‘Nope. That’s real. His name was Evan and we never spoke to each other. But every day I waited for him to get on the bus, three stops after mine. There was almost always an empty spot next to me, but he always sat second row from the front. So I watched the back of his head and dreamed.’

‘Okay, the pandas then.’

‘Seriously? No, it’s the snakes. Not scared at all. I actually quite like them.’

‘Me too. Never met a girl who does, though.’

Eventually we pass through a gate and pull up to a large wood-panelled building.

‘This is it,’ Jaxon says. ‘Adam’s a guide at this lodge. But since it’s winter, most of the guides have gone to soak up the sun down south. Summer is high tourist season here—you can hunt, like, twenty-four hours a day. But in winter, obviously, it’s a bit harder and there are no bears around either.’

I stay in the car, heat on high, as Jaxon goes inside. After about ten minutes, he returns.

‘They’re not here—not answering the radio either,’ he says, his brow creased with worry. ‘I told the manager we’ll go back home—we’re not allowed to drive around looking for them, it’s too dangerous. Should we go back?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘We’ve come this far. We need to find him.’

Jaxon nods and turns the car around, and we drive away from the Lodge. After a few minutes, when we are well out of sight, he stops. The headlights illuminate a grove of trees ahead but, apart from their tall ghostly trunks, the world is blacked out, erased from sight. No signs of a rising sun. He opens the huge paper map. ‘Where the hell would they be?’ He stares at the map for a while, turning it this way and that, and then seems to make a decision.

He turns right going east, then left, west, then doubles back, apparently deciding he was wrong. He checks and rechecks the map. West it is. Every so often, the headlights flicker slightly, and after more changes of direction I can no longer tell left from right or up from down. I have a crawling feeling inside of danger, fear. We are in a junk of a car, in the middle of nowhere, and who could even find us if we didn’t return? I check my phone: no signal. At least the battery is three quarters full, not that it would help.

Eventually, Jaxon points out the front windscreen. ‘There it is! His truck. Behind that tree.’

Unbelievable. My hands unclench as the headlights reflect off a bumper. Behind it, I see another large truck with roof racks, spotlights and a rental sticker on its back window.

‘We have to be careful—don’t want to surprise them and end up shot in the face,’ Jaxon says casually, making my heart leap.