The Calling (Darkness Rising) (9 page)

“I—” I swallowed. “I—”

Daniel took both my wrists and turned me to face him. “You were sleepwalking, Maya.”

“It just… I could hear Rafe and he was hurt and I was trying to get to him and—” My breath hitched. “It seemed real.”

Daniel pulled me into a hug and I let myself collapse against his shoulder. I kept thinking about how real it had seemed and how I’d never sleepwalked before and…

And what if I hadn’t been sleepwalking? What if I’d been having a vision?

Not that Rafe would really be calling for me. As that cold dawn light hit, I realized how silly it seemed, Rafe just lying there, yelling for me. If he could move, he’d be moving.

But if it had been a vision, that could mean Rafe really was out there. Really hurt. Really trying to find me.

I pulled away from Daniel and turned to Sam.

“Do you know where Rafe fell?” I asked. “Where the helicopter was?”

Her lips parted as if to ask why. Then she gave a soft, “Oh.”

“I don’t mean exactly,” I said. “Obviously, you can’t tell that. But do you have any idea? We were over the island, right? To the south of here? West? Southwest? Did you notice any landmarks?”

“Maya…” Daniel said.

I turned to meet his gaze. “I know I was sleepwalking, but it might have meant something.” I lowered my voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “A vision. Like the one I had with the marten.” I’d had a vision of one of my recuperating animals, telling me how it had been injured.

“That wasn’t—”

Daniel stopped himself. I knew he’d been about to say that it wasn’t the same. He was right. It wasn’t. But when he saw my expression, he couldn’t finish, and when I saw his, I wished I hadn’t said anything.

He looked as if he was in pain. Real pain. Wanting to give me hope. Knowing he couldn’t, and that it wasn’t right to try, wasn’t fair.

“We were too high,” Corey said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “He…”

“He couldn’t have survived,” Sam finished.

A normal person couldn’t have survived. But Rafe was a skin-walker. Part cat.

When I looked at Daniel, though, I knew I couldn’t say that. The more I clung to impossible hopes, the more I hurt him.

And we
had
been too high. I could argue and bluster and tell myself maybe, just maybe he’d survived, but I knew better.

Rafe was dead and if I was dreaming of him, that was my guilt talking. He was dead and I felt responsible.

“I—I’m sorry,” I said. “Just… I need to sit down.”

Daniel took a tentative step toward me.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Just give me a minute on my own. Then we’ll go.”

I found a quiet spot where I could sit on a log and recover. Kenjii followed and sat with her head on my lap, dark eyes troubled.

A few minutes later, I heard someone looking for me, and I knew it wouldn’t be Daniel. If I said I needed to be alone, he’d give me that space. When Hayley stepped around a tree, I stood.

“Sorry,” I said. “You guys want to get going, right?”

She shook her head and came to sit beside me on the log. I hesitated, then lowered myself to it again.

“I think we should try to find Rafe,” she said.

I took a deep breath. “I know he didn’t make it.”

“But you’ll feel better if we look. We might as well go in the direction the helicopter came from. Just in case.”

She had a point. We had to walk. Why not walk that way?

I shook my head. “If we’re going back for anyone, it should be Nicole. If there’s a chance she’s alive—”

“There isn’t. Not from what I saw. And if she did survive, that means they want her alive, which means she’s safe enough for now. I think we should try to find Rafe.”

I turned to her. “I know you liked him. Everyone’s focusing on me, but you lost him, too.”

“No, I didn’t. He was yours.”

“He didn’t belong to any—”

“I only started flirting with him to make Corey jealous. Then I guess I did kind of fall for him. But the guy I was crushing on wasn’t Rafe Martinez. Not the real one, anyway. I get that now. He was showing me someone else. He was showing us all someone else. Everyone except you.”

“That’s not—”

“Corey told me what Rafe did on the helicopter. How he let go so he wouldn’t pull you and Daniel out. The Rafe I knew wouldn’t have done that. Wouldn’t even have thought of it.”

“He didn’t mean to trick you,” I said. “He was looking for something in Salmon Creek. Something he really needed to find, to help his sister. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

He didn’t mean to hurt anyone
. Not Hayley and the other girls he’d chased and cut loose. Not me, the one he’d finally caught, only to admit he’d pursued me for a reason.

I understood that now. I wished I could have understood it then. I wished I could have said something in that last moment, before he let go.

He’d told me it was okay. His last words to me.

Why couldn’t they have been my last words to him?

I
T WASN’T EASY SETTING
out again. We were tired and aching from sleeping on the cold ground. Even Sam complained. Everyone’s jeans were still damp. My sneakers squirted water with every step from sleepwalking into the creek. The clothing that had dried stunk of mildew and felt stiff and scratchy. And we were hungry. I took them back to the creek for washing and drinking. It would keep us alive until we found food. We drank enough to fill our stomachs temporarily, and we headed out.

Once we were walking, I started feeling more myself. I seemed to be establishing a pattern here. Muster my strength and charge forward. Collapse in a puddle of grief and guilt. Charge forward. Collapse again.

I said as much to Daniel and the others chimed in, making mock bets on who would spend the most time in therapy after this, and whether we could get group discounts. The joking was strained, though, and the more we walked, the less we talked.

Eventually we were tramping through the forest in silence. That didn’t really help, because the quiet meant every time we startled an animal and it took off, brush crackling, Corey or Hayley or Sam—sometimes all three—would jump and spin around, their backs to ours, like bison fending off a pack of wolves.

“It’s a rabbit,” I’d say.

“It’s a grouse,” Daniel would say.

We’d both add, “If anything bigger comes near, Kenjii will let us know.”

But it didn’t help. For our friends, the forest—with its sun-dappled groves and majestic, soaring redwoods—was no less terrifying in daylight that it had been last night.

We’d camped near the base of the mountain. Whether it actually qualified as a mountain, I had no idea. But it was tall and it was wide, and it was on our way—which explained why we hadn’t been able to see any lights—so I thought of it as “the mountain.” Seeing it had come as a relief to all, the thought that we might get to the top, look down, and see civilization. Or it did come as a relief, until we realized how long a hike it would be—all of it uphill.

Still, it was our best option. We just needed to go up the side. Which would be fine, if we’d had anything to eat. And if Corey had miraculously healed overnight. He was doing better, but it was a tough haul for him. For all of us.

One good thing about the mountain? It gave us a reference point. If everything was quiet, I could still pick up the distant crash of waves to my left, but the mountain was an even better compass point to keep us going in the right direction.

We slogged uphill for at least two hours. I was guessing at the time. My watch had survived the first dunk after the helicopter crash but not the second one, when I’d been pulled right under. Daniel’s still worked and I think Corey’s did, too, but no one was asking them for the time—no one cared.

When I heard the burble of a stream, I picked my way through a patch of bramble to get to it. Hayley was right behind me, fighting through the branches instead of ducking them. Sam got poked in the eye. When she cursed, Hayley jumped and slipped on a muddy patch. Corey ripped his shirt on thorns helping her up. All three complained, loudly and bitterly.

“We need more water,” Daniel said. “Which means you need to get to it, because we can’t bring it back for you.”

“Well, maybe if Hayley was more careful,” Sam said. “Not letting the branches fling back.”

“Well, maybe if you weren’t walking right behind me,” Hayley said. “Why do we need water anyway? We drank before we set out.”

“We need to drink from every stream I can find,” I said. “As I’ve said, dehydration is the biggest risk we face out here.”

“Okay,” Corey said. “But could you find a path without mud and thorns?”

“I’ll make sure the next one’s paved.”

Daniel leaned toward me as we walked. “I bet if we bolted, we could lose them in ten seconds.”

“Don’t tempt me,” I muttered.

He grinned and put out his hand to help me over a muddy patch. I crossed, then called back a warning to the others. Daniel seconded the warning and pointed out the mud. Hayley still slid and fell.

At the stream—a little cascade splashing over a rock ledge—we got a drink. As we were leaving, Hayley said, “I can’t do this,” dropped, pulled up her knees, and buried her face against her legs.

“I’m sorry, guys,” she said, her voice tight. “I just can’t. I’m cold and I’m tired and I’m hungry.”

I crouched beside her. “I know you’re uncomfortable, but we’re okay. Our clothing is dry now and it’s not cold enough for hypothermia. We can survive without food as long as we don’t dehydrate—”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Corey snapped. “We’re tired and hungry, and you blather on about hypothermia and dehydration—”

“Hey!” Daniel bore down on Corey. “She keeps talking about hypothermia and dehydration because you guys won’t shut up about being cold and hungry.”

“Well, maybe we don’t need to hear how this isn’t going to kill us,” Corey said. “Maybe we need more than a pep talk.”

“Like what? Sympathy? Right. Because that’s going to get us out of these woods. Maybe you can show a little sympathy yourself under the circumstances and—”

“Enough,” I said. “You’re right, Corey. I’m sorry. I know your knee is hurting. I know everyone’s cold. I know everyone’s tired. I know everyone’s hungry. I know everyone’s worrying about their parents and what’s going on back in Salmon Creek. And we’re thinking about Nic and Rafe and—”

Oh God. My parents. Nicole. Rafe.

I tried to finish, but I couldn’t remember what I’d been saying, and I just stood there with everyone staring at me. Then Daniel was beside me, rubbing away the goose bumps on my arms and Corey was hobbling over, looking like a kicked puppy. He put an arm around my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Hayley echoed him, on her feet again, standing there awkwardly.

I wiped my eyes, and gave Corey a quick embrace before nudging him back. “I should look at your knee.”

“Nah, it’s—”

“I should check it.” I glanced up at him. “Please.”

He nodded, and limped to a boulder to sit.