Page 73 of Five Survive

“It’s—it’s gone,” she stuttered. “I don’t have it.”

“What do you mean you don’t have it?” Oliver’s voice hardened. “Where is it?”

“I—I must have put it down somewhere,” Red said, patting thesides of her shirt as though it could have somehow slipped down there. She’d lost it. Of course she had, this was what Red did. Couldn’t be trusted with anything. Things erasing themselves from her memory as soon as they were out of sight. Lost keys, lost phones, lost wallets.

Why couldn’t they hear the static? Red needed that sound back, anything but empty to her.

“For fuck’s sake, Red. Where were you searching?” Oliver pushed up to stand. “The kitchen? Reyna, go check in the cupboards.”

“Where’ve you been?” Maddy said, more patiently than her brother. “Retrace your steps.”

Red hated when people said that. That was the whole point, she’d already forgotten where she’d been, there was no trace left to follow. It skirted around her mind, evading her as she tried even harder to think back. And, great, now thePhineas and Ferbsong lyrics were running through her head again, word for word.

“Everyone be quiet a second!” Oliver shouted, holding his finger to his lips, motioning to listen with his hand by his ear.

Red held her breath and strained to hear. Strained harder. Where had she left it? It was somewhere, it couldn’t have disappeared, Red knew. Even though things did seem to disappear around her: headphones, homework, moms.

There was a faint hiss, almost unnoticeable, not much louder than the way the air fizzed when you were scared or alert. But it was there, Red recognized it, coming from beyond the kitchen. Her eyes followed it, to the closed door.

“The bathroom!” Of course. Red darted forward, slamming down the handle and wrenching open the door. The welcome sound of static filled her ears and there, waiting for her on the side of the sink, was the walkie-talkie. Green eye winking as she stepped forward toscoop it up, holding it to her chest. “I’ve got it!” she called back out to the others. Hers. Her responsibility. Oliver wouldn’t take it away from her, would he?

“Bring it here.”

Red sidled through the bathroom door, pressing the down button to skip from channel nine—where she’d left it—back to three.

“…what I say.” The voice cut in, midsentence.

Fuck, the sniper had been talking to them.

Red’s eyes widened. The other five were over there, too far away. Just her and the walkie-talkie, keeper of the voice.

He couldn’t know, she couldn’t let him know they hadn’t been listening, that they were searching for interference on the other channels.

Red raised the walkie-talkie to her lips, pressed the push-to-talk button. “Understood,” she said quickly.

Static.

Of course they hadn’t understood, they hadn’t even heard what he’d been saying. But that was the only word that came to her, vague enough to fit most places.

“Good,” the voice replied. “I’m getting impatient.”

Static.

“What did you do that for?” Oliver hissed.

“So he didn’t know we weren’t listening,” she said. “I think it worked.”

“Shh. But we have no idea what you just agreed to,” he said, holding out his hand for her to bring him the walkie-talkie.

Red hesitated, then placed it in his open hand.

Oliver took the walkie-talkie and bundled it up in his shirt, holding it close in the material, between his tightly cupped hands.

His voice dipped back into whispers. “It’s the classic Trojanhorse,” he said. “Maybe the bug is inside the walkie-talkie, so it’s listening even when we think it’s not. We always have it around us. And Red, you brought it over when me and Maddy were doing the note. Maybe it’s listening all the time.”

“Oh, they’re clever,” Simon said, wagging one finger.

“I can check?” Red offered, voice low. She did not want to believe Oliver, follow him again, even though it made a perfect kind of sense. “I know what the inside of a walkie-talkie looks like, all the parts. I can look?”