Diana Peterfreund - Rites of Spring (Break)

“Like what they were saying about you in the tomb just now.”

The words took a few seconds to sink into my brain. “How do you know…that?” I repeated, dumbly.

“There are ways into the tomb other than the front door,” was all he said. “I told you, I’ve been here for a while. I’ve seen it all.”

“And you were…” I blinked. The light was starting to hurt my eyes. “Listening?”

“Yep. I listen to a lot of things.”

“What did they say?” I asked, but at that moment, I wasn’t sure I cared. The sun had become too warm, the sand too bright. Where were my sunglasses? Why didn’t I care more?

“That you were the one to break the plates.” He dropped his voice. “But I know that’s not true.”

And for the third time, I pushed the words out, and this time each syllable was a struggle. “How do you know that?”

“Because I did it.”

When I opened my eyes, it was dark out. I was lying on my side in the sand, back to a log, mouth filled with cotton balls.

Okay, not that last part, but man, it felt that way. My mind screamed for water. I tried to put a hand to my head, and discovered the following:

1)My hands were bound behind my back.

2)My feet were tied together with thick rope.

3)Every muscle in my body ached.

I shoved myself into a sitting position and my head began pounding so hard I almost lost my cookies into my own lap.

“You’re awake,” said a voice on my left. “Thank God. I was really worried.”

Very gingerly, I turned my head toward the voice, but I saw little more than shapes in the dark. “Darren?”

“Yeah,” he said. “How do you feel? You’ve been out for hours.”

“What happened to us? Where are we?”

“The other island,” he said. The direction of his voice changed, as if he was looking out at our surroundings. “This is where those people have been camping.”

“Are they here? What…happened? I can’t…” Oh God, what had happened to me? I felt like I was covered in bruises. I wanted to throw up. I’d never been so thirsty in my life.

“Shhh,” he whispered, his voice closer now. “Stop talking.”

Okay, think. Forget the pounding in your head. We’d been kidnapped. We’d been kidnapped by insane, violent, paranoid conspiracy theorists who thought that we were responsible for all the evils of the world. And Darren was just a kid, pretriarch or not.

“How did we get here?” I whispered back.

“The boat. You don’t remember?”

I shook my head, and was rewarded with even more acute pain. It felt like my skull was being crushed between two sharp stones. Had they come up behind us on the beach and hit me over the head? I wished I could feel around for bumps or cuts. I slowly tilted my head toward my shoulder, and felt like the contents were sloshing out of my temple. My hair, crusted with something chunky and smelly, pressed against my cheek. Oh, no. Vomit.

“I can’t remember anything. How many of them were there?” All of a sudden, even worse fears clawed their way into my muddled mind. Darren said I’d been out for hours. Plenty enough time for them to—bile rose in my throat, and I remembered Brandon’s words from long ago.

Stop overthinking.

There was no time to be afraid, or freak out about what had already happened. We needed to get out of here. I needed to keep Darren and me as safe as possible until we were rescued. Surely the Diggers would have noticed by now that I was gone. Even if Darren’s own parents didn’t much worry about his whereabouts, my friends would expect me to be back by evening. It wasn’t that big of an island, and I’d never been one for wandering around after dark. Except, that’s exactly what I’d been doing the past few days, wasn’t it? At least, that was the story I’d let the Diggirls believe while I made out with Poe.

Or maybe they all believed Poe’s theory about me breaking the plates and thought I’d taken off. Of course, how could I take off? Where would I go in a place surrounded by water?

“Amy?” Darren’s voice came out of the darkness. “Have you fallen asleep again?”

He’d never answered my question about the number of our attackers. And…yeah, now I could remember. He said he’d been the one who’d broken the plates.

“This would be the third time, you know,” he continued. “Which is pretty tiresome.”

I remained silent. He’d never said we’d been kidnapped.

“This isn’t at all like I thought it would be.”

I swallowed, tried to work up some saliva in my mouth. I tested the strength of my bonds. There wasn’t any give at all.

“It’s just so…fucking…frustrating,” he said. “Nothing’s gone right.”

After that, he was silent for so long I thought maybe he’d given up on talking to me. Finally, I decided to speak up. “Darren…” I rasped.

“Yeah?”

And once I started, I couldn’t stop. “What did you do?”

“They were supposed to still be here. But the fuckers up and left. The Diggers were supposed to find you here and blame the guys on the island.”

“Find me?” I said, a sob rising in my throat. “Like…my body?”

“Jeez, no!” His tone was offended. “But it took forever to row out here. And then you wouldn’t wake up. You were so heavy, I couldn’t even get us to the camp. And now it turns out they aren’t even here. Cowards.”

“What did you do…to me?” I was too groggy. There was no filter between my mouth and my brain. “I was nice to you.”

He didn’t respond. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have the energy. And it would have split my skull in two.

“So now I have no idea what the fuck I’m supposed to do.”

“How about untie me?” I said, hating the pleading note in my voice. I’d been drugged. I could hardly move; it was the only explanation. I’d been drugged. Four years of watching my drinks at every frat party I’d ever attended, and I’d wound up roofied by a fourteen-year-old with Gatorade and access to his mother’s medicine cabinet. If this kid had so much as laid a finger where it didn’t belong I’d tear him limb from limb.

As soon as I sobered up. For now, though, I rasped my wrists against each other, trying to work the knots loose, to no avail. My skin screamed as the rope tugged against sensitive nerve endings. Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God oh God…I pushed back against the waves of panic in my battered brain.

“You’ve done the whole initiation thing,” he said suddenly. “What am I doing wrong?”

“What?” I whispered. “This isn’t anything like initiation.” That had been all fun and games. Yeah, there had been a few moments here and there that scared the heck out of me, but now, now that I knew what true terror was, Poe and his shenanigans with water guns and coffins seemed like child’s play. “Please untie me.” Please please please please please. I rubbed my feet past each other, and the skin on my calves must be tougher or something, since it didn’t hurt quite as much. Was I creating any give at all?

I wondered if the others were looking for me. How well did sound carry across the water? Would they hear me if I screamed?

I tried it. “HELP!”

Within moments, Darren had me pinned against the sand, my shoulder blades twisting in agony under the pressure of my bound position.

“Ow!” I sobbed. “Please, please, get off me, you’re going to break my arms, get off me! Please!”