twenty-six

“My ride’s over here.”

We’ve been walking along a dirt road, bordered on both sides by forest, with the occasional clearing for a house. After a mile or so, Jude cuts into the woods. There, hidden in a thicket, is an old motorcycle. And by old I don’t mean vintage. I mean old, and that’s coming from someone who lives in a town where decade-old cars are sold “like new.”

He wheels the bike from the forest, and as it jostles over the rough terrain, I wonder if I should follow behind, to catch any falling parts.

“You really are taking this vow of poverty thing seriously, aren’t you?” I say.

He inhales, his back to me. Then, slowly and deliberately, he knocks out the kickstand.

“Let’s get this over with,” he says. “Leaving home before I graduated meant getting rid of my credit cards. I live in Louisville, with three other guys, where I take the couch. I work two jobs—as a stock boy and a dishwasher. I’m not trying to be the rich kid who proves he can rough it. I do all that because I need to use an assumed name, which means everything on a cash-only basis.”

He shifts his weight, leaning against the bike. “I understand that, to you, my choices seem obnoxious. You’re from a place where poverty is a real thing, not something you play at when you’re pissed with your parents. I’m not asking for your understanding, Winter. I’m sure as hell not asking for your approval. I’m working through some shit, but right now, all that matters is finding my brother. So if you have something to say to me, say it.”

I’m quiet. Then I say, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not asking for that, either,” he says as he wheels the bike to the road.

At the road, Jude tries to give me the helmet. When I refuse, he seems annoyed but doesn’t argue, just gets on and waits while I do the same.

The cell phone’s last known coordinates are in the forest. Jude slows the bike to creep along a mile of road alongside the coordinates, up one side and down the other, both of us scouring the dirt shoulder for signs of a struggle. We’re hoping to see those signs, meaning Lennon’s captor hauled him into the forest from here and we’re within walking distance of wherever he took Lennon, possibly wherever he’s also holding Edie. We find nothing. Knowing how meticulous this guy is, that doesn’t mean this isn’t the spot. He’s just not leaving us any clues. Yet he left some for Lennon to find. And he was waiting for Lennon to show up. What does that mean? I’m not sure yet.

We leave the bike and walk deeper into the forest, Jude tracking the coordinates with an app, and I say, “Does Lennon’s car have one of those tracker things?”

“Hmm? Oh, LoJack. Yeah. Roscoe says it’s in a parking lot back in Lexington. Roscoe wants to bring it home before our parents find out, but I asked him to leave it. It’s evidence. Obviously whoever took him put the car there.”

“What does Roscoe think of all this?”

Jude goes quiet for a moment. Then he says, as if reluctantly, “He thinks I’m overreacting. I’ve…been known to do that when it comes to Lennon. Roscoe’s been with us for years, and he’s always taken…well, he’s tried to take a role in our lives, with our father gone a lot.”

“Be a father figure?”

“More like a much older brother. Baseball games when we were kids. Concerts when we hit our teens. He’s always wanted to be the guy who realizes how old we are, not treating us like kids. Which means things like giving us our space. Or sending us porn links.”

I smile. “Were they good porn links?”

He snorts. “I have no idea. Even if I was interested, I don’t really want to know what his idea of good porn would be. Seriously awkward. As for Lennon’s disappearance, Roscoe thinks my brother’s just being a typical seventeen-year-old guy, off getting into the kind of trouble our parents wouldn’t approve of. Roscoe is just helping because I’m worried.”

We continue on. I don’t like being in the forest. For years this has been my domain, and now I feel like that’s been stolen from me, as I jump at every noise.

We’re about a mile in when Jude says we’ve reached the right area. We start searching for a structure of some sort. That’s what we’re hoping to find: the place where Edie is being held and possibly Lennon, too. When we don’t see so much as a hunting blind, we turn our attention to the ground, searching for the phone itself.

“Is it even likely we’ll find it?” I say after about thirty minutes. “We only know that it was here the last time it had service.”

“Yeah,” Jude says, but he keeps searching and so do I. It’s not as if I have better things to do on a Saturday night.

We’ve been at it an hour when Jude’s arm swings out, catching me across the chest. I’ve got my gaze on the ground and stumble with a curse.

“Shhh,” he says.

I think of pointing out that if he wants silence, he shouldn’t accidentally whack me. Then I see his gaze fixed on something and realize it wasn’t an accident. He’s stopped, and there, in the distance, a dark shadow is bent behind a log.

A moving shadow.

Jude grips my arm and backs me up. I peel off his fingers, sidestep to a tree fall, and hunker down behind it. He crouches beside me.

I see that figure and my heart slams against my ribs. It’s the man who killed the dogs. He’s followed us again, and I kept telling myself I was overreacting by jumping at every noise, but I wasn’t, was I? He’s right there.

The head dips down. Comes up again. Dips down.

Is he peering out from behind the log? He’s not nearly as well hidden as he seems to think he is.

A sound comes. A snuffling grunt that has me squinting for a better view.

The head dips again. I change position, ignoring Jude’s grab to keep me close. I edge out.

I creep back to Jude and whisper, “It’s a black bear.”

“What’s it doing?”

That’s the question, and when the answer comes, I push it away. I don’t want it. I really, really don’t want it.

I focus on that faint snuffling sound, hoping to prove myself wrong. I hear the snuffle. The grunt. Then a wet, tearing sound I know only too well.

My stomach lurches.

“Winter?”

“It’s eating,” I say.

“Grubs from that log?”

I don’t answer.

“Winter?”

“It—it could be grubs.”

He goes quiet for a moment. “Bears are omnivores, which means they do eat meat. They hunt and they scavenge.”

I nod.

“But Lennon lost his—”

He stops himself. I know what he wants to say. That Lennon lost his phone before I met him, and the last signal is days old. Yet that doesn’t mean Lennon didn’t return to this spot to find his phone and possibly clues about his capture.

“Tell me how to scare it off,” he says.

“That’s dangerous. You can’t—”

“I will.”

I shake my head. “If we need to, yes. But we only have to check…” I swallow. “To see what it has. If it charges, make yourself big and noisy.”

“Then you’re staying beside me. I’m the bigger one. And the noisier one.”

I’m not sure about the last, but I agree. I circle us around, staying downwind as I make a wide arc to see what’s on the other side of that fallen log. When I spot the bloodied brown flank of a deer, I let out a sigh deep enough that the bear raises its head…and looks straight at me.

Jude pulls himself up, shoulders squaring. He inhales, mouth opening to shout, but I cut him off with a whispered “Wait.”

The bear rises on its hind legs. It samples the air, thick snout quivering. It’s a sow, shorter than me, lighter than Jude, which doesn’t make it anywhere near harmless, not with those claws and teeth, both on exhibition as it waves its forepaws and pulls back its lips in a snarl.

“It’s a warning display,” I whisper. “Just wait.”

The bear drops to all fours. It glances down at the deer it was scavenging, and then back at us. Trying to decide whether we threaten its meal. When it rises in another display, Jude rocks, ready to shout.

“Step back,” I whisper.

He eyes the bear. Tension strums from him, the part that doesn’t want to back down warring with the part that knows he should. When I move away, he does the same, grudgingly.

The bear snorts. Its head bobs as if in satisfaction.

Yes, puny humans, get away while you still can.

It lowers its head to the deer again. I retreat one more step, just to be sure.

A twig cracks to our left. I spin to see a blur of motion through the trees. Jude lunges. I go to grab him, only to realize at the last second that he’s lunging at me. He tackles me to the ground. I go down easily, caught off guard, and he drops over me, on all fours, his gaze fixed on that blur through the trees.

The bear snarls.

Jude goes to leap up, but I grab him by the shirtfront. I hold him there, over me, and we stay poised, straining to listen. The bear grunts. Then that snuffling and ripping comes again.

Both our gazes swing up over our heads, in the direction of that blur of motion.

We see and hear nothing, but we stay completely still and listening. Then I notice I’ve still got my hand wrapped in his shirtfront. I release it and motion for him to rise. He does, slowly, and moves into a crouch. I sit.

“Clear?” I whisper as he lifts up enough to look.

He nods.

“What did you see?” I whisper.

“A blur.”

“Ditto.”

He backs onto his haunches. “You okay?”

I rub my shoulder. “You played football, I’m guessing from that tackle.”

“Just one season. Not my thing.” He asks again, “You okay?” and I nod. I’m about to rise when a sliver of late afternoon sunlight reflects off something in the undergrowth. I motion for him to cover me and crawl over to find a cell phone almost hidden under a patch of Christmas ferns. Jude takes it and hits the power button. Waits. Hits another button.

“Dead,” he whispers.

“But it’s his?”

He peels the lime-green case off and shows me the back of the phone, bearing a sticker that says LENNON IS WAY MORE AWESOME THAN JUDE.

“Old joke.” He puts the cover back on. “I got my first phone inscribed with ‘Jude is awesome.’ Lennon couldn’t fit his response in an inscription, so he printed a sticker. In my defense, I was ten, and with my next phone, I skipped the engraving.”

“But Lennon kept getting stickers.”

“Yeah. My brother…” An eye roll. Then his gaze shifts toward the bear, still eating. “We should go.”

I nod and we creep past the bear. We’re clear when I hear a sound off to my left, something like a chuckle. When I ask Jude, though, he’s heard nothing, and the forest is silent. I give one last, slow look around and then pick up my pace as we head for the bike.