I yank my sleeves farther down my wrists and pull out my phone, squinting at the dim screen. There’s only one pathetic bar of signal, and it keeps appearing and disappearing like it’s planning to abandon me at any moment.

Then I notice the missed calls. Seventeen of them, all from Cyrus. I don’t even have time to think. I call him back at once—or try to. The reception is so flimsy that it takes three tries before the line actually connects. My fingers tremble as I press the phone to my ear.

“Leah? Where—are you?”

At the sound of his voice—so familiar, despite the static cutting into the line—an unexpected rush of emotion fills my throat. I clear it before speaking. “I think I’m lost,” I tell him.

I wait for him to scoff or laugh at me or question my common sense.

But there’s only a second of silence, like he’s drawing in a breath. “Okay. I’ll let Wang—know right—” The line won’t stop glitching, his sentences fading in and out of focus, leaving me to piece his fragmented words together. “… and we’ll figure—out. You can’t be—far away if you—mobile reception—can you … hear—”

“Sort of,” I say. “Not very well. And I don’t know if I’ll have a signal for long.”

“… any significant markers—can see?”

“I don’t know.” I scan the area, trying to identify something from all the yards of deep greens and burnt browns. “There are a lot of trees … There’s also a … a rock behind me that I’m pretty sure I passed earlier—”

“Not as helpful as—was hoping.” Even though half his words come out pixelated through the speaker, his sarcasm is as pronounced as if he were standing right next to me. I can practically picture him, his arms crossed, his head cocked to the side.

“Well, I’m sorry there are no giant neon arrows pointing to my head here, but it’s a forest, Cyrus,” I say, exasperated. “Its main characteristic is that it has trees.”

“Describe—the rock—then … Be specific …”

“Describe the rock?” My brows furrow as I turn toward it. If the situation weren’t so dire, I’d think he was playing a prank on me. “It’s pretty square, as far as rocks go. About the size of Prada’s straw tote bag from last season. When you stare at it from a certain angle, the surface looks shockingly like the face of a sloth.”

It’s hard to tell if the heavy static crackling through the phone is from the patchy reception, or just from him sighing. “Please never—get lost again.”

“I have no plans to,” I reassure him. “But, like, what am I supposed to do now? Describe more rocks to you?”

“Stay there. I’ll come find you—”

And then the line breaks.