Operation: Survival Read online

“He did the right thing to come to me,” Saunders asked. “What happened to Moya is absolutely unacceptable.”

  Was he saying what he had to say? Or did he mean it?

  “I hold you responsible,” Saunders told Smiley. “If you were any kind of leader, your men would never have behaved this way.”

  It definitely sounded like he meant it. Smiley must have thought so too. His face had turned pale under his tan.

  “You, get to the mess hall,” Saunders told me. “You’re going to need all your energy today. Another hike.”

  “And you, out of my sight,” Saunders ordered Smiley. “I can’t stand to look at you. The men are here to learn how to deny their violent natures. They are here to stay out of gangs—not form new ones. Take control of your team. Or you won’t have one much longer.”

  I decided to walk to the mess hall by way of the lake. It would only take a few more minutes. And I could use the time to think.

  My gut was telling me that Saunders wasn’t a murderer. He might have pushed Zack so hard that Zack had an accident. And if he did, I definitely thought he was partially responsible for Zack’s death.

  But I couldn’t really picture Saunders killing someone. He had a weird kind of moral code. It was warped and twisted. But it was there.

  Unless Saunders just had me totally snowed. I needed to talk to Joe. Compare notes. We hadn’t managed to find a second by ourselves since I’d told him what James had planned.

  Maybe we could meet in that boathouse, I thought as I started past the building.

  That turned out to be my last thought for a while.

  Something hard slammed into my head. Something warm and wet began to coat my scalp. Blood. Worms of light began wiggling across my vision.

  Then everything went black.

  When I came to, I was inside the boathouse.

  And the boathouse was on fire.

  9 WHERE THERE’S SMOKE …

  Where’s Frank? I wondered as I sat down at the team table in the mess hall. He’d been with the group when we left the bunk, but he’d disappeared somewhere along the way.

  I figured he’d explain all. Whenever we could find a time and place to talk.

  “Oatmeal again. Yum, yum,” I said. The bowls were at the table when we sat down. No choice. Eat it or starve.

  Ken didn’t seem to mind. He was rooting around in his with his spoon. Looking for another note, I was sure.

  But I found one in my bowl before he found anything in his. Anything besides lumps, that is.

  I dropped my spoon on the floor. Then I stood up and headed for the kitchen to get a new one. I wanted to read the note in private.

  “The five-second rule isn’t good enough for you, Moya?” James called after me.

  “One second on that floor is too long.” Actually, the floor was fine to eat off of Cleanliness was clearly a Saunders priority.

  As soon as I was out of sight behind the kitchen doors I pulled my note out of its plastic casing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was from Janet.

  And she wanted to meet with me. Right now. By the latrines.

  It’s not like I was going to say no. “Gotta hit the head,” I mumbled. Not that any of the kids doing kitchen duty seemed to care why I was in there or where I was going next. They had their own problems, I’m sure.

  I ducked out of the kitchen’s back door and trotted toward the latrines. I could see Janet waiting. What did she want? Was my bad-boy mojo heating up? Did she want to trade Ken in for me?

  Janet grabbed my hand when I reached her. “Come on. I need to talk to you.” She pulled me down a path that headed toward the lake. She stopped next to a little wooden bench that was almost hidden by a cluster of trees.

  We sat down. I waited for her to say something. Because, hey, she’s the one who called the meeting. But instead of talking, she started making these sniffling noises.

  My gut lurched when I realized she was crying. I’m good in most situations. I’ve been held hostage. I’ve been shot at. I’ve been in a car chase. I’ve skied the Outer Limits. No problems. Well, not many.

  But put me near a crying girl … and it’s like my brain turns to marshmallows. What was I supposed to do here? I knew what I wanted to do—run.

  Janet pulled in a long, shaky breath. “Sorry.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Sorry,” she said again.

  “That’s okay,” I told her. It wasn’t. But if I said it wasn’t, she might start crying again.

  “It’s just … I used to meet Zack here. I haven’t been here since …” Her green eyes got all wet and shiny. She was about to start up again. I could feel it.

  “Yeah, uh, that must be hard,” I mumbled.

  “I didn’t bring you out here to bawl all over you.” Janet used both hands to sweep her long hair away from her face. I got a blast of flowery shampoo smell. “I heard what happened last night. The other guys taking you into the woods and—” She hesitated.

  Geez. This girl knew I’d gotten pounded. That was totally humiliating.

  “I was worried about you,” Janet continued.

  That made no sense. She didn’t even know me. “I’m okay,” I told her. I had bruises the size of grapefruits. But I was okay.

  “You are now,” Janet said. “But that’s how it started with Zack. The guys harassing him. And then—” She shook her head. “This is stupid. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I shouldn’t be out here with you. Just be careful, okay?” She jumped to her feet.

  “Wait.” I caught her by the wrist. “Wait. Are you saying I should be worried I’m going to die like Zack did? What happened to him was an accident, wasn’t it?”

  I really wanted to hear her answer that question.

  “Everyone was talking that night. People were saying that Saunders had killed Zack because Zack wasn’t one of his model reform camp zombies.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t think. Zack was the only guy I ever loved—ever will love—and he was dead.” Janet wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands.

  I wished I had a handkerchief to give her. Aunt Trudy is always bugging me to carry a handkerchief. But it’s not a guy thing. At least not in this century. Guys don’t even carry Kleenex. I could offer her the use of my sleeve. That was about it.

  “What do you think now?” I asked.

  “I’m still not sure. Saunders isn’t my favorite person in the world—but I’m not sure he would kill anyone,” Janet answered. “He’d lay on the punishments. Push-ups. Midnight laps. Stuff like that. He might even boot someone to juvie if they made him angry enough.”

  “So are you telling me to watch out for someone else?” I asked.

  “The guys in his bunk—your bunk—started hating Zack. He was always getting them in trouble. And they started doing things to get back at him. To try and get him in line.”

  “Like what they did to me last night.”

  Janet looked me in the eye for the first time. “Yeah. That’s why I dragged you out here. To tell you it could get worse. Or maybe …” She looked away.

  “Maybe what?” I urged.

  Janet answered so quickly that her words ran into one another. “Sometimes I think Zack got killed because of me. Not because of any of the garbage with these so-called teammates.”

  She leaned forward and put her face in her hands. I gave her a pat on the back. Then I felt like an idiot. What did I think she was? A golden retriever?

  “I’m sure you didn’t have anything to do with Zack getting killed,” I said.

  And I was starting to really believe it. Unless Janet was playing me big-time, she’d been flattened by Zack’s death.

  The only thing I didn’t get was her starting up something with Ken. Did she think another guy would help her get over Zack?

  No, that couldn’t be it. She was trying to hook up with Ken before Zack bought it.

  “We should get back,” Janet said. The last thing you need is f
or Smiley or Saunders or anybody to find you out here. Your team would end up climbing that mountain for a week straight.”

  I got up too, and we started back toward the mess tent. “Um, do you want me to give Ken a message or anything?” I asked. I didn’t want to leave Janet without figuring out what was up with her and Ken.

  Janet stopped and whipped around to face me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I held up both hands. “Nothing. I just saw that note you sent him. He passed it around to everybody. He was so psyched.”

  “I thought he’d keep it to himself. You must think I’m disgusting. Going after another guy when Zack’s barely dead.”

  “I … I didn’t think anything about it.”

  “Liar,” Janet said.

  “Some of the guys who knew Zack were a little surprised,” I added. “But Ken told them that you were planning to break up with Zack all—”

  “That’s not true!” Janet burst out. “I loved Zack. We had all these plans for things to do when we got out of here.”

  The girl was truly confusing me. “But in the letter … You said in the letter that you’d been thinking about Ken the whole time you were with Zack.”

  “I hope I can trust you. I hope you can keep a secret,” Janet said.

  I tried to look trustworthy.

  “The deal is that Ken has been into me since I got to this place, even after he knew I was with Zack. He wouldn’t quit. No matter how many times I told him I had zero interest.”

  That cleared things up for me—not at all.

  “I started thinking … and this could be totally stupid. But the way Ken looked the night Zack died. Maybe I’m crazy …”

  She was definitely making me crazy. I had no idea what she was trying to say. “I’ll definitely be able to keep your secret,” I told her. “Because I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

  Janet laughed. A real laugh this time. I liked the sound of it. Then her eyes darkened, and her expression turned all serious again.

  “Ken looked happy the night Zack died. Pretty much everyone else was messed up that night. Or at least they were pretending to be. Even people who had never even said a word to Zack. Even people who had practically tortured him. But Ken—”

  “Looked happy,” I finished for her.

  “Yeah. And the next day—the next day—he tried to get me to sneak out with him. Like now that Zack was gone, I would just move right on to him.”

  “But the letter—”

  “The letter was a total lie, okay?” Janet exclaimed. “I couldn’t stop thinking about how happy Ken looked. And then I started wondering if he wanted to be with me bad enough to … to, you know.”

  “Murder Zack.”

  “Yeah,” Janet answered. “And I have to find out. I thought if I pretended like I was interested in him—and that I had been all along—he might confess. Brag about it, even.”

  Janet had formed her own little ATAC. With no Frank to back her up.

  “Playing with a potential murderer. I think I should be the one telling you to be careful,” I said.

  “I don’t care what happens to me. If Ken—or anybody else—killed Zack, I want to know. And I want to make them pay.”

  No more crying girl in distress. Janet looked ready to kick butt.

  “I get that. But what about talking to the police, or—”

  “Yeah. The police. I always love to have a chance to sit and chat with them.” Janet sounded disgusted.

  I’d forgotten for a minute who I was talking to. Janet didn’t come to the camp to find romance. She’d been sentenced to a stay here.

  “I get that, but—”

  I forgot what I was going to say next. “Do you smell smoke?” I asked instead.

  Janet took a couple of sniffs. “Yeah.”

  I scanned the sky. Spotted a geyser of smoke off to the left.

  “Has to be the boathouse!” Janet exclaimed. “Come on!”

  We raced toward the lake. “Help!” I heard someone cry in a smoke-clogged voice. “Help!”

  My heart stopped, then began beating double-time. I recognized that voice.

  “Someone’s in there!” Janet yelled.

  Yeah, my brother.

  I pushed myself to run even faster. Janet and I rounded a corner and the boathouse came into sight. Orange-red flames ate away at its wooden wall.

  “I’m here, Fr—” I stopped myself before I said his name. “I’m gonna get you out.” I charged to the double doors.

  No!

  A length of chain secured by a padlock held the doors closed. Someone had locked Frank inside.

  Windows! I tore to the side of the building. Chains and padlocks held the thick shutters in place over the windows.

  “The windows on the other side are locked up too,” Janet called, racing back to join me. “I’ll run for help.”

  “No time,” I barked.

  Frank hadn’t answered me when I told him I was out here. The silence was sending spikes of fear into my chest.

  We needed something to use as a battering ram. What? What? What? I spotted a row of canoes tied to the dock in front of the boathouse.

  Too light. They’d shatter before the boathouse door wood. But we could use them for something else. “Come with me,” I called to Janet.

  I plunged straight into the lake and untied the closest canoe. I tipped it on its side. Let it fill with water.

  Janet got it. She splashed into the lake next to me. Then the two of us struggled to pull the canoe out of the water.

  The muscles in my arms screamed as we carried the canoe the few feet to the boathouse. Janet and I began to swing the canoe back and forth.

  “One, two, three!” I yelled.

  We let the water fly at the flaming front wall. The flames popped and sizzled but didn’t come close to going out.

  “More water!” I shouted. Janet and I lugged the canoe back to the lake. Tipped the canoe to fill it up again.

  This was taking too long. It wasn’t going to work.

  Frank was going to die in there!

  10 BURIED ALIVE

  I pulled in a breath. And got a combo of dirt and smoke that made me gag. Allowing more smoke and dirt into my mouth. And down my throat. And into my lungs.

  The white worms were back. Squiggling across my line of vision.

  You cannot pass out again, I told myself.

  I jammed my fingers into the hole I’d started. The floor of the boathouse was earth. I figured if I had no doors and no windows, I had to make a tunnel.

  I’d gotten about halfway under the back wall, which wasn’t on fire yet. But time was running out. My chest was heaving. My lungs felt like they were burning hotter than the boathouse.

  I felt cinders fall onto my back and head. The smell of my own hair smoldering was mixing in with the dirt and the smoke.

  Was the roof on fire now? Was it going to crash down on me at any second?

  Those thoughts were not helpful. And anyway, maybe I’d be buried alive before I burned to a crisp. My tunnel was barely wide enough to hold my body. There wasn’t much air.

  I inched forward. Digging, digging, digging. A splinter found its way under one of my fingernails, and a hot jab of pain went all the way up my arm.

  You’re feeling pain, that means you’re conscious, I told myself. Conscious—good. Wham! Something hard hit my right calf. Something hard and hot. A piece of one of the ceiling beams. Had to be.

  I jerked my leg and managed to throw the chunk of wood off me.

  Not much time! Not much time! The thought was like getting zapped with an electrical current over and over.

  I used my feet to shove myself farther into my hole as I dug with both hands. Something scraped down my back—the bottom of the wall I was tunneling under.

  I could feel dirt turning to mud in my mouth. The smoke I’d inhaled was making me dizzy.

  I had to rest. Just for a second. Just for one second.

  Then I felt the ground sli
de out from under me. I was losing consciousness again.

  No. Wait. The ground wasn’t sliding away. I was sliding across the ground. Someone was pulling me. My hands were so battered by the digging that I hadn’t felt someone grab them.

  Then I was on my feet. There was light. And air. Still smoky. But cooler. I sucked in a lungful and gagged.

  “A few steps. I need you to take a few steps,” Joe told me.

  I was standing in front of Joe! “How’d you know I was—”

  “Move!” Joe gave me a shove. I stumbled forward. Just as a blazing section of wall crashed down behind me.

  Joe hauled me over to the lake. Out of range of the collapsing building.

  I pulled in another breath—and gagged. “How’d you know I was in there?” I asked, managing to finish my question this time.

  “I wasn’t looking for you, if that’s what you’re asking,” Joe said. His face was streaked with soot, and his eyes were bloodshot. “I was having a nice time, sitting on a bench in the woods with a pretty girl.”

  I laughed. And it started me choking again. “You and a girl. I know you’re lying.”

  “Like I was saying, I was there, with this pretty girl, and then I hear you yelling for help…. Well, after I saw the smoke,” Joe said. “You don’t have the best timing, man.”

  “What were you really doing?” I asked. I wiped my face with the back of my arm. All it did was smear the mud from my sleeve over my skin.

  “Janet Russo was telling me to be careful. She thought I might end up like Zack,” Joe told me. “But who cares about that right now? Who tried to torch you?”

  I shook my head. And immediately regretted it. A billion hot needles dug into the backs of my eyeballs. At least that’s what it felt like.

  “Whoever it was hit me from behind.” I gingerly touched the rock of flesh the rock of stone had made on the back of my head. “Knocked me out. I woke up to”—I gently tilted my head to the boathouse—“that.”

  Wait. The boathouse. “Shouldn’t we be getting help? The whole forest could go up.”

  “Once we pulled you out, Janet ran for help. They should be—”

  A siren’s howl interrupted Joe.

  “Here they are,” he said.