cell phone shines a beam not ten feet in front of me. “Where did you go?”
It’s Shannon; I recognize her singsong voice. “We’ve killed the blunt without you. Hey, what’s going on?”
They don’t answer right away.
“You guys?” The aroma of weed wafts toward me along with her giggle. “And guess what else we’ve killed?”
“Shut the hell up, Shannon!” Josh says in a harsh voice. “And turn that thing off.”
“Why?” But she does snap off the light.
I hear one of the male voices again, and another snorts. “Jeez, she’s annoying. Wish she was higher on the list.”
A couple of males laugh in response to that. I grab the tree trunk, trying—and failing—to take it all in. I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I do know this: I have to find Levi.
No, I have to help Levi and I don’t have a phone.
Josh’s voice echoes in my ears and I back up while I listen to the two groups converging. I slide behind a bush, ducking low and working back the way I came, as silent as possible.
I hear laughter and talking and the normal sounds of a—
A hand clamps over my mouth so hard I jolt like I’ve been burned, and another wraps around my chest, revealing my phone.
If I were the fainting type, I would have.
“Kind of hard to stay in touch when you drop your phone.” Levi’s voice is like sweet, hot caramel all the way down to my soul, making me feel so safe in spite of the way he’s holding me. “We have to climb.”
I shudder, trying to turn to face him.
“We have to hide, Mackenzie. They’re after me.”
I nod, dimly aware of the boys and Shannon talking and messing around about thirty feet away. He’s still covering my mouth but I sense that his hand is more protective than predatory.
“Wait until they’re gone,” he says.
After a few seconds, they continue back to where the girls are, their voices growing distant. I can feel Levi’s heartbeat slamming into my back and tuck deeper into the warmth of his body. I have to tell him about Jarvis, but not now. Not yet.
When we’re alone, he slowly takes his hand off my mouth and I turn, desperately needing to see his face, needing to be completely reassured by his presence, needing to see the confidence and certainty in those jet-black eyes.
I see all that and more, the impact making me wrap my arms around him and take hold. He clutches me back, as if he senses he has to right then. But not for long. Before I even begin to feel secure enough, he pulls us both about ten feet away to a thick tree.
No, not a tree. It’s an old telephone pole, with homemade ladder rungs. He boosts me up without a word and my fingers grab the nearest two-by-four, clinging with all I have. The first few steps are easy, but my arms quickly start to burn.
The sound of a motorized vehicle breaks through the silence of the forest, a loud rumble vibrating the whole pole I’m clinging to.
“Hurry!” he orders, giving my backside another push.
Forget burning. Forget pain or height or the possibility of falling hard. I have to move. Clenching my teeth, I hoist myself higher, straining every muscle as I shift my foot back and forth to find the next rung.
In the distance, I see two blinding lights from a four-wheeler rolling across what must be a dirt path in the woods. And then a single beam, as bright and wide as a klieg light, shoots through the forest just ten or fifteen feet from our pole. And it moves slowly, searching us out.
I hear a girl scream—not bloodcurdling, but playful. I think. I hope.
And I finally feel the thick wooden platform. It juts out over my head, so I’ll actually have to bow my back, reach for it, and swing up to the top.
“You can do it,” Levi whispers. “Once we’re up there, we’re safe.”
Not exactly, but safer. Bending backward, I close my fingers over the wood. I can do this, I say to myself. I have to do this.
The spotlight crosses over the base of our pole. That’s all I need to grab and swing and heave myself up to the platform, rolling onto the wood toward the center. Before I so much as sit up, Levi follows, rolling right into me.
“Stay low,” he orders. “Flat as you can.”
We both smash ourselves onto the wood, side by side, our ragged