Dawn is exhausted. She hasn’t slept well since Amber fell. Even before that, she was half-dead from fatigue from all the hiking. That’s the point of the Out of the Wild program, after all: grind down the bad kids until they’re too tired to talk back. Until they’re so broken they’ll agree to do anything just to get the chance to sleep in an actual bed again.

Right now, a bed is a foreign concept. Same for a shower, or an actual meal.

But there’s no point in dwelling on it. Right now, it’s move or die. Dawn and Lucas descend from the first ridge toward the lakes in the distance. Beyond the second lake, Dawn can see the second ridge rising high into the sky again. Her legs ache at the thought of climbing back up to altitude. Her brain’s weary and her thoughts are getting fuzzy.

But there’s no point in complaining.

Dawn gobbles down a handful of trail mix and hurries to keep pace with Lucas. They keep hiking.

Chapter 81

IT’S ALMOST SCARIER when you can’t hear the howling.

Dawn and Lucas descend back into forest and emerge at the end of the first of the lakes. It’s long and narrow and ringed by avalanche paths: big, gigantic boulders that were a bitch to cross the first time and will be even worse in the snow.

Behind them, Brandon and Evan have stopped yelling, or maybe it’s just that their voices are muffled on the other side of the ridge. Either way, it’s eerily quiet down here by the lake. Dawn and Lucas could be the only people left alive in the world.

It’s also beautiful here, if you can find a minute or two to stop and appreciate the surroundings. The lake is an emerald-colored jewel and the snow surrounding it is pristine, blanketing the mountainsides and the forest in unblemished white. There are no cell phones allowed in Out of the Wild, but if there were, Dawn would be an Instagram legend.

But, of course, she has other things to worry about.

She and Lucas skirt the side of the first lake, following a narrow trail between pine trees, and clamber across the avalanche fields, careful not to fall into the deep holes between the rocks. They stop to refill the canteen and drink greedily, and the water is frigid and refreshing and invigorating.

It does nothing to calm Dawn’s nerves. The boys behind them have stopped howling and they could be anywhere. Dawn keeps glancing behind her, sure that Brandon and Evan are going to appear on the trail in the distance, running like killer zombies with only one thing on their minds.