“That, too,” Dawn says. “But I guess I meant more about Brandon and Evan.”

Brielle keeps walking. The trail is steeper now, gaps between the rocks.

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “That is fucked up.”

“You think Amber will make it?”

“I dunno. Depends if Alex can get back to headquarters in time.” She pauses. “Depends if they let him.”

Dawn waits, but Brielle doesn’t elaborate. “Who?” she asks. “Who’s going to let him do what?”

“The boys,” Brielle says. She lets it sit there a beat, like Dawn should understand. Then, when it’s clear Dawn doesn’t, she sighs. “He’s kind of throwing a wrench in their plans. Don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?” Dawn suddenly feels like the girl who walked into AP Japanese and can’t even pronounce konnichiwa. “What are you talking about?”

They come up over a rise, and suddenly Dawn sees more light: flashlights, and the glow of a fire, closer than she expected.

A flashlight turns in their direction. “There you are,” Warden says, climbing over the rocks toward them. “Jeez, I was starting to get worried.”

He ignores Brielle, walks right past her and puts his arm around Dawn and takes the wood from her. “Come on,” he says. “Kyla’s almost got dinner ready.”

Dawn lets Warden take the branches from her. Hangs back as she follows him into camp, hoping to get an answer from Brielle.

But Brielle is gone, she realizes. The Black Bear has slipped off and disappeared again, leaving Dawn with nothing but more questions, and the sick feeling that more bad things are coming, just as sure as the storm is.

Chapter 54

IT’S NOT UNTIL SHE’S ACTUALLY EATING that Dawn realizes how hungry she is.

She’s starving.

She hasn’t eaten anything but energy bars since breakfast, and with the whole stress of the day and Amber falling and then the getting-lost-in-the-dark thing, Dawn’s been too distracted to eat.

But now, as she stirs her spork into one of Christian’s emergency dehydrated mountain-climber mystery-meat dinners, Dawn can hear her stomach growl and feels a little dizzy, and even the mystery meat looks like prime rib.

It’s actually some kind of pasta, according to the package. All Dawn knows is that it’s hot and it’s filling and it’s better than energy bars or, like, the sack of rice she’s been lugging around since forever.

It’s freaking delicious.