She forces herself to start walking again. The beam of her flashlight illuminates the ground just ahead of her, and Dawn knows there isn’t a trail to follow and that she’s pushing forward on faith.

She knows Brandon and Evan and Warden are out there, waiting for her, and that they’ll kill her as sure as the wind will, if they find her.

She knows her odds are slim and she’ll probably die, but she knows that Lucas is depending on her. And Amber, who is compassionate and caring and who would be doing the same thing, Dawn knows, not only for her but for any of the kids in her group, no matter what they thought of her.

She makes it another ten, fifteen minutes. Pitch dark and uneven ground, the burn of her muscles as the ridge rises and falls beneath her.

And then Dawn slips again. Misjudges a step and plummets down a bare rock face. It’s only ten feet, but when she hits, she hits hard. Twists her ankle on something and batters her arm. Loses her headlamp somewhere and watches the beam blink out.

She tries to stand and nearly screams from the pain. Tries to hobble and just straight collapses. And knows, as she hits the ground, that this is it. There’s no more pushing forward. Not on this ankle. Not like this.

This time, it doesn’t feel so seductive, the thought of falling asleep. Of dying here on the mountain and never again being cold.

This time, Dawn wants to keep going. For Amber and Lucas. For herself.

She just can’t.

She just straight freaking can’t.

Chapter 97

DAWN DOESN’T DIE ON THAT RIDGE.

She doesn’t even have a particularly uncomfortable night, not after she passes out at the base of that fall.

Dawn spends the night clueless, in a state of blissful unconsciousness. Things happen while she’s out, but she’s not privy to any of it.

And then she wakes up, and the sun is shining and the terrain doesn’t quite look as alien and foreboding as it did last night. And then Dawn shifts her weight a little bit and she realizes she’s wrapped up in somebody’s sleeping bag.

She’s warm.

And mostly dry.

And that somebody who owns the sleeping bag is watching her carefully.

It’s Brielle.

Chapter 98

THE BLACK BEAR SITS on a rock across a small clearing from Dawn. She has her big hiking pack beside her, half full or a little less. She doesn’t look as tired or, you know, gaunt as Lucas did, or Dawn feels. She looks like she’s spent some time in the woods, sure, but she doesn’t look like she’s about to die from it. She looks like she could go another week or so, easy.