Lucas says nothing, and Dawn says nothing, and they keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. And for a while it’s like they’re completely alone, like they’re the only people left alive in the world.

It’s the howling that chases that train of thought from Dawn’s station.

Chapter 77

IT’S NOT WOLVES THAT ARE HOWLING. That might almost be better. It’s not any wild animal making those noises, strange and unnerving and otherworldly, echoing up from the bottom of the trench.

(If you’ve ever heard a wolf howl, it sounds, well, romantic. Lonely and plaintive and wild. These howls are not romantic; there’s a cruelty to them that’s hard to explain. Like a gleeful, chilling, mocking quality that immediately scares the shit out of Dawn.)

Lucas glances back, over his shoulder. His eyes go wide. Then, suddenly, he pulls Dawn to the ground, nearly toppling her over onto her backpack.

“What the hell?”

They wind up behind a boulder. Lucas grips the shoulder strap of Dawn’s backpack, holding her in place, as they peer over the top of the boulder toward the Raven’s Claw.

The storm has dissipated entirely now. The Claw stands tall and proud in all of its evil, jagged glory. It’s covered in fresh snow, but the sheer rock faces are black. Looking up at the mountain, Dawn can’t believe they were ever near the summit. She can’t believe Amber fell down one of those black faces of rock and lived, however briefly.

She can see the tarn now, too. The tarn and the boulder fields are probably two or three miles away over vast, open air, but Dawn can see them, and the tarn is a black speck like a pimple against the white of the mountain.

But the howls steal her focus back before too long.

(Picture those smug, self-righteous smirks that Brandon and Evan are always wearing. Now imagine those smirks as a noise, except totally unhinged, and that’s what the howls sound like.)

The howling is coming from the barrier trench, and Dawn knows that means only one thing: Warden’s told the others that Dawn and Lucas have turned back. And Brandon and Evan are coming to find them.

Author’s Note

THERE’S A FINE LITERARY TRADITION of people getting stuck in the middle of nowhere and their whole fabric of society breaking down.

Maybe you had to read Lord of the Flies in class. Or, like, Heart of Darkness.

If you did, then you kind of know what to expect here.

People find themselves in the wilderness and it doesn’t take long before the rules don’t apply anymore.

All of the unwritten, unspoken tenets of civilized life we take for granted?

They break down in the wilderness.

All those laws you think protect you?

They don’t matter when there’s no one around to enforce them.