Page 77 of The Ripple Effect

“You good, Petra?” Lyle asks slowly.

“Fine. Great. We just miss our instructors, and it’s our last night.”

She’s talking too loudly. There’s something she doesn’t want us to hear. Something she wants me to agree to ignore.

For a second, I want to hold on to the illusion she’s offering, the one I’m horribly sure I’ve been falling for all along.

I lean toward the tent, listening. There’s a slow, low-pitched sound from the inside, like the rumble of a zipper someone’s trying to open very, very quietly, one tooth at a time.

I reach for the zipper pull, knowing I have to be fast.

“No, wait! Stellar, don’t—”

I open the front of our tent, throwing the flaps wide. Halfway out the back door, Trevor freezes, Lyle’s field notes in one hand, his cell phone in the other. Trevor’s texting app is open, the name “Alan Fisher” visible. He’s sent a batch of photos, the top one a bright rectangle of white covered with Lyle’s apple-shaped vowels and arrowing capital letters.

All I can think isIt’s happening again.

Chapter Twenty-two

For a long frozen moment we stand there, Trevor halfway out the back door of the tent, the rest of us clustered at the front. Behind me, Lyle’s harsh breathing makes a jagged, uneven backbeat with Petra’s frightened sobs.

I want to believe Trevor’s not holding Lyle’s field journal and a phone full of stolen images, but every time I look, reality stays the same.

The spell breaks, everything going from zero to free fall in the space of a skipped heartbeat. Lyle steps forward; Trevor stumbles back, tripping over the fabric threshold and landing hard on his ass. He struggles to his feet, eyes darting toward where the Mystery Machine sits waiting, keys in their well-known hiding spot under the sun visor. Nothing’s a secret at this camp anymore, it seems.

“I can explain! Please let me explain,” Petra cries over and over.

Lyle doesn’t miss Trevor’s tell. He puts his body between Trevor and the parking area with two long steps. His shoulders are tight, elbows cocked, hands open; he moves with an easygrace that reminds me of the way he paddles his canoe, except tonight his economy of motion is less beauty, more beast.

“I believe you have something of mine.” Lyle’s expression—calm spread over fury in a too-thin layer—might have been what his high school bully saw before he turned to run, the way Trevor’s running with Lyle’s journal now.

I should be angry, but I can’t summon a single spark. I should at least be afraid—not of Lyle; he might’ve developed a bark, but he’ll never bite. Regardless, the situation is escalating so fast, a tipping point can’t be far off. I should be worried about that. I should be furious that Trevor and Petra—if those are their real names, considering how often Petra blanked on hers—came here to steal from us and succeeded. I should be terrified to lose the work I managed to fall in love with despite my best intentions not to.

Instead, I feel a strange relief. Everyone will finally see what I saw. It wasn’t paranoia after all.

I follow Trevor’s clumsy retreat and Lyle’s relentless advance. I can think of exactly one way to work this problem, and if that doesn’t solve things, then I don’t know what to do.

“Let it go, Lyle. Don’t chase him.”

Trevor and Petra already got what they came for, and we can’t get it back. Everything we worked on this session, everything Lyle researched and reflected on and painstakingly handwrote—it’s digitalized now, soaring into the ether. Already on Fisher’s phone, probably. Lyle’s field notes are lost in every way that matters.

Trevor turns toward the firepit, his pace picking up. “Don’t touch me, you fucking maniac,” he shouts. An uneasy murmur rises as the guests come to their feet, Babe rousing herself from her adoring slump against Sloane’s leg.

“Those aremynotes.” Lyle’s voice is so, so quiet. It’s hisbody that shouts—the tight, controlled cadence of his steps, the bunching readiness in his thighs, the fisted hands and clenched shoulders.

All Lyle’s doing is keeping pace with Trevor’s retreat. But someone who wasn’t at the tent might see Lyle driving Trevor toward the lake, setting him back on his heels.

“Trevor. Put the book down and step away.” I hope I sound like I’m trying to help him, not trying to defuse an unstable Lyle.

“Hey, hey.” Lori steps forward. “There’s no need—”

“Don’t get between them, love,” Mitch says, low-voiced, her hand coming to Lori’s elbow.

“Stellar?” Sloane asks, layers of uncertainty coloring her tone. Babe growls, tail between her legs.

My brain chugs and clunks, unable to work the problem. My heart is iced over and useless.

Anger was my best defense. It kept me nimble, fed me ideas, pushed me to keep trying. It kept me safe in moments like this, and now I don’t have it.

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