I feel my fists relax, but Max keeps staring at me, willing me to make a move toward him. I’ve only been at the camp a week, and Lin is right—I really don’t want to start something that might not end. Always checking over my shoulder to see if Max is following me through the trees. Never able to sleep. And I have no idea what sort of punishment we’ll face with the Brutes. A punishment that might follow me for the rest of my time here.

So I turn away from Max, my arms rigid, snow blowing sideways in gusts now, and I take a step out onto the ice.

It creaks and settles, but doesn’t give way.

I move toward the center, each step a slow shuffle, until I feel the ice thinning beneath me—a layer of water soaking through my boots. I stop and look back at the shore.

“Keep going!” Jasper shouts out at me.

But I can’t; I know the ice will break. I shake my head.

“That’s not the center!” Jasper calls.

I turn and see that I still have several more yards to go. But I’ll never make it. The ice is way too thin. When I turn back to face them, Max has left the shore. He’s moving quickly out toward me—rage bottled up inside him, chest puffed, arms clenched.

I brace myself for whatever is about to happen next.

Max doesn’t speak when he reaches me, he just shoves me hard in the chest and pushes me backward on the ice. “We said you had to go to the center,” he spits, blood rushing into his face.

The ice moans beneath our feet, but Max won’t stop—he wants to go to the middle of the lake, where the ice is thinnest. To prove a point. To prove I’m afraid but he isn’t. He forces me farther onto the lake and the others on shore laugh—shouting things I can’t make out. Voices echoing up into the trees. Urging Max on.

But I know this won’t end well. For either of us.

We’re near the center when I hear the sound: the cracking of ice.

Max’s gaze swings up to mine and his shoulders drop. He looks frightened for the first time, and his head snaps back to shore, gauging how far away we are.

Too far.

“We have to run,” I say, out of breath. But Max seems frozen in place. The ice is too thin, and fractures weave along the surface, little spiderwebs expanding beneath Max’s boots. It pops and bends, starting to give way.

His eyes dip to his feet, going wide, and there is a low vibrating shudder that rises up from the ice.

I don’t know why I do it.