Chapter Twenty Willa

Chapter Twenty

Willa

Now: Saturday, 12:00 p.m.

The ground floor's open plan makes searching it quick work. There's only the bathroom, a reading nook, and the pantry tucked behind the kitchen to check. I steel my nerves before flinging open the pantry door and swiping on the switch in a one-two move. It's empty.

The pantry light illuminates another door down a short, dark hallway, but when I try the handle, it doesn't budge. Locked. I swallow against the sour shot of anxiety that spikes through me. It's fine. We're fine.

But my imagination runs away from me, conjuring a vision of an assailant, all in black, snatching up one of those Solo cups, pouring in the amaretto, and placing it back next to Declan's sleeping form. Actions to match the sounds I heard last night on the landing. What if we're not alone on this mountain? What if someone else is here?

"EVERYONE COME HERE RIGHT NOW!"

I nearly jump out of my skin at Piper's shout. The once-quiet house cracks into chaos. Footsteps thunder up from the basement and two figures blur past me, heading upstairs. Delaney and Liam's reflexes are sharper than mine. I snap back to attention and follow suit, taking the stairs two at a time.

I'm the last one to arrive in Eden's room, and Piper nods at me to close the door, which I do, guarding the best exit. Everyone's gathered around Piper and Camille, who's hiding something behind her back.

"Now we're all here," Piper says. "No way for you to weasel out of this."

"I'm not weaseling out of anything." Camille's whole posture is defiant. But I don't understand. This isn't even her room. What did she find?

Piper and Camille go back and forth, speaking with frustrating vagueness.

"Then why didn't you come get me when you found it?"

"I don't even like you—why would I come and get you?"

"Because we're searching in TEAMS! Teamwork, Camille. Not your strong suit in the gym, but I would have hoped you'd grown up."

"What did you find?" Delaney takes charge, physically placing herself between the two girls. Slowly, Camille's hand comes from behind her back.

"Oh my god, you found the phones?" I blurt, just as Eden lets out a panicked curse.

Because we're in her room. Eden has the phones. Everyone turns to her.

"It's just the one," Camille corrects. "It was under her pillow. Piper burst in here before I could call everyone."

"Or before you could cover for her. You didn't look ready to do jack shit when I came in," Piper argues.

"Hey, hey, you're missing the point!" Delaney cuts in. She glares at Eden. "Is this why I saw you sneaking down to the basement last night at like two a.m.? Where are the rest of them?" Her eyes flit around the room.

But her revelation sets off a new flurry of questions from Eden, Wyatt, Camille. Why was Delaney out of bed? Why didn't she say anything before about seeing Eden? Was Declan alive when she was down there?

"Of course Declan was alive!" Delaney huffs. "And I was getting a drink of water—Jesus, get off my back. I thought Eden was, like, checking to make sure Ms. Silva was still asleep, not breaking into the safe to take all our phones."

Was it Delaney I heard downstairs? Or Eden? Now I know they were both down there, sneaking around. But I can't say anything about what I heard without giving away my secret. I dart at glance at Liam, see worry on his lips. Is he thinking the same thing, about how his alibi is also his damnation?

"I only took mine. I swear," Eden insists. "The rest were still in the safe when I left. I don't know what happened to them. Someone else is the thief, not me."

"Says the person who broke into the safe." Delaney's tone is icier than the storm outside.

We all sense the shift.

"I didn't break in. " Eden rolls her eyes. "I found the code in that stupid book, just like Piper did. I only took what was mine. Silva had no right to lock our phones away. They're private. " She lunges for Camille, fingers grasping for the phone, but Delaney beats her to it. She wrestles it from Camille's grasp in one quick move.

"What's so private you needed to steal your phone back, huh?"

My fingers grasp the door handle in case there's a need toflee.

Camille inserts herself. "I want to know too. Why go to such lengths for your phone and then hide it? When we were running around frantically this morning, you could have said something. Tried to reach the outside."

"There's no signal, like Silva said. I didn't trust my phone locked away in that safe all weekend, okay? Leave me alone."

Liam shakes his head. "Even with no signal, you can still call emergency services. And emergency satellite texting is on all new iPhone models."

A look flickers across Eden's face like she hadn't considered this, but Liam charges on, oblivious. "You let us go through all of that theater, running around downstairs, opening the safe, and you had access to help all along?"

"How can we trust you?" Piper says.

It's everyone against Eden.

I'm glad it's not me.

"Why don't we find out?" Delaney holds Eden's phone aloft.

"No! Give that to me!" Eden lunges, but Delaney tosses the phone to Camille, who hands it off to Wyatt, who passes it to me. I catch the phone and have a split second to make a decision. Everyone's shouting. Even Liam's flashing a beseeching look.

I whip my arms up, keeping the phone from her reach as she makes a wild grab. It's a mistake. Eden tackles me, and I bang hard into the door, the knob digging painfully into my lower back.

"Ow!"

"Give it to me!"

She jams her knee into the flesh of my hip. Her nails dig into my forearm like she's trying to scurry up my body.

"Get off!" I cry out. I push against her, but Eden has surprising strength. Panic begins to dull the edges of my vision, and I contort my body to get away.

Finally, someone yanks Eden upright. She wriggles and spits. My vision clears, and I see that it's Liam who rescued me. The others corral in front of me, a human barrier. The phone is ours now.

Eden wrenches open the door. Her whole face is red, and she's practically spitting.

"Fine. Fuck you. Fuck all of you. I don't need any of this."

She disappears into the house at large. Her heels thump down two flights of stairs, clearly destined for the basement. Then we hear a door slam in the distance.

Delaney scoffs. "Now she's going to sulk for hours in Silva's room, hoarding the only TV in the house."

"Shit, you think the signal's back?" Wyatt curses, as if the idea of holing up and watching TV down there only just occurred to him.

"What are we going to do?" Camille turns to Delaney, apparently on deck as leader. Del preens under the undivided attention.

She snaps her fingers at me.

"You have the phone, right?" Delaney says, and I realize what she wants.

I don't know what comes over me, but instead of handing it over, I keep it.

I press a thumb against the phone's power button, confirming my suspicions. "It's like Liam said. We should be able to call emergency services, even without a signal." I offer up the screen as proof.

Wyatt hisses through his teeth. The lock-screen photo is of Eden and Declan in happier times, beautiful and beaming. The Declan of yesterday. Not the one who's in the basement right now.

But all that matters is getting help and getting off this mountain.

I sit on the edge of the pristine white duvet, the others perching behind me. The phone shows no bars, but I let out a shaky breath and tap the emergency-services button on the screen. A ringing sounds.

"Thank god!" Wyatt bleats out. The adrenaline of relief floods through me, and I grab Liam's hand without thinking. He gives my fingers an answering squeeze, but drops them just as quickly. I feel Delaney press against my back, craning her neck over my shoulder to spy on the screen. Camille smacks my arm excitedly. "Put it on speaker!"

I do as I'm told, and never has the discordant, shrill ring of a call trying to connect sounded so glorious. The tone blares, static crackling between beats. Then, finally, finally, it connects.

"Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?"

"Hi! Yes!" I answer, hovering the butt of the phone closer to my mouth. Before I can say anything else, Wyatt cuts in. "You have to help us. Our friend is dead!"

Camille trips over him. "Get us out of here. We're stuck on the mountain."

We're all interjecting, a chorus of information and pleading.

"Ma'am? Ma'am!" The 911 operator shouts over the din. "I'm going to need only one person to speak."

Static interrupts the line, but it quickly reconnects. "…what is your emergency?" she repeats.

With a deep breath, I hold my hand palm up in the universal sign for stop, as close as I dare come to petulance with this group. "We're snowed in at the top of Oso Peak," I say, remembering the name from the foyer map earlier. "Someone passed away inthe night. He's…deceased, I mean. Dead. We need help."

"You're where?" the operator repeats, as if she totally missed the dead-body part. There's another static crackle. "Sorry, sweetheart, the line's bad. What's your address?"

I press a hand over the speaker, turning to the group. "Does anyone know where we are?"

All I get are solemn headshakes. None of us paid attention to any street names or house numbers as we circled, up, up, up this stupid mountain.

"It's probably in the welcome book," Piper says. We think about the distance from here to the basement, the precariousness of the crackling phone line. There's no time to lose.

"I'll go," Camille says, and then she's sprinting for the basement.

"We're getting it," I say into the receiver. "Please send help. We're on the top of Oso Peak, and it's snowing really hard—"

"Wait, you said the top of Oso Peak?"

"Y-yes?" My voice shakes.

For a minute there's nothing but empty air. The silence stretches on.

"Hello?" I try again.

Delaney snatches the phone away from me, taps it off the speaker function, and presses it to her ear. "Can you hear me?" she says, tone haughty. There's some side of the conversation we can't hear. "That is unacceptable—we need help—you have to—" Suddenly she stops. Whacks the phone against her thigh, then hoists it aloft toward the ceiling.

Delaney turns toward us, a captive audience sitting in a row on the king bed like lost children. Her frown curdles my stomach.

She gulps audibly and breaks the bad news. "The call dropped. They're not coming."