Page 29 of Dark Roads
He padded over, ignoring the younger puppies, who wanted to play. He lifted his head away from one cheeky boy who was trying to grab his ear, and stepped over another.
When I reached out, he cautiously sniffed the palm of my hand, then sat and looked up at me with his head cocked like he was waiting for me to explain myself.
I offered him a piece of salmon. He delicately tugged it away from my fingers, his eyes watching me carefully while his soft lips grazed my skin. When he took it to the corner to eat, I walked to the barn door. The young dog raised his head and watched me.
“You want to come?” I patted my leg and made a kissing sound.
He didn’t move. His tail didn’t wag, and he didn’t wiggle his body. He just stared, the one blue eye shining. I made more kissing sounds. He lay down with his head on his paws.
“Okay, boy. I can take a hint.”
I watched for trucks and cars on the highway, hid in the ditch as they passed. Another hairpin corner, and I’d reached the long straight stretch before the billboard. I paused on the shoulder of the bridge, where Vaughn had picked me up the night of the lake party. I looked over the edge. The ravine plummeted almost straight down, and a creek ran through the culvert below. The woods were snarled and rocky. There were no trails. One more glance over my shoulder, and I lifted my bike, flung it over the cement barrier, and listened as it bounced down the side of the ravine.
I climbed over the edge, slid down part of the bank on my butt, holding on to roots and outcropping rocks to slow my descent. Rocks sliced my palms, gouged at the soft skin of my arms. At the bottom I found my bike. It was scraped and dented, but still worked. I hid it in the bushes, covered it with branches and debris. I’d come back for it after everything settled.
I pushed my way through the bushes and scrambled over logs and boulders until I reached a small clearing on the edge of the creek. Balanced on a wet rock, I took off my shoes, and tied them by their laces to my backpack. The water numbed my ankles as I began to hike west. My bare foot slipped on a rock, and I lurched to the side, throwing out my arms. Something fell with a splash. I checked my shoes on my backpack. Still attached. I felt my hoodie pocket. My phone! The one Dad bought me for my sixteenth birthday. He’d picked out the case, silver, with stars and moons. My photos were on my iCloud, but that phonemeantsomething.
I shone my flashlight into the creek. I couldn’t see through the current. I ran my hand over the dark rocks, the stones. The water turned my arms to ice up to my elbows.
A vehicle went by on the highway above. I switched off the flashlight, panicked that Vaughn had figured it out, but the truck kept driving, and soon I couldn’t hear it anymore.
I had to keep walking. I moved slowly, while scanning the creek with my flashlight for deep areas and logs that could trip me. The only sound was the soft trickle of the current. I would wade up the creek for a few miles until it joined the river. Then I’d follow the rocky shoreline, and when I reached the logging roads, I’d walk east until I found my dirt bike.
The staged robbery was the last time I’d seen Jonny. We’d stood in the woods, his truck loaded, and we could barely look at one another. We’d never said goodbye before. Not like this. He punched me on the shoulder. I called him a loser. For a moment he looked scared.
“You won’t be at my next race.”
“You’re going to do great.”
“No one else knows when I’m freaking out.”
“You haven’t puked before a race in two years.”
“Who am I going to talk to?” He didn’t mean for the daily stuff—he had a lot of friends. This was about the two sides of Jonny. The one who could take jumps without thinking, and the other one, who was terrified of snakes and bats. Who felt embarrassed when people were kind to him and kept a change of clothes in his truck because he didn’t want anyone to think he was a dirty farmer. The Jonny who’d had his heart broken twice. I’d hated both girls fiercely.
“Whatever. The motocross bunnies are all going to fight for the job.”
“Yeah. Whatever, lame-ass.” He gave me his sideways grin. Back to being cool Jonny.
“Don’t forget. Two weeks.”
We would meet on the mountain at a spot where we had camped with my dad last summer. By then the initial searches should have ended. There might be posters up at the bus station and places like that, but I’d be just another runaway. A statistic. Gone without a trace.
CHAPTER 10
I broke out of the woods onto the gravel and paused to catch my breath. I’d followed animal paths along the river and stuck to areas where the foliage wasn’t as dense, so there was less risk of breaking plants and branches. I’d climbed rocky slopes and crossed clear-cuts thick with dried slash—tree limbs, tops, bark, and brambles tangled among the debris—and I was exhausted, my legs weak from the earlier rush of adrenaline that had come and gone. I took off my hoodie, tied it around my waist. I already felt cooler in just my camo T-shirt and black leggings.
Moonlight lit up the logging road, turning it a ghostly silver. I followed it to the right, walking along the shoulder where the gravel was packed down. The forest was quiet, with only the usual nighttime sounds, the scurrying of mice, the softwhoof an owl, but then: A different sound behind me. Rustling. Cracking branches. Something was traveling through the bushes.
I froze.
I turned slowly, shining my flashlight around the underbrush. It picked up a glint of eyes. A shadow. The shape moved, darted behind a tree. Flash of a tail. A cougar? My heart hammered against my rib cage. No. They stalked their prey. You didn’t hear a cougar until it was too late. A wolf. It could be young and hungry. Desperate. The hair at the back of my neck prickled.
With one hand I removed the knife from my belt, while with my other I shone the flashlight into the woods, moving it back and forth. A noise on the other side of me. I twisted, aimed the light. Nothing. I held my breath. Minutes passed. MaybeI’d scared it off. I began walking again, then stopped when the glowing eyes appeared in the middle of the road directly ahead of me.
I gripped the knife and moved into a fighting stance. “Get out of here!” I wanted to sound big and ferocious, but my voice quavered. Whatwasit? Was it going to attack?
The shape rushed toward me. I screamed. Then I saw the white strip of fur, the floppy ears. I lowered the knife, letting my breath out in a long exhalation.
