Page 68 of Mirror Image

“You blackmailed him?” I yelped, my voice pitching higher on the offending word.

“Yes!” Leo agreed, nodding. “Yes, that’s exactly what she did! She blackmailed me!”

“Don’t you even try to pretend you’re a victim here,” I spat at him. “It was against the rules in the first place, and for good reason! You have a position of power over her, and her credentials are in your hands. Besides, clearly a little blackmail wasn’t much of a deterrent, because here we are!” Our guide dropped his head in defeat. He knew I was right. But I wasn’t quite done yet. “And why on earth would the two of you decide to do it out in the woods? And so close to my campsite? Couldn’t you have done your shagging in one of your tents instead of out in the middle of the forest? And in winter, no less!”

Sam looked guiltily at Leo, who I could tell was turning red under the bandages.

“I was doing my check on your campsites,” he explained miserably. “When I came across Sam out in the woods.”

“I’d caught sight of your campfire,” she jumped in, “and I was planning to sneak over here and scare you—you know, scratch on your tent like a bear? But I ran into Leo and . . . well . . . you know . . .”

I didn’t know. And I don’t mean because I was a virgin, but because it seemed so incredibly stupid that I couldn’t fathom it.

“Look,” Leo said, “there’s no reason this has to go any further, okay? We’ll just all meet up tomorrow, as planned, and pretend none of this ever happened.”

I snorted. “Really? And how do you plan to explain the fact that your eyes are swollen shut?”

“The swelling will wear off by then, and I’ll put on sunglasses to hide the redness.”

I threw up my hands and paced in front of the fire for several more seconds before stopping and pivoting to face him. As if sensing my gaze, he tilted his head in my direction.

“You’re a damn good guide,” I told him sincerely. “And I can’t believe I’m here lecturing you. I’m eighteen. You’re thirty! But, my God, this was a bad decision. You’re lucky all you got was a little bear spray in the face. Next time it might be someone mistaking you for the bear. Or, God forbid, it might be the bear himself!”

“I know,” he muttered. “I know that, Mary. And I’m sorry. Everything you’ve said is spot on. I’ll do whatever you guys want. I can turn myself in right now if you want . . .”

“Right. You get fired. Sam and I get booted with no certification! Months of time and thousands of dollars down the drain.”

“Okay,” my sister began, taking a rare turn at being the peacemaker. “Let’s all just go back to what we’re supposed to be doing. I’ll walk back to my own camp, you try to get back to sleep, and Leo can . . . Ah, hell . . . I don’t even know what to do with you, dude. You couldn’t make your way to your own camp, let alone check in on anyone else’s.”

“No, I was done. You were the last because . . .”

“Because you figured you’d finish your rounds and spend the rest of the night in her tent?” When he didn’t respond to my accusation, I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose between my index finger and thumb. “Okay, look—Sam and I will walk you back to your camp.”

“No,” he protested. “I don’t want you two wandering around out here by yourselves.”

“Seriously? You’re worried about that now?” I asked, not waiting for an answer. “Okay, then she’ll just come back here with me so we’re together. And tomorrow morning, when the sun’s up, she can go back to her own camp and pack everything. We all make our own way back to the rendezvous site—alone. No one speaks of this again. Like ever. Deal?”

“Absolutely,” Sam agreed with a nod.

“Yes.” Leo joined her, then added, “Thank you, Mary.”

“Don’t thank me,” I grumbled. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

The next morning, as I started out on the five-mile hike to the team rendezvous point, the damp, moist air transitioned into something heavier and darker. The sun disappeared behind thick cloud cover, and I was surprised at how quickly a chill set in once it was gone. At around mile three the sky turned an angry shade of grayish green and began to spit out tiny pellets. Sized somewhere between rain and hail, they peppered my face. Ping, ping, ping, ping. The incessant pelting went from mild annoyance, to discomfort, and, finally, to a relentless stinging that was infuriating and maddening by turns. It was like something that you see on television when the bad guys, and sometimes the good guys, are trying to “break” an enemy—a twisted mashup of water torture and death by a thousand cuts. By the time the camp revealed itself with a smudge of smoke on the horizon, I already had a fire burning in my gut—a simmering ball of rage stoked with the recollection of the night before. And while I did have to swallow it, I didn’t have to be happy about it.

Sam and Leo were both already there when I arrived, as were the rest of the team, save for Nan, who came hiking in a half hour behind me, not having been mauled by a bear or molested by a psychopath. If only my night had been so uneventful! I tried to enjoy our last evening together as a group, but it was hard. I couldn’t look at Leo the same way ever again, and I wasn’t sure I even wanted to look at Sam again. Certainly not in those final hours. So I made a point of discreetly avoiding her as I spent a little time with each member of our team, reminiscing about how much we’d changed during our time together and already making plans to come back for the “veterans’” trip offered to NAWA grads in the fall.

When the van picked us up the next morning, Sam managed to grab the seat next to mine, despite my best efforts to thwart her. I angled my body away from her, staring out my window, neither of us uttering a word during the ninety-minute ride back to headquarters. By the time we were a mile out, I’d already plotted my escape from the van. The plan was to dart into the building before either my sister or Leo had the chance to corner me. We were just through the gates when the van came to an abrupt stop, the driver cursing under his breath.

“What the . . . Who the hell are all these people?” he asked no one in particular as he started forward again, slowly navigating around a crowd of what must have been two hundred people—all cheering and clapping as we drove by.

“Oh my God!” Naomi exclaimed from her spot in the third row of the van. “They’re here! They actually came out to meet us!”

Leo, still wearing his sunglasses, twisted around in the passenger seat to look back at her. “Wait a minute—are you saying these people are here because of you? These are your followers or whatever? The ones you’ve been posting for all these weeks?” he asked, incredulous.

She had a huge smile as she nodded, brows raised in confirmation. “Yes! I told them when we’d be back and where so they could come out and meet us if they wanted to. But”—she paused, peering out the window a little closer—“I don’t think they’re here just for me . . .”

I followed the direction she was pointing. A group of at least a dozen people were standing together holding signs that read things like: