats out from behind the bushes, stopping us in our tracks. “The fuck was that?” someone says.
My heart thuds to a stop, then drops to my shoes. Maeve freezes, her eyes as round as saucers. “Nate?” she breathes, and then she lifts her voice in a piercing scream. “Nate, run! This is Maeve. That was a backpack with a bomb inside, from someone who’s been threatening Eli. You have to run toward the restaurant, now!”
We hear a loud rustling sound, and I tug at Maeve’s hand. “We have to run too. I don’t know how much time—”
“Maeve?” comes a girl’s voice.
Maeve gasps and screams again, loud and panicked. “Bronwyn?”
Jesus Christ. Nate and Bronwyn picked the worst time possible