Page 21 of Owen

“Hey! In here!” I picked up my flashlight and waved it around. “In here!”

It never occurred to me that this might be someone worth avoiding. He was Scottish, and he seemed to be looking for somebody, and that was good enough for me. How many people could there be on this mountain, anyway?

By the time I fought my way to my feet—my ankle was more swollen than ever—a couple were on the approach. The girl held up her hands in front of her face to block the flashlight’s glare.

The man she was with pushed his way past me when he saw Owen lying in the cave.

“What did you do to him?” he barked. I cringed away from the anger in his voice.

“Nothing! I didn’t do a thing, I swear!”

My God, they were all huge. Massive. What did they do with their free time? Did they just hang out when they weren’t lifting weights and bulking up? It was insane. He ducked into the cave and crouched at Owen’s side.

He sneered over his shoulder. “You didn’t do a thing? Why is he unconscious, then?”

The woman joined him after flashing me an apologetic smile. “Dallas, don’t let it worry you. I doubt this girl could do anything to bring him down this way. It must have been something else.” She touched his forehead, his temples, his cheeks.

I bit my tongue before I could tell the skank to get her hands off him.

It wasn’t my place, and she defended me, which meant she might not be a skank anyway. How funny, though, the way I felt so attached to him. Like he was mine, when nothing could’ve been further from the truth.

“This isn’t the first time it happened, either,” I babbled, watching as they examined him. “The first time was maybe a half-hour ago? I don’t know. But it happened when he reached into my backpack, and then when all he did was touch it. I didn’t wanna believe it at first, but I think something in there is making him sick. He said there was, but I thought he was making it up until it happened the second time.”

The guy who had accused me of hurting Owen reached for the bag, but the woman stopped him. “No, Dallas. Don’t.”

Dallas. What a name. A Scottish thing, I guessed.

“Why not?” he asked, then rose and joined me outside the cave, where I stood on one foot with a hand out to lean against the rocks. “What do you have in here? Something poisonous?”

“Yeah. I carry poisonous materials in my backpack and make sure to strap it to my own, actual back, and maybe poison myself.”

“Look—” he growled, but the woman stepped between us.

“All right. Let’s all calm down.”

And the crazy thing was, when she said it, I did. I calmed down. I could’ve taken a nap right then and there. Every muscle in my body relaxed. I even stopped clenching my jaw.

She turned to me. “Let’s try again. What are you carrying in that bag?”

“Water bottles. Food—jerky and granola bars, whatever is left of them. I had a blanket, but Owen’s using that as a pillow. The flashlight and First Aid kit are out of it now. And then…”

“And then, what?” she asked, eyes narrowing. “What else?”

“I brought something with me. Something old that my dad left me. Sort of as a—this sounds stupid—a good luck charm.”

“That’s not stupid.” She even smiled. “What is it, though?”

“This is ridiculous, is what it is,” Dallas grumbled. “He needs our help.”

I glared at him. “I would like to help him, too, but you keep interrupting.”

“What is it?” the woman asked again. She was a lot more patient than her boyfriend, I had to give her that.

“It’s like a diadem,” I explained, circling my fingers over my head like I was wearing one. “It’s gold, with symbols engraved all around it. I have no idea what the symbols say. And it’s way too valuable for me to be carrying around in the woods, I know, but it was always my favorite artifact, and I sort of felt a connection with it, which also sounds stupid…”

I trailed off when I noticed the two of them staring at me. Open-mouthed.

“What did I say?” I whispered, looking from one to the other. “Did I say something wrong?” I went back over my explanation and couldn’t find anything obvious, but these two didn’t seem like normal people any more than Owen did. Who knew what would offend them?

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