“I saw the woman and a kid, but the kid’s not a threat.”
She snorts.
“He’s not an immediate threat,” I amend. “He helped me get away. There are probably more, though.”
I’m not sure how much of that she hears in the rain. I realize only then that she’s moved Colin. I orient myself by the dead hostile, who is now farther to my right than when I left. Colin’s sitting with his back against the biggest tree in sight.
As soon as I ran, she strategically repositioned so she could protect them both. Colin is behind a tree, with thick brush to one side, impossible to pass, allowing her a 180-degree window to watch. Now with me, we can each cover half of that while Colin sits between us.
We stay poised and silent, as the rain pelts down, thunder gradually rolling away, lightning falling farther behind, until the rain is only a steady drumbeat and the sun peeps through cloud cover.
Soon the sky brightens to twilight. One last bit of illumination before the sun will sink past the horizon.
“They’re gone,” I say. “If they were going to attack, they’d have done it during the storm.”
Petra spins on me. “What the hell were you doing?”
That gives me a start. Apparently, her silence was only a reprieve, granted because arguing while under ambush would be stupid.
“I made a mistake,” I say. “Let’s drop it. Right now, I’m worried about—”
“You are always worried about someone,” she snaps. “That’s the problem, Casey. You’re out here searching for a man you don’t like and a girl you barely know.”
“I know Felicity quite well,” I say. “Also, they aren’t the people we were looking for.” I cut my gaze down at Colin, warning her against saying too much.
“Right, you were looking for total strangers. Risking your life for them, and then risking your life to help an attacker. Oh, I’m sorry, did I shoot you? Let me help fix that. Wait, come back!”
I say nothing. She grunts, as if in satisfaction that I’m listening, while a kernel of rage rolls in my gut, growing with each revolution.
“These people aren’t worth your time,” she says. “They’ve chosen—”
“Maryanne chose nothing,” I say, my voice low.
Petra has the sense to flinch at that, but only rolls her shoulders and says, “All right, Maryanne was there under duress, but that doesn’t make them all your problem.”
“No, they’re the problem of whoever gave the Second Settlement that tea.”
She blinks. It could be confusion at the seeming segue. It is not. That blink evaporates every foolish hope that I am wrong.
I am not wrong about the tea. I am not wrong about Émilie’s involvement. I am not wrong that Petra knows, and that she’s been watching me like I’d watch Storm when she was a clumsy puppy searching for a particularly well-hidden treat.
Petra egged me on and tossed clues my way. She patted me on the head when I got one right, all the while certain I’d never get the whole thing, but gosh, I was so adorable to watch, wasn’t I?
Now, instead of pretending she has no idea what I’m talking about, she just looks at me, waiting. Waiting to see if the puppy has figured it out.
“The First Settlement revolted,” I say. “Two Rockton residents died. Later, when the Second Settlement left, they seemed harmless enough—modern-day hippies—but no one dared take the chance. Not when it’d be so easy to take advantage of that hippie vibe and source them a locally grown
happy tea. That’s where your grandparents came in, with their big-pharma company. Send a researcher to source the brew and convince the commune to drink it. Sounds reasonable, right? No harm in that.”
She still says nothing. Just listens.
“I agree,” I say. “No harm in that. It’s a bit patronizing, but the settlers weren’t forced to drink the tea. They made a choice. And when someone breaks away from the group and tweaks the recipe and things go awry? It was an unforeseeable consequence. The fault lies in the cover-up. In turning a blind eye to what happened next. In telling every goddamn sheriff that they were imagining wild people in the forest. In hearing stories like Maryanne’s and saying ‘not our problem.’ Worse, hearing those stories and telling us it’s not our problem, that we shouldn’t help. You’re right, I shouldn’t run into the woods after a woman who attacked me. But maybe, just maybe, I can’t help it because I feel complicit.”
“You aren’t.”
“The hell I’m not. We all are—everyone who knew and did nothing, said it wasn’t our problem.”
A moment’s silence. Then she asks, slowly, “So what are you going to do about it?”