“Are you okay?”Tean asked.
Another shot answered.
Jem flinched and gripped Tean’s shoulder.“Be quiet,” Jem whispered.“You don’t want to tell them where we are.”
“They know where we are.”
“Just be quiet.”
Tean opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Jem said, “Hold on a second.”He counted to ten in his head, trying to come up with a better idea.But then he growled, “God damnit.”Giving Tean another push to emphasize the impliedstay herepart, he started to wriggle up the slope.
His jacket and shirt rode up.Weeds scratched bare skin.The rough edges of rocks jabbed him.He was breathing fast, taking in small puffs of dirt that rose as he scrabbled up through the scree.It coated his tongue, clumped there.
Where were these fuckers?He had no idea; that was the problem.If they had the right angle, they’d be able to see right down the slope where he and Tean had fallen.They could be lining up a shot right then.
But if that was the case, why hadn’t they already taken the shot?
That kind of thinking, Jem knew from firsthand experience, was how a lot of smart people ended up doing some really stupid things.
Before he could decide if it was a terrible idea, he got out his phone.With the back of the phone pressed against the ground, and his body blocking the screen, Jem fumbled the flashlight on.He squeezed his eyes shut, counted to thirty, and threw the phone up and to the right.
His eyes snapped open.
A shot rang out, and Jem grabbed Tean and launched himself up.
Loose stones spun out beneath their feet, and then the sound of their steps changed to a drumbeat against the packed earth.Stalks of winterkill whispered against their legs.The weak light from his phone, behind them now, didn’t reach this far, and the gully ahead of them lay in deep shadow, with only a suggestion of details: the creek bed with white rocks like broken bones; the black snake of the path in the grass.The spread of pine branches against the sky.
The tree that had fallen across the gully seemed to shimmer with ambient light.Tean started to turn toward a stone to climb across, but Jem yanked him in the opposite direction.
Another shot rang out.
Bark exploded—sensed more than seen, the faint patter as it hit the ground.
A flat-topped rock offered another perch, and Jem hustled Tean up it.Tean jumped, landed on his belly, and dragged himself across.Jem followed a moment later.The sharp ends of broken-off branches stabbed him through his jeans and his jacket, but he barely felt them as he slithered forward off the far side.
The tree trembled, as though someone had slapped it, and at almost the exact same time, a clap of gunshot broke the stillness.
Tean was holding his glasses with one hand, eyes wide, but he still had the self-control Jem remembered.He turned, ready to start running again, but Jem pulled him down.They crouched behind the gnarled trunk.Jem gasped for air, and Tean was breathing hard, but a minute passed, and then another.
“Why are we waiting?”Tean whispered.
“Because I don’t know where he is,” Jem said.“So, I don’t know if he can shoot us once we start moving.”
Tean made a face.He pulled out his phone and grimaced at the display, then turned it toward Jem.No service.
Jem nodded.He cast a look back and forth along the trunk of the tree.
Tean touched his arm and pointed farther up the slope, toward what had once been the top of the tree.Branches, broken off when the tree had fallen, still held dry leaves.
“Spiders,” Jem muttered.“And probably snakes.”
Tean squeezed his hand, and they started to crawl.
23
They passed a long night in their makeshift shelter.A long, cold night.
Not as bad as things could have been, of course.There had been enough branches to assemble a rudimentary lean-to, and Tean and Jem had been dressed for the cold.Not, perhaps, dressed to spend the night outdoors.But although there was no way to pretend the experience had been comfortable, their little shelter had trapped enough heat that they’d never been in danger.