I start to reach for my walkie, but then do a quick triage of my injuries first. My hands are cut up, and my right hip throbs. I touch the stinging back of my head with my fingertips and feel my own wet blood. Gouged and bleeding this way, to any nearby predator I know I smell like dinner. And then there’s Caleb, who could be anywhere, in any of these shadows that drip and shudder. Having Will beside me wouldn’t necessarily protect me from Caleb, though, not if he’s intent on killing me. And I’m not that hurt from my fall. I decide to walk a bit farther on my own, feeling grateful that at least I didn’t drop my flashlight on the way down.

Slowly, I begin to move haltingly forward, the valley floor waterlogged as marshland. Minutes later, my torch seems to hiccup as if it’s beginning to lose battery power. I shake it in warning, and then trip on a root and fall again, slamming my right knee hard into the muck. From my hands and knees, I see something darting off to my left, a black wing of movement, as if I’ve startled an owl or something larger.

I freeze, listening with my whole body. My heart thrashes thickly. My throat feels knotted and closed. Left at thirty degrees is where I saw movement. I dig for my dropped light, and then make myself stand up again. Pressing forward through a spongy traverse, I feel the forest floor rise up underfoot like a soft black mouth. I’m terrified of what I might find, or who.

Above, the canopy seems to have knitted closed, and the sky is a memory. I have the sense that I’ve fallen through the world into a void. That even if I called Will he couldn’t reach me here. This isn’t one of Hap’s tests, either, not some game of survival. It’s my life, and maybe my death, too. I think of all Hap tried to teach me about the wilderness, how it demands respect no matter how much knowledge you have. His own disappearance proves that. He knew more than anyone, had more patience and reverence and respect. And still it took him—nature—but it can’t take me. Not if I’m going to have a hope of finding Cameron. That’s what I have to focus on now, not my fear, but my reason for being here. Because that’s what survival means.

I push on through the heavy undergrowth, leaves and twigs tugging wetly at my clothes. Then a clearing opens, a stand of old-growth redwoods. I can smell them, can almost hear them breathing. They seem to be here as witnesses, but of what?

Then something moves again. I hear a small choked-sounding gasp. And then my flashlight blooms over a figure. Bone thin and painted with mud, more animal than girl.