Caleb hated all of it. They’d already missed two First Mondays, when they could have met up with Adam at Top Hat Mountain, but Mom hadn’t even tried to break away from her responsibilities. She said she couldn’t, but that was bullshit, too. She could do any damn thing she wanted to.

Sticking around Ortho like this was a choice. How many times had she talked to him about his choices? “Life is not chance” was the phrase she loved so much. “If you feel like you’re a victim of circumstance, it’s because you’ve chosen to endure the circumstance.”

Caleb didn’t know how much more of it he was willing to take. Problem was, if he was honest with himself, the thought of wandering for days to find Top Hat Mountain on his own kind of terrified him.

As it was, here today, navigating the forest with his little brother in tow, he felt a crushing sense of responsibility. He didn’t mind if he got a little lost on the way home himself, but now he had the burden of making sure he didn’t get Luke lost, too. Caleb had made a point of blazing trails on the way in by marking the trees at an angle they’d be able to see on the way out. It was one of his favorite tricks that his dad had taught him.

Conditions changed dramatically and frequently in the forest. Caleb and Luke had both been out here before, but in this thick undergrowth, the woods could change from one day to the next—sometimes from one minute to the next. Unless you were deeply familiar with the area, getting turned around was always a danger.

People who forgot that very simple lesson could end up dead, with their bodies never found. Wandering the woods alone could be a real problem.

But hunting together was also a mistake. Four feet made twice the noise of two, and with the noise concentrated over a small distance, you didn’t have a chance at bagging a rabbit. Those ears were there for a reason.

So they’d split up. Not far apart—they could still see each other most of the time—but far enough that they stalked their own prey. Caleb carried his 10/22 and a knife. Many hunters preferred a shotgun for rabbits, but Caleb’s dad had taught him that the small-caliber rifle was the better choice. The downside was that you had to catch the critter while it was standing still, but Caleb had never been great at shooting prey on the run, and with a bullet instead of a pellet spray, the .22 gave him the advantage of distance. Bugs and Thumper would be dead before they knew they were being hunted.