Wake Up Missing (22 page)

We didn't sleep; we just cried, and when we couldn't cry any more, we clung to one another and tried not to think about the body in the shack.

Nobody said it out loud, but we all knew. It was over.

Without Molly, there was no place safe in this swamp, no chance we could get away from Dr. Ames, no one left we could trust.

We might as well have lain down next to her and waited to die.

Somehow, we finally fell asleep, maybe for an hour, maybe two or three. But then sounds in the brush woke us. Raccoons, probably, or possums, but Ben stood up and looked into the dark of the trees. “We should get out of here,” he said.

Quentin let out a sharp huff of breath and stared up at him. “And go where?” Then his face twisted with anger. “Do you mean to tell me you'd still run back to Dr. Ames after—”

“What if those guys come back?” Ben blurted. He looked into the trees again, genuinely terrified of the drug runners who had gone screaming away through the brush, and that's when I realized he really didn't know. The rest of us understood as soon as we saw her body, understood we were in more danger than we'd even imagined. But Ben hadn't even let himself consider the possibility that everything he believed was wrong.

“Ben,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. I was afraid if I didn't, Quentin might attack him. “The drug guys were as freaked out as we were. They didn't do this.” I let the words hang in the air. “It had to be Dr. Ames.”

He winced, as if I'd slapped him. “You don't know that,” he
said. “This place is full of dangerous people . . . Molly even said so herself.”

“How can you even say that? You—” Quentin sprang to his feet and lunged at Ben, but Sarah caught him by the arm. She was stronger than she looked, and Quentin stumbled.

“Stop!” she said. “He's brainwashed. He doesn't understand!”

“Stop saying that!” Ben railed at her. “You want to know what I understand? I understand that the world is a dangerous place, and my father understood that, but he went away and now he's gone! I understand that life's not fair. I understand that people die and you get thrown in with relatives who don't want you and you suck it up and deal with it.” He was sobbing. “And I understand that sometimes you get a chance to make everything matter. And
you
don't understand
that
.” He whirled around, spitting words at all of us. “You don't understand what it's like to believe you don't matter anymore . . . and then figure out you do!”

Sarah was crying, still holding on to Quentin's arm, even though his whole body had gone slack. “Ben, you
do
matter. You do. But Dr. Ames—”

“You can't say Dr. Ames did this!” He flung a hand out toward the cabin. “You don't know! You don't!” He crumpled to his knees, clawing at the dry ground and shaking with sobs.

We did know.

And so did he.

I looked at Sarah, swaying like a willow tree next to Quentin, at Trent, staring into the dark. They'd already told our parents
we were dead. Kaylee's, too. Was she back at the clinic? Was she still alive?

I looked from the cabin with Molly inside, on the floor, to Ben, in pieces on the ground. Dr. Ames had destroyed both of them.

The tangled mess inside me—feelings twisted tighter than mangrove roots—started to churn. I took a deep breath, and the smoke burned my airways, but I held it in until I thought I'd burst, until everything inside untangled, and the place where that knot had been filled with anger.

And a promise: Dr. Ames wasn't going to destroy me.

“We need to go,” I said, echoing Ben's words. We could do this. Sleep had pushed my headache back into the shadows, and I fought to keep it there.

Quentin turned to me, not angry this time. Bewildered. “Where?”

“To the clinic.” The words spilled out from a place I didn't know was alive anymore, a place where I still believed I might get home. But it couldn't just be me; it had to be all of us. I was through letting down people who needed me. “We have to get Kaylee, and then . . . then . . .” I didn't know what then. We needed somebody like Molly. Someone good, somebody who would help kids in trouble, who would keep us safe until the truth came out about Dr. Ames.

I thought about my mom. I couldn't even imagine what she was going through—the phone call she got—but I didn't think about that. I pictured her smile, her healing hopes for me when we were having lunch at that place with the tiny scuttling crabs. What would she do if a bunch of scared kids showed up on our
dock at home? She'd help. She'd keep them safe. She'd make sure.

The world was full of moms. Full of Mollys. It had to be. We had to find another one. And I knew where we could start.

“The airboat's still here!”

The flashlight reflected off the aluminum of Molly's boat as we scrambled through the trees. We sloshed through the water and climbed onto the deck.

“She left her bag here.” Sarah started to reach for it but stopped. “Should we . . . ?”

Quentin reached past her, picked up the bag, and started pawing through it. “If there's anything here we can use, Molly would want us to have it.” He pulled out a half-full water bottle, a crumpled baseball hat, a flashlight that actually worked, a cell phone—dead—and a couple of protein bars.

A small white business card caught the light as it fluttered to the boat's deck. I picked it up and shined the light on it. BRADY KENYON,
Miami Herald
. The name was familiar, but before I could figure out why, Quentin dropped the empty bag to the floor. “That's it.” He frowned at the airboat controls. “I guess she didn't carry around the operating manual anymore.”

I shoved the damp card in my pocket and looked around the boat. “There are paddles under the railing.” But we needed to move faster than that. We had to get the fan started.

I held the flashlight while Quentin fumbled with the ignition switch and turned the key, but the fan sat silent. “Come
on
!” He smacked the control panel with the palm of his hand, turned, and almost crashed into Trent, who was peering over his shoulder.

Quentin's eyes lit up. “Hey! You were reading that manual when we were on Eugene's airboat. You know how to run this thing?”

Trent tipped his head, looked at the control panel, and smiled as he stepped up to the driver's seat of the airboat and flicked the ignition switch.

“That's what I tried,” Quentin said.

“You have to let the fuel pump build up, then press the accelerator twice before you start the engine,” Trent said, as if he'd been running airboats all his life instead of simply breezing through a manual. But I guess Trent remembered things now. Like how to pump the accelerator and turn the key and make the huge propeller fan roar to life.

“Yes!” Quentin held up his hand for a high five, but Trent only glanced at his palm and turned back to the controls.

“You know how to steer and everything?” Quentin asked.

Trent nodded and maneuvered the boat away from the mangrove island.

“We need to go . . .” Quentin looked down the river. A smoky haze still hung in the air, but the rain clouds had cleared, and a fuzzy full moon glowed through the fog.

“This way.” I pointed to our left. I recognized the clearing where we'd seen One-Eyed Lou and her babies.

I shined the light up on the bank and saw a pair of glowing red-orange eyes. “There!” Lou was guarding the nest, her babies sprawled on her back. Trent accelerated.

“No, slow down,” I said. “Don't scare her.” The alligator shifted but stayed on the nest as we drifted past. I wondered if, somehow, she knew we were friends of Molly.

“Slow down. It's right up here, isn't it?” Quentin peered over the front of the boat as the river opened up. “It looks like . . .” He let out a sharp breath. “He's here.”

Dr. Ames's airboat was at the dock, lit by the exterior clinic lights.

“He's not at the dock.” And all the clinic windows were dark except the one second from the end of the hall—Dr. Ames's office. “If Kaylee's still here”—I didn't let myself stop to think about what might have happened—“then she'll be in her room. If he stays in his office . . .”

“If he's even
in
the office,” Quentin said.

“If he's there, we can get Kaylee out the door at the other end of the building.”

We pulled the boat up to the dock, and Trent tied the lines in perfect knots. He started up the hill, toward the old airplane hangar.

“Hey, wait!” Quentin called.

“Shh!” I watched him, breaking into a run toward his workshop. No wonder he'd been so happy to get us here. “Let him go. We'll get him after we have Kaylee on the boat.”

The sky was turning from midnight to a not-so-dark dusty blue as we ran to the clinic.

“Anybody know which room is hers?” Quentin asked.

I peered into a window. There were hockey posters on the walls. “This one is yours, Sarah.”

She rose on her tiptoes and looked in her own window. “I can't believe . . . ,” she started, but shook her head.

I understood.

How could all this be happening to us? How could it be real?

I looked in the next window, and a girl with long black hair lay in the bed, her face turned toward the window, her eyes half-open. When she saw me, they opened wide.

I raised a quick finger to my mouth.
Quiet! Stay quiet!

She nodded slowly, then sat up in bed, wincing, and pushed herself to her feet. She looked over her shoulder at the door behind her, limped awkwardly to the window, and reached up with her left hand to open it. She wasn't strong enough. Her right hand hung limp at her side.

I reached up; the window opened easily, and she leaned heavily on the sill but didn't speak.

“Kaylee?” I asked.

Her eyes flashed at the mention of her name, and she nodded. One side of her mouth lifted—half a smile. But she didn't speak. I didn't know if she could.

“Listen.” I looked around. The sky was lightening to a yellow-blue-pink, but the wet grass was still quiet. “You have to come with us. I know you're sick, and I know they told you your parents are coming, but they're not. They lied, and really . . .” I didn't know where to start.

“You're in danger,” Sarah said from behind me. She stepped up to the window. “They're doing . . . they're doing bad things to us.”

Kaylee's face filled with panic.

“It's okay.” It wasn't. But she had to come with us. It was the only way she might survive. “We have a boat. We're going to find someone to help.”

She blinked fast; scared tears rolled down her cheeks.

Quentin stepped forward and held up his broad arms to the window. “Come on. I'll help you down.”

She leaned out, but her one arm didn't work—she couldn't even hold on to Quentin—so he ended up dragging her across the window's edge. It must have hurt, but she didn't make a sound.

She was breathing heavy, swaying a little, when she got to the ground.

“Can you walk?” I asked, and she took a tentative step. Her whole right side seemed broken. Sarah and I each put an arm around her, but we kept stumbling.

“Here,” Ben said, taking Sarah's place. He was stronger, and together, we made it to the dock.

“Thanks, Ben. We can help her now. You guys should go get Trent.”

Ben and Quentin headed for the hangar while Sarah and I eased Kaylee onto the airboat. She sank into a seat and closed her eyes. What could she be thinking? She had to have known something was wrong, horribly wrong, when she got sick and her parents didn't come. A new surge of anger filled my chest.

I looked up at the clinic. The light in Dr. Ames's window was off.

“Sarah, look.” I pointed.

Her head jerked to the dark clinic, then toward the hangar, but there was no sign of the boys. “We need to go get them.” Her voice shook. “Dr. Ames could come out any minute.”

Tears were drying on Kaylee's face, and her breathing had slowed. She was already asleep. To sleep in the middle of this . . . she had to be sicker than any of us had guessed. She needed a doctor—a
real
doctor and a hospital—soon.

“Stay with Kaylee. I'll go.” But when I was halfway to the hangar, Quentin and Ben appeared in the door, lugging boxes that spilled over with batteries and wires.

I ran to them. “Hurry up! Why'd you bring all this?”

Quentin's jaw clenched, and he jerked his head back toward Trent, who was lugging a third box. “It was the only way we could get him to come. It's faster than dragging him.” They headed for the boat.

I stopped and looked back at the clinic. A new light had come on—the laboratory. What was Dr. Ames doing? Was Dr. Gunther there, too?

“Come on!” Quentin called, looking over his shoulder.

I stared at that one glowing window and remembered the MRI machine, the computers and monitors inside. What had happened to Kaylee in there, to leave her like this? What had they really done to Trent?

Dr. Ames's silhouette passed by the window. He was carrying something big and boxy—a computer?

“Cat! Let's go!” Sarah yelled from the dock. The boys were almost there, but Trent had stopped to pick up some papers that had spilled from his box.

If I ran to the boat now, we might get away. We might find someone to keep us safe, but would anyone ever believe what they'd done? If Dr. Ames took all the computers, all the evidence, it would be as if it never happened at all. We could tell our stories, sure. But they'd say we were scared kids, away from home, maybe still suffering the effects of our injuries. Nobody would ever know the truth.

I took off running.

“
What are you doing?
” Quentin shouted.

“Start the boat! I'm coming!” But I ran the other way. Back to the clinic.