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I turn toward the window. All I see is pitch blackness. This side of the two-lane highway offers nothing but a gravel shoulder and a dark stretch of forest.
“What do mean this is our stop?” Colson echoes. He’s puzzled. “You want us to walk home?”
Jensen’s smile is all teeth and no humor. “Think of it as another team-building exercise.”
“Abandoning us in the middle of the woods to a serial killer is team-building?” Tristan Yoo blurts out.
“First of all, there is no ‘us.’ It’s them. So calm down, Yoo.” Coach nods. “But you raise a good point.”
He extends his gaze over the sea of male faces until it lands on someone a few rows behind Beckett. A sophomore named Terrence who isn’t a starter.
“Boy Scout, you always carry that Swiss army knife around. You have it on you?”
“Yessir.”
“Hand it over.”
“Yessir.”
Coach scans the bus again. “Let’s not pretend none of you smoke or have smoked a substance in your life. I need two lighters. Pass ’em up.”
A couple of lighters make their way up the rows until they’re in his hands. Jensen slaps one in my palm, the other in Case’s. The army knife also goes to Case. I make a mental note of that. I guess between the two of us, Jensen believes I’m the one more likely to murder the other and thus shouldn’t possess the weapon. Not sure if I should take that as a compliment or insult.
“You have your phones. You have fire. You have protection. You’ve got your jackets.” He plucks a bag of chips out of a startled Nazem’s hands. “And some food. All the tools you need to survive the night. The bus will pick you up from this location in the morning.”
“Coach, come on. This is insanity,” Colson protests. “You can’t just—”
“I can’t just what?”
Case falls silent.
“Because the way I see it, I can’t just have my team captains taking delay-of-game penalties because they’re squabbling like toddlers who haven’t had their naps. Clearly your time with the Laredos isn’t working.”
“Yeah, because they’re batshit crazy,” Patrick mumbles.
Choked laughter echoes through the bus.
“At the end of the day, what happened tonight—this game that we should have won and didn’t—is on you. Both of you.” He looks from me to Case, his mouth pinched in a tight line. “It’s about forty miles to Hastings, and if you choose to walk, it’s going to take you all night. I personally suggest you hunker down and camp out for the night. Use the time to squash the beef. Make it right. The bus will be back here at 6:00 a.m.” He bares his teeth and points to the door. “Get moving.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
RYDER
She’s fucking me, bro
“THIS IS BULLSHIT.” CASE KICKS A ROCK AS WE HUDDLE ON THE side of the highway like a pair of Dickensian orphans.
So far, we haven’t ventured into the woods. We’re still loitering on the gravel shoulder, where Colson keeps alternating between kicking pebbles and looking at his phone.
I frown at him. “You should save your battery.”
“Come on. He’s not actually going to leave us out here all night.”
“Pretty sure he is, bro.”
Case narrows his eyes.
“He gave us a Swiss army knife and lighters,” I say with a harsh laugh. “Of course he’s not coming back. We pissed him off good tonight with that penalty.”
“Yeah. We did.”
Colson steps forward and peers down the dark road. Not a single car has passed since the bus left us in its rearview mirror.
“Are there any active serial killers out here?” he asks. “Wasn’t there, like, a highway killer a while back on the West Coast? Do you think there’s an East Coast one?”
“Why? Are you scared?” I mock.
“No. I just feel exposed here. You know what. Fuck it. I’m going to start a campfire.”
At that, Colson takes off toward the woods. The silver stripes on his black hockey jacket glint beneath a shard of moonlight that’s escaped a patch of clouds.
“You coming?” He glances over his shoulder.
“Yeah, whatever.”
I shove my hands in my pockets and follow him. We let the moon guide the way. Since we’re literally on the side of the road, there isn’t an official path, but there are some trodden areas, so we manage to weave our way deeper into the woods without tripping on the undergrowth.
“Did you want to try to walk back to Hastings?” I ask.
“God, no. Do you?” he counters, incredulous. “I can’t destroy my legs like that. We gotta be in the weight room tomorrow. I need to be able to do deadlifts.”
Good point.
“It’s only eight hours. We’ll live.” He stops in a small clearing in the trees and nods his approval. “This spot’ll do. C’mon. Let’s go look for some fire-making supplies.”
We split up to scour the immediate area. I poke around on the forest floor in search of kindling and twigs, also finding some thick broken branches that would serve as decent fire logs. When we reconvene in the clearing, Colson’s already constructed a pit using a bunch of hefty stones.
