49. Luna

49

"Are you sure this is right?" I asked Kacie.

"GPS says it is."

"Then why is there a gate across the road?"

This should have been easy. It turned out we were in Utah, which I didn't know much about, but Mom said it was full of mountains and Mormons. There were plenty of trees too. Huge branches met overhead, leaving us in a gloomy tunnel as we inched along what the map called a road and I called a nightmare. Man, this sucked. Where was the blacktop? There was just mud and gravel. GPS said the nearest town was Panguitch, and theoretically, all I had to do was steer there without hitting anything and then convince someone to lend us a phone. So far, we'd been trundling along for over an hour, probably closer to two, and I'd mostly managed the first part. I mean, I hadn't hit anything big, just a few rocks and one tiny tree. But now the road got smaller and smaller and narrower and narrower until it stopped altogether. A shabby wooden sign told us we'd reached the Green Gulch Silver Mine.

"This isn't on the map," Kacie said. "I swear this isn't on the map. There's no gate. The road goes around that hill and carries on."

"You think we should try going in?"

Kacie leaned forward in her seat. "The little sign underneath the big one says ‘No entry, trespassers will be shot.'"

Boy, that was comforting.

"If there's someone around to shoot at us, then maybe they'll have a phone?"

"Ha-ha, very funny." Kacie's eyes widened. "Wait, you are joking, aren't you?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Yes, go back the way we came because the GPS is fritzed and this is sure as hell the wrong direction."

"How? How can we go back? I never learned to reverse properly. Like, I only went in a straight line."

Well, straight-ish.

"Uh…" Kacie twisted in her seat to look behind us. Rocky was quite happy, panting as he checked out the scenery. Occasionally, he yipped when he saw a squirrel. This was all one big adventure to him. "I don't think reversing is that hard. If you back up into that bush, we could turn around and go forward to the last intersection."

"Intersection? It wasn't an intersection. It was, like, undergrowth with a gap in it. And what if I scratch the car?"

"You scratched it already."

"What if I scratch it more?"

"I don't think it'll matter. If we don't send an ambulance for Mark, he'll die, and if he lives, he'll forgive you. You're his queen." Kacie giggled.

"Don't. Just don't. And I didn't even get a crown."

"Oh, he has a crown; he just didn't give it to you yet."

Sheesh. "Hopefully, the doctors will put him on the right meds when he gets to the hospital. All that Mark Antony stuff… He's cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs."

I moved the gear selector to reverse, pressed the gas pedal, and backed into a tree.

"Shit." That happened faster than I thought.

"At least the dents match front and rear now," Kacie said. "Uh, try turning the wheel next time."

"Thanks for that gem of advice. I'd never have thought of it myself."

Thirty seconds later, as I crunched slowly into a different bush, the back of the SUV sank downward, the front rose skyward, and my stomach lurched along with it. What the heck? I shoved the door open and peered out. Dammit! Where had that freaking hole come from?

"I hate driving! I'd rather walk everywhere."

Kacie peered out at the ground four feet beneath us. "Well, now we don't have much choice."

"At least you're not wearing a stupid dress."

"I wish we had sneakers."

Me too. How could I make it the rest of the way to Panguitch? My stupid leather sandals pinched my feet, and I'd been up the whole night searching for a freaking key. All I wanted to do was curl up in a comfortable bed and sleep for a month. And I was hungry. We'd brought snacks for the ride—potato chips, olives, chocolate—but we'd both skipped breakfast. How long would two litres of water last?

"Do you think there are bears here?" Kacie asked, squinting into the trees, and crap, I'd almost forgotten about the bears.

"How should I know? Do I look like a wildlife expert?" I sighed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap." Think, Luna. Think. The reason we knew there were bears at the log mansion was that hunters kept shooting at them. Bang, bang, bang, bang. I didn't hear any gunfire around here. Did that mean we were safe from being eaten alive? "Let's cut through this gulch thing. I'm not walking around in the mountains getting lost all day."

"I don't want to get shot."

"There's nobody here. Look, see the way the grass is growing through the gate? They just put that sign up to scare people."

"Are mines even safe?"

"We're not going in the actual mine, dumbass. And there might be a radio somewhere. When you watch the movies, there's always a shack with a radio in the middle of nowhere."

"I'm not sure…"

"Okay, you stay here, and I'll go on my own. C'mon, Rocky."

My loyal dog trotted after me, tail wagging. He hadn't had a proper walk for ages, so for him, this was the best day ever. I shouldered open one sagging gate, and I hadn't gone fifty yards when Kacie ran to catch up, just as I'd known she would. This was definitely the best way to go.

The ground was rutted underfoot, and to my left, the rusted rails of an old track led to a yawning black hole in the side of the mountain. Definitely wasn't going in there. I watched horror movies too, and that was where the monsters lived. Even Rocky tucked in behind me as we got closer. Bad vibes. There could be dead bodies in there. Or worse, live ones. Did bears really live in caves, or was that another lie cartoons had told to me?

"Is that a building?" Kacie asked.

"Where?"

"Over there, by the trees."

There were trees everywhere, but I followed where she was pointing. A squat wooden hut stood half-hidden among spindly pines, the sides rotting away and the roof decidedly wonky.

"I'm eighty percent sure there won't be a radio in there."

"Even if there is, I doubt it'll work."

"Agreed, but there might be a bathroom."

That third cup of coffee I'd poured down my throat before we left the log prison? I had regrets.

"If there is a bathroom, it's probably a hole in the ground," Kacie said.

"As long as there's a door and no spiders, I'm good with that."

Over these past few months, I'd come to learn that "good" was relative. At least there weren't any strangers with cameraphones in this godforsaken corner of Utah. One time at a festival, I'd been desperate enough to try peeing alfresco, and long story short, I discovered there was one exception to Mom's "no publicity is bad publicity" rule. She ended up paying some little ratbag ten thousand bucks to delete the pictures.

"Oh, there'll definitely be spiders. Do you need tissues? I brought tissues."

I stuck my head in through the doorway and quickly regretted it.

"Yeuch."

"What?" Kacie asked.

"It stinks in there. I think something died."

"Like a person?"

"More like an animal. There are bones and fur on the floor."

"That's gross."

As well as the carcass, the hut contained a battered wooden table; two chairs, one of which had a leg missing; and a rusty metal contraption that could have been mining equipment or a torture device. There was no bathroom, not even a primitive one, and Kacie was right about the spiders. My bladder was ready to burst. In one more indignity, I now had to pee in a freaking bush. Go into showbiz, they said. It'll be wall-to-wall glitz and glamour, they said.

Liars, all of them.

I grabbed the package of tissues from Kacie and sniffed back tears as I headed for the trees. I just wanted to go home.

Right after I squatted, I heard a whirring noise. A helicopter? I squinted up through the branches, but the sky was empty. The sound was too quiet for the helicopter to be close by, but for a brief moment, I toyed with the idea of running naked across the clearing and waving my arms in the air. Whenever I did something stupid, people had an uncanny knack of spotting it.

Then Kacie shrieked.

"What? What happened?" I yelled.

"Rocky took a bone!"

Half a second later, Rocky shot past me with his prize, which wasn't just a bone but several bones attached to something tattered and leathery that had probably once been skin.

"Rocky!"

Even in the freaking wilderness, I couldn't pee in peace.

Another shriek.

"What did he do now?"

And how had my not-so-beloved pooch circled back without me seeing him? The next time I adopted a pet, it was going to be vegetarian.

Now Kacie ran past me as I fought to pull up my underwear.

"Men with guns!" she screeched. "I didn't see your ass, I swear."

Guns? Oh, hell. I'd thought that sign was just an empty threat. I stumbled forward, but rather than making a hasty escape, I tripped over a tree root and faceplanted in the dirt. Then it was raining men, and not in a fun "Weather Girls" way. Men in black dropped out of the sky and landed all around me with enough hardware to start—and win—World War III. This time, I didn't even have Rocky to protect me. Good thing I'd peed already.

"We just got lost, I swear!"

"Moon, you scared the shit out of me."

My limbs turned to jelly. The strength I'd fought so hard to hold on to left me as Ryder hauled me to my feet, and I sagged into his arms as relief washed through me.

"I knew you'd come. I knew it."

He kissed my forehead, untucked my dress from my panties—oops—and wrapped me up in a tight hug. Who cared about the Super Bowl? This was the best feeling in the world.

"Sorry I took so long."

I sniffed back the tears that threatened to escape. Ryder's here. He's here, and I'm safe.

"I'll forgive you as long as I never have to drive myself anywhere ever again."

"Deal."

Someone spoke from behind, his voice gruff. "Where's the other one?"

The next voice was British, and I realised that not all of the people who'd shown up out of nowhere were men. "Tulsa's chasing her down. She's actually pretty fast."

"Emmy?"

Ryder's boss materialised in front of me. "Is there any kind of trouble you don't get into?"

"It's not my fault I got kidnapped."

"Honey, you drove fifteen miles into a dead end and parked your car in a hole." Emmy broke into a smile. "But aside from that, you handled the situation pretty well. A goat-milk bath? Good job."

How did she know about the goat milk? "You went to the house?"

Emmy nodded. "Michelle's a sweetheart, isn't she?"

My turn to roll my eyes. "Is Mark Antony…is he…?"

"He's in the hospital," Ryder said, brushing hair out of my eyes. "We thought that was what you wanted."

I was shaking. Actually shaking, but this time it was with relief. "Michelle said we should just let him die, but I…I don't think he's horrible. I think he's sick. Yes, okay, he kidnapped three people, but he looked after us in a weird way. And it's not as if he killed anyone."

Emmy and Ryder looked at each other.

"What? He didn't kill anyone, did he? Tell me."

"He might have had a hand in Julius's death," Ryder said softly.

"No, he told me that was karma."

"Karma is the name of his pet cobra," Emmy told me. "The cops found her in Julius's movie theatre."

I should have been upset about that, I knew I should, but I just…couldn't…find it in me. Julius had ruined a big part of my life. He was the man who'd given me nightmares for the past decade. He was the reason I had a collection of silicone dilators and a therapist instead of a healthy sex life.

"Karma for the win. I guess I should send him a thank-you card."

Emmy just laughed. "That's my girl. Are you ready to get out of here?"

"What about Kacie and— Ohmigosh! Where's Rocky?"

"You didn't leave him in the car?"

"He ran off into the forest with part of a rotting deer carcass right before you got here."

Now it was the gruff guy's turn to laugh. "Hey, girls. Who wants to chase down the dog?"