Say a Little Prayer(40)

“What are you talking about?”

I feel her watching me even if I can’t make out her face, and I have a feeling the others are doing the same. I shrug and swing my legs over the side of my bed.

“I’m just saying you’re right. It’s technically tomorrow. Our fast is over, and there’s a full, working kitchen, like, five minutes down the path.” I reach up and tug on the corner of Julia’s blanket. “Do the counselors lock everything at night?”

Julia’s been quiet since lights-out, even as the others tossed and turned around us. She doesn’t move now, but when I rise onto my toes, I find her staring back at me. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she nods. “They have to lock everything because of the bears.”

“Sure, but they—” I stop. “Wait, bears? There are bears here?”

“Why do you think they tell us not to take food to the cabins?”

“I don’t know! I thought it was, like, a control thing!” I shudder and push the thought away. “Whatever. Not the point. Do you know where they keep the key?”

“Of course. It’s right by the—” This time, Julia’s the one who breaks off. “You’re not actually going to sneak out, are you?”

I can’t see her expression in the dark, but I know her well enough to guess the way she’s looking at me. Eyebrows lifted, lips parted, head tilted to one side.

“No.” Greer’s voice cuts through the dark before I can answer. “Of course she’s not. That’s literally insane, not to mention against every single camp rule.”

“Oh, I know.” I reach down and tug a long-sleeved black shirt from the bottom of my suitcase. “But I’m pretty sure withholding meals is against the rules, too, so I think we’re even. Who’s with me?”

I don’t think I’m expecting anyone to say yes. Two of these girls actively despise me, and most of the others don’t really know me at all. To them, I could still be an outsider, a fake, the girl who turned her back and left. But they don’t know about my plan. They don’t know about the sins tucked away in my prayer book or the reason I need to commit this one, too. If I was kind, if I truly cared about their collective souls, I wouldn’t drag them into it at all. But when Delaney hauls herself out of bed, oversized T-shirt hanging off one shoulder and her silk bonnet still wrapped around her braids, it’s not guilt I feel coursing through my veins. It’s relief.

“Sure,” she says. “Why the hell not?”

The ladder at the foot of Torres’s bed creaks. She lands softly on the floor and reaches for the robe slung over the top of her suitcase. “I mean, if you’re both going, I could come, too? Maybe?”

I let out a breathy laugh and pull my black shirt over my head. I feel like I’m in a heist movie at the part where the leader looks around at their ragtag found-family crew on the eve of their most dangerous job yet. Not that I’ve thought about what that would be like. Not that I asked my parents for walkie-talkies five birthdays in a row or that I still reread my worn collection of Gallagher Girls paperbacks just to feel something.

I glance into Julia’s bunk as Delaney and Torres pull on their shoes. I still can’t see her face, but I can picture her lying there, chewing her bottom lip as she runs through the list of potential consequences. Because Julia Young doesn’t break rules. She doesn’t sneak out of her cabin after dark, and she definitely doesn’t steal her dad’s key to raid the camp kitchen. She’s probably still repenting for the dress she bought yesterday, but some deep, selfish part of me doesn’t want to do this without her.

“You don’t have to come,” I say, lowering my voice so the others can’t hear. “If you tell me where the key is, I’ll do it.”

“You honestly think I’m letting you walk out of this cabin alone?” Julia props herself up on her elbows, and I don’t have to see her face to know she’s smiling, too. “You’re becoming a bad influence, Riley Ackerman.”

Bad influence. There’s that thrill again, whipping up the length of my spine. This time, it feels like a zipper, like it’s deliberately designed to peel me open. Because Julia’s right. This is exactly what Pastor Young warned me about—dragging his perfect, obedient daughter into my vortex of sin. I brace a shaky hand against the bedframe. Then, right as the first splinter of doubt starts to slip under my skin, Greer practically hurls herself out of bed.

“Are you serious?” she snaps. “A minute ago you were scared of bears, and now you think you can just waltz around at night?”

We all freeze, and it occurs to me then that Pastor Young might not be my biggest problem tonight. It might be Greer Wilson and her devout commitment to following every single rule. I bite my lip. “Yes?”

“Do you know anything about woodland safety?”

Delaney arches a brow. “Do you?”

“Yes!” Greer cries. “Obviously!”

It’s not until she storms across the cabin and stuffs her feet into her sneakers that I realize she’s actually planning to come. I glance instinctively at Amanda’s bunk. If Greer is here, yanking her hair into a ponytail like it’s the most annoying thing in the world, Amanda won’t be far behind. They’re a pair, a package deal, but when I find her in the dark, she’s still sitting on the edge of her mattress.