Page 95 of Tracked
Trees are tall.
Creighton is the winner.
Colby is too small.
To save Donnie from becoming dinner.
My brows popped up. The tone of his clues was devolving.
“He won’t really eat him,” Colby assured me ... and maybe herself, too. “But once we find Donnie ...” She flew a hot stream of fury through her lips. “I’m going to burn his little black book on a pile of his expensive tea leaves.”
She angled toward the sky, shading her eyes with her hand.
“Black book?” I followed.
“Where he keeps track of all his booty calls.”
“Men still do that?”
“Creighton isn’t ‘men.’ Creighton is ... a moron. Brilliant. Eccentric. But one hundred percent moron,” she informed me, her narrowed eyes swinging from treetop to treetop. “I don’t understand how women are attracted to him.” She winced. “I guess I don’t really want to, either, but that book has all the information on women who want to be his booty calls.”
“How do you even know about it?”
She sighed. “Well, one time, I wanted Donnie to steal Creighton’s diary from his room, but I didn’t realize the black bookwasn’this diary until Donnie stole it. Unfortunately, I was so grossed out by what I was not expecting to find that I immediately threw it back into Creighton’s room rather than swallowing down the urge to vomit and using the information for an elite prank.”
It didn’t take much imagination to think of all the ways Colby could’ve wreaked a little havoc on her brother’s love life with the contact information of his “booty calls.”
“Donnie!” Colby screeched and sprinted over the hazard-laden forest floor like it was paved flat until she reached a towering pine about twenty feet ahead of us.
My gaze climbed the trunk. Higher. And higher.And higher.Sure enough, from one of the top-most branches hung a large cage housing a very cranky duck, who squawked with what sounded like recognition on hearing Colby call his name.
Walking around the entirety of the trunk, she turned back to me and blurted out, “Shitballs.”
It would’ve been funny if there weren’t a duck hanging from a tree.
“Do you have to climb to get him?”
She shook her head. “No, but that’s what he wanted me to do first.Jerk,” she muttered under her breath and then pointed to the knot of rope securing the wooden cage to the thick branch above. “He cut the rope. So even if I climbed to the top, I couldn’t lower the cage safely to the ground, and I won’t be able to reach to open the latch.” Following the movement of her finger, I saw that the hook keeping the cage closed was on the side farthest from the tree.
“So how does he expect you to free—” I stopped because she was already reaching into her backpack.
“I’m going to shoot the latch.” She grinned and my mouth fell open.
“You’re going to shoot that tiny little hook?”And not hit the duck?
Her smile stretched wider as she moved into position. “Creighton knows I’m the best marksman in the family.” She raised her handgun and closed one eye. “It annoys him, but that’s why he set this up this way. A test to prove I’m still the best.”
Well, I was glad she was sure—I flinched when her gun fired and the cage went spinning. Donnie didn’t like the Tilt-A-Whirl, but she ignored his quacks. When the cage slowed, she mumbled a curse. Her shot had nicked the latch but not enough to open it.
I looked back at Colby, and she murmured softly, “Always fire between breaths.” I watched her exhale depress her upper body until there was nothing left but pure stillness.
This time, I didn’t jerk when she fired at the cage. It spun again, but now with success. Her shot hit the latch and the bottom of the cage dropped out and Donnie took to the skies.
Or at least, he coasted through the trees, slowly descending as he reached the edge of the woods.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. I left a whole bag of Doritos out for him back at his pool.” She holstered her weapon and returned it to her backpack.
