The Wild Read online

  ALSO BY OWEN LAUKKANEN

  The Professionals

  Criminal Enterprise

  Kill Fee

  The Stolen Ones

  The Watcher in the Wall

  The Forgotten Girls

  Gale Force

  Deception Cove Series

  Deception Cove

  Lone Jack Trail

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Owen Laukkanen

  Cover art used under license from Shutterstock.com and Unsplash.com

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Underlined™, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Visit us on the Web! GetUnderlined.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Laukkanen, Owen, author.

  Title: The wild / Owen Laukkanen.

  Description: New York : Delacorte Press, 2020. | Summary: Seventeen-year-old Dawn and a group of other teens must survive a “wilderness therapy” camp in Washington State as things quickly and drastically go wrong. | Audience: Ages 14 and up. (provided by Delacorte Press.)

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019045283 (print) | LCCN 2019045284 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-593-17975-8 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-593-17974-1 (trade paperback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Adventure therapy—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction. | Camping—Fiction. | Murder—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ77.1.L379 (ebook) | LCC PZ77.1.L379 Wil 2020 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780593179758

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to publish books for every reader.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Owen Laukkanen

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To Jay and Uncle Darren, who are always down for a wilderness misadventure

  THIS IS THE STORY of a messed-up girl and how
her family paid people to send her into the wilderness with a bunch of other messed-up kids in hopes it would somehow make them less messed up.

  This is a real thing that happens.

  It might even be an eventuality your parents have considered for you.

  But this is the story of what happens when things

  go

  wrong.

  MEET DAWN. Dawn is the aforementioned messed-up girl. She’ll be the protagonist and de facto audience surrogate for this little misadventure.

  Dawn is seventeen years old and mostly normal. She lives in Sacramento with a drug dealer named Julian, who is roughly twice her age.

  This is a continued point of contention between Dawn and her mother, Wendy. Wendy would prefer that Dawn not live with a drug dealer. She’d prefer that Dawn, you know, go to school and not just get high all the time and sneak into clubs.

  She’d prefer that Dawn be at home, where Wendy and Dawn’s younger brother, Bryce, live with Dawn’s stepdad, Cam.

  Dawn loves her brother.

  She mostly loves her mom.

  Dawn does not love Cam. Dawn resents Cam and hates that her mother fell in love with him. Her father’s only been gone for two years, and it’s too soon to be talking replacements.

  Dawn can’t stand to be near Cam. It makes her feel like she’s betraying her dad. It drives her insane that nobody else sees it that way. That her mother could move on so quickly.

  That’s why she’s staying with Julian.

  And that’s why she spends her days mostly wasted.

  THE CAM/WENDY/DAWN THING has been an ongoing saga. You don’t need to know the gory details, but suffice it to say, it’s been a lot of screaming and hurt feelings.

  It’s been a lot of self-medicating and not going to class.

  It’s been a lot of Julian.

  Cam and Wendy have been trying to get Dawn to come home. Go to school. Be high less. See less Julian. Be more normal.

  Cam and Wendy have failed miserably so far.

  But Cam and Wendy have one more bullet to fire.

  It’s their last resort.

  And it’s going to royally fuck up Dawn’s day.

  WHAT IT IS, is a straight-up kidnapping.

  Cam and Wendy show up at Julian’s place at sunset. Dawn and Julian are on Julian’s couch, watching cartoons but not really, when Cam knocks on the door. Dawn is too high to get off the couch; she lets Julian answer, hears the door open, hears voices:

  Julian, someone else, Julian again.

  Then Julian’s back, scratching his head and not looking at Dawn.

  “It’s your stepdad,” Julian says. “He says if you don’t go talk to him, he’s calling the cops.”

  From the way Cam’s face twitches when he sees her, Dawn knows she must look like shit. She hasn’t showered since whenever, her hair’s a disaster, she’s wearing one of Julian’s Lords of Gastown T-shirts like a dress.

  “What do you want?” she asks her stepdad. Looks past him and sees Wendy standing by the minivan, arms folded across her chest, looking anywhere but at the house.

  (Dawn briefly wonders where Bryce is, then decides she’s glad he isn’t here. She doesn’t love the thought of her little brother seeing her like this.)

  Cam sets his jaw like he’s been rehearsing this moment. He probably has.

  (He’s probably not a bad guy, Cam. I mean, it’s not his fault that Dawn’s dad is dead. Cam’s an accountant, and mostly harmless, and Dawn might actually like him if he were, you know, her teacher or something and not someone who acted like he was entitled to any authority over her whatsoever.)

  “I need you to come with us, Dawn,” Cam says. “It’s time to go.”

  Dawn rolls her eyes, like she always does when Cam starts down this road. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Cam,” she tells him. “And you can’t make me.”

  Cam stares at her. Mouth opening and closing like whatever he rehearsed, it didn’t get this far.

  Then Julian shows up behind Dawn. “I think you should go,” he tells her.

  Dawn spins, like WTF? Julian shrugs. Cam’s looking at Julian like he wants to punch him, but he won’t—

  (Julian’s twice his size).

  Cam just nods instead, like Listen to the man. “Nobody wants the police involved, Dawn,” he says.

  Cam has a point. Julian knows this.

  Dawn knows it, too.

  If the police show up, they’ll find Julian’s stash of pills. They’ll find Julian, and they’ll find Dawn.

  Julian doesn’t want any part of this, obviously.

  So Julian’s turned traitor.

  Julian’s practically shoving Dawn out the front door.

  Go with your parents, Dawn.

  GTFO.

  So Dawn doesn’t put up too much of a fuss. This has happened before. She’s thinking Cam and Wendy will pile her into that minivan and just take her home, like they always do.

  She’s thinking this is just another bullshit power move by Cam to prove he’s cut out to be her father, and she’ll endure it for a couple of days on the absolute outside and then she’ll sneak off again and do what she wants.

  And this time she’ll make sure Cam and Wendy can’t find her.

  This is what Dawn is thinking.

  It’s what she’s expecting.

  But Dawn is wrong.

  Cam takes her to the airport.

  “THERE’S NO FUCKING WAY this is legal.”

  In the airplane seat beside Dawn, Wendy says nothing. She hasn’t said much the whole plane ride, won’t even answer Dawn’s questions.

  (Like, why are we on a plane?)

  (Why isn’t Cam coming?)

  (Why did you pack me a bag?)

  She’s trying so hard to look tough, Dawn can tell. Play the authority figure, the mean mom, but Wendy isn’t cut out for that role. She’s too nice.

  But she’s trying to be tough, and it’s clearly taking work, and watching her, it kind of breaks Dawn’s heart a little bit.

  (Like, whatever is happening, you made her do this.)

  (You made her this way.)

  Dawn would never admit it, but maybe that’s why she isn’t putting up more of a fuss. Maybe that’s why she didn’t go batshit and scream kidnapping when Cam dropped them off at the airport. Because for whatever reason, she didn’t.

  She put on the shorts Wendy fished out of her overnight bag, watched Cam hug Wendy goodbye and drive off, and then she followed her mom into the airport and onto the plane and stared out the window and waited to land.

  And now they’re at the Seattle airport, and it’s nighttime and there’s a guy standing at the baggage carousel holding a sign with Wendy’s name on it. He’s around forty, tanned, wearing a blue fleece jacket with the words OUT OF THE WILD on it.

  He shakes Wendy’s hand.

  He doesn’t shake Dawn’s.

  “Come on,” he says. “I’m parked in the lot.”

  THE FLEECE GUY’S NAME IS STEVE. He has a white van with the same words as his jacket written on the side.

  OUT OF THE WILD.

  Steve throws Dawn’s bag in the back of the van. Then he turns back to Wendy. “This usually takes about two to three months,” he tells her. “Depending on the kid. You need a ride to your hotel?”

  Wendy shakes her head. Says something about a shuttle bus.

  “Okay.” Steve shakes her hand again. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Dawn’s wondering if she’s still high or just half-asleep. Can’t process what’s happening. Then Wendy’s hugging her. Telling her she loves her.

  She can’t look Dawn in the eyes.

  Then Wendy’s walking away and Steve’s opening the passenger door of the van and he’s gesturing to Dawn to get in.

  “It’s just you and
me, kid,” he tells Dawn. “Your mom ain’t coming back.”

  Dawn doesn’t run.

  She thinks about running, but where would she go? She’s in Seattle, for God’s sake. And even her mom wants nothing to do with her.

  Anyway, Dawn’s maybe a little bit curious. So far, nobody’s told her shit.