Lucas is on board with the idea. He’s lagging behind, and visibly struggling. But he must know they could very well die of exposure if they slow down now.

So they keep climbing, up through boulders and along rocky cliffs, using lichen and shrubs and outcrops for handholds, pulling themselves higher as the clouds descend around them.

There isn’t a trail up here; it’s cairns again. The first few are easy to spot.

But then the cairns disappear.

“I don’t get it,” Lucas says, scratching his head and searching through the fog for the next pile of rocks. “I don’t remember this being so hard.”

They know if they follow the spine of the ridge, they probably won’t get lost. So they do that. Here and there is a rock pile after all, that seems to be pointing them in the right direction.

But there were more cairns, Dawn remembers. Every fifty feet or so, clearly visible. Even with the fog, they should be able to see at least two cairns at all times, one ahead and one behind. Now, they’re lucky if they can see just one.

“Are we going the right way?” Dawn asks.

“I’m pretty sure,” Lucas replies, but he looks as confused as Dawn feels. “I remember that traverse right there. I remember there used to be a big old pile of rocks beside it.”

It’s a part of the ridge where it rises in a hump and the trail swings around the east side of it, and Dawn remembers it, too.

She thinks she remembers it was the spot where she nearly died, where Warden saved her life. And when she thinks back, she can see the rock pile that Lucas remembers. In her mind, at least.

It’s not there anymore.

They make the traverse anyway. Skirt around the hump and rejoin the spine of the ridge and keep going, and here and there is a sketchy trail through the alpine grass, and every now and then a rock pile.

By now the clouds have settled in so thick that it’s impossible to tell which way you’re walking; if Dawn and Lucas were to somehow get turned around, they could be walking back toward Brandon and Evan without ever realizing what had happened.

This is stressful. It is stressful even without knowing there are two maniacs nearby who want to kill you.

It’s stressful because hypothermia is a thing and Dawn threw away most of her spare clothing, and if they get stuck on this ridgeline they could easily die.

It’s stressful because it slows everything down.

Dawn and Lucas aren’t running anymore, or even walking quickly. They’re wandering, squinting through the fog for the next indication of where the trail goes, the ridge rising up in impassible cliff faces and sheer drops without warning, forcing them to retreat and try other directions.