So they hike, and hike cautiously, scanning the ridge ahead of them and stopping every few minutes to listen. They don’t hear anything; the ridge is still spooky quiet, and so they keep going and hope that, I don’t know, Warden and the others fell to their deaths somewhere in the night.

(It feels weird to Dawn to be hoping that other people are dead or at least grievously injured, but whenever she starts to feel guilty she pictures Alex all beaten up and bruised at the bottom of that ravine, and she knows Brandon and Evan will gladly do the same to her if they catch her. It’s kill or be killed at this point.)

Dawn and Brielle hike for an hour or so. They climb over the last mini mountain on the top of the ridge, and then the ridge turns southeast and begins to drop altitude, and from what Dawn can remember this means there’s only maybe another hour or two in the alpine before they pick up the trail again through the forest.

And after that it’s another solid five or six hours, maybe, back to headquarters, but they’re traveling light and there’s plenty of daylight left, and even though the trail is going to take them right past the spot where that angry mama bear tried to attack her on the outbound hike, Dawn isn’t thinking about that right now. She’s starting to believe that even on her busted ankle they can make it back, past Warden and the others and even that scary bear; they can make it to safety before darkness sets in.

It’s a good thought and it buoys her spirits and gives her energy, and she keeps hiking, following Brielle and putting one foot in front of the other and blocking out the pain and the fatigue and the hunger. They chew up the trail and now and then there’s even a cairn again, and even knowing that Warden and the others are out there, Dawn can’t help feeling just a little bit optimistic.

She’s survived the ridge, and it could have killed her. She didn’t freeze to death or plummet into the abyss, and Brandon and Evan didn’t catch her. Hiking, in daylight, with Brielle, everything seems safer somehow.

Dawn’s even starting to think about what will happen when they reach headquarters, when Brielle stops dead in front of her, and Dawn nearly runs her over.

“Hold up,” Brielle says. She’s staring at the ground. Dawn looks over Brielle’s shoulder, and sees what Brielle sees.

Footprints.

Chapter 102