“How do you know?” said Cora.
Mason rolled his eyes as he turned toward her. “Because my dad doesn’t give a shit where I am. Yours and Abi’s probably won’t even notice you’re out of the house, and Luke’s—”
“No,” said Cora. “I meant, how did you know Fash told his mum he was staying at your place? He told me he said that. But at the time we didn’t even know you were coming with us.”
“He . . . told me yesterday. In the woods.”
“When? I didn’t hear.”
“You were probably arguing with Abi,” said Mason, waving a hand. “Jesus, Cora, what’s the big deal?”
He turned back to me and raised his eyebrows. Like, well?
“I suppose we could keep searching for a bit longer,” I said.
“What the hell, Fash?” said Cora. “You don’t have to do everything Mason says, you know.”
“So what’s your hurry, Cora?” Mason said to her. “Don’t you want to find your friend?” He emphasized the final word so that it sounded like it was wrapped in quotation marks.
“What? Of course I do! Why do you think I came out here in the first place?”
Mason smiled, snidely. “And that’s the question, isn’t it? Why are any of us here? And why is everyone so desperate to hurry home the second there’s the slightest excuse?”
I saw Abi shift uncomfortably.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, Mason,” said Cora, “we’re miles from home on the hottest day of the year with nothing to drink but pond water, and with no way of calling anyone for help. That’s not an excuse. That’s a frigging reason.”
“And whose fault is that?” Mason answered. “The water, I mean. The phones.”
Cora turned red. “I told you already! It wasn’t me!”
Mason stared at her. “Maybe it was,” he said, “maybe it wasn’t. But it was clearly someone.” He turned his stare on me.
Cora spoke again before I could. “What’s your problem, Mason? If you’ve got something to say, just fucking say it.”
“It’s just curious, that’s all. Don’t you think? That we set out to try to find Sadie, and yet the second we close our eyes, something happens to force us back?”
He was looking at me again, and I swallowed. Because I hadn’t thought about it like that. The phones, the water . . . I’d assumed that it was all a prank or something. I didn’t imagine it was anything more serious than that.
“As for my problem,” Mason went on, “my girlfriend is missing and nobody but me seems to want to find her. Plus, the second we get back home, the police are going to do what they’re probably wishing they did last week: they’re going to lock me in a prison cell and throw away the key.”
Cora sniffed. “So that’s what this is about for you. The Mason Payne Self-Preservation Society.”
Mason whipped around to face her. “I don’t give a fuck what happens to me! But if the police lock me up, they’ll say they’ve solved it, and that’ll be the end of it. They’ll stop looking and they’ll stop asking questions and then we’ll never find out what happened to Sadie. Never.”
He was breathing heavily, and there was a bubble of spit at the corner of his mouth. It was hard to believe that just a few minutes ago I’d been getting annoyed at him for not taking things seriously.
“Easy, mate,” I said. I reached out a hand and touched him on the shoulder. Tentatively, the way I would have tested something hot.
He flinched when I made contact, but after a second his shoulders dipped lower. His eyes met mine, then moved on.
“Luke,” he said, turning. “You agree with me. Don’t you? You agree we should keep looking?”
I looked at Luke—we all did—and suddenly I felt this rush of sympathy for him. It was everything, you know? Sadie, obviously, but also all the stuff that was waiting for him at home. Like Dylan. Like, how do you deal with something like that? Explaining things to your little brother when you’re hurting, too, and you don’t even understand what happened yourself? And then there was us. Luke was the one whose sister was missing, and yet every time there was a difficult decision to make, the rest of us turned to him.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Luke. “About the phones and that? And the first thing is, I think we should stop blaming each other.”
“Thank you,” said Cora.
“Because the thing is,” Luke went on, “who’s to say it wasn’t someone else? Just because we think we’re alone out here, doesn’t mean we are.”
Abi’s eyes widened. I caught Cora glancing toward the tree line.
I narrowed my eyes. “That noise you heard,” I said to Abi. “Yesterday, just before you came rushing over. Do you think . . . Do you think that could have been someone following us?”
Abi didn’t even stop to think. She nodded.
Cora cleared her throat. “I heard something, too,” she said. “I mean, I’m not sure if I heard it exactly, but I saw something. Maybe. In the night. Someone, rather. Watching us from the trees.”
“What?” Abi said. “Are you serious? Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because I thought I was dreaming. Or . . . that it was just one of you lot going for a pee. And anyway, nothing happened.”
“Apart from our phones being stolen, you mean? And all of our water?”
For once Cora didn’t have an answer.
Abi’s eyes widened even further. “What if whoever’s out there had something to do with what happened to Sadie? What if that’s who’s trying to force us back?”
“Oh, please,” said Mason.
“What?” said Abi.
“First of all,” Mason answered, “it probably was one of us that Cora saw. And second, even if there is someone following us—and I’m not for one minute saying there is—but even if there is, it’s probably just . . . Lara Sweeney or something. One of those dickheads from the bridge. And the water was them getting their revenge.”
Cora folded her arms. “I thought you said it was one of us,” she said. “I thought you said it was me.”
“I’m not saying one thing or
