Reyva smiled. “Knew you were going to say that.”
“How?” Mariana asked Claire.
“I don’t know if it can be killed,” Claire said, “but it was trapped once. Before our parents found it and released it. That means... it can be trapped again.”
Twenty-Four
Kneeling, Claire drew in the pebbly sand with a stick. “We know the cave has two exits: the trapdoor and the hole in the woods. Luckily, Jack’s father took care of the trapdoor for us.” She’d seen it, piled high with rocks. Short of welding it shut, it was more secure than they could have made it. Dead or alive, no one would be able to shift all those rocks from within. “So that just leaves the hole.”
“Bury it,” Reyva said.
If they had shovels... Even then, it would be too slow. The dead man would never wait patiently while they buried him. Also, the amount of dirt they’d need to fill the hole... They’d basically have to fill the cave itself. No, it wouldn’t work. “It’ll escape while we dig. Or attack us.” They had to find a way to block the hole. Rocks, maybe, like Jack’s father had used for the hatch, or maybe they could fashion a lid out of scraps...
“Cause a cave-in,” Mariana suggested.
Nowthathad possibility. If they could collapse the exit... She liked that idea. A cave-in would be much faster and muchmore effective than any shoveling they could do and more permanent than any lid they could lift.
Next question was how. She’d never caused a cave-in before. It seemed to her that it would require an explosion. Her eyes landed on the damaged boat and its perfectly functional-looking engine. “What could make a boat engine explode?”
“Fuel vapor build-up,” Mariana said automatically. “Not incredibly common, but it’s why you have to maintain outboard motors like that. Even more of an issue in older models. If fuel vapor builds up and then there’s a spark... Boom.”
“Canyoumake it ‘boom’?”
Mariana thought about it for a moment. “This kind of outboard motor is water-cooled, so if we run it out of the water... and if I block the vent valves... Yeah, I think I can figure it out. I mean, I know how tonotblow up an engine, so I’d pretty much just do the reverse. But this all depends on us getting the motor near the cave entrance withoutitnoticing. Also, how do we getitto go nicely down into the cave and stay there until we’re all ready?”
Good question.
“Bait,” Reyva said.
Claire nodded. That was the simplest, most-likely-to-work option. “One of us goes down there, pretends they’re going to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the others. That’ll attract its attention.”
“I’ll do it,” Reyva said immediately.
“That is super sweet and noble,” Mariana said. “But you can’tclimb with your arm.” She waved her chipped nails at Reyva’s broken arm.
Reyva scowled at her splint as if it were its fault. “Not letting one of you do it.”
Mariana raised both her eyebrows. “I don’t think that’s fully your decision. And it’s not like we’rereallyplanning to sacrifice anyone. Right, Claire?”
Definitely not going to do that. If she wasn’t willing to hand over Jack, whom she didn’t evenlike, she certainly wasn’t willing to give up someone she loved.
Loved.
The word stopped her for an instant. She turned it over in her head. Yes, she loved them both. They’d seen who she was—all her secrets and insecurities and weaknesses and fears—and they hadn’t turned away. They were the best friends she’d never had and never thought she’d find.
She wondered if they felt the same way about her.
It didn’t matter if they did or not. She wasn’t going to let anything happen to either of them.Even if I have to be the one to stay behind, she thought.
Claire felt the truth of that, and then she buried it, hoping that neither of the others would guess that she’d considered it. That was one thought she wasn’t going to share with them. She was instead going to hope very hard that it didn’t come to that.
Out loud, she said, “Whoever goes down there can set snares. Catch the wild man’s ankle, and then climb out before he can escape. You saw how he was dragging his leg. A snare couldwork. Mariana, do you still have that spool of wire?”
Reaching into her pocket, Mariana pulled it out with a flourish. “Ta-da.”
“Excellent,” Claire said. “So I set up the snares—”
Reyva huffed.
