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To Carly, for the love, patience, and compassion you share with the world. I hope you see yourself on every page.

Author’s Note

What the Woods Took chronicles the journey of five “troubled teens” in a behavioral therapy program. Therefore, some of the thematic material included contains mentions of substance abuse, child endangerment, sexual assault and child sexual abuse (CSA), and suicide. Included also are depictions of gore and violence against children. For a more detailed description of sensitive content, please visit gouldbooks.com/wtwt.

While many of the speculative dangers the characters of What the Woods Took face are fictional, details of the program they are enrolled in are taken from many real-life wilderness therapy programs that are still in operation today. These programs are often inhumane, meant to exploit children and their families both emotionally and financially. Activism from groups such as Breaking Code Silence and testimony from survivors of the troubled teen industry have made massive strides in outlawing the kidnapping and forced institutionalization of many teens in the United States. While these programs are beginning to face consequences for their abuse, there is still work to be done. If the treatment of the characters in this novel at the hands of REVIVE disturbs you, please consider donating to one of the many organizations fighting against the injustice of the troubled teen industry. For a list of legislative changes, articles with more information, and organizations to donate to, please visit gouldbooks.com/wtwtinfo.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Patton,

We are delighted to share that your application to enroll Devin Green in REVIVE Teen Rehabilitation Journey has been accepted.

At REVIVE, we believe that any teen’s path can shift with supportive guidance and mentorship based on mutual respect. Your teen might be struggling to find footing in this difficult, rapidly changing global landscape. We believe that separating them from the harm of the modern world is imperative now more than ever. As Aldo Leopold once said of youth in nature, “… wilderness gave them their first taste of those rewards and penalties for wise and foolish acts which every woodsman faces daily, but against which civilization has built a thousand buffers.”

At REVIVE, we believe in shielding your teen from harm, but not discomfort. Your teen will face many situations meant to deeply disquiet them. By bringing your teen back to their baser instincts, we will rebuild their decision-making skills in uncomfortable situations, making your teen stronger and wiser than before. When these fifty days end, we believe you will see a new teen, rebuilt and renewed. Your teen may resist or resent this process at first, but know that we are not here to punish them for the hard hand they’ve been dealt. We thank you for trusting REVIVE with your teen’s health and well-being, and we look forward to the day you reunite. Enclosed, you will find an invoice for your down payment and details of your teen’s individualized plan.

Thank you once more for entrusting us to plant the seeds of Devin’s great journey to the light.

Warmest regards,

The Staff of REVIVE

1

Devin feels them before she opens her eyes.

Two men. The mass of them—one at the foot of her bed and the other standing beside her—is heavy in the night. At first, she thinks it might be a bad dream. But bad dreams don’t smell like sweat and cheap deodorant. These men are real.

It can’t be morning yet; Devin’s limbs are still weighty with sleep. She breathes deep and stays still, keeping the rise and fall of her chest steady through the fear. She needs to get out of here and her options for doing so are limited. She doesn’t know this bedroom like the last one. She doesn’t know how to slip out in an emergency. If there are places to hide, she hasn’t uncovered them.

Behind her eyelids, Devin makes a map. It’s something she should’ve done the moment CPS moved her here. There’s a window behind her, but in the six months she’s been here, she hasn’t tried opening it. She could attempt to pry it open and get out before either stranger grabs her. The bedroom door is just beyond the foot of her bed, but with strangers in the way, it’s off the table. A door to her left leads to a shared bathroom with the other kids. She could probably get there, but then what? Lead the strangers to more children?

She knew every in and out of her last foster home. Knew how to disappear in a moment’s notice. Whoever these men are, though, they’ve caught her off guard. She doesn’t know what they want. She’s unprepared and it’s her own fault. Six months of peace and she made the mistake of getting comfortable.

“Devin Green?”

This voice comes from the man at her shoulder, too loud to be discreet. Devin doesn’t open her eyes, but her breath hitches. He isn’t afraid of being caught, for some reason, which means he either thinks he can take everyone in this house, or …

She doesn’t want to think about the alternative.

“Wake up, Devin,” the man says. “Please.”

Devin opens her eyes, but the room is still black. She can’t see the men’s faces, but their silhouettes are massive. They don’t immediately reach for her—a mistake she doesn’t plan to waste.

The window will have to do.

She sucks in a breath through her nose and twists to grab the window latch behind her, fumbling to wrench it open. She pulls hard at the bottom of the window, but it doesn’t budge. A smooth stroke of paint is hardened at the crease. Painted shut.

When a hand closes around her ankle, Devin screams.

“Shh,” the voice at the foot of her bed hisses. “You’re gonna wake people up.”

Devin turns over in the stranger’s grip, pushes off the bed with what momentum she has, and plants her fist squarely to her attacker’s nose, earning a crunch. It’s not enough to take the man out, but at least it’ll buy her a second to run. The bed creaks as Devin swings her legs over the lip of the mattress. It doesn’t matter what they want; the only thing that matters is escape.

“Shit,” the man snaps. “Grab her arms.”

The one at the foot of the bed scurries to Devin’s side before she can get up, grabbing her wrist and forcing it back to the mattress. The springs screech, too noisy not to wake the others. She claws at the man’s arm with her free hand and the part of her that only knows how to survive takes over. The air is too shallow to breathe.

“Diane,” Devin cries with what breath she has. “Henry.”

A hand claps over her mouth.

Devin’s been in dozens of homes over the last few years, all with their own sketchy situations, but the Pattons were supposed to be different. They live in a quiet neighborhood, mostly populated by old people. They ask if she wants water before bed, what kind of lunch meat she wants in her sandwiches, offer to drive her to friends’ houses on the weekends so she doesn’t have to walk. Of all the places she expected to be attacked in the middle of the night, this was last on the list.

“You’re not in danger, Devin,” the man with a hand over her mouth snaps. “Please calm down.”

Devin holds still long enough for the man to remove his hand from her mouth.

Then, she screams again.

Finally, footsteps thunder down the hall. Her bedroom door opens, not in a slam but in a hush. Diane Patton, her foster mother, sweeps past the men and kneels at the side of Devin’s bed, eyes wide. Her dark hair, at one point knotted at the back of her skull, falls in wisps along her round face. Something about her expression isn’t right. She should be afraid of intruders, afraid of something happening to her or the foster child she’s only had in her care for six months. But the men seem unsurprised by her, unafraid of being caught. Like she knew they’d be here.

Devin freezes.

“Did you hurt her?” Diane snaps.

“Look at my nose,” one of the men says, voice slightly curdled by his newly clogged sinuses. “She’s the violent one.”

Diane turns back to Devin.

“Devin, please,” Diane whispers. “You’re not in danger. I promise.”

Devin bucks against the hands holding her again. The muscles in her chest, arms, legs all burn with the force of it, but the men don’t give. Behind Diane, her willowy husband, Henry, enters the room. The floorboards on the other side of the bathroom door creak. The other kids stir, but they don’t open the door. They’re listening.

They know.

Everyone knows what’s happening except Devin.

“We’re trying to help you, Devin,” Diane whispers. Her eyes are glassy. “I’m so sorry, but I know it’ll help. Please.”

“What’s happening?” Devin breathes.

Diane reaches to stroke the side of Devin’s face.

Devin bats her away and one of the men grabs her arm. They haul her to her feet and Devin can’t find the air to scream. Her head churns, trying to make sense of it. We’re trying to help you.

The men drag her out of her bedroom, into the dark hallway. One holds her against the coffee-colored hallway wall. She doesn’t take her eyes off the Pattons, waiting for them to change their minds and save her. That’s supposed to be the point of guardians, right? To guard? Devin kicks herself for believing that, even for a second. She was tricked by shiplap walls and a two-car garage when she should’ve stuck to what she knew.

One of her kidnappers turns to Henry with a hard expression. Quietly, he says, “I don’t think we’ll get her to pack for herself. I need you to gather up a few things. Underwear, toiletries, stuff like that.”

Silently, Henry obliges. He doesn’t look at her, either from shame or hatred. Maybe they do hate her. Maybe it’s because she’s spent the last few months wandering Portland in a haze. Maybe it’s because of the money missing from their piggy bank in the hallway closet. It’s probably about the fight last week. She’s been tossed out before, but she’d thought the Pattons were too passive to get rid of her this close to her eighteenth birthday, and these men certainly aren’t CPS.

Once Henry hands over a bundle of her things, the men push Devin the rest of the way down the hall and through the front door. The cold night air slaps her in the face. The streetlights buzz, ring in her ears. The black sky tilts and spins and reality sets in. She’s being abducted, right? Devin stares into every dark window that lines the street and imagines how many would stir if she screamed right now. But when she tries to muster it, she comes up empty again. It’s like a nightmare. She opens her mouth and there’s nothing.

Across the street, a tall white van waits with its door wide open, obscuring what Devin is sure is a logo. She can’t make out the shape of it. Waiting for her in the backseat is another teen; a boy in an oversized white T-shirt and a beanie. She can’t quite see his face in the dark, but the cool light from the streetlamp shines in rivulets on his cheeks. He’s been crying.

One of the two men places his hand at the top of Devin’s spine and she snaps to life, shoving him away. She might be short, but she’s been outnumbered and out-sized before. She’s taken kicks to the gut, hair pulled from her scalp, the kinds of punches that make you see stars. Before she can fight back, though, the men grab her by the elbows. They lift Devin from the pavement and throw her into the backseat of the van, slamming and locking the door behind her.

Devin gasps for air. She kicks the back of the driver’s seat with all the force she can muster, but it’s pointless.

The boy in the backseat clears his throat.

“Do something,” Devin hisses.

The boy looks at her. “Like what?”

Devin screams as loud as she can, finally finding the air to get the noise out. Instead of joining her, the boy covers his ears. Devin screams until her throat is raw. Outside the van, the men wait for her to finish.

“Are we not being kidnapped?” Devin breathes, hoarse. “Are people cool with that now?”

“Guess so,” the boy offers. His voice is hoarse, too. He gathers himself, eyes trained on the floor of the van. “I don’t think we’re being kidnapped. My dad unlocked the door for them.”

Devin looks at the boy for a long moment. Cold light flickers into the van from the streetlight outside, cutting a sharp line over his pale knuckles. His fingers twitch against his thigh. His curly hair is the color of wet sand and his face is gaunt like he hasn’t eaten in weeks.

Softer, Devin asks, “Do you know where they’re taking us?”

The boy shrugs.

“How long ago did they take you?”

“Half hour, maybe?” the boy offers. “I don’t know where we are now, but they got me from my house in Portland. Lents.”

“Still in Portland,” Devin breathes. “We’re in Eastmoreland.”

The boy nods.

Devin considers him. “What’s your name?”

“Oliver,” the boy says. “Ollie.”

“I’m Devin.”

“Devin. What are they—”

The driver’s side door of the van swings open and one of the men hoists himself inside. The cabin light finally makes the details of him clear. He’s mid-forties, white, face hard and unreadable. He’s indistinct in a way Devin imagines would make it impossible to pick him out of a lineup. His green baseball cap reads NORTHWEST TRANSPORTATION SERVICE in all caps.

“Quiet,” the other man snaps, climbing into the passenger seat. He turns around to face Devin and Ollie with furrowed brows. He’s just as indistinct as the other man save for the thick black of his eyebrows, the unnerving blue of his eyes, and the splotchy bruise just forming across the bridge of his nose. “It’s gonna be a long drive and we’re only stopping for gas. Let’s cover a few things right away and make this painless, okay?”

Ollie nods.

“What do you—” Devin starts.

“First off, we’re keeping talking to a minimum. All questions will be answered when we arrive, but until then, be quiet. If you need food or water, let us know and we’ll get you something.”

Devin looks at Ollie, but his gaze is trained out the window. He watches the dark windows with the same somber resignation Devin felt moments earlier. There are dozens of people on this street who could help them, but Devin isn’t surprised they don’t. Seventeen years of jumping from house to house teaches you that what should happen rarely ever does. Counting on someone else to help is like waiting to pay your bills until you’ve won the lottery. If you don’t figure out how to take care of yourself without it, you’ve already lost. She thought the Pattons were good ones, but they were just another lesson.

“You both understand?” Passenger Seat asks. “We’re on a tight schedule. No running, no talking, no causing a scene, okay?”

Neither of them says a word.

Passenger Seat reiterates, “Do you understand?”

Ollie nods.

Devin narrows her eyes. “Get fucked.”

Passenger Seat looks at Driver’s Seat and shrugs. He slaps the back of the driver’s seat and says, “Good enough for me. Let’s roll.”

Ollie Baker is out of chances.

Clearly that’s the message his father is trying to send by having him abducted in the middle of the night. As the van rattles out of Portland in the pitch-black night, Ollie lolls his head back and thinks about his last week at home. He tries to pinpoint the moment his father gave up on him.

No, actually—Ollie already knows the exact moment. He saw it happen, the two of them standing arm’s-length apart in the kitchen, his father with an empty pill bottle in his clenched fist. It’s been a week, but when Ollie closes his eyes, he still sees his father’s dull stare, anger warping into something softer but harder to fix. It turns out there’s a feeling worse than rage.

He assumes the men are taking them to juvie, though he hasn’t actually been charged with anything. Maybe it’ll be boarding school or military academy. Somewhere parents ship their useless kids when they realize it’s no longer worth the effort.

Ollie’s never been good at directions, the instructional kind or the geographical kind. Beyond Portland, he knows there’s a scattering of towns in central Oregon where old people go to ski, but beyond that, he’s at a loss. The farther they drive from Portland, the more the pleasant possibilities fall away, leaving Ollie with only a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

They make it out of Portland before the sun rises, tear down the gold spill of the Columbia River Gorge until their route bends south. They stop for gas six hours into the drive in a desolate little town called Ontario. Ollie fruitlessly tries to make sense of his surroundings without speaking to the girl in the other seat. They’re already in deep shit, and he’s not trying to break rules and make it worse.

A sign at the side of the highway declares that they might split west to Snakebite or east to Boise. When he spots the strip malls beyond the highway, each storefront toting a neon OPEN sign, he imagines he might be able to reach the coin laundromat before the men catch him.

And then what? Find his way home?

The girl seems to have the same idea minus the doubt. For her, most of the drive was spent glaring into the headrest in front of her, quietly fuming so hot Ollie felt the temperature climb. Even now that they’re stopped, her hands twitch like she’s a cat considering an open screen door.

Devin, he thinks, though he’s not completely sure. Listening to her speak in the backseat of the van at two in the morning was like trying to hear underwater. Ollie is sure he’s never met her, but she looks like someone he’d be friends with back home. Her hair is shorter than Ollie’s, a tangle of chestnut brown cut close to her scalp. Her eyes are dark, cheeks full, knuckles bruised. She can’t be taller than five-three, maybe five-four, but she’s stocky and boyish. Her presence fills every inch of the van. Her presence swallows Ollie’s alive.

Before Devin has a chance to bolt, their driver pulls himself back into the van with a sigh. He eyes Devin and shakes his head. “I see you looking. You’re probably faster than both of us. You think you could find someone if you ran? Get them to call the police?”

Devin doesn’t answer. Without moving a muscle, her rage burns even hotter. Ollie looks away.

“You can run. But I’ve got something that’ll bring you right back.” He fishes through his jacket pocket, freeing a laminated square of yellow paper. NORTHWEST TRANSPORTATION AUTHORIZED STAFF, it says. A small logo is printed in the bottom corner. “I got a letter from both of your parents explaining what’s going on here. It’ll tell anyone who’s got concerns that your legal guardians have given us permission to take you from point A to point B. They trust us to get you there safely, okay?”

“You didn’t tell us where we’re going,” Ollie says.

“You’re going to a special camp. Both of you.” The man sighs. “It’s a good thing. We’re only doing this because your parents knew if they tried to explain it, you wouldn’t go.”

After stewing in silence for hours, Devin finally scoffs. “I don’t have parents. Let me out.”

“You can get out if there’s something you need.”

“I need to pee.”

The man stares at Devin for a long time. His gaze slides to Ollie. “You need to use the restroom?”

Ollie swallows. He looks out the van window at the 7-Eleven and frowns. He gets the idea that if it’s not both of them taking a break, it’ll be neither of them. Sitting alone in the van waiting for his kidnappers to return makes him queasy. Wordlessly, he nods.

The man sighs. “’Kay, then both of you can unbuckle and come with me.”

Without a word, Ollie unbuckles and waits for the van door to slide open. The air outside is crisper than he expects, tunneling softly into the van. Ollie pulls the neck of his T-shirt over his nose to trap the heat. He climbs out after Devin and plants his feet firmly on the gas station pavement. There’s something about the oil-slicked, stubby expanse of the parking lot that makes him crave a joint. He’s sure their transporters would love that.

The other transporter—the stocky man with an ever-darkening bruise like a nasal strip—eyes them as they leave the van. Eyes Ollie, rather. His gaze skirts past Devin.

“Be good in there,” he says.

Devin laughs under her breath.

Their driver guides them into the 7-Eleven, putting a hand on each of their shoulders to press them toward the bathrooms. Devin heads in without hesitation, but Ollie pauses. He turns back to the driver. Whatever snarky comment he means to make dies on his lips and all he can manage is, “Can I have a jerky stick, too?”

The man sighs, deeper this time, and motions to the bathroom.

It’s not a huge bathroom. Ollie doesn’t bother making for the urinals. He stumbles to the sink and looks himself hard in the face.

His father sent him to camp, then. Maybe it’s some type of rehab. That would make sense from his dad’s view. Ollie closes his eyes and there’s the pill bottle again. He was never supposed to take the last one, never supposed to ring the alarm bells like that. Maybe it would’ve been better to tell his father the truth. Maybe, if his father knew Ollie wasn’t taking them for himself, this whole thing could’ve been avoided.

Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.

A sharp knock breaks his daze. Ollie realizes he’s been staring at the bathroom mirror since he entered the room. He turns the faucet on, fills his palms with cold water, and splashes it over his face. It’s time to wake up.

This is the reality he’s got.

He steps out of the bathroom to see their driver knocking on Devin’s bathroom door. He eyes Ollie but says nothing. “We gotta clear out. Wrap it up, please.”

Behind them, a young couple pauses. Ollie thinks about approaching them while the driver focuses on Devin. He thinks about saying it quietly: I’m being taken against my will. Please call the police. He glances back at their driver. The yellow corner of the authorization slip juts from his pocket and Ollie’s stomach sinks.

The driver raps on the bathroom door again. “Verbal acknowledgment that you’re wrapping it up, please.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Devin’s voice is muffled. After a moment, there’s a thud from inside. The driver straightens his spine and wraps his fingers around the door handle. “Alright, I’m coming in.”

When he pushes the door open, Ollie just barely catches sight of her. Devin has climbed to the top of one of the deep-green bathroom stalls where narrow, frosted windows let in shallow slots of light. She’s wrapped her elbow in her hoodie and is about to strike the glass again. She’s braver than him. She thinks faster. She’s got a reason to get back home, maybe. Unlike Ollie.

The driver rushes into the bathroom and the door groans shut behind him.

With only a second to think, Ollie swallows hard. He turns to the counter and presses his hands to the plexiglass that covers an assortment of scratch-off lottery tickets. He gathers up what courage he has, clears his throat, and says, “Excuse me?”

The cashier doesn’t hear him, too fixated on the bathroom debacle.

“Sir?” Ollie says again. “I need some help.”

The cashier looks at him and Ollie’s face burns. His racing mind screams that there’s no point. If he manages to get out of this, he either ends up back home with the man who sent him away, or he ends up on the streets. He meets the cashier’s gaze, tries to muster up the right words. I’ve been kidnapped. I’ve been abducted. I’ve been—

The bathroom door crashes open. The driver has his thick hands on Devin’s shoulders, forcing her out of the bathroom. He casts a glance at the cashier and pulls the yellow slip from his pocket. In silence, the cashier reads it.

“Northwest Transport,” the driver says, out of breath. “We got authorization to move these kids. I have credentials if you need them.”

The cashier looks back at Ollie, then nods at the driver.

That’s it, then. No rescue in sight. Ollie wants to shrink until he vanishes because he blew it and now there’s no chance for either of them. The driver puts a hand at the nape of Ollie’s neck and redirects him from the counter. He scoots them out the door and into the chilly morning. The van door is still open and the other transporter sits in the passenger seat, unwrapping a candy bar. When he spots them, he steps out of the van and stands at attention.

Devin pauses when they reach the van and eyes both men. She straightens and spits on the concrete between them.

“Alright, alright…” the bruised transporter says. “In you go.”

Devin climbs in and presses herself into the very back corner of the van. Her eyes are dark, but they’re vicious. She folds her arms over her chest and says nothing.

Before Ollie can climb into the van, the bruised transporter stops him. “You keep up the good behavior and I have an extra candy bar with your name on it. Just a few more hours and this will be over.”

A candy bar. That’s all he has to offer for good behavior. Ollie feels the razor-sharp sting of Devin’s glare and he shakes his head. He wants to be as passionate about fighting back as her, wants to make it impossible for these men to keep him contained, but he just doesn’t have it in him.

“Your choice,” the man muses. “It’ll be a lot better than the food there.”

“Tucker,” the driver scolds. “Cut it out.”

The bruised man waves a dismissive hand. They guide Ollie into the van, shutting and locking the door behind him, and then they’re off again. They leave Ontario and Oregon completely, bumping along an increasingly narrow highway. The mountains climb, eventually steepening into snow-capped peaks while the trees thicken and knit closer together. The forest grows so dark Ollie can’t see between the trees, met only with a wall of boughs and bark in all directions. He leans his forehead against the window and tries to sleep. An hour turns into two, then four and, the whole time, Devin is motionless in the backseat. They continue like this, occasionally picking up patches of radio signal before eventually losing all touch with reality.

When the van finally slows and turns off the highway, Ollie’s nausea deepens. They ease the van down a gravel road before reaching a grassy parking lot between the trees. There is no rehab facility or campsite waiting for them amidst the bright, summer green. There’s only a group of kids his age sitting in a circle, mounds of bags at their feet. The van clicks off and Ollie puts his head in his hands.

If this is what he thinks it is, then he should’ve asked for help from that cashier or the couple buying potato chips or anyone else he’s had a chance to grab since he was pulled from his bed in the middle of the night.

If this is wilderness therapy, Ollie really is out of chances.

2

The transporters waste no time hoisting Devin and Ollie from the van, depositing them in the grassy parking lot. The sun beats down hotter than it was at the gas station. Judging by the way it sits straight overhead, it’s probably about noon. They’re in Idaho, Devin thinks, though they ran out of road signs not long after leaving Oregon. If someone asked Devin to find them on a map, she’d be at a loss, a thought that makes her stomach turn.

Devin looks back at the transporters and wishes she’d managed to punch them both.

Beyond the parking lot, the small group sits in the grass and watches them. Three teens about Devin’s age with backpacks and piles of hiking gear at their feet. A man and a woman, only a few years older than the rest, stand side by side in the center of the circle. All of them wear matching green shirts that read REVIVE. Devin doesn’t make eye contact with anyone. Not the adults, not the teens, not the transporters, not even Ollie. She doesn’t need to be oriented to this group. She needs to find a way out.

“C’mon over,” the male counselor calls. “The others just got here, too.”

Driver’s Seat meanders toward the two adults, giving them each a fist bump. He leans in close and whispers something in the man’s ear. On cue, both adults look at Devin. A warning. Watch the girl, she’s sure he’s saying. She’s a flight risk with a right hook.

Any other day, she’d be proud.

“Get over there,” Passenger Seat says from behind them. “Meet your new friends.”

Devin looks at Ollie, who shrugs and makes his way toward the group. Devin follows, but her eyes cling to the trees beyond the parking lot. The air here is quiet in a way she’s never felt, uninterrupted by the puttering of old engines and the distant crash of machinery. Whether the nearest town is five or five hundred miles away, it’s clear the only thing she’ll find if she runs now is more trees. Her skin itches, lungs tightening with panic.

When they reach the circle, Devin gets a better look at the others. A boy with a round face and thick-rimmed glasses sits next to the adults, fidgeting with the zipper of his backpack. Next to him, a girl with a short brown bob and bangs that nearly cover her eyes fiddles with her cross necklace. Both of them look up as Devin and Ollie approach. When their eyes find Devin, it’s like they see nothing.

On the other side of the adults, another teen girl sits alone. Her shaggy hair is lavender, murky brown roots sprouting from her scalp like a smudge. Her T-shirt and pants hang from her thin, pale limbs. When she looks at Devin, she arches a brow but says nothing. It makes Devin’s skin crawl.

“We’re so glad you two could make it,” the male counselor says with a hearty clap. He looks like the kind of guy that frequents the cafes in downtown Portland, all shoulder-length unwashed hair and too-wide smiles. “It must’ve been a crazy long drive. We can get started on some introductions, and then we’ll tell you a little about how this program works. How’s that sound?”

The group is silent.

Devin feels Ollie’s stare slide to her, but she doesn’t turn her head.

“My name is Coach Ethan,” the counselor continues. He motions to the blond-ponytailed woman next to him and she gives a quick wave. “This is Coach Liv. The two of us will be your guides for the next fifty days. Before we get into the good stuff, let’s go around and say our names and where we’re from.”

He motions to the spectacled boy at his side.

The boy looks around the circle and his cheeks go red like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. “Oh, uh, I’m Aidan. I’m from Bozeman. Montana.”

“I’m Hannah,” the girl with the bob says, dropping her cross necklace. After a long silence, she manages, “I’m from Sacramento.”

All eyes turn to Devin.

She doesn’t want to participate, doesn’t want to give them a name. She doesn’t want to be familiar to anyone in this group. She folds her arms over her chest. “Devin. Portland.”

Next to her, Ollie shifts from one foot to the other. Even after ten hours together on the road, she can’t get a good read on him. He didn’t try to run at the gas stop, and even though he was crying when she first saw him, he doesn’t seem especially sad now.

“Ollie,” he says. “Also from Portland.”

Finally, all eyes land on the lavender-haired girl. She leans back on her palms, grass jutting between her fingers. Her lips curl just enough to hint at a smile without really smiling. She looks at both coaches and shrugs. “I don’t know. I forgot.”

Coach Ethan’s expression is unmoving, but there’s a twitch to his right eye. His smile broadens. “I’m sure if you think about it, you’ll remember.”

The girl shakes her head. “Nope. It’s gone.”

Her voice is deeper than Devin expected, flat with a vocal fry that makes her sound deeply bored. Any other day, Devin might think this is funny, but with the sun beating down on them and the day wearing on, all she wants is these introductions to end so someone can explain what they’re doing out here.

Ethan sighs. “Everyone, this is Sheridan. Sheridan is from Seattle.”

“That’s what it was,” Sheridan says.

“Okay, moving on,” Coach Ethan says. “We work for a program called REVIVE and our mission is to help you cope with some pretty tricky turns your life has taken lately. You can think of this as a summer camp, though it’s going to be a little different from any summer camp you’ve been to.”

Devin scoffs at the same time as Sheridan. Briefly, their eyes meet.

Coach Ethan’s smile fades and he motions to Devin and Sheridan in one sweeping motion. “Did you have something you wanted to add?”

Devin shakes her head. In all the summers she’s spent moving around, Devin has never been to a summer camp. The idea that she’d even have a point of reference for one makes her laugh, but that isn’t Ethan’s business.

Sheridan is, unsurprisingly, less shy.

“It’s not summer camp,” she says. She doesn’t look at either coach when she speaks, eyeing the grass between her fingers, instead. “It’s wilderness therapy. Very different.”

Ethan and Liv exchange a glance. Softly, Ethan says, “Yes, this is a type of wilderness therapy. I won’t lie to any of you, because that’s not the kind of relationship we’re going to have here. Maybe you’ve heard things about wilderness therapy before. Any of those bad rumors, though, I want you to give us a chance to prove them wrong. REVIVE is a brand-new program and we’re going to do everything we can to get this right for you and your families. Does that sound okay?”

Aidan nods feverishly, but the rest of the circle is silent. Coach Liv steps forward, placing her palm squarely to her chest like she’s about to sing the anthem. “Coach Ethan will be your moral support for the next fifty days, and I’ll be your field support. That means, as your mental journey gets tougher, Ethan will be there to help you meet your goals. But I’ll be the one keeping you alive and healthy out here. REVIVE lasts fifty days. That’s fifty days of hiking, camping, making your own food, and learning some really cool survival skills. Every week, our group will reach a new milestone, which represents a new step for you both emotionally and physically. We’ll be spending every day out here getting closer as a group and really thinking about the kinds of lives we want to lead when we get home. That means we have to learn to trust each other. Does that sound doable?”

“It might seem difficult,” Ethan cuts in with a little laugh like he’s told a joke. “But we learned a lot about each of you already from your parents. We know you’ll get along just fine.”

Devin laughs under her breath again and Ethan’s gaze snaps to her.

“Yes, Devin?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It seems like it’s something important to you,” Ethan says, condescending smile widening. “I’d love if you shared.”

“You’ve never spoken to my parents,” Devin says.

Ethan nods. “Devin, I’m not going to share your personal information with the group, but I want you to know we spoke with people who care about you very much.”

Devin rolls her eyes. If it’s the Pattons they spoke to, that’s a lie. If it’s people at school, Devin can’t imagine anyone had much to say. She would have to go to class to make a real impression. She doubts they spoke to any of the “friends” who dropped her after the incident at school the other week. The list of people who care about her very much isn’t just small, it’s empty.

Liv clears her throat. “Devin and Ollie, I want you to pick up the backpacks at your feet. You’ll find a fresh set of hiking clothes and shoes, which we’ll have you change into before we get started. Go ahead and do that now.”

The breeze trickles between the trees as, behind them, the transporters mutter a brief goodbye and pile back into their van. They tear away from the parking lot without hesitation, taking the only vehicle—the only chance of escape—with them. As Devin and Ollie go to change, the quiet of the woods settles in.

Once she’s out of sight, Devin hesitates. She clutches the green T-shirt and pants to her chest and slides down to the base of the tree, closing her eyes. She’s weaseled her way out of bad situations before, but never anything like this. For only a second, she wonders if she should’ve pulled it together back home. She knew the Pattons were getting worried, but worried usually means moving homes, not whatever wilderness therapy is. If she’d come home on time, if she’d just ignored Danielle after school, if she’d just kept her head down a little longer, maybe she wouldn’t be here.

“Devin,” Coach Liv calls. “Do you need any help? We’re going over instructions out here when you’re done.”

Devin shrugs on the clothes, balling up her pajamas and tucking them under her arm. The rest of the group stands in front of their backpacks, waiting. With everyone in matching T-shirts, they look like a summer bible camp. Devin half expects the coaches to make them watch VHS recordings of Veggie Tales.

“Alright,” Liv says with a too-bright smile. “In your backpack, you’ll find a full water bladder and granola bars in the front pouch. The rest of the stuff in there will be explained when we get to our first campsite. For now, the only thing I want you to focus on is soaking up all the fresh air out here in the woods. Our first hike will be about eight miles. If any of you need breaks, let us know.”

Ethan nods along with Liv’s explanation, then exhales. “What I want you guys to do while we hike is really think about the kind of life you were living back home. What kinds of things did you do every day? What kinds of patterns were you in, and are those the kinds of patterns you want to follow for the rest of your life? When we get to camp, we’ll each have an opportunity to share what we thought about, but for right now, let nature guide your mind.”

With that, they begin.

Coach Liv guides them out of the parking lot and onto a trailhead laid with soft bark dust. The moment they enter the wall of trees, Devin’s chest gets even tighter. She imagines how quickly she’ll lose her sense of direction out here. Eight miles seems short when she’s spent most of her life walking from place to place, but eight miles into the unknown is something else. It’s eight miles she’ll have to fight back through to make an escape. The tree canopy is bright green, shuffling in a way that almost looks like it breathes. Devin doesn’t speak and no one speaks to her. She inhales the forest’s living silence and does her best to tune out the rest.

They hike in a single-file line, Coach Liv at the front of the pack, followed closely by Aidan, who clutches his backpack straps so tight it’s like he’s parachuting. Devin half expects him to be the first one to call for a break, but he soldiers through, trotting in Liv’s shadow. Behind Aidan, Hannah hikes with the ease of a girl who has spent a chunk of her life outdoors. She’s quieter than the others, and apparently uninterested in the nature part of their hike given the way she stares at her boots the whole way.

Behind Hannah, only a few steps in front of Devin, is Ollie. And behind Devin, punctuating every minute or so with an aggrieved sigh, is Sheridan.

Devin doesn’t look at her because she doesn’t want to feed into whatever tantrum Sheridan is throwing. After the first hour, Sheridan calls for a break. She calls for another not even an hour after that. With each interruption, Devin’s patience withers. She wants to get out, too. She hates this, too. But Sheridan doesn’t just look tired, she looks bored. Devin doesn’t know her well yet—in fact, she doesn’t know her at all—but she imagines Sheridan is like the girls back at school who liked to interrupt class just to prove they had the power to make everyone’s day a little worse. The angrier Devin gets as Sheridan plops down onto a rock to retie her boots again, the happier Sheridan seems.

Finally, as the soil under the tree cover begins to darken and cool, Coach Liv holds up her hand. She turns to face the group with a satisfied smile, wisps of her wheat-blond hair floating at her jaw.

“Awesome job, everyone,” she beams. “Welcome to your first camp.”

Once they’re stopped, Ethan rolls a few logs toward the center of the clearing while Liv shuffles through her backpack, extracting a lighter and kindling. Devin drops her backpack and finally sits. The ache of their hike sets in the moment she’s seated and she isn’t sure she’ll be able to stand again. The others do the same, dropping their bags and sinking onto the logs with relief.

All four of them look different, and Devin imagines she looks different, too. Aidan’s face is red, sweat caked to his brow. Dirt speckles his thick-lensed glasses. Next to him, Hannah sits and grips her kneecaps so hard her knuckles turn white. The sleek line of her bob is disheveled now, exhaustion plain in the bags under her eyes. Ollie has abandoned his beanie, and his sweat-soaked mop of hair sticks to his cheeks. He sits next to Devin but doesn’t say a word. If he feels some sense of friendship with her, he can keep it to himself.

Across from Devin, sitting farthest from everyone else, is Sheridan. Her lavender hair, now pulled into a ponytail, sticks to her neck. Flecks of old black eyeliner give the vague outline of wings at the corners of her eyes. She quickly shifts her legs over the log and lies on her back, uninterested in conversation and apparently determined to prevent anyone else from sitting with her.

“Alright,” Ethan says, standing behind Liv as she makes a fire. “Look at that. You all survived your first hike. I want you each to give yourselves a pat on the back.”

Devin isn’t sure if he means it literally. Aidan is the only one to move, gently tapping his own shoulder. The trees above them rustle and sway as the still afternoon air shifts toward evening.

“You’ve all worked hard today, so Liv and I will take care of most of the nightly chores for you. We’ll make the fire tonight, prepare your dinners, and we’ll even help you set up your tents.”

Tents. Devin narrows her eyes. She hasn’t had a chance to look through her backpack yet, but she’s felt it flapping against her spine all day, light and cushiony. She’s fairly certain there is not a whole tent in there.

“For the next fifty days, this is how we’ll do things,” Ethan continues. “We’ll wake up, eat breakfast, and chat about our goals for the day. We’ll hike most of the afternoon, and in the evening, we’ll eat and make camp. Part of REVIVE’s mission is to help each of you learn about establishing healthy routines that can keep you from drifting back to the behaviors that got you in trouble in the first place. We’ll help you establish that first healthy routine right here in the woods. Starting now.”

Devin rolls her eyes. She had a routine back home. Wake up, muddle through school, pretend she was in a club so her fosters didn’t come looking for her, wander down Powell until she got to the convenience store that sold packs of cigarettes without checking ID. On good days, when she managed to get cash from the Pattons’ piggy bank, she and the friends she could scrape together would hit Burgerville and eat shoestring fries until her stomach threatened to burst. She imagines the salt on her lips and closes her eyes. This is bullshit.

“While we get the fire started,” Ethan says, “let’s try an exercise. I asked you to think about the kinds of patterns you followed back home and whether you wanted to keep them when you get back. I want you, in pairs, to chat about what you came up with.”

Ollie turns to face Devin, but before he can ask her to pair up, Coach Ethan holds up a hand. His eyes linger on Sheridan splayed over her log.

“Actually, I’ll pair you,” he says.

Before he says a word, Devin knows in her gut who she’ll be paired with. She looks at the trees that border their campsite and considers running.

“Devin,” Coach Ethan says. “Can you come sit with Sheridan?”

She’s hardly listening when the coaches pair Ollie with Hannah and Ethan guides Aidan to sit across from Liv. All of her attention is on Sheridan, who doesn’t even blink when Ethan speaks. She doesn’t move a muscle from her log.

Maybe it isn’t fair to hate her already, but Devin does. She hates the way she doesn’t seem totally devastated to be here. She hates the way Sheridan doesn’t pay attention to anyone else in camp. Devin likes to think she has relatively good people-reading skills, and the read she’s getting on Sheridan is clear as day. Devin hates the girl she already knows Sheridan is.

Reluctantly, Devin gets up. Sheridan doesn’t move to make room for her, so Devin sits at the edge of the next log. With the fire finally started, the heat soothes her throbbing calf muscles.

After a moment, Sheridan cranes her neck slightly to eye Devin.

“Are we doing this?” Devin asks.

“Why?” Sheridan scoffs.

“I’m fine just sitting here,” Devin says. “Genuinely, I do not care.”

“Cool.”

Sheridan goes back to staring up at the branches. Across the fire, Ollie and Hannah are already deep in conversation. Aidan chatters happily with Liv who, every few seconds, extracts a small pouch from her bag. Some kind of trail food, Devin realizes. The vacuum-sealed plastic gleams next to the fire, making the food inside look particularly unappetizing.

Eventually, Ethan crouches at eye-level between Devin and Sheridan. He puts his hands on his knees and dons a cool smile. “I noticed you two haven’t started talking yet. I don’t want you to fall behind.”

“We won’t,” Sheridan says. “Thanks for checking.”

Devin says nothing.

“Sheridan,” Ethan warns. “Please sit up when we’re having a conversation.”

Reluctantly, Sheridan sits. She flashes Ethan a mocking smile.

“I know this can be difficult, especially when you aren’t used to talking about your feelings,” Ethan says, softer. “I paired you two because I think you have a lot in common, but I also think you two have the most to gain from REVIVE. Will you please give this a try?”

Devin gives a noncommittal shrug. She isn’t usually at a loss for words, but this exercise is her worst nightmare. Devin doesn’t talk about feelings, doesn’t dissect the reasons why she does things. People get it or they don’t, and the people who don’t get it aren’t worth her time. One look at Sheridan tells her the other girl is not going to get it.

“Devin, how about we start with you?” Ethan says. “Tell Sheridan a little bit about your setup back in Portland.”

“Fine,” Devin says.

Sheridan eyes her.

When Ethan stands, Devin eyes Sheridan back. She doesn’t want to do this. She hates it so much it makes her dizzy. She huffs another, “Fine.”

“Are you sharing?” Sheridan asks.

“I guess so,” Devin says. “If it gets this over with.”

Sheridan’s smile is crooked, like she’s lured Devin into a trap. Even the glow of the fire does nothing to warm the paleness of her skin. She leans forward, chin on her knuckles, and waits for Devin to speak.

“I live with fosters,” Devin says finally. “I’ve been with them for, uh, six months, I think. They’re fine. I’ve had worse. Except none of the other ones sent me to evil summer camp, so now I’m rethinking my ranking.”

Sheridan nods.

“I think they want us to, like … talk about why people were worried about us? It was probably because of this fight a week ago, but that wasn’t my fault. They also didn’t like me breaking curfew. I don’t know. This feels like an overreaction.”

“Ah,” Sheridan says, probably faking interest. She looks like a talk show host listening, wide-eyed, to a boring guest.

“It’s whatever. If this thing is supposed to last fifty days, I’ll be eighteen when we finish,” Devin says. “I can just tell them to fuck off.”

“Wow,” Sheridan says. “Bold.”

“I guess,” Devin says. “I just feel like everyone treats me like I’m their problem even though I never asked. I’d rather just … be my own problem?”

“I totally feel you,” Sheridan says.

“Yeah?”

Sheridan nods. But there’s something off. She’s still wearing that half smile that makes it look like she’s joking. If there’s a punchline, Devin doesn’t get it. She waits for Sheridan to talk, but she just stares at Devin. The sun is fading fast, leaving the wind cold and the shadows deep. The fire lights the space between them, but its crackling isn’t enough to break the quiet.

“I think it’s your turn,” Devin says.

“Guess so. I had a rough year,” Sheridan says, surprisingly earnest. “One of my best friends was killed at a party.”

Devin blinks. “Oh, god. That’s…”

“Yeah.” Sheridan wipes at her nose, turning to stare into the fire. “It was really hard. I mean, I was at the party and never even saw what happened to her.”

Devin shakes her head in disbelief. Maybe her read on Sheridan was wrong. Devin gets it, this level of apathy for the world around you after you’ve been through something horrible. If the coaches already knew this about her, their harshness suddenly seems cruel.

“And then,” Sheridan says, eyes wide, “my friends and I started getting harassed by this anonymous person who was texting us threats. Pretending we had something to do with what happened to her.”

“Like blackmail?” Devin asks.

“Yeah. It was crazy. I was constantly watching my back, but then my grades started slipping. Then, one night…”

As she explains, Devin narrows her eyes. Even through her multilayered tale of misery, there’s a hint of a smile at Sheridan’s lips, a brightness in her eyes.

“You’re lying,” Devin says.

Sheridan sighs and shakes her head. “Aw, what gave it away?”

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

“You should watch Pretty Little Liars,” Sheridan muses. “It’s so unhinged. If you ever take a break from fighting twelve-year-olds for lunch money.”

Devin’s jaw tightens and it’s stupid that she’s angry. Sheridan is no different from any other cruel girl back home. The kind who messes with you just to entertain themselves. Sheridan flips her hair over her shoulder, crooked smile widening, and Devin wants to punch her in the mouth.

“We were supposed to be honest,” Devin says. “That was the point.”

“Why do you care? It’s not my fault you decided to do it.” Sheridan laughs. “They have to feed you whether or not you follow the rules. I thought you’d be the tough one in the group. It was really cute of you to talk about your feelings, though.”

Back home, Devin would’ve already walked away. Or, worse, she would’ve earned herself a ticket to the principal’s office. Devin is a joke to her. Her read on Sheridan was exactly right.

“What is this?” Devin spits. “What’s wrong with you?”

Sheridan’s laugh now is genuine. Her nose scrunches, exposing the puncture from what used to hold a septum ring. “Is this how you think we should rebel? By … doing everything they ask us to?”

“I’m just trying to go along until I can figure out how to get out of here,” Devin says, and she doesn’t know why she’s justifying herself. “And, I don’t know, I was trying to be nice to you.”

“Your bad.” Sheridan shifts, leans a little closer with that same fake curiosity as before. “Tell me your escape plan. You’re gonna rough it in the woods? Maybe it’s your butchy vibe, but I feel like you could pull it off.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious,” Sheridan whines, cloyingly fake-offended. “I’m trying to compliment the TV bully look. If we were stuck alone out here, I feel like you’d kill and skin a bear or something.”

Before Devin can say anything else, Coach Liv taps her knee. She hands Devin a small plastic pouch of steaming food, though food is a liberal term for it. Mud-colored liquid drowns strands of shredded chicken and wilted herbs. In the dark, it’s hard to make out what exactly swims in her dinner. Liv hands Sheridan an identical pouch.

Before she can move on to Ollie and Hannah, Devin takes Liv’s shoulder. Face hot, fists clenched, she says, “I wanna switch partners.”

“Oh, come on,” Sheridan scoffs.

“If I don’t switch partners, I think I’m going to fall into one of those, uh, bad routines.”

Liv looks at Devin, then at Sheridan, and sighs. She waves down Coach Ethan, who’s busy shoveling pouch-food into his mouth. He raises his brow.

“Devin wants to switch partners,” Liv says.

“Devin—”

Devin shakes her head. “I don’t like her. I’ll take, uh…”

She motions to Aidan, whose name briefly escapes her. He looks at her with wide eyes made even wider with the thickness of his lenses. Devin doesn’t want to talk to him, either—doesn’t want to talk to anyone if she can help it—but an annoying suck-up would be better than whatever Sheridan is.

The coaches hold each other’s gaze for a long moment, then Ethan nods. “Fine. Aidan, come sit with Devin. Sheridan, you’re with Liv.”

“Lucky me,” Sheridan drawls. “I’m more into blondes anyway.”

They switch places, Aidan neatly plopping onto the log where Sheridan sat moments ago. He takes another bite of his dinner and beams at Devin. The dark is thicker in the clearing now. For the first time since she left Portland, Devin wishes she had a jacket.

“You should try the soup,” Aidan says. “It’s actually really good.”

“You’re calling it soup?”

“I think it’s tortilla soup,” Aidan says pleasantly. “It’s definitely better than what my mom makes.”

“Huh,” Devin says. “Not a very high opinion of your mom.”

Devin smells the pouch. She scoops out a plastic spoonful and takes a bite. Shockingly, Aidan is right. The soup isn’t the best thing she’s ever eaten, but it’s good enough, the night’s cold enough, and she’s hungry enough. She takes a few tentative bites, tearing the chicken apart with her teeth, before abandoning the spoon and dumping the whole pouch into her mouth. The warmth slides all the way down her throat, settling in her stomach.

“I’m Aidan,” Aidan says. “In case you forgot.”

“Aidan,” Devin says, feeling the name out. “Do you remember my name?”

“Devin, I think. I remember because it’s a boy’s name.”

“I don’t think it has a gender. It’s just a name.”

Aidan shrugs. Devin watches him and tries to imagine what he possibly could’ve done to be sent here. He looks like the kids she used to cheat off in math. He’s a welcome change after Sheridan, even if he’s only slightly better. He verges on too earnest, but at least he’s not mocking her.

“Listen, I already said my part with her,” Devin says. “We can just chill, I think.”

“I already said my part, too,” Aidan says. “I didn’t really get to talk about my patterns, though.”

Devin knows she’ll regret it, but she says it anyway. “Do you want to tell me about your patterns?”

Aidan nods. “Well, when I woke up, I took my vitamins, packed my lunch, and said bye to my mom. Then my friend Landon drove me to school. I’ve been thinking about Landon a lot. I’m scared him and my other friends are worried about me.”

Devin nods along with Aidan, but there’s a squeeze in her chest. She doesn’t know how old the others are, but they seem to be about her age. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Aidan seems younger, though, not just in the roundness of his cheeks and the way he stands a full head shorter than Ollie. There’s a bright, unrelenting optimism to the way he speaks. Devin softens just a little and offers a smile.

“It sounds like they’ll be happy when you’re back.”

In a flash, a shadow passes over Aidan’s expression. He brightens and says, “They won’t believe I spent fifty days in the woods. I don’t even go camping.”

Maybe he’s exaggerating about his friends, or maybe he really does have a group of people that will miss him desperately. When Devin thinks about her friends in Portland, she can’t imagine a reaction like that. They’ll text her and ask to hang out twice, maybe three times. Then they’ll give up, assume she’s probably been rehomed or gotten herself locked up. Maybe they’ll ask the Pattons about her, but in a week or so, they’ll forget completely. Fifty days away from home and she’ll be a ghost to every person she met there.

“You still there?” Aidan asks.

“Still here, unfortunately,” Devin muses.

“It’ll be okay,” Aidan says, unprompted. He puts his hand on the log beside Devin’s knee. “We’ll be okay. It’s only fifty days, then you can go home.”

Across the fire, Ollie sits opposite Hannah. They share the same log, Ollie’s knees practically glued to his chest to keep from invading Hannah’s space. Hannah’s got brown wide eyes that practically soak up the firelight, and she looks at him like she’s a deer and he’s a hunting rifle. There’s a smudge of mud across the curve of her jaw that he’s sure she picked up during their hike. He wavers pathetically on whether or not to mention it.

Share what you thought about during your hike. What a cruel assignment. Ollie’s thought about nothing but how he got here since the minute they shoved him in the van. He’s thought about it for the last sixteen hours, and he imagines he’ll think about nothing else for the next forty-nine days. It’s humiliating. Hannah is his age, could’ve gone to school with him in another life. He’s just met her and now he has to show her his worst.

He’s never had good luck with girls.

Hannah shifts a little. “Are you … having fun so far?”

Ollie blinks. Hannah seems earnest, which is funnier than it should be. Despite himself, he laughs.

“What?” Hannah asks.

“No,” Ollie says. “I am having zero fun.”

Hannah considers. “Me, neither, I guess. Would you rather be home?”

It’s a good question. Ollie wipes at his nose, eyes finding the fire. “I guess I wouldn’t want to be there, either. Would you?”

“I’d rather be home if things were different,” Hannah says. “I wouldn’t want to be home now. I messed up. Really bad. I think it’s better that I’m here.”

Ollie’s eyes narrow. Hannah’s fingers twist around her cross necklace frantically. She spent most of their hike with her gaze fixed on her boots. She’s forcing herself to share, even though it feels miserable.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Ollie says, turning a cautious glance toward the coaches. “I don’t think they can make you. We can talk about something else.”

“Okay,” Hannah says. “Tell me about you.”

“Me…” Ollie trails off. “I don’t know. I’ll be a junior. I live in Portland. I, uh … I like to ride bikes?”

“Cool,” Hannah says. She brushes her dark brown hair away from her neck. “I like bikes, too.”

“Oh. Nice.”

They both fall quiet and Ollie wonders if he should say more. While they hiked, he thought about his grandmother’s hospice bed in the middle of his living room. He thought about the way he used to do his homework with the recliner pushed all the way up to the rim of her bed so he could periodically hold her hand when she woke up. He thought about it until he realized that, if they’re really out here for fifty days, he might never sit at his grandmother’s bedside again. He hiked and he imagined making it home only to find out his grandmother is already gone. He can forgive his father for most things, but if this program means he never gets to say goodbye, he’ll—

“I used to like driving more,” Hannah blurts out, yanking Ollie from his thoughts. “More than bikes. I used to drive all the time. It helped me clear my head. I bought my own car, actually.”

“Did you … stop liking driving?” Ollie asks.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Hannah looks at him and her eyes are different. Darker. Her lips flatten into a frown she tries to hide by looking away. Whatever thoughts plagued her earlier sit right at the surface now.

“What happened?” Ollie dares to ask.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “You don’t have to—”

“I’d rather we talk about you than me.”

Hannah nods, offering a breathy laugh. “I went to this party. I wasn’t supposed to. My friend Perla used to invite me all the time and I usually said no, but I just … I got in this big fight with my dad about swim team and I wasn’t thinking about anything except leaving the house. Which isn’t like me, but I was just … I don’t know.”

Ollie laughs a little under his breath because it’s like she took the words from his mouth. How many nights did he spend running, looking for whatever would temporarily patch up the wounds his father needled into him?

“I’d never been to a party before,” Hannah continues. “But I snuck out. It was so stupid. I never drank before, either, but I was just … I just wanted to be someone else. I took drinks people gave to me. Then my dad started texting and calling. I freaked out and I didn’t want him to know where I was, so I just left without saying bye to anyone. And when I was driving home, I … I messed up. Really, really bad.”

“Jesus,” Ollie says. “You mean like—”

“Yeah.”

Before Ollie can say more, Coach Ethan touches his back and hands him a pouch of food. He barely looks at it, eyes trained on Hannah. He wonders if he’s the first person outside her family she’s told about the crash, which makes his stomach churn. She hasn’t even processed it yet. It’s still raw.

“I didn’t hit anyone,” Hannah says, almost too soft to hear. “But I could have. I know that’s why he sent me here. Because I’ve never messed up like that before, and I—”

“Wait, you’ve never gotten in trouble before?” Ollie asks.

Hannah shakes her head.

“They sent you here after one thing?”

“It was a really bad thing, though,” Hannah says. “I get why he did it. If it was my kid, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I’d—”

“Deep breath,” Ollie says on autopilot. He just has to say enough to calm her down, to bring her back to earth where they can have a conversation. “Nobody got hurt. It could’ve been worse.”

“But they could have.”

“Which is making you feel like shit,” Ollie says. “So clearly you won’t do it again.”

“I don’t know how to fix it,” Hannah says. “My life is over.”

“It’s not, though.”

Hannah’s necklace glints a little in the dim firelight. She twists it between her fingers, tugs a little at the thin gold chain. After a moment, without moving her gaze from the fire, she says, “Yeah.”

Coach Ethan returns and hands Hannah a pouch of food, which she also doesn’t touch. He hovers for a moment, waiting for them to keep talking, but Hannah says nothing. She watches Ethan until he leaves, then she turns back to Ollie, eyes dark as the night setting in.

She starts to say something, but she looks away again.

Ollie places his hand palm down on the log between them and he leans to get a look at Hannah’s face. Unlike Devin, who looks like a girl he might’ve seen back home, Hannah doesn’t look like anyone he’s ever met. The green T-shirt and hiking pants clash with the delicate curve of her cheekbones and the long, dark flush of her eyelashes. Her hair, disheveled now, still holds some of its sleekness from the morning.

Ethan claps to get the group’s attention. The firelight only reaches the lower angles of his sharp face, giving him the illusion of holding a flashlight under his chin. Coach Liv sits on the ground with Sheridan, not Aidan. Ollie realizes that, at some point, he must have missed them switching.

“Thank you all for going along with our exercise, and with the day in general,” Coach Ethan says. “I know it’s been confusing for all of you, but I think we’re off to a great start. Things will only get better from here.”

He moves to his backpack, carefully unzipping it to extract a folded blue tarp from its depths. Instinctively, Ollie opens his backpack, too. A matching blue tarp is folded into a square at the back of his pack. The rest of the space is full of odds and ends—rolled socks, packages of shrink-wrapped food, Band-Aids. It dawns on him that there are no tent stakes in his bag.

“One of the first things we’ll do when we make camp each night is set up our shelter,” Coach Ethan says. “You might’ve been expecting tents in your backpacks, but for our program, we like to pack light and give you kids less to carry on your hikes. This means that, for shelter, we’ll only be using tarps, rope, and sleeping bags.”

“What?” Aidan asks, and he looks shocked that he’s said it out loud. “What about the cold?”

“The cold won’t be a problem,” Coach Liv cuts in. “Your sleeping bags are thermal, and we’ll keep the fire going. We’ll stay at a low elevation for the whole program. There’s a reason we’re doing this during the summer.”

Coach Ethan goes on to explain how they’ll set up their shelters, promising them that it will be a “fun way to express their creativity.” Ollie clutches the soft, downy edge of his sleeping bag and imagines how little it will protect him from the hard, knotted earth under his feet.

When their sharing circle dissolves, Ollie makes his way to the darkest, farthest corner of their clearing and loops his tarp over a low-hanging branch. He throws his sleeping bag in the dirt below it and crawls inside. He doesn’t say good night to the others because the only thing he can think about is home. His grandmother, his father, his friends. He’s alone out here now, and he’ll be alone for fifty days. He should’ve grabbed that cashier at the 7-Eleven by the shoulders and begged him to bail them out.

When Ethan comes to his “tent,” crouching low so he can see Ollie tucked into his sleeping bag, Ollie doesn’t look at him.

“Good night, champ,” Ethan says. “I know things seem tough right now, but I can’t wait to see what you’ll accomplish out here.”

Ollie turns over, facing the tree.

Ethan pats his leg. “Head up. Tomorrow’s a new day.”

3

The first night is a slow-moving thing.

The cold air is sharp against Ollie’s exposed nose and mouth, and back home he might have closed his bedroom window to trap the heat inside. But there is no inside here. There’s cold and there’s quiet and there’s nothing else. Without the coaches chattering about goals and patterns, without the mumbled sounds of Devin and Sheridan bickering, without the crinkling food wrappers, the sounds of the woods settle in. It’s endless, the stretch of it. Impossible to tell if the splintering of twigs and the shuffling of underbrush is miles or feet from Ollie’s head. He presses his eyes closed and listens for the others breathing, but he only hears the woods. He only sees night. Don’t be scared of the quiet. Don’t be scared of the dark.

He repeats those thoughts until, mercifully, sleep comes.

Morning arrives as slow as a tide climbing the shore. When Ollie moves his head, his neck pops. A loose bit of bark juts up from the earth squarely between his shoulder blades, reminding him of where he is. Not in his bed, pushed all the way up to the heater to keep his feet warm at night. Not tucked under a mound of blankets and clean clothes he hasn’t put away yet, inhaling the sharp scent of stale detergent, staring up at the posters on his bedroom walls plastered one over another.

When he opens his eyes, all he sees is blue tarp. All he smells is dirt and woodsmoke. All he feels is cold.

This wasn’t a nightmare.

The camp is quiet except for the crackling fire. Ollie pushes himself to his elbows and, just under the crumpled edge of his tarp ceiling, he spots the coaches sitting in silence. Liv holds a pan over the fire, tilting it each time steam begins to coil. Ethan sits across from her with a journal sprawled over his lap. If anyone else is awake yet, they aren’t at the fire.

“I think that went okay,” Ethan says.

“You think?” Liv asks, half-interested.

“They’re all alive,” Ethan says. “I think that earns some points.”

Ollie stays curled in his sleeping bag until Coach Ethan calls for everyone to get breakfast. Ollie climbs out of his tent first and takes a small pile of steaming hash browns. He tastes nothing but saltless mush. He watches the trees and waits to feel even a little less miserable. Aidan is up next, followed by Hannah. Devin wakes looking even more sour than she did last night. The last one up, as expected, is Sheridan. She doesn’t leave her tent, but her feet move a little in her sleeping bag. When most of the hash browns are gone, Ethan finally crouches at Sheridan’s tent.

“Hey, Sheridan,” he says. “Time to get some breakfast.”

“I’m okay,” she says.

Ollie looks at Devin. She stares pointedly into the fire, her hash browns untouched. If Sheridan holding them up bothers her, she’s doing her best not to show it.

“The others are already awake,” Ethan says. “How about you come join us?”

“I saw.” Sheridan sits up, pushing her tarp aside to look at Ethan. “I’d rather sleep. Thanks.”

“That’s not really an option right now.”

“I’m not allowed to sleep?”

“We’re forming good habits, remember?” Ethan says. He can’t hide the ire in his voice. “Good habit number one is waking up on time.”

“On time according to you.”

Sheridan looks at the rest of the group for support, but no one speaks. Ollie doesn’t care about her back-talking the coaches. He just wants to get moving so they’re closer to being done with this. All the delays make him sit in the misery longer.

“Hey,” Liv says to the rest of the group. “Why don’t the rest of you go ahead and pack up your tents? That’ll give us something to do.”

Ollie folds up his pathetic, dirt-speckled tarp, tucking it into his backpack. Ethan, apparently exhausted by Sheridan, stalks over to Liv and whispers something. She gives him a terse nod, dons a somewhat convincing smile, and puts her hands on her hips.

“Okay, change of plans,” Liv says. “We’ll hike the first part of the day in separate groups. All of you will come with me and we’ll head to the next campsite so we can get there before dark. Sound good?”

Devin stands in the center of the campsite, backpack already slung over her shoulder. She motions to Sheridan’s tent with a scowl. “What about her?”

“Coach Ethan and Sheridan will join us later.” Liv smiles. “They’re going to spend some time working one-on-one.”

Devin seems skeptical of this, but says nothing else. Ollie eyes Sheridan and his stomach sinks. This is only their first morning in the woods, and according to the coaches, things will only get harder from here. If she’s too tired to walk today, there’s no way she’ll last the full fifty days.

And if she’s just too stubborn, there’s no way the rest of them will.

The hike is easier today than it was yesterday. Devin is pleasantly surprised at how quickly her body adjusts. The lack of interruptions make the hike almost peaceful. With Sheridan still miles behind them, presumably driving Ethan to an early grave, the rest of the group hikes in silence. Hannah is livelier than she was the day before, looking up from her feet to soak in the sun-dappled trees and winding cords of gravel that stretch up the mountains like ivy. Aidan shuffles along in Coach Liv’s shadow like he thinks he can sneak into her backpack. And Ollie hikes with his gaze split two ways. Half the time, he trains his eyes on the back of Hannah’s head. The rest of the time, he stares at Devin.

She has half a mind to tell him he’s barking up the wrong tree. Devin hasn’t been interested in boys since elementary school, and even then, they were the kinds of boys that wore spandex and capes in cartoons. She’s certainly not into boys like Ollie, all bones and no meat, scraggly like they’ve been run through the wash. Whatever he wants from her, she’s certain she’s not interested.

After a few hours of hiking, Coach Liv stops.

“Why are we stopping?” Devin asks.

Coach Liv flashes a smile at her. “I have a little activity for us. How would you guys like some dessert tonight?”

Devin raises a brow. The others seem more enthusiastic, though, Aidan throwing his hand in the air like he’s waiting for a teacher to call on him. Devin surveys the area and sees no dessert. Gravel and dirt ease down a long embankment to their right, and a sheer wall of moss and trees rises to their left. This deep in the woods, the sun is tucked away above the green canopy, leaving the air at the forest floor chilly.

“I’m not much of a counselor type,” Coach Liv admits. “But I know the woods pretty well. So how about, while we wait for Coach Ethan and Sheridan to catch up, we do some berry picking?”

Coach Liv walks them down the embankment, pointing out the tendrils of shrub and bush where they can find clusters of blackberries. The size of the berries here is astounding. They hang longer than the ones along highways back in Portland, layered and dark and plump with juice.

“We’ll wash what you pick for dinner tonight. You’re free to team up or go solo, just stay where I can see you.”

Devin wanders away from the rest of the group, digging her heels into the earth until she’s made it to the very bottom of the embankment. A creek splits the small valley in two, crowded and tangled with berry bushes. Like she’s on autopilot, Devin picks berries, ignoring the sting of thorns catching under her skin.

It’s been years since she went berry picking. It was another foster home, long before the Pattons, farther from the city and nestled on more land than anywhere she’d lived before. It was a lonelier house. Gray siding, curtains drawn, long hallways leading into one another. She was the only kid in that house. The quiet used to claw at her.

Beyond the sea of pale, dead grass that surrounded Mr. Atwood’s house, there was a flush of blackberry bushes just before the trees. Devin remembers it now like she’s standing in that field all over, inching farther from the house every day, piling blackberries into the bottom of her T-shirt until they began to stain. It used to suffocate her, the inescapable stretch of it. She wondered back then if she had what it took to keep walking and never turn back. The fear used to sit so heavy it convinced her that lying still in her misery was better than running into the unknown. But that was wrong.

“You okay?”

Devin sucks in a sharp breath and comes hurtling back to earth. The blackberries she managed to pick are crushed in her fists. She faces the creek and the trees beyond it, eyes hot with tears. She unclenches her fists and lets the smashed berries fall at her feet.

“Sorry,” Ollie says, moving in front of her. “Bad time?”

“No, you’re fine,” Devin says.

Ollie follows her gaze to the trees. She wonders if he sees what she does. They go on for miles, but they can’t go on forever. There’s a town beyond them somewhere and, in that town, someone that can get her out of here. She wonders how far she could make it if she left now. Coach Liv stands at the top of the embankment with her hands on her hips. She’d never make it down fast enough to stop them.

“You had a chance to get us out,” Devin says coolly. “I saw you. At the gas station.”

“Yeah,” Ollie says. “I chickened out.”

“Clearly.”

“I kept thinking about that slip the guy had. Then I was thinking about how, if we got help, they’d probably just send us back home. And I … don’t wanna go home.”

“Well, I wish you did it, anyway.”

“Me, too,” Ollie says. “The food here sucks.”

Devin laughs at that. Up the slope, she watches Hannah approach Aidan and wonders why Ollie isn’t with them. They’re more pleasant and probably a thousand times more talkative.

“What’s your deal?” Devin asks. “You’ve been staring at me all day.”

“We weren’t allowed to talk on the drive,” Ollie says. “You’re from Portland, too. I guess I’m just … it’d be nice to stick together.”

Devin shrugs. “Honestly, I’m just waiting until I get a chance to—”

“—run away?” Ollie finishes. He shakes his head. “Yeah, I could tell. Everyone can. I’m hoping I can talk you out of it.”

At that, Devin raises a brow. She moves to another bush to start making up for the berries she crushed. Ollie follows her, not even pretending to collect berries of his own.

“You’ll die out there,” Ollie says. “I don’t know what forest we’re in, but I’m pretty sure this whole state is mountains and trees. And wild animals. We’ve gotta be miles from civilization.”

“You’re going along with this?” Devin asks.

“I guess.”

“We could run now and the coaches wouldn’t have time to stop us,” Devin says. “You don’t even want to try?”

“Do I want to live in the woods for an unknown amount of time, looking for civilization, when I could be in a program guaranteed to end after fifty days?” Ollie asks. “Not particularly.”

Devin scowls, grabbing a fistful of blackberry bush, even though it stings. He’s right, and it makes her angrier than it should. The truth is, she probably can’t last in the woods alone. She’s never roughed it in her life, always stuck in the labyrinth of a city. She might have the will to survive, but the actual skills? She wants to run more than she wants air. She doesn’t want to follow the rules of this stupid program.

“What do we do?” Devin asks. Her voice is smaller than she wants it to be.

“We stick together, I think,” Ollie says. “Even though it sucks. We keep our heads down, get through fifty days.”

Before Devin can reply, voices trickle down the embankment. Coach Ethan arrives, saying something to Coach Liv. Behind him, Sheridan staggers into view. She doesn’t just look tired, she looks unwell. The moment they stop, she eases herself to the ground, throwing her backpack at her feet.

“What’s her deal?” Ollie asks. “You talked to her last night, right?”

Devin scoffs. “Her deal is that she’s evil.”

Coach Liv shouts down the hill, motioning them back to the group. Ollie clears his throat. “I guess that’s the downside of sticking it out. Fifty days of her.”

“Don’t remind me,” Devin says. She eyes Ollie’s empty hands and rolls her eyes. The coaches won’t like that he spent the entire break talking instead of gathering. Against her better judgment, she says, “Give me your hand.”

Ollie extends his hand and Devin dumps half her berries into his palm.

“There.”

“Oh.” Ollie inspects the berries. “Thanks.”

“If we’re sticking together, you better come through for me, too,” Devin says. “Deal?”

Ollie smiles. “Deal.”

The rest of their hike is rockier, all boiling down to one person. The moment Sheridan rejoins them, she’s a pebble lodged in their boots. She asks for constant breaks, complaining that it’s too hot and then too cold. She begs water off the others when hers runs out, and halfway through the hike, she tries sneaking granola bars from Aidan’s backpack while he isn’t watching. As they pass ridge after ridge, Devin considers how easy it would be to shove Sheridan off just for some stress relief.

They begin their nightly chores differently this time. Coach Liv reads them a list of meals, asking each of them which one they’d like. They range from vaguely appetizing beef ravioli to horrifying “rib-shaped patty meat.” Devin opts for the same chicken stew as the night before. She heats her meal in peace, shakes up a baggie of fruit punch, and plucks packs of hot sauce from the bottom of her backpack for flavor. Ollie sits next to her as she eats in silence, their eyes trained on the trees.

“What’d you get?”

Ollie looks down at the remains of his dinner. “Sloppy joes? That’s what I asked for. Not what it tasted like.”

“Horrifying.”

Coach Liv rejoins them at the campsite as dark descends, a small pouch cupped in her hands. She stands in front of Ollie and hands him a couple of blackberries. She hands more to Devin, Aidan, and Hannah. When she settles in front of Sheridan, though, something in Devin snaps. Sheridan is the reason they got to camp late. She’s the reason everyone is exhausted. She held them up every chance she got all day.

“Why would she get some?” Devin asks before Coach Liv can lay any berries in Sheridan’s palm. “She didn’t help.”

Liv pauses.

“Sheridan is part of our group. We’re eating dessert together. As a group.”

“Except she wasn’t really part of the group,” Devin says. She feels Ollie tense next to her. Aidan and Hannah stare, but one look at their faces tells her they don’t disagree. She can’t see Sheridan’s face behind Liv, but she hopes she’s listening. “She was with Ethan. She wasn’t with us.”

“Devin,” Ethan says, a warning. “I understand you’re frustrated with Sheridan. I think there’s a more productive way you can voice those frustrations.”

Finally, Sheridan leans over, her face visible at Liv’s side. She takes the handful of berries from Liv, popping one slowly into her mouth. “Yeah. Please. Voice your frustrations.”

“Okay,” Ethan says, gaze cutting across the clearing to Sheridan. “Let’s calm down.”

Devin laughs.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t spend all day trying to make us as miserable as possible. We were all there.”

She waits for someone else around the fire to back her up, but Hannah, Ollie, and Aidan are silent. She always has to be the one to do the right thing when everyone else stays quiet. This one seems like common sense.

“What did I do?” Sheridan asks.

“Maybe,” Ethan cuts in, “you two should discuss this with me privately?”

“Everyone else agrees with me,” Devin says, motioning to the group. “They’re just pretending not to.”

Next to her, Ollie sighs.

“You were kind of … making things hard for us,” he says meekly.

Devin knew he was nonconfrontational, but his voice is so timid it makes Sheridan laugh. Not the reaction Devin hoped for. Sheridan eats another berry, looking at them both like they’re a comedy act.

“Okay, well, anyone who has an issue with me eating a few berries,” Sheridan says, “can come take them.”

Then, gracefully, she pops the rest of the berries into her mouth. She looks at the two coaches and pulls her unruly hair into a ponytail. Hannah and Aidan look at the ground again. Ollie looks down, too, but not out of discomfort, Devin thinks. Out of embarrassment. They look down and eat their berries in silence like cowards.

But Devin isn’t embarrassed about calling things like they are. She stands.

“I’m going to bed.”

“Devin—” Coach Ethan starts.

“Am I not allowed to sleep when I’m tired?” Devin asks, indignant. “I’ve been hiking all day, and I’ve actually been following directions. So I’m going to bed.”

She climbs under her tarp, shoves her legs into her sleeping bag, and rolls over so that the flickering light of the campfire can’t reach her. She doesn’t think about the coaches and their double standards, she doesn’t think about Aidan and Hannah being useless. And she pointedly does not think about Sheridan and her evil smirk, half-lit by the fire. She hugs her sleeping bag tight and she thinks of home.

No, not home. She doesn’t have one of those.

She thinks of tomorrow. That’s what she’s got.

4

The next three days pass slowly. They’re awake from sunrise to sunset, and despite the objectively beautiful tangle of the forest around them, there isn’t a passing moment that Ollie actually wants to be here. The days even out and Ollie imagines this is how it will be from now on. Wake up, eat, talk about feelings, hike, talk about feelings, eat, sleep. Ollie keeps to himself until dinner, where he swaps a rare pouch of Skittles for Devin’s Snickers bar, reaping the rewards of their tentative friendship.

On their fourth day in the woods, Ethan asks about their lives back home. Aidan loves Minecraft, Hannah spends free time cross-stitching, Devin can’t resist Cool Ranch Doritos. Sheridan resists participation, even on harmless questions. When she sees an opportunity to push back, she takes it. And though Ollie’s learned a little bit about all of them in this program, it’s Sheridan he’s sure he knows best. He’s met a thousand Sheridans; he’s been Sheridan.

He’s known the chest-tight need to grasp control. He can’t bring himself to hate Sheridan because he’s been the one in class ignoring assignments, starting fights at home, bursting through boundaries just to assure himself he can. His grandma’s sickness might’ve mellowed him out, but maybe there’s nothing to slow Sheridan’s spiral. She’s a boulder tumbling toward a cliff’s edge, ripping up the terrain on its way down, thinking that’ll be enough to stop the fall.

When she lashes out, Ollie can only feel sad for her. He’s sure she would hate that.

Finally, day six starts differently. It starts with Ethan by the fire, holding tiny stack of envelopes.

Ollie sits on a log, dropping coffee cake crumbs in the dirt. This campsite is different than the first few, wider and more open to the sunlight overhead. The soil is soft and sunbaked, the trees crowded with waxy green leaves. Ollie wouldn’t mind staying here for the rest of the program, but as Ethan loves to remind them, comfort isn’t the point. It’s about the journey. It’s about the hard work of moving from point A to point B.

“Alright,” Ethan says, rallying attention. “We’re almost done with our first week. How are we all feeling?”

“Like shit,” Devin says, mouth half-full of hash browns.

“Appreciate the feedback, Devin.”

There’s an ease to the way Ethan talks to them now, like they’re all good friends. Ollie hates it. As much as he might play along so that he can see the finish line, Ethan is not his friend. Liv is not his friend. They’re the ones keeping them out here in the first place.

“I have something to share with a few of you,” Ethan continues. “Your families are so excited to see you again. They asked that we keep them in the loop on your progress. You might have some complicated feelings about hearing from them, but I suggest you read through these letters and really let them soak in.”

Letters. Ollie eyes the stack in Ethan’s grip and his heart skips. Three letters total, which means two of their families had nothing to say. He isn’t sure which he wants more: a letter from his father or radio silence. Ethan hands Aidan a letter first, which he wastes no time tearing open. He hands one to Sheridan next. She takes it, immediately setting it on the ground.

He moves past Devin, past Hannah, and hands the final envelope to Ollie.

Ollie’s stomach turns, not just because he’ll have to hear his father’s thoughts, but because both Hannah and Devin are watching him. Hannah and Devin, whose families couldn’t care less what’s happening to them out here. Hannah and Devin, his closest friends here, who are going to hurt from this. He swallows, sure he’d rather be in their position just as much as they’d rather be in his.

He opens his envelope:

Oliver,

I want to apologize for how this had to happen. I know this has been scary. It’s been scary for me, too. If there was another way, I would take it. I am always looking for the best way to support you, and I hope you’re always looking for the best way to get better. I know you will grow so much and I hope you’ll remember the boy you used to be. When you come home, I don’t want it to feel like things are you versus me, because I have never felt that way. We are a team, and the demons you’re fighting are mine, too. Every night, I pray that this program heals you and that you’ll be able to feel true joy again when you come home. I’m waiting for you with open arms.

Always,

Dad

Ollie blinks at the paper until the words swim. He tries to feel whatever warmth it was meant to elicit, but it’s all cold. Clinical. It could be about any kid in this circle. He can hear the stiff, program-appointed language in every line of it. A collection of phrases to make your child like you again.

He clutches the collar of his T-shirt and dabs at the corner of his eye.

“Well,” Devin says, bumping Hannah with her shoulder. “Guess we should write letters to each other.”

Hannah chuckles, but it’s clear she isn’t taking it as easily as Devin. The accident that sent Hannah here has haunted her since they arrived. Ollie is sure she was waiting for some kind of forgiveness from her father. A promise that he’ll love her on the other side of these fifty days. Ollie may resent his father, but it’s clear from the handful of conversations he’s had with Hannah that her father’s approval is the only thing that keeps her going.

“Solidarity,” Sheridan says from across the fire.

She plucks her letter from the ground, still in its envelope, and flips it into the fire.

All at once, everyone sucks in a breath. The letter quickly flakes apart in the flames, whatever platitudes Sheridan’s parents wrote withering away unread. It takes Ollie too long to feel the shock of it.

“Sheridan,” Ethan hisses. It’s the first time Ollie’s heard real anger in his voice. “I asked you to read and reflect on that letter.”

“I didn’t want to,” Sheridan says.

“Your parents took the time to write you a letter so that you can understand how they feel,” Ethan says. “They care about you. This was a privilege that you had over some members of the group who didn’t get anything. How do you think it makes them feel to see you throw it away?”

Sheridan looks at Hannah, then her eyes land on Devin. She shrugs. “I don’t really care how they feel.”

“Incredible,” Devin scoffs.

“They didn’t ask if I wanted to come here.” Sheridan runs a hand through her hair. “I get to decide whether or not they talk to me.”

The campsite falls quiet. For the first time, Ethan is at a loss for words. Ollie wonders what kind of world Ethan comes from, if he’s more accustomed to kids that cooperate without putting up a fight. He’s hardly older than them—maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. He’s like a substitute teacher in an unruly classroom, and when he looks at Sheridan, it’s clear he’s out of his depth.

“Well,” Ethan says finally. “It’s a disappointing morning, Sheridan. Your family will be waiting to hear what you thought of their letter and we’ll have to tell them you wouldn’t read it.”

“Sounds good,” Sheridan says. “I wouldn’t want you to lie.”

Devin cups her hand at her sweaty forehead to block out the light. The trees along today’s hike are spread farther apart, terrain split into steep cliffs and dense valleys. It’s easier to see the sky, but that says nothing about where they are. She scans the mountains that make up the horizon, looking for anything out of the ordinary. A ski lodge, a plume of smoke on the horizon, something to say they’re close to civilization.

Sheridan follows at the back of the group as she usually does. The additional exercise every day doesn’t seem to strengthen her the way it does everyone else. In fact, it seems to wear her down more and more. She starts each day already exhausted and, as they hike, she only gets worse.

“What did you think of your letter from home, Aidan?” Ethan asks, an hour into their hike. “Was it nice to hear from your mom?”

“Yeah,” Aidan says. “She’s been pretty worried.”

“I’m sure she has,” Ethan says. “She was worried about you before you left, too. But when you read your letter you saw that she wasn’t angry, right?”

“Yeah,” Aidan says again. “That was nice.”

Devin’s eyes narrow. She glances at Hannah, who’s stopped talking to Ollie. The silence from her family this morning is still getting to her, clearly. It’s been obvious from the start that Hannah’s situation is slightly different than everyone else’s. Aidan and Ollie might’ve felt guilty about whatever trouble they got into, but since day one, Hannah’s been crushed by her mistakes. Devin wonders what that might feel like, having someone she loved so much she was afraid to disappoint them.

Silence from the Pattons isn’t surprising. They’ve probably been waiting to ship Devin off since the first day she landed in their care. The incident with Danielle just gave them an excuse. If they have nothing to say to her, so be it. She won’t be hurt by people who never looked out for her in the first place. She won’t.

“Hannah,” Ethan says. “I know this was a rough morning for you. I’m very sorry your family wasn’t able to write. If they had, what would you want the letter to say?”

Hannah looks at the group, then at Ethan with a timid frown. “Do you think we could have a one-on-one hike?”

“We could,” Ethan says, “but I think you’ll find some real value in having a community of people to lift you up when you’re feeling down. We’re all here together, and we want to hear how you feel.”

Cautiously, Hannah nods.

“Okay. I just … I know my dad is really mad at me. I apologized a million times, but he didn’t wanna talk. I guess a part of me thought, if he told me what to do, I would do it and then we could talk. I thought him sending me here was what he wanted me to do. And I thought, now that I was doing it, he’d talk to me.”

Ethan is prepared. He straightens, puffing his chest out like he’s going to deliver a sermon they just can’t miss. “Don’t you think this is him talking to you? By sending you on this journey, your father is telling you the kinds of changes he wants you to make in your life. He’ll need to make changes, too, but what a bold and loving statement you’re making by changing first.”

“I didn’t think about that before,” Hannah says. “I—”

“Jesus Christ,” Sheridan scoffs from the back of the group.

Hannah turns. “What?”

“Why are you so worried about what your dad thinks?” Sheridan clarifies. The group slows to eye her, but she doesn’t stop. “He must be real bad if you’re more worried about making him happy than the person you hit.”

Hannah freezes.

Even Devin stiffens. Suddenly, the sun overhead feels cold against her skin. She expects virtually nothing from Sheridan, but even so, the cruelty of it takes her by surprise.

“Sheridan,” Ethan hisses.

“I didn’t hit anyone,” Hannah says, but she can barely get it out. “I … I crashed into a ditch. I didn’t—”

“Sorry. I was only half-listening when you told us.” Sheridan puts a hand on her hip. “That’s worse, though, isn’t it? You’re being punished for hurting the car.”

“I—”

“I’m just saying, why get all worried about how to make things up to him or how to make him like you again? It’s pretty clear what he thinks about you. He didn’t even send you a letter.”

“Sheridan,” Ethan warns. “That’s … miles out of line.”

Sheridan sidles up to Hannah, pushing past Ollie and Devin with ease. It’s the fastest Devin has seen her move thus far, and she has half a mind to grab her by the shirt and yank her to the back again. Of course, it makes sense that inflicting psychic damage on someone already in pain would be the only real thing to motivate Sheridan into giving a shit.

“I’m trying to be helpful,” Sheridan says, lavender ponytail bouncing at her shoulders. “You’re so stuck on this.”

“Sheridan,” Ethan says again. “This conversation is not about you.”

Sheridan looks at the rest of the group, indignant. Maybe it’s because Devin already hates her, but something about the way Sheridan acts like she, the girl who got a letter from home and threw it away without a second thought, has any right to talk to Hannah about family crawls under Devin’s skin. She clenches her fists. She’s already gotten in trouble for speaking her mind, but calling Sheridan out is the least she wants to do. If she were back at school, this would already be over.

“I’m not making it about me,” Sheridan protests. “I’m trying to—”

“She doesn’t want your shitty advice,” Devin cuts in. “Do you, Hannah?”

“Devin,” Ethan warns.

It’s all Devin can do not to turn on Ethan with the same anger. This is supposed to be a behavior program. It’s supposed to be about making them into good kids. Devin may not know much about being a good kid, but she knows that whatever Sheridan’s doing now is the opposite. A good kid would stand up to this particular brand of evil. The coaches are willing to let Sheridan trample all over Hannah’s already-fragile ego just to avoid conflict.

Sheridan rolls her eyes and it’s almost enough to push Devin to violence.

“Calm down,” Sheridan says to Devin. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

“You need to stop talking completely,” Ethan says.

But Sheridan isn’t even vaguely paying attention to him. Her watery eyes are stuck on Devin, lips curled in a taunt. That pale, breathless, exhausted version of her was just an act, Devin realizes. The Sheridan she sees now is very much awake and alive.

“Hannah?” Devin says. “Do you want her to leave you alone?”

Hannah looks smaller now. Her arms are close to her sides, eyes pointed at the ground. She’s shriveling under the weight of Sheridan’s pestering. Ollie stands close to her and doesn’t say a word. But in the quiet, Hannah leans on him. She leans away from Sheridan.

“I just want to hike,” Hannah says quietly.

Devin motions to Hannah, eyes on Sheridan. “See? Back off.”

She didn’t actually expect Sheridan to back off, but there’s a shift in Sheridan’s expression that makes Devin’s blood run cold. She isn’t scared of Devin or anyone else in this forest. It’s like she wants someone to do something about her. She looks at Devin like she’s praying for a fight.

“Hannah, you don’t have to listen to me,” Sheridan clarifies, but Devin already feels the twist in her words. She doesn’t look at Hannah when she speaks; she looks at Devin. “But I think it’d be pretty fucking stupid to believe the family that sent you here and didn’t even write to see how you’re doing still loves you.”

Before she can stop herself, Devin reaches out and grabs a handful of Sheridan’s T-shirt in each fist, shoving her away from Hannah. There’s a fire scorching in her veins now, hotter than the sun overhead. This isn’t about Hannah, and Devin is sure they both know it. The suddenness of the push catches Sheridan off guard. She scrambles back, eyes wide.

She looks scared.

Devin doesn’t linger on how satisfying that feels.

“Okay, okay,” Ethan says frantically. He grabs Devin by her shoulders, hauling her away from Sheridan. “Liv, can you please…?”

Liv grabs Sheridan and holds her on the other side of the group. The expression on Sheridan’s face makes Devin sick. Her cheeks burn red, wisps of her hair loose from her ponytail, but she’s smiling again. This is all amusing to her. She doesn’t take her eyes off Devin. You’ll have to do better than that, she seems to say.

“Is this because no one wrote you a letter, either?” Sheridan asks.

“Sheridan, stop,” Liv snaps.

“Or what?” Sheridan laughs. “I won’t get dinner?”

Devin’s jaw clenches. There was a way to deal with girls like Sheridan back at school. Girls who felt like they were on top of the world because no one would knock them down a peg. Maybe fighting was against the rules and maybe it got her expelled from two different schools, but not one of the kids Devin fought ever messed with her again. She made herself into a primal, untethered thing. Something to be feared. If the kids back home were scared of her, they knew to leave her alone.

She wants to give Sheridan a reason to be afraid.

“I’m so sorry for telling people I think they’re whiny and annoying,” Sheridan says, pressing against Liv’s grip. She’s baiting now, acting out like she always does, lighting fires to see if anyone will come running.

“Shut up or I’ll shut you up,” Devin says.

She feels the burn of all eyes on her. They watch Sheridan, they watch Devin, and they wait for something to blow.

If Sheridan knows she’s in danger, she doesn’t seem to care.

“I bet your fosters just sent you here so they could get a fucking break,” Sheridan says. “I’ve known you a week and I already need one.”

It doesn’t even hurt Devin’s feelings. She hardly hears what Sheridan says because all she can see is that smug smile. Just like every girl at school who looked down on her. Just like Danielle in the parking lot and Rachel at her locker and Tasha at the bus stop. If she doesn’t do something to make them shut up, they never will.

“In fact,” Sheridan says. “I bet—”

Devin tears herself from Ethan’s grip and punches Sheridan in her stupid, cruel mouth.

They make it to camp at dusk, later than they were supposed to. Before Devin can find a log to claim, Ethan motions her over to the trees. It’s no secret that everyone is mad at her for the delay, but she shouldn’t be the enemy. This isn’t like the delays Sheridan causes. Maybe she hit Sheridan first physically, but it was only to stop her from hitting everyone else emotionally.

Devin rubs her water bladder over her sore knuckles. The others dig through their bags, deciding which dinner they’ll eat tonight, and though Devin certainly doesn’t crave chicken stew, it isn’t fair that she has to do more therapy while everyone else gets to eat. She shouldn’t be the one carted away for a talk while Sheridan sits at the fire playing victim.

“You know it wasn’t okay to hit Sheridan, right?” Ethan says, directing Devin to an alcove away from the others. “You have a lot more common sense than most kids, so I know you know it was wrong.”

Devin looks away.

“You two have squabbled in the past, but this is getting out of hand. We need to get this resolved tonight. You, me, and Sheridan are going to have a little chat.”

“What happened to one-on-ones?” Devin muses.

Ethan shrugs. “I’m adaptable.”

He walks to the fire and taps Sheridan on the shoulder. Sheridan’s gaze follows Ethan’s hand and lands on Devin, expression souring immediately. Ethan takes her by the arm and guides her away from the fire to stand across from Devin. She doesn’t make eye contact, arms folded over her chest. Between them, Ethan sighs.

“It’s colder over here, huh? I know we all wanna get back to the fire, so let’s try to figure this out quickly.”

Sheridan shakes her head.

“Devin, why don’t you explain to Sheridan in words why you had a problem with her behavior today?”

Devin rolls her eyes. “Because she was being a bitch.”

Sheridan laughs.

“Not those words,” Ethan says, exasperated. “Why didn’t you like the things she was saying to Hannah?”

“Because they were rude?” Devin says. “Hannah was clearly upset and didn’t need someone being evil to her.”

“Okay,” Ethan says. He turns to Sheridan. “Sheridan, did you realize Hannah was already feeling down about her letter from home?”

“Yes.”

Both Ethan and Devin stare at her. Ethan chews the inside of his cheek before, cautiously, adding, “And you thought it was a good idea to continue bothering her?”

“I was trying to make her feel better.”

“Good job,” Devin says.

Sheridan smiles sweetly at Ethan. “Coach, I don’t feel like this is a very productive conversation. I’d like to go back to my dinner.”

“You will,” Ethan says. “Once we’re done.”

“Why am I the only one apologizing?” Devin asks. “She was being an … an emotional terrorist. I got her to stop.”

“You haven’t apologized,” Sheridan mutters.

“Devin.” Ethan runs a hand through his increasingly greasy crop of hair. “I don’t think you’re understanding the seriousness of you being violent toward another person. It’s not about why you did what you did, it’s about the fact that you felt okay resorting to that.”

“But I—”

“There are so many ways you could have told Sheridan you didn’t appreciate what she was saying.”

“I did.”

“And I’m sure you saw that Liv and I were handling it.”

Devin shakes her head in disbelief. She doesn’t like the way Sheridan watches her like she’s expecting a fireworks show. She doesn’t like the way the kids at the fire have fallen quiet to listen. She doesn’t like the way Ethan turns to her like he and Sheridan are staging a joint intervention.

“Devin, I’m going to be very frank with you,” Ethan says. “And it’s going to feel very uncomfortable, but I need you to sit with those feelings. I need you to let the things I say sink in, and I need you to spend tonight reflecting.”

“I—”

Ethan holds up a hand, silencing her. For the second time today, she considers throwing a punch.

“Let’s not beat around the bush, Devin,” Ethan says, folding his arms over his chest. “You believe you stood up to a bully today. But you’ve spent a lot of time ‘standing up to bullies,’ haven’t you?”

Devin pauses. There’s a knowing sparkle of joy in Ethan’s eyes. His point is obvious, but Sheridan is different from the others. Maybe Devin didn’t always have the facts right before, but everyone saw Sheridan being horrible this time. It was the right thing to do. This conversation should not be about her.

“We know about Danielle and the others,” Ethan says calmly. “I know you’ve reacted violently when it wasn’t necessary before. You want to talk to me about that?”

Sheridan’s eyes bore into the side of her face. Devin’s blood is on fire. She wants to hit something, no matter how counterintuitive that might be. This conversation shouldn’t be about Danielle. It shouldn’t even be about Devin. It isn’t fair, and the deeper Ethan digs into her, the harder it gets to breathe.

“No,” Devin manages. “I don’t.”

“Because you don’t agree?” Ethan asks. “Or because you already know what I’m talking about?”

“Because it’s not your business,” Devin spits. She casts a sidelong glance at Sheridan. “And it’s definitely not hers.”

“I get that you’re angry, but you have got to start thinking about what that anger can do to others.”

Devin rolls her eyes.

Something changes in the way Ethan looks at her now. His gaze flits quickly to Sheridan, then back to Devin with newfound determination. “This is not a joke, Devin. Do you think your foster parents sent you here on their own? They don’t have the authority to do something that drastic. They felt like they were out of options. You were causing so many problems at your school, parents were threatening to press charges. You couldn’t even make it a few months without terrorizing your classmates. Devin, your foster parents were forced to appeal to the state.”

Devin blinks. The reality of what he’s saying sinks in too slowly. Next to her, Sheridan fidgets with the ends of her hair, but her eyes are laser-trained on Devin.

“The state looked at your history of violence and they decided it would be safer for everyone to send you here where you can’t hurt your classmates,” Ethan says. “Devin, the people in your life are worried that they don’t have the tools to help you anymore. Do you know how scary that is?”

Devin opens her mouth but nothing comes out. It isn’t fair, not just because of the fights or the rehoming or any of it. It isn’t fair because she never asked people to panic over her like this. She knows she’s a problem the way she knows her hair is brown and the sky is blue. She knows that she’s a problem, but for once in her life, she wants to be her own problem. No more school, no more fosters, no more suffocating situations she can’t claw her way out of. She just wants to take a single breath without someone else weighing in on it.

“I don’t want you to apologize if you don’t mean it,” Ethan says, “and I can tell if you apologized to Sheridan tonight, you wouldn’t mean it. So I want you to spend the next few days reflecting on how the two of you can improve your relationship. The first milestone is coming soon and you’ll need to be team players to pass it. Do you understand that?”

Devin nods. The earth tilts under her.

“Question,” Sheridan says, too calm. “Are you allowed to disclose that information to me?”

Ethan looks at her. “What?”

“All her history and foster stuff. Are you allowed to tell me?”

Briefly, Ethan is rendered speechless. Devin can hardly process what she’s saying—it’s like her head’s been shoved in cold water—but it almost sounds like Sheridan is defending her. Devin sucks in a sharp breath.

“Sheridan,” Ethan says, “we need to talk about your part in this, too.”

Devin should feel satisfied that Sheridan isn’t getting off easy, but her chest feels numb. She imagines Diane and Henry in her case manager’s office, declaring that they’re officially out of options. She imagines them leaving, sighing with relief that she’ll be out of their hair.

“You cannot keep antagonizing the others,” Ethan says to Sheridan. When he continues, his voice is soft. Almost tender. “I know your situation, Sheridan, so I’ve tried giving you space to recover. But when you’re destructive to others, I can’t keep giving you passes. You understand that? I don’t want to be a harsh person, but I can be.”

“Are you a licensed therapist?” Sheridan asks. “I’ve been wondering.”

“Sheridan,” Ethan warns. “I don’t like to compare you kids, but I believe you need this program more than anyone else here. You need to heal, and the longer you lash out at us and drag the others down, the more this program is going to feel like a punishment. It’s not. It’s an opportunity.”

Sheridan raises a brow at Devin, but she says nothing.

“Alright girls, I’m going to leave you two to talk amongst yourselves for a second. And when you’re ready to rejoin the group with level heads, you can do that. But we are not going to tolerate any more fighting. If this keeps up, you’ll be separated for the rest of the program. Do you understand?”

“Tempting,” Sheridan muses.

Devin laughs. “Same.”

It’s the first time they’ve agreed. Devin doesn’t like it.

“The things you’re dealing with…” Ethan warns. “If you two don’t start confronting some of this head-on, it’ll eat you alive.”

Coach Ethan makes his way back to the fire. With just the two of them left, the air is colder. Livelier. When Devin eyes Sheridan, she notices the slight swell of her lower lip, a purple cloud of a bruise forming on her pale skin. And, for a second, Devin feels a squeeze of guilt. She shouldn’t have hit Sheridan, but she’s not saying sorry. She’s not giving her that satisfaction.

“Well,” Sheridan says, checking her nails. “He didn’t answer the license thing, did he?”

“Stay away from me from now on,” Devin says, ignoring whatever weird attempt Sheridan is making at small talk. “Don’t talk to me, don’t talk about me, don’t be rude to people. We’re all just trying to get through this shit and I’m getting tired of you.”

“Ouch.” Sheridan runs her fingers through her hair. “Sorry I said you weren’t that tough earlier. You proved me wrong. You’re so tough.”

Devin narrows her eyes. “I don’t know if you were listening to what he said, but I don’t have a lot to lose. If you keep messing with me, I’ll hit you again. I don’t care if I get in trouble. Leave me alone.”

With that, Devin stands and rejoins the group. She feels Sheridan’s eyes on her the whole way and she hopes that, finally, the threat sinks in. That Sheridan understands Devin is not someone to mess with. But she’s known a thousand girls like Sheridan and the truly awful ones never stop. Everything is a challenge to them, and they can always get worse.

Once Devin takes her seat at the fire, any other conversation falls silent. Wordlessly, Sheridan stands and walks past the fire, past her backpack, past the food, and crawls into her tent.

Devin knows she should feel bad, but she doesn’t.

One way or another, tonight, she won.

5

Devin scarfs down her mush of half-heated raspberry cobbler, lovingly spooned into a dry tortilla for structure. Ten days into their journey, most of her trail meals are monstrous combinations of other meals. Nothing tastes good, but this far down the trail, food is food.

She’s spent the last few days keeping her head above water. No more fighting, no more pushing back. No more reacting to every word Sheridan speaks. And to her credit, in three long days of hiking down valleys, up ridges, along small creeks, Sheridan hasn’t spoken to her once. Hasn’t even looked at her.

It feels strangely cold.

Against all odds, it’s Ollie that keeps her sane. Devin starts each day sitting at his side, trading bits of breakfast, talking about life in Portland. Ollie tells her about his father’s temper, the recent real estate failures that left him bitter, his grandmother’s terminal uterine cancer, his friends at school. At night, they talk about what they’ll do when they get home. She promises to visit the sneaker store downtown that Ollie dreams of shopping at. Ollie promises to help her find a Burgerville close to wherever she ends up. They find footing in the future and, to Devin’s surprise, it helps her through the bullshit present.

Today, when Devin watches Ollie, he doesn’t watch her back. His eyes land on Hannah as they hike. His eyes land on Hannah more than he realizes, Devin thinks. She can’t blame him. Hannah is the kind of girl Devin’s eyes would’ve found back home, too. Pretty in that conventional, senior-photos-in-a-field-of-wheat way. Her dark bob is shaggy now, wide eyes darker than night, lending a natural kindness to her face. She has an inoffensive laugh and a soft, rosy smile. It feels nice to be around Hannah, and Devin doubts Ollie’s had someone make him feel nice in a long time.

Devin gets it. She really does.

She motions vaguely in Hannah’s direction as they climb. “What’s your deal with Miss Jesus, by the way?”

“What?”

“You guys talk all the time. More than you talk to me.”

“Oh.” Ollie tries to hide it, but his cheeks flush. “She didn’t have a lot of people back home. I think she just likes having company.”

“Huh.”

“Her dad’s pretty horrible. I get worried.” Ollie slows, letting the rest of the group pass so that he and Devin linger at the back. Almost too quiet to hear, he says, “I think he’s really messed with her head. Like, even out here, the only thing she’s scared of is him being disappointed in her. She thinks … I don’t know, if she finishes this program, he’ll go back to thinking she’s perfect. Which I doubt.”

Devin’s eyes shift from Hannah to Sheridan. She doesn’t want to admit it, but what Ollie’s saying now is just a softer version of what Sheridan said before their fight.

After a few hours, the trees thin, giving way to a sun-soaked riverbank. Liv claps, bringing the group to a stop. The trees are sparser here, spread out enough to expose hills of gold grass and the angled peaks of snow-capped mountains on all sides.

“Congratulations to the first ever REVIVE Teen Rehabilitation Journey,” Liv says, beaming. “You’ve just reached your first milestone.”

Both Liv and Ethan grin ear-to-ear. They stand with their backs to the river, the bright sunlight splitting through the gaps in the trees, turning their REVIVE gear the color of fresh limes. The river isn’t terribly wide, but it’s fast. Pockets of white water break the surface, bucking from slick-backed boulders that jut from the riverbed. If this weren’t a waking nightmare and Devin wasn’t a prisoner here, she might love a day at the river. But the coaches are inventive, and she’s sure they’ll find a way to ruin even this.

“Milestones are a key piece of this program, guys,” Ethan says. “This first one means you’re now one-fifth of the way through. In ten days, we’ve seen you start the process of detaching from the things that scared and hurt you back home. You’ve started opening up to us and to each other. Both Liv and I are so proud of you.”

Liv nods.

Devin glances sidelong at Ollie, who rolls his eyes.

“So,” Ethan says, “today’s milestone is all about trusting each other. The river you’re looking at moves very quickly and, once you start floating downstream, it can be very difficult to swim to shore. Just like in real life, you’ll need to lean on your community to get to the other side.”

“We’ve brought some supplies for you,” Liv continues, always more focused on logistics than emotion. “We want you to take as long as you need to discuss your strategy for getting across. Then, as a team, you’ll gear up and get to the other side. Make sense?”

Silently, the group nods.

“Right.” Liv smiles. “Then let’s rock ’n’ roll.”

Aidan is the first to dig into the supplies. They’re given a small, green duffel bag with a handful of harnesses, a bundle of rope, and zip-up suits to keep them from getting wet. No wood or tools for building anything. No hook that might allow them to swing across. Devin stares at the supplies and waits for a solution to form that doesn’t involve them being fully submerged, but she comes up empty.

She quickly pulls the bundle of rope from the bag, uncoiling it along the forest floor. She’s sure there’s something missing. The river is too fast to safely swim across, but the gear they have doesn’t seem to solve that problem. Hannah pulls out one of the waterproof suits, holding it up to her chest to size it. Ollie inspects what’s laid out, worrying at his lower lip.

Leaning against a nearby tree, apparently uninterested in getting across the river, is Sheridan.

Devin stands and shuffles to Ollie’s side, eyes trained on the unspooled rope in front of them. She wants to ask Sheridan to at least pretend to participate, but Sheridan’s left her alone the last three days. As hard as it is, Devin forces herself to return the favor.

“You think it’s long enough to get across?”

Ollie pauses.

“Like, do you think it would reach the other side?” Devin says, motioning across the water. “If someone was holding it on this side.”

Ollie’s gaze runs the length of the rope. “Maybe? But how would we—”

“What if we made it a rope swing?” Aidan says, jumping to his feet. “We could swing everyone over. One at a time.”

Devin considers. She walks to the nearest tree, grasping one of its low-hanging branches. When she tugs down, the branch bends easily until it splinters apart, wetting the palm of her hand. She fixes Aidan with a small frown. “I don’t think it’ll hold.”

“They gave us harnesses,” Hannah says. She looks at the coaches. “They must want us to attach ourselves to the rope?”

The coaches exchange a glance, but offer no answer.

Next to Devin, Ollie bends down and takes a handful of rope. He tugs it once, twice, and his eyes find the water. To the coaches, he says, “Clarifying question—are we getting you guys across, too?”

Liv looks at Ethan and nods. “Yep. We’ll follow whatever plan you guys come up with.”

Ollie nudges Devin’s arm, rope splayed across his palms. “It might not work, but I think we could just swim across?”

Devin blinks. “Swim?”

“If we had one really good swimmer take the rope across, then harnessed each person to the rope and fed them across—”

“—like a chain,” Devin finishes. She eyes the water, lips flattened to a thin line. It feels too easy. “You think it could work?”

They walk to the water’s edge, Aidan and Hannah behind them. Devin’s eyes find a leaf on the water, following it quickly downstream until a flick of water pulls it under. She tries to imagine swimming fast enough to beat that current.

“Whoever went first would also need to be strong enough to drag the second person across by themselves,” Hannah says, arms folded over her chest. “So the first person should be the strongest, and the second person should be the lightest?”

Without a word, they all turn to Sheridan.

She looks up when the conversation falls silent. Devin’s hands ball into fists at her sides. Looking at Sheridan’s bony elbows jutting from under the hem of her too-big sleeves, there’s no denying who would be easiest to pull across.

“It would be you second, Sheridan,” Aidan says, matter of fact. “Does that work for you?”

“Depends on who’s first.”

Sheridan’s eyes slide to Devin.

Devin already knows. She knew it the moment they said the first swimmer would have to be someone strong. Even though she’s short, she’s got square shoulders and enough muscle to fill out the sleeves of her T-shirt. Aidan, Sheridan, and Hannah are all scrawny, and the river would swallow them whole. Even Ollie is a wisp of a boy. There’s no point considering any of them.

“Fine,” Devin says to the question no one is brave enough to ask. She turns to Ollie. “Walk me through the plan.”

Sheridan clears her throat. “That doesn’t work for me.”

“It’ll have to unless you wanna drown,” Devin scoffs.

Sheridan holds her stare for a long time before rolling her eyes.

They each climb into a wet suit and harness—even Sheridan, to Devin’s surprise—and shuffle into a crossing order. Devin stands at the front, eyes on the water, and Sheridan, Ollie, Aidan, Hannah, Ethan, and Liv line up behind her. Like a human paper chain, they connect the length of rope to each harness down the line. Devin tries to swallow the nausea because, as much as she trusts Ollie, this feels too simple.

Suited up, Devin stands at the water’s edge. Ollie touches her shoulder, but he doesn’t speak. They watch the coaches’ faces, waiting for them to give any sign that this is dangerous, but Ethan and Liv seem more or less confident in the plan. Devin tries to convince herself that, if this plan was a suicide mission, they’d at least say something.

“Okay,” Devin says. She pops her neck. “I’m gonna start, I guess. Just … don’t let me drown.”

With that, Devin wades into the water.

Immediately, she’s struck by the cold of it. The water slips quickly over the plastic of her wet suit, colder than it has any right to be. It snatches the breath straight from her lungs, freezing her limbs in place. For a moment, she can’t move. She feels the heat of everyone’s stares behind her and bites the inside of her cheek. She won’t look weak. Especially not in front of …

It doesn’t matter. She closes her eyes and pushes herself into the current.

On impact, she loses her breath again. She slaps at the water to keep her head up. Sun glares into her eyes and she loses sight of the shore. The tug of the rope at her waist keeps her from soaring downstream, but it doesn’t slow the push of the water at her chest.

“We’ve got you, Devin!” Ethan’s muffled voice calls from behind her. “Keep swimming!”

Water beats against Devin’s face, each strike colder than the last. She ducks her head down, draws her arms back, and starts kicking like she’s an Olympian. The river floods her mouth when she turns to breathe, forcing her to spit every few seconds. She kicks until her muscles burn and her waterlogged nose stings and the air is razor-sharp in her lungs. She kicks until her elbow crashes into something soft. Something sandy.

Devin claps her hand over a rock, hauling herself from the water. She drags herself to the dirt and flops to her back, gasping for air.

She hears Ollie’s cheers first.

Devin rolls to her knees and spits the rest of the water she inhaled in the dirt. She wasn’t as good a swimmer as she remembered, but apparently it was enough to hit the other shore. The trees sway softly behind her and the sun is warm at her back. It’s quiet here.

It feels too quiet.

Devin turns to the woods behind her. The space between trees is deep and dark, expanding before her. However far they’ve hiked to get here, she imagines the woods in front of her stretch impossibly longer. Something rustles in the brush.

These woods are different.

The rest of the group, save Sheridan, cheers as Devin jogs up the waterline. She stops once she’s level with the others. The river leaves her sopping wet, shedding puddles in her wake. She wipes at her forehead, one eye shut to squint away the sunlight. When her breathing quiets, she motions across the water. “Okay. Send her over.”

Sheridan is hard to make out, but Devin doesn’t see her mouth move. No sassy comments, no insults. She wades into the water without a fight. Another surprise.

Immediately, Devin feels the tug at her waist. She grips the rope, shifting her feet for traction. It should be easy to pull Sheridan across. Even soaking wet, Devin is sure anyone could pull Sheridan on their own.

She hovers in the water a little until her eyes find Devin’s. They’re the same color as the river, clear and blue-gray, wide with fear. Whatever issues they might have, it doesn’t matter now. Devin grits her teeth and pulls.

To her credit, Sheridan gives a few weak kicks to propel herself along. But most of her progress comes from Devin. The rope chafes in Devin’s palms and she’s sure, when this is over, she’ll be nursing blisters for days.

And while she pulls, her unease deepens.

She pulls and she’s sure there’s someone behind her. She pulls again and looks, but there’s no one there. Across the water, the rest of the group cheers and Devin pulls one final time. When Sheridan reaches the rocks at the shore, she scrambles out of the water like a soaked cat, patting at her wet suit like she can slap the water away.

Devin knows a nice person would help Sheridan to her feet, but she doesn’t. She pulled her across; that’ll have to be enough.

“Thanks,” Sheridan mutters sarcastically. Her lavender hair is dark as a bruise when it’s wet, stuck to her neck and back. She coughs up a bit of water and wipes her mouth. Flatly, she says, “Knew I could count on you.”

Devin scoffs. “Sure.”

Sheridan moves to Devin’s side and grips the rope, shockingly quiet. Across the water, Ollie readies himself to wade in. He’s quick to push himself from the shore, drifting into the current. Devin nods at him and tugs at the rope, but at her side, Sheridan stumbles. Devin clamps her hands over Sheridan’s, squeezing to secure the rope. Ollie’s chin bobs into the water, but he quickly starts swimming.

“Shit,” Sheridan mutters. “Was I this hard to pull?”

Devin says nothing. She might’ve helped pull Sheridan to safety, but that doesn’t mean their silence has to end. She moves her hands from Sheridan’s and wipes them on her pants before grabbing the rope again, this time without physical contact.

“I’m surprised you didn’t just let me drown,” Sheridan muses.

“It was tempting,” Devin says, despite herself.

Sheridan says nothing, but when she turns to face the water again, Devin is sure she sees a flash of a smile.

Devin locks eyes on Ollie. She cups her hand around her mouth and calls, “Pull yourself along the rope. You don’t even have to swim. We’ve got you.”

Ollie nods. He grabs the rope and begins pulling himself along, bobbing in the water like a caught fish reeling to shore. Devin’s muscles burn and her chest tightens, but she keeps pulling. When Ollie finally reaches the center of the river, Sheridan stumbles and the rope goes slack. Devin digs her heels into the soil and grips the rope harder.

“Don’t let go,” Devin hisses.

“I didn’t mean to,” Sheridan snaps. “Calm down.”

Devin rolls her eyes and goes back to pulling. Across the water, the rest of the group holds their end of the rope, slowly feeding Ollie across. Hannah shouts something to Ollie that seems to bolster him. Devin closes her eyes, sucking in the scent of pines and fresh water. Once Ollie crosses, it’ll be easier to pull the others.

Behind her, Devin hears it again. The vacuum of sound so close it tickles her neck. It’s the piercing, hot feeling of eyes on her. She turns to face the thick wall of trees, but there’s nothing there. She watches branches shuffle against each other, but the sound of them doesn’t register. It’s almost … too soundless. Devin grips the rope harder, but her palms are slick with sweat. Something in the trees can see her. She’s positive.

In the brief moment that Devin’s focus slips, Sheridan stumbles again.

This time, she loses her footing, plummeting to the dirt with a thump. The rope attached to her harness drags her along the shore while, in the water, Ollie sinks. Devin clutches the rope hard, scrambling to keep Ollie from drifting away.

Sheridan clamors for her harness. In a moment that stretches for hours, Sheridan pinches the buckle holding the rope to her harness and releases it. She thuds to the ground and the sudden force of it rips the rope—and Ollie—from Devin’s grasp.

Devin doesn’t have time to think about Sheridan. She bursts into a sprint, chasing Ollie as he dips over and over under the water’s surface. Across the river, she hears Ethan call out, Shit. The other group scrambles to keep a grip on Ollie’s rope, but he slides quickly out of their control, too. Hannah’s hands are clamped around the rope and she pulls with all her strength, but her heels scoot into the water inch-by-inch. In a moment, Ollie will be taking the rest of the group with him.

On Devin’s side, the rope slithers down the shore. Devin bounds after it, eyes trained on Ollie as blips of his screams break the surface of the water. Just swim, Ollie, Devin thinks, but with the speed of the water he doesn’t stand a chance. Devin runs harder. She skips over a particularly round boulder, sucks in a breath, and she jumps into the water.

At first, it’s relief that floods her. Relief that she doesn’t have to run anymore, relief that she’s finally moving fast enough to catch up. She dunks under the surface and rights herself, swimming toward Ollie. Her hand closes around the rope at his waist. She kicks hard, pulling the rope with her until she can secure it to her own belt.

When she emerges again, the wind chaps her wet cheeks. They’re moving fast. Miraculously, Ollie’s head is still above water. His sharp inhales wheeze loud enough to be heard over the rapids.

“I can’t breathe,” he chokes.

“Just keep kicking,” Devin shouts. “I got you.”

She dips back into the water and wraps both of her arms around Ollie’s waist before she starts kicking, too, angling them toward the shore. If the other group still has a grip on their end of the rope, Devin prays they haven’t fallen in behind them. Her lungs burn and her head spins, but with a final burst of energy, she kicks and kicks until the heel of her hand collides with the shore.

They collapse together, spitting up water and dirt, gasping for air. Somewhere across the river, someone asks if Ollie is breathing and Devin doesn’t have the strength to answer. She pushes herself to her hands and knees, and her relief is replaced by something faster and hotter.

Rage.

Sheridan’s footsteps patter down the shore like she thinks she can salvage the situation. Like she thinks she can be helpful in any capacity. Like she didn’t cause this.

Devin stands, flicking water from her arms, and turns to Sheridan.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she demands.

Behind her, Ollie spits up another mouthful of water with an awful retch. Sheridan looks from Devin to Ollie and her expression hardens. “The fuck is wrong with me? Maybe you should direct that at the literal adults who made us do this.”

Devin scoffs. “They didn’t unhook themselves. You did.”

When Devin takes a step forward, she expects Sheridan to flinch. But Sheridan only folds her arms over her chest, sunlight bright in her eyes. “Calm down and use your brain for three seconds, dumbass.”

In a single step, Devin closes the space between them, grabbing Sheridan’s shirt with her fists. She drags Sheridan closer until their faces are only inches apart. Sheridan gasps, but it isn’t fear that floods her eyes. Her stare is half-lidded. Almost curious.

It’s disgusting.

“Why’d you unhook yourself?”

Sheridan searches her face a moment. “I was gonna drown, too.”

“I wouldn’t have let you.”

Sheridan moves her hand to grab Devin’s fist, prying an inch more space between them. “Yeah, I’m so convinced you have my best interests at heart.”

“You’re so…”

Devin searches for the right word, but there’s nothing that describes the cloying, awful, humiliating feeling she gets when Sheridan looks at her. There’s nothing she can say, no way to get out from under it.

Sheridan smiles. “You gonna hit me again? No one to stop you.”

Devin’s breath comes out ragged. There’s something maddening about the immovability of Sheridan. The unrelenting apathy. She should care that Ollie almost died. She should care when she hurts people, when she puts them in danger, when things are her fault. Sheridan’s long, light lashes flutter. Her eyes land briefly on Devin’s lips before trailing back to her eyes.

“Devin,” Ollie croaks, finally sitting up. “Don’t. It’s not—”

“Everything okay over there?” Ethan calls from across the water.

Devin should drop it, but she’s back in the bad headspace again. She’s staring into Sheridan’s clear blue eyes and cruel smirk and forcing herself to be the bigger person. She’s in the parking lot at school, clenching her fist on the way to Danielle’s car. The wind is cold on her wet skin, even under the white-hot sun. Sheridan’s breath is hot on her face. Between the strangeness of the riverbank and the nausea churning in her gut, Devin is sure she’s losing her mind. Her hands shake in the fabric of Sheridan’s shirt.

She unclenches her fists and Sheridan stumbles back.

“Look at that,” Sheridan drawls, smoothing out her shirt. “They say therapy doesn’t make you better.”

It’s all Devin can do not to change her mind and toss Sheridan in the water.

“You’re disgusting,” Devin snarls. “I don’t get how you … you literally don’t care that he almost died? That doesn’t make you feel bad?”

Sheridan looks at Ollie. “He’s not dead.”

Devin casts a sharp glance across the water, spotting both coaches with their hands on their hips, eyes trained on the fight. The rise and fall of her chest is electric. She clenches her jaw, eyes sliding back to Sheridan. “Next time, I hope it’s you who goes under. It’d make things easier for the rest of us.”

Sheridan’s eyes widen. It’s almost too small to notice, but Devin notices it. More than she notices the shifting of the branches or fumbling of the leaves down the shore, she notices the slight shift in Sheridan’s face. For just a moment, Sheridan felt something. She hurt.

Devin clenches her fists and turns to Ollie. “You okay?”

Ollie spits up more water, then takes Devin’s hand. Once he’s standing, he doubles over, hands on his bony knees. His usually sandy hair is black and heavy with water, sticking to his cheeks and neck. When he finally speaks, it’s a croak. “What kind of superhuman are you?”

“Being able to swim isn’t a superpower,” Devin says. “This whole thing is more embarrassing for you, I think.”

Ollie looks up and his smile softens. “Thank you.”

After a few minutes pass, they reassemble and pull the rest of the group across, Ollie and Devin doing the bulk of the work while Sheridan mopes behind them. Miraculously, the others make it without a problem, and with everyone across the river, they hike deeper into the woods. As hard as she tries, Devin can’t shake the feeling that something is different now. That something changed between morning and night. The woods are deeper and darker, quieter in a way that makes Devin ill.

They may have crossed their first milestone, but for the first time since they arrived, Devin is sure they’re in real danger.

6

After the river, the coaches separate Devin and Sheridan to keep the peace, a decision Devin is more than grateful for. They hike the rest of the way to camp in a silence that runs even deeper than the day she and Sheridan fought. It’s so routine it’s almost numb. They eat, the coaches express their deep disappointment in the group’s teamwork, and then it’s bedtime. The night is quiet and uncomfortable and Devin is happy to sleep it away.

In the morning, she stumbles into awareness slowly for the first time since this nightmare began. Normally, she would wake to Liv tapping the edge of her tarp, saying something about breakfast. But this morning, all she hears is the quiet of their campsite. No fire crackling, no voices. Trees swaying, wind shushing, nothing else.

Devin rolls to her elbows and peels up the edge of her tarp. The center of camp is empty. A thin coil of smoke drifts from the spent campfire. Everyone else is still asleep, or at least pretending to be.

The quiet makes sense, if she thinks about it. The coaches probably let them sleep in for passing their first milestone. They’re probably off collecting fungus for breakfast, thinking it counts as a reward.

Devin crawls out of her tent and the morning is cool and smooth as satin. There’s a red tint to the trees as the sun swells behind them. She stumbles to the campfire, still wearing her sleep shorts and sandals. Empty packets from dinner are littered around the husks of wood, only a few veins of fire left glowing in the cracks. Devin looks at the other tents, then at the fire, puzzling through it. No coaches, no fire, no one awake.

Beyond the fire, Devin spots the blue tarp where the coaches slept. She doesn’t know why her heart races as she approaches it, but the slight thrush of her pulse ebbing in her ears is all she can hear. She crouches in front of the tent, but when she looks under the tarp, it’s empty. Not just empty. Undisturbed.

Ollie isn’t hard to wake. Devin dashes to his tarp and shakes it. He rustles, then slowly sits up. “What?”

“The coaches are gone.”

Ollie narrows his eyes and blearily looks past her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean they’re gone.” Devin runs a hand through her hair. “They didn’t keep the fire going overnight. Their tent is empty.”

Ollie crawls out of his tent like he doesn’t believe her. A few feet away, Aidan’s tarp crinkles and he pokes his head out, too. Hannah joins them and then, like always, the entire campsite is awake except Sheridan. Devin tries to muster up the energy to be annoyed. She looks at Sheridan’s unmoving tarp a hundred feet or so from the rest of them and the knot tightens even worse. She’s going to be sick.

Devin reaches Sheridan’s tarp and shakes it.

“Ugh,” Sheridan groans from under the plastic. “What?”

“Okay, good,” Devin breathes. “Get up.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s an emergency.”

Sheridan says nothing, but she crawls out of her tent. With everyone awake, Devin waits for someone to offer an explanation that makes sense. Ollie pokes at the dead logs on the fire while Hannah starts collecting the loose packets of food, and Aidan inspects the coaches’ tent. They all seem to silently arrive at the same conclusion: something happened while they were asleep.

“You don’t think…” Ollie says softly. “I mean, no one heard any animals?”

“Jesus,” Devin says. “I think we’d know if they got eaten.”

“I heard them last night,” Hannah says, dumping an armful of meal packets into a bag. “They were wandering around the campsite for a while. Talking about the plan for today. I couldn’t hear what the plans were, though. Something about a food drop somewhere. They didn’t say anything about leaving.”

“They were still talking when you fell asleep?” Devin asks.

Hannah shrugs.

“What if this is part of the program?” Aidan suggests. “Like, maybe now that we passed the first milestone, we have to start the day on our own?”

“Without warning?” Devin asks.

Ollie scratches the back of his head. “He could be right. Like, maybe they want us to clean up, get our firewood, all that stuff. And then they’ll come back and lead us to the next camp?”

“Why would they do that?”

Ollie looks around, scratching his chin. The first spots of stubble have started to shadow his jaw. His shaggy hair juts out under the rim of his beanie, obscuring his ears.

“I don’t know,” he says. “They’re weird.”

Behind them, Sheridan laughs. Devin turns on her, maybe too fast, eyes narrowed. Sheridan is halfway through taking apart her tent. The sunlight hits the watery blue of her eyes, the patch of sunburn across her nose and cheeks, the tangled mess of her lavender hair. She doesn’t look worried, as unbothered now as the day they arrived.

“What’s your issue?” Devin asks.

“Devin,” Ollie warns.

“No, I’m just wondering what she thinks is funny. Because I don’t think any of us are laughing. Maybe Sheridan can add something to the conversation.”

Sheridan stops folding and fixes Devin with an entertained stare. “I have nothing to add.”

“Big surprise,” Devin says.

“Let’s just calm down,” Ollie says. He scratches his forehead and turns to Aidan. “Aidan, you think this is part of the program?”

Aidan nods. “What else could it be?”

Ollie sighs. “Then let’s just … clean up, gather firewood, and regroup in a little if they haven’t shown up?”

It’s wrong and Devin knows it. Something is off and playing house like everything is fine is not the solution. But she looks at Ollie and his eyes are a plea. He wants her to go with it and keep the peace. She sighs, running a hand through her hair.

“Fine, but we’re gonna be sitting ducks,” Devin says. “When whatever got them gets us, too, I don’t wanna hear anything from any of you.”

“You wouldn’t hear from us,” Aidan says, too earnest. “We’d be dead.”

Devin laughs at that, but it’s joyless.

She’s the first to leave the group, slinging their dust-coated firewood sleeve over her shoulder. She props the ax over her other shoulder and wanders into the woods. Other than the obvious strange tint to the morning, there’s something especially lovely about the trees on this side of the river. The canopy stretches higher, tangling so far overhead it’s like she stands at the base of a great wooded dome. She makes it fifteen minutes from camp—far enough for the others to fade from sight—and leans against the thickest tree she can find, sinking to the earth. Her heart thumps, fingers twitching against the ax handle. She looks out at the vast stretch of trees, just like she did when she first got here, just like the day they picked blackberries and she considered escaping. If there was ever a time to run without looking back, it’s now.

She could do it, maybe. She’s better at this now. She can hike for longer. She can forage. She can stretch her meals out long enough, chugging along until she finds civilization. If she just picks a direction, there has to be something eventually. The woods can’t go forever.

Devin stands, wandering through the trees until she finds a gap in the canopy. The only real problem with her escape is that, this far into the forest, they’re surrounded by toothy mountains on all sides. The odds of picking a direction and not ending up scaling one is slim. As good as she’s gotten at hiking, she doubts she can go over a mountain on her own. Not with the gear she has, and not without winter clothes. Staying might feel like dying, but leaving could mean dying, too.

If this is part of the program, she wants to push the coaches off a cliff.

If it isn’t, she might as well push herself.

Devin smooths the thought from her mind, focusing on severing low-hanging branches until she’s filled up her sling. If there’s one thing she’s actually enjoyed out here, it’s the way she’s allowed to slide into one task after another. Routines, Ethan emphasized when they started. She matches the rhythm of splitting branches with the beat of her heart, and in what feels like moments, the sling is full.

Behind her, something moves.

Devin turns fast, ax tight in her grip.

But it’s just Hannah. She smiles and raises her hands in surrender. Devin half expects her to say the coaches are back. That Aidan was right and this was all a test to see how they do on their own.

“Sorry,” Devin stammers.

“Just me,” Hannah says. “Are you okay?”

Devin motions to the sling over her shoulder, slowly catching her breath. “I’m fine. Are they back?”

“Who?”

“The coaches.”

“Oh.” Hannah blinks. “No. But you should come. Aidan found something.”

“Whose is it?” Ollie asks.

Aidan purses his lips, staring at the backpack. The contents spill from the bag’s unzipped mouth: two maps, a water bladder, and a brand-new bundle of meal packets. There are other odds and ends couched in the bag’s depths—key chains and snacks and small notepads—but Ollie’s eyes are stuck on the maps. One is detailed, veiny with trails and rivers and zoning lines. The other is simpler, clearly meant to outline their specific trail. There are faint markings all over the green expanse of the forest, citing nearby food drops, paths to the milestones, and good places to camp. He doesn’t want to buy into Devin’s skepticism, but it feels unlikely that either of the coaches would leave this behind.

Ollie stares at the bag, but he feels the heat of Sheridan watching. She sits on the pile of tarp and sleeping bag that used to be her tent. If she’s interested in their discovery at all, she has a funny way of showing it.

“I think it’s Ethan’s,” Aidan says, guiding Ollie back to the matter at hand. “Because of all the notes.”

“Right.” Ollie fishes through the bag, pulling out a wallet. When he flips it open, Ethan’s too-happy face is smiling at him. A Washington driver’s license for Ethan Carmichael from Puyallup. It shouldn’t be the first time it occurs to him that the coaches are real, breathing humans, but seeing Ethan’s details laid bare like this punches him in the gut. He definitely wouldn’t leave this behind.

Hannah rejoins them with Devin at her heels, carrying a full sling of firewood. Ollie half expected her to have run away already. A wave of relief floods him.

“Okay,” Devin says. “What did you find?”

Aidan motions to the backpack. “It’s Ethan’s. I found it, like, ten minutes outside camp. I don’t know. I didn’t see anything else.”

Devin pushes past Ollie to the backpack. She starts riffling through, inspecting the map, the water bladder, the food. She looks through Ethan’s wallet, just like Ollie did, and seems to land at the same conclusion.

“He left this?”

“I guess so,” Aidan says.

“And you don’t think something happened?” Devin turns the wallet over with a scowl. “This seems like something he wouldn’t leave on purpose.”

“I don’t think we should jump to the worst thing,” Hannah says.

“There’s no blood or anything on it,” Ollie says, running his fingertips along the vinyl lining of the backpack. “It doesn’t look like anything was taken. It was stuffed when Aidan found it.”

Devin grips the opening of the backpack, feeling around the bottom. “They had phones, right?”

“What?” Aidan asks.

“They had to get information to your parents somehow. Had to be able to get stuff from them, too. They were making contact with the real world.”

Behind them, Sheridan kicks a log into a place she finds suitable. Ollie watches Devin’s eyes lock on her like a sniper settling on its target, but for once, she chooses to say nothing. She’s finally found an evil she finds more pressing than Sheridan. Ollie sighs with relief.

“Okay, so…?” Aidan says. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we fan out or something,” Devin says. “Look for them. Or at least their phones.”

“No way.” Aidan unfolds the map on the ground between them, gesturing to the blank spaces that run along the margins. He’s strangely authoritative when he’s panicking. “We know how long the milestone path is, but we have no idea how big the rest of the forest is. If you’re right and something happened to the coaches, the chance of finding them is zero. Plus, finding them could mean we run into whatever got them.”

“Yeah, but what if that blank space is a town?” Devin says. “Tourists love places like this. There’s a town somewhere in those margins with a hotel and a phone. The coaches probably went somewhere nearby to get your parents’ letters.”

“Unless they were pre-written,” Ollie says.

“But if they weren’t, then what?” Devin asks.

Ollie shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“The most important thing is that we stick together,” Aidan practically screeches. “We finish the milestone path. This is clearly a test, and they’ve been telling us from the beginning that we need to stick to this path.”

“And if this isn’t a test?” Devin asks. “If something happened?”

“Then the milestone path is still the best option,” Aidan says. “We don’t know anything about this forest. We don’t even know what forest we’re in. We could be in Canada by now. We could be—”

“We’re in Idaho,” Ollie cuts in, placing a hand gently on Aidan’s shoulder. “We would know if we crossed a border, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have a passport. But Aidan’s right.”

Devin raises a brow.

Ollie can’t believe he’s saying it, either. Again, he’s stuck disagreeing with Devin. He’s sure if he keeps this up, she’ll kill him in his sleep. But leaving the path, trekking into the woods to “find help,” makes no sense. Devin isn’t suggesting this because it’s practical or because she thinks it’ll work. She’s suggesting it because she’s been waiting for a chance to try this since they arrived.

“They said it would take fifty days to do this program,” Ollie says before Devin can fight him. “Which means, in thirty-nine days, there’s a pickup at the end of the path, right? Or maybe that’s where the nearest town is and they planned to call transport once we got there. Either way, that”—Ollie points to MILESTONE 5 on the map—“is a for-sure way out.”

At first, Devin says nothing. He knows it doesn’t matter how much sense he made. Ollie is her friend and, according to her logic, he’s supposed to side with her no matter what.

Aidan nods at Ollie’s suggestion, eyes sliding to Devin. She takes one look around and her expression hardens. She realizes she’s outnumbered.

Hannah cocks her head. “I kind of agree with Ollie and Aidan. No offense. We don’t know what else is out here, but we know the path we’re on has already been scouted out and they decided it was safe. Aidan might be right about this being a test. Maybe this is like the program with no training wheels.”

“What’s wrong with you guys?” Devin pleads. “We are in crystal-clear danger and you wanna pretend it’s business as usual. We need to find the fastest way out before something happens to us, too.”

“Devin,” Ollie finally snaps. “We are telling you what the fastest way out is. You’re not listening.”

Behind them, Sheridan laughs.

The group turns to her. Up to now, Ollie had thought Sheridan was tuning them out. Instead, she’s been silently mocking them since this conversation began, finally cracking herself up too much to hide it.

“Okay, well, ignoring that,” Devin says, gesturing toward Sheridan. “Imagine how pissed you’d be if you got to the end and found out there was a town five miles off the path and you walked right past it because you had to stick to a map?”

“Imagine how pissed you’d be if you went into the woods and died when there was a map showing how to get out?” Ollie says.

“What is this?” Devin asks him, and it stops him in his tracks. She motions to him, hurt sharp in her eyes. He hates this more than anything else they’ve done since this began. Devin’s jaw is clenched. “Why are you arguing with me?”

“I’m not arguing with you,” Ollie says. “You’re being stubborn. I don’t want us to die out here.”

Without warning, Sheridan makes her entrance, snatching up Aidan’s map. He starts to protest, but for once, there’s a twinkle of determination in Sheridan’s eyes that seems to quiet him. She moves out of the circle, laying the map flat on the soil, and she traces the milestone path. Slowly, she fans her fingertips away from the path, into the rugged unmarked terrain that surrounds it. Like she’s feeling for life in the mapped-out expanse of forest.

“Okay,” she says, looking up. “The path obviously follows the natural hikeable area out here. But because it’s behavior therapy, it’s also gonna avoid any civilization. You have to look at the areas they deliberately guided us away from.”

“For what?” Ollie asks.

She leans close to the map, tapping a specific spot to the west of the milestone path. “There’s something here.”

Ollie crouches next to Sheridan and follows her finger. She’s right; there’s a small square directly to the west. It’s unlabeled, and it’s hard to say what type of terrain it’s couched in, but it’s something. He looks up and Devin is crouching, too, eyes trained on the same spot. If she’s repulsed by Sheridan being the one to find it, she keeps it to herself.

She looks at Sheridan and clears her throat. “You think there’s a phone?”

“I don’t know what it is,” Sheridan says. “It’s a structure.”

“How long would it take to get there?”

Sheridan mulls it over. “Based on how fast we’ve been going, maybe two days?”

Devin stands. She paces to the charred campfire and back and Ollie already knows what she’s thinking. It’s all she’s been thinking since they got here. The rest of them might see an oddity on the map, a far cry from rescue, but all Devin sees is escape. Like a trapped animal finally staring out an opened cage door, she can’t see this rationally. She can’t do the math on how easily these woods will kill her. She doesn’t care about the probability of there being people at the structure. She just cares that there could be.

“Devin, it’s not—”

“I’m going,” she says.

“You can’t,” Aidan spits out. “No. We can’t split up.”

“Yes, we can,” Devin says. “It makes more sense to have two groups, anyway. The rest of you on the milestone path while I look for help. I assume no one’s coming with me, so I’ll just need food and firewood. If I find something, I’ll send help.”

“And if you don’t come back?” Ollie asks.

“If I don’t come back, assume I died.”

“Devin,” Ollie says. “I was being sarcastic. You can’t go.”

“Yes, I can.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Again, the group looks to Sheridan. She’s straddling the map, a hand on each of her bony knees. Her eyes are still watery and expectant, still trained on the little square. She looks up at Ollie, at Devin, then back at the map. Her usual cruel, crooked smile is gone. When Ollie looks at Devin, she’s gone pale.

“Not with me, you won’t,” she says.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ollie says before snapping back to reality. “Wait, no, neither of you should go.”

“Oh, I’m going,” Devin says.

“We’re not gonna let her go alone, right?” Sheridan traces a line from their campsite to the square. “That’s a suicide mission.”

“A suicide mission is you going anywhere alone with me,” Devin says. “I’d rather go by myself. For her sake.”

“Is that a threat?” Sheridan asks.

“Stop,” Aidan snaps. “Both of you. Ollie said no one leaves the group. I agree. We have to stay together.”

Ollie isn’t sure when he was appointed leader, but he feels the burn of Devin’s glare. This is stupid and reckless, but he’s not sure what else he expected. Devin’s dark brow is furrowed, jaw tight with anger. There isn’t an argument he can make that will change her mind, and any breath spent trying is wasted. But she can’t go out there. Ollie eyes the rigid mountain range that scales up to their west and he imagines Devin up among the cliffs, falling to her knees with hunger, dying nameless and alone while the rest of them are rescued.

He makes the one argument he has left. “There are five of us. Let’s vote.”

“Okay,” Devin says without hesitation, folding her arms. “I vote yes. If you want out of this forest, everyone else should, too.”

Next is Aidan, who scowls at Devin. “I vote no. It’s too dangerous and we need to stay together.”

“But—”

“He gets to make up his own mind,” Ollie cuts in. “He voted no.”

Devin glares and he can feel what’s left of their tentative friendship splintering in his hands. Maybe she’ll hate him for this, but he’s going to keep her out of those mountains however he can. Everything is up in the air, but the one thing he’s sure of is that she’ll die if they split up. They may not have known each other for long, but he promised to look out for her. He didn’t imagine he’d be protecting her from herself.

“Hannah?” Ollie asks.

Hannah looks at him, surprisingly hesitant. Her eyes find the mountains, then her feet. For reasons Ollie can’t fathom, she’s doubting. She turns to Devin. “You think you can find something?”

“Yes,” Devin says.

Hannah looks at Ollie, necklace tight in her grip. “Then I vote for her to go.”

“What?”

“You said people get to make up their own minds,” Devin says. “Hannah made up her mind.”

All eyes turn to Sheridan. She sits in front of the map, but when she looks up, it’s clear which way she’s leaning. He knows it before she even opens her mouth. He looks at Devin, bracing for her face when she realizes Sheridan is going to be the one to push this her way.

“I say yes,” Sheridan says. “As long as I get to go, too.”

“No,” Devin says.

“Should I vote no?” Sheridan asks with a smile. “I think that would make three no’s for you.”

“I haven’t even voted yet,” Ollie says. “But obviously my vote is no.”

Devin glares at Sheridan, stewing over which hell is worse; staying together or enduring Sheridan on her own. He prays, just this once, that her hate for Sheridan will outweigh everything else. She presses her fingertips to her temples like it’ll massage away the stress.

“Okay,” Devin says. “Okay, Sheridan can come with me.”

“Devin,” Ollie says, as soft as he can manage. “Can we just give it a day to think?”

“You asked for a vote,” Devin says. “Your choice. We voted that I go.”

He doesn’t care that Aidan and Hannah and Sheridan are all staring. He takes a step forward and grasps for something that will change her extremely stubborn mind. “Please don’t do this.”

Devin pulls her backpack over her shoulder. He’s sure, for a second, that he sees a glimmer of hesitation in her. A glimmer of fear. Then she steels herself and looks hard into Ollie’s face.

“I’m gonna get us out of here. We’ll be home soon.”

7

It doesn’t take long to part ways. Aidan splits what gear and resources they have, sending Devin and Sheridan with clothes, jackets, and tarps. They leave Ethan’s unopened package of meals with Ollie’s group and Sheridan takes the rest. Devin keeps the full firewood sling and Ollie keeps the ax. Sheridan takes the larger, more detailed map. Aidan keeps the milestone-specific map.

With a sinking feeling in her gut, Devin says goodbye.

Shockingly, their hike from camp is silent. Devin expects nonstop torment, but for most of the afternoon, Sheridan is unnervingly quiet. She extracts the map from her backpack every hour or so to check where they’re going, but makes no comments. If Sheridan notices the way the terrain shifts around them as they ascend, she says nothing. They crawl from thick patches of rough woods, trees pressed so close together their roots twine like knotted fingers, into great brown ridges completely barren save for a handful of scraggly bushes.

Finally, when they crest a particularly steep ridge at the mountainside, Sheridan collapses.

It isn’t graceful or slow. Her knees hit the dirt, palm hard against the ground, backpack toppled at her side. She chokes and wipes her mouth. The sun is low on the horizon, but it still glares tangerine between them.

“Jesus,” Devin says, pivoting back to pull Sheridan to her feet. “What happened?”

“What happened is I’m tired,” Sheridan snaps. Instead of taking Devin’s hand, Sheridan bats the help away and hauls herself up. “I don’t wanna walk anymore. Let’s camp here.”

Devin narrows her eyes. They’ve only been walking for a few hours. It’s less than any other day of the program, and it’s certainly not on pace if they want to make it to the square in two days. Sheridan should be used to this kind of exercise by now. Maybe they’ve been mostly hiking flat terrain, but a slight incline shouldn’t do this to her.

“It’s not even dark out,” Devin says. “We could go another few hours. Then we’d have less to hike tomorrow.”

“No.” Sheridan lifts her shoulder to work out a tight muscle. “I’m tired.”

“I’m tired, too.” As Devin says it, she feels the tightness of impending exhaustion in her ribs. “But I’ll push through if it means I don’t have to hike all day tomorrow. That’s common sense.”

“To you.”

“To anyone.”

Sheridan rolls her eyes. She unzips her backpack to pull out the map. In silence, she traces a line along the mountains before tapping a dark spot. “I think we’re about ten miles from the square. If this thing is actually populated—”

Devin blinks. “If?”

“Well, yeah.” Sheridan huffs. “I’m not a park ranger. I don’t even really know where we are. I said it was our best bet.”

Devin sinks onto a nearby boulder. She presses her face into her grimy hands and decides she’s not going to freak out. She’s going to be rational. This isn’t new information. Sheridan is right; she’s not any more familiar with these woods than Devin is, she’s just better at maps. They should take a break and save their strength for tomorrow. But this isn’t how this was supposed to go. She was supposed to be doing this alone.

The sun sits even lower on the horizon now, purpling the light across the ridge. She wants to find it beautiful here, but it’s suffocating. The wind is sharper than it was when they began. Night will set in soon and that’s it. It’ll be just Devin, Sheridan, and the dark.

“Let’s do another mile,” Devin says, voice cracking. “Or hike until it’s dark. I just want to go a little farther, okay?”

Sheridan shakes her head. “I’m out.”

“You literally can’t do any more?”

“I don’t want to.”

“God, I wish you stayed behind,” Devin snaps.

Sheridan laughs, a sound that makes Devin nauseous. She flips her hair over her shoulder. “Why? So you could get lost on your own?”

“I’d rather be lost.”

Sheridan offers a condescending smile and starts pulling packets of food from her backpack, muttering something about starting a fire. Devin doesn’t quite hear it, eyes locking on the contents of Sheridan’s backpack. It’s fuller than it should be, stuffed to the brim with shiny plastic packets. It’s so full that a few of the packets slide and land with a thud in the dirt.

“Where did you get all that?” Devin asks.

“Peace offering,” Sheridan says, ignoring the question. She tosses a packet to Devin with a smile. “I grabbed your favorite.”

Devin catches the packet and turns it over in her hands. MEXICAN-STYLE CHICKEN STEW. Sheridan’s right that it’s her favorite, but something doesn’t add up. They were down to only a few packs left at base camp. Even if they opened the brand-new pouch from Ethan’s backpack, Sheridan shouldn’t have this much food. She shouldn’t—

“—and I noticed you always go for the spicier stuff,” Sheridan says, a continuation of something Devin didn’t hear. “I also grabbed—”

“Did you steal these?” Devin asks.

Sheridan looks up. The purple light makes her eyes glow like moonlit water. She looks into her backpack then back at Devin. “Define steal.”

“Oh my god,” Devin says. “Why would you…?”

“You could also say thank you.”

“How much did you take?”

Sheridan shrugs.

Devin stands, fists at her sides, and she’s trying—she’s trying—to tamp down the anger. But when Sheridan looks at her with that careless expression Devin nearly combusts. It’s Ollie’s almost-drowning all over again. Sheridan doesn’t care. Devin imagines the other group when they realize what’s happened. When they run out of food and go hungry. They’re supposed to be on the safe path, and now they’re going to starve. She wants to grab Sheridan by the matted, knotty spill of her hair and drag her over the ridge.

“Jesus, they’ll be fine,” Sheridan says. “I took all the cheese tortellini. And the chicken stew. And some other stuff, but who cares. We’re the ones doing the hard part. We’re hiking up a fucking mountain to help them. We get more food.”

“There’s three of them,” Devin says. “There’s only two of us. They need more than we do.”

“But—”

“And you lied to them.” Devin closes her eyes. A cool breeze runs up over the ridge, hard and fast enough to rock the trees behind them. It’s firmly night now, the sun only a hazy glow of pink at the horizon. “I watched you figure out the food with Aidan. You lied to him.”

“Who cares?” Sheridan laughs.

“I care.”

“Well, that’s the last time I do anything for you,” Sheridan says. “Are you making the fire, or do I have to?”

Devin bites down on the inside of her cheek until she tastes iron. She eyes the huddle of trees behind them and sighs. Her anger slowly curdles into disgust. When she speaks, she doesn’t look at Sheridan.

“Make it yourself,” Devin says. “And keep the food. I’m not hungry.”

“Oh, god,” Sheridan says. “This seems dramatic.”

“It’s gonna be cold. I’m sleeping by the trees.” Devin picks up her backpack. “Sleep out here if you want. I don’t care.”

She makes her way into the trees without looking back. She feels the sharp burn of Sheridan’s glare at her back, but she doesn’t care. She walks until she finds a small clearing in the dark and, with a sheen of cold sweat blanketing her, she sets up her tarp and sleeping bag. If Sheridan starts making a fire, Devin doesn’t hear. If she makes food, Devin doesn’t hear. And if she eventually joins Devin in the trees, Devin doesn’t hear. She ducks her head under the downy lip of her sleeping bag and the world falls silent. When she dreams, she dreams of concrete under her sneakers and mattress springs under her back. Maybe if she’s lucky, she’ll wake up alone. Maybe if she’s luckier, she won’t wake up at all.

As she drifts off to sleep, Devin is certain she hears the dull tap of fingers at the edge of her tarp.

Once Devin and Sheridan are gone, Aidan leads the others from camp, milestone map tight in his grip. He assures Ollie and Hannah that, as a former Boy Scout, he knows the basics of following a map. As long as he sticks to the slightly weathered path through the woods, they can’t go wrong.

They begin their hike and it’s like the world is upside down. Anxiety tightens in Ollie’s chest because this is all wrong. Going off the path would be wrong, too, though. Staying in place would be wrong. He puzzles and reworks the scenario a thousand times, but there is no right answer. He went to bed feeling waterlogged and exhausted but somewhat assured he could make it to the end of these fifty days. And he woke up to this mess.

Aidan leads them down a mossy, dew-damp slope, winding them lower into the woods until they reach a great basin with trees so wide Ollie isn’t sure that all three of them linking arms could reach around. If they really are lost out here, he doubts a helicopter would be able to see them this deep in the trees.

Ollie finds himself staring at the back of Hannah’s head again. He’s been doing it more than he should lately, watching the way a little bit of her hair always falls out of place, the way her shoulders have slackened as the days pass. She’s tense again today, though Ollie imagines that has something to do with their program falling apart on them while they’re miles deep in the woods. There’s a part of Ollie—especially in the silent hours—that wonders if he might’ve been friends with Hannah in the real world.

She isn’t like Devin, the kind of kid that was always orbiting his group of friends because similarities drew them together. Meeting Hannah feels like lightning in a bottle. She’s an impossibility for the Ollie who suffered his way through life back home, but now she’s here, a few feet in front of him, dodging low-hanging branches and roots that grab for her ankles.

“Hey,” Ollie says, jogging a little to match Hannah’s pace. She doesn’t look up at him, but she doesn’t pull ahead, either. “How’re you feeling?”

“You know. Pretty bad.” Hannah laughs, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Yeah.”

“I know Aidan thinks this is all part of the program, but I just feel like…” She pauses, contemplating. “I don’t know. It’s all off.”

They’ve lost almost half their group to the woods, and if animals don’t get them, Ollie is sure Devin and Sheridan will kill each other within forty-eight hours. If this is a test, they’re going to be in trouble for letting the two of them leave. If it isn’t a test, they’re all doomed anyway. They might have ten days of training in these woods, but his mind flashes back to news reports before school in the morning, blasting the faces of experienced hikers gone missing from routine, well-traveled trails.

“Yeah. I don’t know if we’re making the right choice.” Ollie adjusts his beanie, carefully avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know if we had a right choice.”

“Things got intense,” Hannah says. She looks up, mouth pinched in a pout. “Sorry if I seemed off. I was just … I don’t do great when people start yelling.”

“I’m sorry,” Ollie says quickly. “I hate when stuff gets like that.”

When Hannah closes her eyes, her dark lashes flutter against her cheeks. “You know what I keep thinking about? I didn’t even have to be here.”

Ollie’s eyes snap to Hannah.

“I mean, my dad said I had to go, but they didn’t drive me here. Or fly with me. They dropped me off at the airport with a boarding pass and Liv’s phone number.”

“Wow,” Ollie says. “Wow. You could’ve ditched at the airport.”

“I could have,” Hannah says softly. “I don’t think it would have gone very well. I’m not … I don’t think I’m cut out for life on the road.”

“Maybe not,” Ollie muses. “But you’re in it now.”

“You think I should’ve run?”

“I think your situation is different from mine. Or Devin’s. Like, they had to hire people to kidnap us because they knew we wouldn’t go.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever told my dad no,” Hannah says, more to herself than to Ollie. She looks down like she always does when she’s embarrassed. “How do you, like … live in the same house after that? After a big fight?”

Ollie considers. “I just leave. When I come back, he’s usually calmed down and we just go back to what we were doing.”

“You don’t talk about it?”

“I guess not.”

Hannah nods like she doesn’t realize she’s lobbed a Molotov cocktail into Ollie’s brain. He tries to remember a single time he walked away from an argument and then discussed it with his father later. He tries to remember a single resolution they came to together. But that’s not how Ollie’s father works. He’s a reactor. He blows up at what he sees and, once he’s sky high, it doesn’t matter what you say to calm him down. He’s like a storm, raging over you and then moving on, leaving only ruins as proof he was there.

“Are you mad at me?” Hannah asks.

It takes Ollie a moment to recalibrate. “Am I mad at you?”

“For the vote.”

“Oh.”

“I wasn’t trying to sabotage Devin. I promise.” Hannah straightens her backpack straps. “I just didn’t think we’d be able to stop her from going. Even if we voted against it, she would’ve just left while we slept.”

Ollie nods. Realistically, Hannah is right. He knows Devin well enough to know that, given the chance, she would’ve gone anyway. She’s been trying to run since the moment they put her in the van next to Ollie. It isn’t enough to ride out the storm together. She has to be free faster, she has to do it alone, and she has to put herself in danger to feel like she’s making the right move.

“It’s fine,” Ollie says. “You’re right.”

“We’ll see them again,” Hannah says. “I don’t think there’s anything out here that can kill Devin. She seems kind of indestructible.”

“I can think of one thing,” Ollie muses. “She took it with her.”

“Yeah,” Hannah says. She doesn’t laugh, but when Ollie chances a look at her, there’s a half smile playing at her lips. “I kind of wish we could record them trying to do this together.”

“God, that would be sick.”

Ollie means to say something else, but ahead of them, Aidan comes to a stop. The basin they’ve been hiking through is darker than it was when they began, partially because the daylight has died overhead, dimming the sun through the treetops. They’re even deeper in the valley than Ollie realized. He squints at the branches overhead, looks back the way they came, and nausea bubbles in his stomach. This isn’t right. They aren’t even on a path anymore. He was so caught up talking to Hannah, he didn’t catch Aidan leading them entirely off the trail.

“Aidan,” Ollie says softly. “Where are we?”

“Uh…” Aidan hesitates. He turns the map over in his hands and adjusts his glasses. “I think we were supposed to be following a creek, actually.”

“What creek?”

To their right, there are trees. To their left, there are trees. In front of them, the valley sinks lower and Ollie imagines it opening into a scattering of dank caves beneath the ridges they’ve been hiking. He looks in every direction, but there are no creeks in sight. There haven’t been for hours.

Aidan’s cheeks are bright red. “I think maybe I got this mixed up. I thought it was a ridge or something. But it’s a creek.”

“We’re going the wrong way?” Hannah asks.

“I think … maybe?”

It’s like someone’s shoved Ollie’s head underwater again. They got a late start on hiking thanks to the chaos this morning, meaning they’re already behind. Depending on how wrong Aidan is, they’ve lost a whole day. He can hope there’s a way to hike directly to their next camp, but if not, they’ll have to hike back the way they came. By the time they fix it and get back, they’ll be two full days behind. If pickup is supposed to come for them in thirty-nine days, they’re already off by two. He doesn’t want to be angry because he doesn’t get angry. But after everything else today, he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

“I thought you were good with maps?” Ollie asks.

Aidan’s eyes widen. “I am. I just read this one wrong, I think.”

“Let me see it.”

“It’s okay. I’ll fix it. I’ll—”

“Aidan,” Ollie warns. “Let me see the map.”

Reluctantly, Aidan hands over the map. Ollie’s not good with maps, either—not good with directions in general—but he presses it to the nearest tree and squints. He traces the distance from CAMP TEN to CAMP ELEVEN. Under CAMP ELEVEN, a smaller comment reads FOOD DROP. They’re supposed to get replenishments tonight.

The map isn’t as distinct as the one they sent with Devin and Sheridan, but it’s clear enough to show that, like Aidan said, they should have been walking along a thin, winding creek all day today, stopping at the place where the creek splits in two. He traces a second line on the map, craggy and wooded, winding away from the milestone trail.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Ollie mutters. “We have to hike back the way we came.”

Hannah joins Ollie, twirling her cross necklace around her finger, and he traces the paths for her, too. Anyone who knows anything about maps should’ve been able to see the difference. He can sense Aidan behind them and knows he’s sorry. He’s sure Aidan will say it a thousand times, but that doesn’t erase that they’ll have to spend tomorrow making this right. That could be it for their rescue. One day in, and they’re dead.

“How long ago did you realize we’re supposed to be hiking along a creek?” Ollie asks.

“I didn’t notice.”

“Were you looking at the map while we hiked?”

Aidan looks down. “Not really. I thought the creek would show up eventually.”

“So you did know there was supposed to be a creek,” Ollie says.

“Ollie.” Hannah moves between them, brow furrowed. “He made a mistake. It’s okay. We’ll fix it tomorrow.”

“Except we won’t fix it tomorrow,” Ollie says. “Because we’ll spend all day hiking just to get back to where we started. Unless we can figure out a route to get directly from wherever we are to the next camp, we’re a full two days behind.”

“I’m sorry,” Aidan manages.

There’s a squeeze again in Ollie’s chest. Don’t lash out, it warns. Keep it cool.

For once, Ollie understands how Devin feels.

“I’m not trying to make you feel like shit, but why did you say you understood maps if you didn’t? We could’ve figured this out together. Now we’re lost.”

Aidan pushes his glasses to his hairline and presses his fingers to his eyes. He says nothing, but Ollie hears the strained, puckered sound of his breathing. He’s managed to make Aidan cry. Ollie feels sick and Aidan is crying and Hannah is looking at him like he’s a monster. He’s not a person who lashes out. He’s not Devin, wandering the woods with the world’s shortest fuse. He’s patient and he’s nice and he just made someone cry.

“Look. It’s fine,” Ollie says. “We’ll make camp here tonight and figure it out tomorrow, okay?”

Aidan nods. He wipes at his eyes and says, “I’m really, really sorry. I thought I knew where we were going.”

Hannah moves to his side, wrapping an arm over Aidan’s shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure it out. I bet we can find a way to get caught up tomorrow. Then we’ll only be off by one day.”

Aidan nods.

“How about you take first watch?” Ollie asks him.

Aidan fixes his glasses. “Watch?”

“We don’t have the coaches with us,” Ollie says. He looks out at the trees. “And if … if something happened to them, we should be watching our camp.”

If he’s being honest, Ollie isn’t entirely sure he wants Aidan in charge of anything else tonight. But if it means he’ll feel he’s contributed and will be clearheaded in the morning, it can’t hurt.

Ollie looks out at the trees and swallows. He wants to believe they’ll wake up in the morning and find the way back without a problem. He wants to believe they’ll meet up with Devin and Sheridan in a few days. He wants to believe this is all part of their program and that they’ll be rewarded by the very-much-alive coaches when it’s done. But that sinking, clawing dread in the pit of his stomach has only gotten heavier as the day has worn on. He wants to believe they’ll make this right, but he can’t.

8

The air is different when Devin wakes. Cold in a way that stings, even through her T-shirt, blanket, sleeping bag, and tarp. It’s cold enough that she has to curl her legs to her chest to feel any warmth. It’s not surprising, given how far up this ridge they camped. Altitude sharpens the air, making her breath thin. It’s not just the altitude piercing the morning, though. Devin hears pattering on the edge of her tarp and releases an aggrieved sigh into her sleeping bag.

It’s raining.

Devin drags herself out of her sleeping bag, nudges Sheridan awake, and they get to work. Unlike back home, there’s nowhere to hide from the rain out here. Every time Devin leans over to pick up a piece of their equipment, drips of rain slide down her nose. Every time Sheridan turns her head, a wet slap of hair smacks her neck.

Without saying a word to each other, they start their hike. If anything, the weather makes Devin more determined to trudge up the cliffside faster. The rain starts as a light speckling and quickly widens into a downpour. With each step, Devin adds something to her imagined paradise at the end. She imagines the reprieve of a ceiling. A bed with a blanket. A fireplace and dry wood. She imagines a pantry full of canned food. Better, she imagines a vacant Airbnb primed with everything they need to survive for months. She imagines a phone, clean clothes, a hot shower. And then, once they’ve contacted the outside world, she imagines—

She’s not sure what she imagines. She tries to picture what comes next and finds nothing but a lump in her throat.

A few hours into their hike, Sheridan collapses again.

Devin turns on her, but she bites back the ire this time. Between the rain and their fight last night, it’s a miracle Sheridan made it this long without asking for a break.

Sheridan tosses her backpack in the dirt. Her hair is stuck on either side of her slender nose, dripping rain over her full lips. She runs pale fingers through the knots in her hair, clearing her eyes.

“This sucks,” she says.

“Yeah,” Devin agrees.

Her own hair is heavy and limp at the shell of her ears. Drops of cold run down the back of her neck. She crouches, careful to keep her knees above the mud. As gently as she can, Devin asks, “How much time do you need?”

“Benevolent leader,” Sheridan muses. “You are too kind.”

“I’m asking you,” Devin snaps. “I’m trying not to rush you.”

“If you can get the rain to stop you’d be solving both our problems,” Sheridan huffs. When she inhales, Devin is sure she hears a wheeze. Sheridan’s face is paler than it was when they started the ascent, the bags under her eyes as dark as bruises. Sheridan might’ve been lying about needing all those breaks before, but today, Devin is sure she means it.

After a long stretch of rain-drenched silence, Sheridan looks up. “You ever think about movies where they kiss in the rain? Sounds horrible.”

Devin arches a brow. She tries to follow Sheridan’s line of thought, but can’t piece together how she possibly got here. She wipes her nose and looks away, focusing on a particularly bent tree trunk a few yards away.

“Yeah, seems terrible.”

“Have you ever done it?”

“What?”

Sheridan rolls her eyes. “Kissed someone in the rain?”

“No.”

“Does this make you uncomfortable?” Sheridan asks, the edge in her voice so sharp it nearly cuts. She doesn’t move, but Devin can feel the heat of her eyes. “It’s just a question.”

“I don’t trust why you’re asking,” Devin says.

“I make you uncomfortable and you don’t trust me,” Sheridan prattles on. “What are you? Homophobic?”

“What?”

It takes Devin a moment too long to comprehend what Sheridan’s talking about. She narrows her eyes. A part of her already knew this about Sheridan, knew that they had this in common. It might be the only thing they have in common. But looking like Devin does, hair short and clothes loose, short and broad-shouldered, she’s never been called homophobic in her life. She can’t remember the last person that didn’t immediately clock her as a lesbian.

Sheridan shows just a glimmer of a smirk before sobering. “Are you? Homophobic?”

“Obviously not.”

“Cool,” Sheridan says.

“Are you trying to ask if I’m gay?”

Devin’s grip on her backpack straps tightens. She knows this is bait, but she takes it anyway. Talking to Sheridan sometimes feels like playing chess for the first time against a grand master. She knows Sheridan is making a fool of her, but she can’t figure out how.

Sheridan snorts. “Your haircut already told me.”

“Oh, nice,” Devin says, wiping rain from her brow. “That’s so funny.”

Sheridan quiets, making no attempt to get up. Her boots sink into the dirt like it’s paste. Without breaking eye contact, she asks, “You are, though? Right?”

“What?”

“Gay?”

“Why do you care?” Devin asks.

Splotches of red form at Sheridan’s cheeks, and Devin is sure it’s just the cold and the exhaustion. But a part of her wonders if Sheridan is embarrassed to be asking. Maybe she isn’t making a joke, she just doesn’t know how to have a normal conversation.

“I don’t,” Sheridan says. “Just trying to find something we have in common so you’ll stop yelling at me.”

“I don’t yell at you.”

“You talk very angrily.”

“I’m not doing this with you,” Devin says.

As irritating as Sheridan is, it’s not the main reason she’s eager to move on. Devin was never big on the “coming out” part of meeting people. In the early days, most of her fosters didn’t know and didn’t care. When she started dressing how she felt, walking how she felt, cutting her hair how she felt, she stopped having to come out. All it took was a glance to know who she was. It was easier that way. No surprises.

Now, trying to actually talk about sexuality makes the inside of her mouth feel like sandpaper.

“I want to keep hiking,” Devin says. “Get up.”

“Aw, nice Devin is gone?”

Devin runs fingers through the damp tangle of her hair. She should just let this conversation fizzle out. But there’s a strange magnetism to arguing with Sheridan. As hard as she tries, she can’t leave the last word unclaimed. “If you hate me so much, why did you come with me?”

Sheridan laughs.

“I’m serious,” Devin says. “You hate being around me. I can’t stand to look at you. This is the harder hike and you’re not keeping up. Why did you come?”

Rain drips from Sheridan’s jaw. “My friend Anna got sent to wilderness therapy last summer. Our other friend, Alex, went when her mom found out she did molly at Bass Canyon. I think Ingrid went when she was a sophomore. Don’t remember why.”

Devin blinks. “You have a lot of fucked-up friends. What does that—”

“So, obviously, when each of them got back they told me how much it sucked. They hated all the group bonding exercises. They hated being in the woods. I wasn’t surprised when my mom and dad said they were sending me here. I knew what to expect because my friends already told me everything about these programs.”

Devin waits for Sheridan to make an actual point. It makes sense, though, that Sheridan comes from a world of the wealthy and misbehaved. Her boredom with the program, her constant derailing, her attitude—it starts to click into place. The bitter taste on Devin’s tongue swells.

“The thing all my friends hated most was how their counselors were always breathing down their necks,” Sheridan continues. “They all told me, no matter how hard they tried, the program leaders wouldn’t leave them alone for even a second.”

Devin swallows the lump in her throat.

“You were right,” Sheridan says. “Back at camp, when we were deciding what to do. Everything that happened so far is just like my friends told me. Except yesterday morning. There’s no way this is part of the program.”

Devin shakes her head. “Why didn’t you say that?”

“Because no one listens to me,” Sheridan drawls. “Especially you. If I said anything, you would’ve sided with Ollie.”

“But why go with me?”

“There might be more of them, but you’re the one with the best chance of living,” Sheridan says. “So I came with you.”

Devin stands, hands balling into fists. She doesn’t have time to be mad at her for complicating this escape. Sheridan is here because she’s selfish, but that’s not a surprise. If we were stuck alone out here, I feel like you’d kill and skin a bear or something. Sheridan’s been the same since the first day they arrived. Devin just needs to get to this cabin, and then Sheridan will be out of her life just as quickly as she came into it.

They continue their hike. The sky sinks from white to gray as the rain thickens, and by the time the storm dries, the sky is murky with late afternoon. The cabin is farther than they thought, and exhaustion sits heavy in Devin’s bones.

To her credit, Sheridan doesn’t ask for another break. As the day wears on, though, her pace slows. Six hours in, they’re at a snail’s speed. Devin imagines the touch of fresh sheets and wood floors and keeps herself from collapsing into the muck.

They crest the final ridge and Devin knows what’s waiting for them before she lays eyes on it. She hears the hush of water. At the bottom of a small embankment, the trees part and reveal a glittering lake carved into the mountainside. Patches of rain-damp grass shimmer under a sliver of moonlight. It’s stunning and, briefly, it steals the air from Devin’s lungs.

Her gaze slides to the shore and her stomach sinks.

Blackened planks of wood lean one over another, collapsed, specks of moss sprouting from their jagged ends. Only a stone foundation is left upright, along with the steep column of a once-functional fireplace. Whatever fire ravaged the building happened years ago, only a rotting husk left in its wake.

Her “cabin” is a pile of rubble.

One by one, the little pieces of Devin’s fantasy dissolve. No hot shower, no fresh food, no pillow to lie on.

No escape.

“You said there was a cabin,” Devin says, quiet at first. Cold sweat beads under her chapped nose. “Why would the map even show this?”

Sheridan manages her way to the bottom of the embankment, skidding a little as she stops, mud streaking her neck and arms. Her eyes find the cabin.

“You said it was a cabin,” Devin snaps.

“It was a cabin,” Sheridan says. She peels a particularly damp section of hair away from her face. “I guess no one told the map it’s not in service.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“It’s not,” Sheridan says, “But it sucks so much you have to laugh.”

Devin’s eyes flutter shut.

It’s not Sheridan’s fault. She knows it’s not Sheridan’s fault, and she knows that anger solves nothing, but it feels too big for her to bite back this time. Sheridan said they were only a few hours from the cabin, Sheridan said this was the best route for survival. Sheridan is the reason they’ve lost hours of this hike, and she’s the reason they won’t be able to hike any more tonight.

“I only came this way because you said there would be shelter.”

Sheridan’s expression sobers. “I said there was a structure.”

“If you weren’t sure, you shouldn’t have…” Devin doesn’t know what she means to say. She doesn’t know how they could’ve done this differently. Sometimes, when the anger burns hot enough, it doesn’t matter. “If you didn’t tell us to go this way, I could’ve … I could’ve kept hiking. Or I could’ve gotten here when it was—”

Sheridan scoffs. “When it was what? Still standing?”

“When it was light out,” Devin says.

“What would that change? It’s burnt down.”

“If it was still light out, I could’ve kept going.” Devin bites the inside of her cheek, but it does nothing to quell the fire. When she closes her eyes, it’s like she’s in the parking lot all over again. Angry about school, angry about home, angry about being angry. Through clenched teeth, she says, “I would’ve hiked all night. I would keep walking until I couldn’t feel my legs. If I didn’t have you, I wouldn’t stop walking until I was out of this stupid fucking forest.”

“Jesus.” Sheridan breathes, eyes wide. “Calm down.”

“But now I have to make sure you don’t die. I can’t leave you behind because you wouldn’t last a second on your own. I have to stay with you, and we’re gonna die out here together.”

The way Sheridan looks at her now is confusing. Something softens in her expression. Not gratitude or even guilt. More than anything, she looks confused. Streaks of rain snake down the curves of her face. She straightens, wiping her nose. “Well. I’m sorry I’m so inconvenient.”

“I need a breather,” Devin manages.

She pivots, walking down the embankment until the mossy earth gives way to grainy white gravel. She skirts the lake where the water just touches the side of her boot, clenching and unclenching her fists. This is how it was with Danielle. Anger too big and too hot to tamp down without someone getting burned.

As much as she hates Sheridan, Devin doesn’t want to burn her.

Devin stumbles away before crumpling to her knees. She presses her fists into the water until she feels the gravel split her skin. Focusing on the shifting of the branches overhead and the lapping water at the shore, she sucks in a breath, then another. She focuses on the pain in her knuckles. She can’t tear her way out of this forest, just like she couldn’t tear her way out of that parking lot. Out of her twin bed. Devin keeps breathing until she starts to shake. Something rustles in the shrubs behind her, but she doesn’t turn around. If Sheridan sees her, she doesn’t care.

She’s survived too much to die out here.

Ollie wakes to the sound of retching just beyond his tent.

It’s not a dream, just like the tapping of raindrops on his tarp isn’t a dream. The tip of his nose is numb in the cold and it’s raining and someone is throwing up five feet away from him.

He rolls to his knees, scrambling into the damp morning. When he rubs his eyes, Hannah comes into focus, dark hair wet and limp at her cheeks. She’s doubled over in the brush, her back rising and falling violently. The sleep blurring Ollie’s ability to think finally burns away and he springs into action, peeling Hannah’s hair back from her face. Her cheeks are wet and clammy at his knuckles.

“It’s okay…” Ollie stammers. “What happened?”

Hannah sucks in a ragged breath. Her voice is raspy when she manages, “I don’t know … I woke up feeling—”

She vomits again.

“Did you eat something?” Ollie asks.

Hannah shrugs.

Ollie pats her back and closes his eyes. Rivulets of rainwater streak down his exposed face, running the length of his nose and jaw. It’s been years since he was as violently sick as Hannah, but he remembers it with uncanny clarity.

Teetering home on his bike in the middle of the night, breathing a silent prayer that his father would be fast asleep. He remembers the night’s blue tinge as he stumbled through the front door, shins colliding with every armrest, shoulders clipping every shelf, vodka running hot in his veins. He should’ve slept at Adrian’s but the thought of facing his father in the morning was worse. He collapsed to the toilet in the shallow-aired night and threw up the contents of his stomach alone.

He remembers his father coming to him in the dark, patting his back. In the morning, they would fight about it. In the morning, his father would call him an idiot, threaten to throw him out, slam the door in his face. But that night, Ollie met the quieter part of his father. The one with the capacity to be soft. For years, during the worst of their fights, Ollie would remember the palm of his father’s hand sliding soft over the curve of his spine, his voice quiet but close. Breathe through it, Ollie. You’ll be okay.

Hannah crawls to her feet, face pale and eyes ringed with dark circles. She looks around their small campsite and her eyes narrow. Ollie notices it, too. The fire is out, raindrops mingling with smoke in the ashes. Aidan was supposed to keep it going through the night. If he couldn’t, he was supposed to wake someone up.

They look at each other.

“Where’s Aidan?” Ollie asks.

“Aidan?” Hannah calls, voice still gravelly. She cups her hands around her mouth. “Aidan, are you here?”

Ollie lifts Aidan’s tarp, but his sleeping bag is untouched. It’s like Aidan never went to sleep at all. Just like the coaches. A cold much deeper than the rain crawls up Ollie’s spine. Something happened and Ollie slept through it.

Just like Hannah, he’s going to be sick.

“You sit,” Ollie says to Hannah. “Try to get some rest. I’ll look for him.”

“No,” Hannah says quickly. She wipes her mouth. “I don’t think you should go out there. If something got Aidan, it could get you, too. We need to stick together.”

“What if he’s in trouble?” Ollie asks. “We need to—”

Just beyond their campsite, there’s a shuffling in the brush. Ollie moves to Hannah’s side, sure that they’re seconds from becoming something’s breakfast. After a few seconds of twigs breaking and leaves crashing, Aidan stumbles into the campsite.

It takes Ollie a moment to soak it in. Aidan’s T-shirt is ripped at the shoulder and hem, his face scratched and muddy, streaked with bits of dirt and crusted blood. His glasses are cracked, sitting crooked across his nose. He looks like he’s been dragged from the back of a truck, but beneath the dirt and muck, he’s smiling. In his muddy grasp, Ollie recognizes the milestone map.

“I found the trail.”

“Aidan,” Hannah says, voice breaking with relief. She reaches for him, pulling him into a hug. “Oh my gosh, you’re okay.”

“What happened to you?” Ollie asks.

“I got kinda lost,” Aidan says, prying his way out of Hannah’s grasp. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have left while I was on watch.”

“Where’d you go?”

Aidan wipes his nose. “I just wanted to find the trail so I could get us to the next camp on time. ’Cause I’m really, really sorry about yesterday. I want to make it up to you guys, so if we—”

Ollie shakes his head. The fear twisting its way through his stomach moments earlier shrivels into guilt. It was his tantrum that drove Aidan out into the night. It was his stupid anger that he should’ve kept to himself. It’s not Aidan’s fault everything is going wrong. They’ve all made mistakes.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Ollie says.

“Well,” Aidan says through a smile, “it’s a good thing I did. Because I found the trail. Now get your stuff together and follow me.”

Reluctantly, they follow Aidan’s lead. Hannah assures Ollie she feels well enough to hike, but the glassiness in her eyes disagrees. Still, they make their way through tangled shrubs and tree roots, trekking their way uphill. It’s a diagonal line, Aidan points out. A route through the trees that will connect them with the actual trail. As they rise, pockets of dark gray sky breach the canopy. The more of it Ollie can see, the more the rain pelts them. They stop frequently for Hannah to catch her breath, even when she insists they keep going.

It’s dark when they finally reach the main trail. Aidan’s hiking begins to look more like stumbling. Hannah sidles up to Ollie, linking her arm through his for stability. Ollie tries not to focus too hard on the place where their elbows touch. They hike the last mile to camp in silence and Ollie’s mind begins to wander. It’s quieter than it was in the basin last night, quieter than it was across the river. There’s something missing out here, a layer of nature he’s sure he should feel. Ollie hasn’t spent much time camping, but this forest feels different than any he’s been in before.

He hopes Hannah can’t feel the goose bumps pricking his skin.

They finally reach the campsite as night swallows the trail. Ollie helps Hannah to a seat on a nearby log while Aidan scrambles to make a torch. The silence is finally broken by the trickling of the creek they were meant to be following the whole time. It’s too cold out to bathe tonight, but the idea of sleeping in his own filth makes Ollie want to roll over and die.

When Aidan finally lights his torch, Ollie’s heart sinks.

A crate stands in the middle of the clearing, but its side has been torn away. Packets of food are strewn across the campsite, torn open by wild teeth and devoured. Something beat them here, and whatever it was, it was hungry.

“Why would they leave this out in the open?” Aidan breathes. “Why would they … I don’t understand.”

Hannah puts her head in her hands, breathing low and slow. “I’m gonna throw up again, I think.”

“Try to hold onto what food we have,” Ollie says, mostly kidding.

Hannah doesn’t laugh.

He turns to Aidan. “How much do we have left? How long until the next food drop?”

Aidan crouches and riffles through his backpack. His movement slows and Ollie’s eyes narrow when he starts counting. The light from Aidan’s torch flickers over his face.

“There’s some missing,” Aidan says. “There’s only, like … this is only a few meals. A few days, maybe. It’s less than…”

Ollie presses his face into his hands.

Of course they’re also missing food. They’re lost in the woods, a day behind, and they’re almost out of food. Ollie has half a mind to wander into the trees without looking back. Behind him, Hannah shifts.

“Didn’t you and Sheridan split the food?” Hannah croaks. “How much did we give her?”

“I only gave a little bit,” Aidan says. “I … I let her divide it.”

Ollie sighs. More than anger, it’s disappointment that sits heavy in him. Because even after the fight with Devin, even after she almost let him drown, Ollie wanted to believe they were all getting Sheridan wrong. He wanted to believe she was just like he used to be, a hurt kid lashing out but ultimately trying her best. But she knew they could run out and she took the food anyway. She knew they could die, and just like the river, she didn’t care.

He picks up a stick near the crate, turning it over in his hands. A brief glance at the map tells him they’re another week from the next food drop, and if Aidan’s guess at how long their food will last is right, they won’t make it that far. Which means he needs a weapon. He needs to hunt.

The thing that’s struck him as odd about these woods finally hits Ollie. He looks at the trees and realizes which layer of sound is missing. He realizes what it is that’s nagged at him all day. He locks eyes with Aidan.

“When’s the last time you heard an animal?”

When Devin wakes, she has no idea what time it is. The moon is high overhead, fat and silver like a quarter half-slotted in night. The hardwood floor of the burnt cabin is uncomfortable, but it’s better than the forest floor. Somewhere to her left, Sheridan’s breath rattles. Devin doesn’t look at her, doesn’t want to think about the meltdown earlier. She doesn’t feel guilty, but her chest squeezes all the same. When she’s less exhausted, she’ll have to patch that up. She’ll have to actually talk to Sheridan.

She rolls out of her sleeping bag, sweat-slick and aching. The shore is quiet, but she’s sure something must have woken her up. Silvery moonlight streams through the trees beyond the cabin husk, cut like frosty sheets of glass. There’s something magnetic about the trees at night. Without thinking, she stumbles out of the cabin and wades into the dark.

She tries not to think about Sheridan, but these days, it feels involuntary. She shouldn’t have exploded again, but there’s something about Sheridan. This heavy, burning, maddening need to make her feel something. It’s too easy for Sheridan to spin everything into a joke, to spin Devin herself into a joke. Even with the world falling apart around them, it’s not enough to reach her. Sometimes, Devin wants to take her by the shoulders, push her against the nearest tree, ask her why she isn’t grasping the deep shit they’re in. She wants to—

Devin sucks in a breath.

She’s somewhere deep in the trees now, she realizes. The burnt cabin is way down the ridge, a speck of dark on the moonlit shore. The trees groan when they shift, almost aching. Devin flexes her hands, letting loose a shuddered breath. She hardly remembers hiking this far up. She spiraled into the Sheridan rabbit hole and got carried away. The thin trees along the mountain face are white-barked and infinite.

There’s something behind one of them.

Devin blinks once, then again, waiting for it to clarify. But the more she blinks, the more she’s sure.

There’s a face jutting from the side of one of the trees, fleshy and too wide. It looks at her, just the corner of its eye and smiling mouth visible.

When Devin focuses harder, she sees it on the other side of the tree, too. The other half of the thing’s face, like its head is wider than the tree itself. Both eyes, though barely visible, look at Devin. Both sides of its mouth are smiling.

“What the…?”

She turns hard, marching back toward the cabin. It’s a dream. She rams the words through her brain over and over. It’s a dream, it’s a dream, it’s a dream. The woods are getting to her, Sheridan is consuming her brain, the stress is wearing her down. She marches until she’s running, and she doesn’t care about the tangled roots that grab at her ankles and try to drag her down. She casts a quick glance behind her, but whatever the thing was, it isn’t following her.

To her left, Devin can just make out two trees that look different from the rest. Straight up and down like steel beams, thinner than the rest. Grayer, too. Night wind rocks the rest of the trees around her, but the twin trees don’t move.

Devin’s eyes adjust to the dark and she sees mounds at the base of the trees. Mounds of what looks like flesh. She blinks and they come into focus.

Feet.

Devin stumbles back, drags her eyes up to the thick-knit canopy of trees overhead, but the too-long legs disappear into the foliage. “No. God, fuck no.”

The legs shift a little, croaking like old wood stairs. Devin pants, fights for air, lungs barbed and chest cold. She wonders, briefly, if Sheridan slipped something in her dinner. Devin rubs at her eyes so hard the backs of her eyelids burst with color. She needs to run, but her limbs are concrete, fear holding her in place.

Finally, as the too-long legs begin to shrink, Devin sees it descend slowly from the canopy, just lit by the moon. A face. A familiar face.

Her stomach knots.

Dark hair, wide face, stubble peppered along a hard jaw. He wears a crooked smile as he sinks to her eye level, hands tenuously linked behind his back.

He’s so familiar Devin tastes bile.

She’s acutely aware of the bareness of her arms, of her legs where her pants are torn. Her fingers knot in the tangle of clovers and moss that line the forest floor. Her breath clouds and clouds but she can’t stop gasping for air.

Mr. Atwood ducks under a low-hanging tree limb and takes a step toward her. His sickly smile sobers as he leans down. Devin grips the clovers between her fingers, feels them tear apart one by one. She doesn’t imagine the man’s hands in her hair.

It was longer then.

“Devin,” Mr. Atwood breathes.

Devin bolts to her feet, fighting for traction. Massive footsteps thud behind her, but Devin doesn’t turn. She fights through tangled bushes, breath rasping in her sore lungs. She runs until tears streak clear to her temples and her feet scream. She doesn’t stop running until she’s forced to.

The momentum only lasts a second. Her foot misses a dip and she falls with enough force to start rolling. The first collision knocks the air from her lungs, ramming her teeth together. She keeps rolling until she can’t tell up from down.

Finally, Devin collides with something and it knocks her vision into a complete, devouring night. She slips from consciousness, the slight crackle of footsteps in the leaves the last thing she hears.

9

In the morning, Devin wakes to a rush of wind flicking over her nose. She jolts upright, breath tight in her chest. She was running. She saw something in the woods.

But the ground under her is hard and the morning is bright. She’s at the cabin again, light spilling across the charred, speckled floorboards. Sweat is caked to her brow. The trees behind them are silent. Sheridan sits against a curved tree at the shore, knees tucked to her chest. Her pale hair hangs over her shoulder. White sunlight outlines her sharp-angled face. There’s something in her hands Devin doesn’t recognize. When she stands to get a better look, the floorboards moan.

Sheridan startles. She looks at Devin and pushes the object out of sight.

“What’s that?” Devin asks.

“Why do you care?”

Devin rolls her eyes. Sheridan’s stare is ice and Devin knows she should apologize for losing it last night, but she can’t stomach it. Apologizing means Sheridan wins. It feels like Sheridan’s been beating her at an invisible game since the day they arrived. She can’t surrender ground now.

“Are you hiding something?” Devin asks.

Sheridan slouches. “No, I’m not hiding something. I found it last night. Speaking of, where’d you go?”

There’s a squeeze in Devin’s stomach. “What?”

“Last night,” Sheridan says. “I woke up and you weren’t there.”

Devin’s fingers twitch at her sides. It’s not proof of anything. She might’ve stumbled out of the cabin last night, half-dreaming, and found her way back on her own. It seems impossible, but not more impossible than a stretched, horrifying version of the worst person she’s ever known appearing between the trees to taunt her.

Devin ignores the question. “What’d you find?”

Sheridan watches her a long moment, unsure. Finally, she pulls the object from behind her back, reluctantly handing it over. It’s a notebook, leather cover tattered and caked with dust, pages frail and swollen from water damage. The writing on the front of the journal is mangled, but if Devin squints, she can just make out the name Josiah Templeton.

“What does it say?”

Sheridan snatches the journal back, holding it to her chest. “It’s just some guy’s journal from when he was hiking in the area. He got lost and ended up stuck out here for a few months. I’m mostly happy I have something to read. I left my books at home.”

“It doesn’t talk about where we can get supplies?” Devin asks.

“Not so far.”

Devin nods. She’s trying to be patient with Sheridan because, if she keeps exploding, they won’t make it out of this forest. But the journal is something they can use. It’s something they can use, and Sheridan was going to hide it from her.

“Why’d you hide it? Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

Sheridan rolls her eyes. “Because you’re not my favorite person to talk to right now?”

The morning is crisp and cool, earth still damp with rain. Devin won’t say sorry because she’s not sorry. Still, there’s an anxiety that buzzes in her when Sheridan says it so plainly. Her guidance counselor’s voice rings in her ears. Even if you aren’t sorry for what you did, you can be sorry for how it made someone feel. She thought it was stupid then, but looking at Sheridan’s tired eyes, the rigid way she sits when Devin speaks, the venom in her voice … Devin’s pride shrivels. She knows what she needs to do, even if it sucks.

“Okay,” she says. “How do we fix this?”

Sheridan’s eyes narrow. “Fix what?”

Devin motions to the space between them.

Sheridan’s laugh is sharp enough to slap. “You wanna be friends now?”

“Not what I said,” Devin snaps. “That’s not happening. But we both want to make it out of this forest, right?”

“Sure.”

“See?” Devin huffs. “It’s when you say weird stuff like that. I just … don’t get you.”

“I want a shower and a Red Bull,” Sheridan says. She sets the journal in the dirt and folds her arms. “I want clean clothes and a hairbrush. I don’t wanna go home.”

Finally, a sentiment Devin can relate to. Even if a piece of her wants to ask Sheridan about home, about what scares her so bad about it, Devin tamps that down. Sheridan isn’t normal. Things have to stay surface-level. She doesn’t need to know the inner workings of Sheridan’s mind; she just needs to know how to get her feet moving down the mountain.

“I will be nicer about your breaks,” Devin says. “And I won’t freak out anymore. But we need to start … I don’t know, communicating.”

Sheridan’s posture stays rigid for a long, cold moment. Finally, she exhales and pushes the hair from her face and Devin is sure she sees her hand quiver. “Yeah. Agreed.”

“Cool.”

Neither of them says a word. Sheridan looks out at the water, the weight of something she means to say heavy in the air. When she looks at Devin, her grip on the journal turns her knuckles white.

“Listen,” Sheridan says. “I don’t want you to comment on this. I just want to say it so you understand, okay?”

Devin narrows her eyes, but she nods.

Sheridan clears her throat. “I know I’ve been slow. I’ve been, uh … Ethan was helping me before. With the tiredness and the mood stuff. Not helping, but…”

Devin waits for Sheridan to sort the pieces of it.

“Before I got here, I was using pretty much all the time,” Sheridan says, like she’s shedding a weight. “Yeah. Right up to when I got dropped off. I didn’t have time to get stuff out of my system, so I’ve been doing it out here. Which has been … not ideal. Obviously.”

Using? Devin blinks. “Oh.”

“Anyway, I’m dealing with it. It’s fine. But sometimes the withdrawals are a problem. If you’re wondering why the hiking is hard for me, that’s why.”

Devin’s mouth feels dry.

“Sheridan, I—”

“I said no comments.”

Piece by piece, the last few weeks come into focus. The constant breaks, the water, the food, the exhaustion. It all becomes clear and Devin’s stomach sinks. Sheridan said no comments, but Devin can’t hold it back. Meekly, she says, “I didn’t know.”

“I assumed,” Sheridan says. “I hoped you weren’t that much of an asshole.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t’ve…” Devin starts, but finishing the sentence means admitting just how bad it’s been. She looks at the tips of her boots. “Do you mind if I ask what it was?”

“Oxy,” Sheridan says. “Mostly.”

“Okay.” Devin swallows. “And now you feel … are you okay?”

“I’m not amazing.” Sheridan laughs. “Some symptoms are getting better. Others are getting worse. I don’t know what the timeline is … I’ve never quit quit before.”

“What symptoms are getting worse?”

“I wasn’t seeing things when we got here.”

In only a few words, it’s like Devin’s back in the trees at night, looking into a too-wide face and too-long legs and at a too-familiar man. It was a dream, she’s sure, but there’s a bruise blossoming on her wrist from a fall she “dreamt.” I wasn’t seeing things.

Devin swallows, dry. “When did you start seeing things?”

“A few days ago.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Not that it means much,” Devin says, “but I’m sorry I pushed you so hard. I really didn’t know.”

“The last thing I want is you forcing yourself to be nice,” Sheridan says. “That would be weird for both of us. I just … I thought it’d be easier if you knew. That’s the only reason I’m telling you.”

When Devin finally settles on the shore next to Sheridan, she grapples for the right words. Even if she’s never used, she’s known dozens of people who have and a piece of her is humiliated that she didn’t recognize it. She recalibrates her idea of Sheridan’s life outside these woods. As much as she hates to admit it, she was wrong. It doesn’t justify the things Sheridan’s said and done, but it certainly changes the shape of them.

“I’m not just saying this because of your situation,” Devin starts. “But … I think we should head back.”

Sheridan’s eyes widen. “Really?”

“The cabin was a bust. I’m getting tired and you are, too. I think Ollie and Aidan were right—the most for-sure way out of here is the end of that milestone trail.”

Sheridan’s wicked half smile returns. “Did you just admit someone else was right?”

“If you tell them, I’ll push you off a cliff.”

“My lips are sealed.”

Despite herself, Devin smiles. This is the easiest conversation she’s had with Sheridan, a prospect that’s both terrifying and comforting. Maybe they can make it down this mountain without killing each other. Her chest aches at the idea of seeing Ollie and the others again, of breathing the thicker, fuller air at the valley floor, of being back on a for-sure path. Admitting defeat isn’t in Devin’s DNA, but neither is dying.

“So…” she says cautiously. “You still feel pretty good with that map?”

“Admitting you were wrong and asking me for help?” Sheridan teases. “Who replaced Devin in the middle of the night?”

“You’re so annoying.”

Devin pushes herself to her feet, patting the dirt from her pant legs. She holds out a hand to help Sheridan up, too, and to her surprise, Sheridan takes it. Her hands are cold and clammy, the skin of her palm smooth and callous free. Devin releases her maybe too quickly, taking a step back to grab her backpack. She clears her throat and motions to Sheridan’s pack.

“Get that map out. We’ve got work to do.”

Even after four days, Aidan is quiet about the night he disappeared. Ollie had thought, at first, that Aidan simply wandered into the woods before anyone woke up, crushed by guilt, and stumbled his way to the trail. But when he sleeps, the night terrors come. Ollie’s begun to count the times Aidan shoots awake in the middle of the night, gasping for air, brow damp with sweat. He counts the hours he and Hannah crawl under Aidan’s tarp and sit with him until he can rest again.

Despite the night terrors and Hannah’s illness, though, there’s something uncomplicated about the three of them. There’s an easy rhythm, like those optical illusions made of circles that look like chaos until, finally, each layer aligns. Aidan may not be able to read a map, but he’s good with the compass and actually paid attention when the coaches showed them how to purify water and start a fire. Hannah keeps them moving, sometimes with gentle encouragement, sometimes with a story from home, sometimes with talk of something fun they’ll do on the other side of the woods.

Ollie isn’t sure of his role, but somehow, he’s surviving, too. He spends his nights fashioning his spear, though there still hasn’t been a sign of an animal in days. In a way, he’s even leading. Keeping them on track, rationing their food so it lasts. Six days without coaches and they’re getting along better than ever. If this is part of the program, Ollie is almost inclined to think it’s working.

Though that might just be thanks to Devin and Sheridan’s absence.

Tonight is Hannah’s watch. Aidan snores, bundled in his sleeping bag. Ollie should sleep, too, but he lingers across the fire from Hannah. Hannah doesn’t look at him, though. She eyes Aidan’s tarp and shakes her head, the soft ends of her hair shifting over her shoulders.

“Do you think he’ll stay asleep tonight?” Hannah asks. “He seems pretty out of it.”

“I hope so.” Ollie sighs.

Fire dances in the deep black of Hannah’s eyes. She looks at Aidan with a softness Ollie isn’t used to. It gnaws at him that she’s out here with the rest of them. She’s so different from kids like him and Devin, all rough edges and soot. She’s different from Aidan, who’d gladly self-destruct for a little affirmation. And she couldn’t be more different from Sheridan, who seemingly crawled directly from the pits of hell.

Hannah fixes Ollie with a curious look. “You aren’t gonna get some sleep?”

“I will,” Ollie says. “In a bit.”

“You don’t have to stay up with me.”

“I want to,” Ollie says. “You feel better tonight?”

Hannah nods, but Ollie doesn’t need her to say she’s feeling better. It’s clear from the color in her cheeks. Her wide eyes gleam in the firelight where, last night, they were dull and half-lidded, only semi-awake. Whatever bug got her is fading now, and the Hannah from before is coming back.

“Much better. You’ll be proud of me. I kept all my, um…” She clears her throat. “Patty meat down.”

“Oh?” Ollie laughs. “Lucky you.”

“Lucky, lucky me.”

Hannah stands suddenly and makes her way to Ollie. For a second, he thinks she’s going to sit beside him and his stomach drops. She stops just short of him, though, crouching to a seat. The fire is behind her now, the soft glow giving her a hazy gold outline.

“Sorry,” she says. “I don’t want to wake him up. Thought I’d come a little closer.”

“Totally,” Ollie says. “Wouldn’t want the navigator to be groggy tomorrow. What if he got us lost?”

Hannah scoffs. “Be nice. He felt bad about that.”

“I know, I know…” Ollie trails. “I’m glad we have him. I’m glad the three of us are together. I think we make a good group.”

“Are you worried?” Hannah asks. “About Devin?”

Ollie pictures Devin and Sheridan tonight, if they’re still together out there. At least he’s sure they have plenty of food. He wonders if Devin worries about him, too. From this vantage point, he can just make out the rigid peaks of the mountains and he wonders if Devin is lying down to sleep on one of them now. Maybe she’s already found rescue.

Sometimes, before Ollie fades to sleep, he imagines it’ll somehow be his last night out here. That he’ll wake to the buzzing of a helicopter landing in the woods, ready to lift them to safety. He’s never been much of an optimist, but the idea of it is like a warm embrace.

And then, when reality sets in, he wonders if the forest is really driving him mad.

“Yeah,” Ollie finally says. “I’m worried about all of us. I can’t turn it off.”

“You’re turning into group dad.” Hannah smiles.

Ollie smiles, too, but the thought feels empty. She says it and Ollie can only think of his own father. He imagines what it’ll be like when they get out of this forest. He imagines arriving home, bags slung over his sore shoulder. His father will react in all the ways people expect, of course. He’ll be quick to sue REVIVE for physical damage. He might even throw in mental damage, if he starts believing in that. But after, they’ll sit across from each other in the living room, an empty hospice bed between them, and there will be nothing. He can’t imagine his father asking about what happened to him out here. About the toll the woods took.

“You know,” Ollie mutters, “he sent me here because he thought I was taking my grandma’s pain meds?”

Ollie says it before he can even register that he’s speaking. Hannah blinks, apparently struggling to connect her comment and his.

“My dad,” he clarifies.

“Oh.”

“I wasn’t taking them for me.” Ollie looks down at his hands, because when he says it out loud, there really isn’t much of a difference. He can’t bear the thought of actually looking Hannah in the eye. “I was selling them, but I wasn’t taking them. I don’t know if that’s better. But … I don’t know. I just want someone to know.”

Hannah is quiet. Eventually, she reaches out, just touching the curve of Ollie’s knee. “Did you … tell your dad that?”

Ollie shakes his head.

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t want to tell him what I needed the money for.”

The fire behind them crackles. Hannah’s hand remains on Ollie’s knee and Ollie doesn’t shrink away. He presses his fingertips into the dirt and he doesn’t look up. His heart races too fast.

“What were you saving for?”

“Moving.” Ollie sucks in a sharp breath. It doesn’t sound so bad out loud. Some of the guilt wadded up in his chest eases. “I wasn’t gonna tell him. I wasn’t gonna bring anything with me. I decided once my grandma died, I was done.”

“Done?”

“I was gonna start over.”

Hannah doesn’t say anything. Instead, she shifts, sitting next to Ollie against the tree, and she wraps her arm around his shoulders.

Ollie waits for it to feel wrong, but it doesn’t. He tries to remember the last time he hugged someone and comes up blank. The tightness in his chest slackens again, and when he exhales, it’s like he’s melting. He closes his eyes and leans into Hannah, hugging her tighter. He inhales the scent of woodsmoke and lavender.

“I just wanna start over,” Ollie whispers into Hannah’s shoulder. “I already fucked it up so bad. I just wanna try again.”

Hannah’s palm circles Ollie’s spine. Somehow, all the worst of it goes away when he talks to her. The fear of coming home to an empty hospice bed, a father that doesn’t care, an empty bank account … he doesn’t know what will come for him when he makes it out of these woods—if he makes it out of these woods—but when he eases into Hannah’s embrace and breathes slow, it doesn’t matter.

Across the campsite, something moves.

Ollie springs out of Hannah’s arms.

She grabs him, backing up tight to their tree. When Ollie squints, he’s sure he sees the tangle of leaves crashing into each other, more than they should in a breeze. Ollie’s eyes dart to his makeshift spear leaning against his tarp tent and he holds his breath.

He bounds away from the tree—away from Hannah—and grabs it.

The rustling continues, pulsing like someone is grabbing and tearing branches away. Without thinking, Ollie reaches for Hannah’s arm and shuffles her behind him. Fire dances against the waxy leaves of the nearby brambles and, finally, there’s a blur of movement just beyond the firelight. Ollie takes a step back and Hannah steps with him.

With a final crash, something stumbles into the firelight.

Not something; someone.

A green T-shirt hangs limp from her scraped, reddened arms. A splay of silver-blond hair is matted across her back. Her pants are shredded, exposing patches of bloodied wounds and bruised skin. The figure claws at the ground, pulling herself into the firelight. There’s a smack of familiarity to her face. It takes a moment too long for Ollie to register what he’s looking at.

“C-Coach Liv?” Ollie stammers.

Liv looks up. A smear of blood and dirt covers her face, but in the firelight, she’s unmistakable. Her blue eyes are red and irritated, her hair tangled and torn. She chokes into the dirt before managing three hoarse words:

“I found you.”

10

After Liv’s return, the night passes too slow and too fast all at once. Ollie and Hannah scoop her from the dirt, carrying her to Ollie’s tarp. She fades in and out as the night thickens. Hannah wakes Aidan, who blearily gets to nurse duty. They clean the deep gashes in Liv’s neck, arms, legs. Aidan unpacks the first aid kit and dresses Liv’s wounds by the fire. Hannah spoons water between her split, bruised lips, checking every half hour for a fever. Ollie watches the woods, spear in hand.

Before tonight, Ollie’s idea of what “happened” to the coaches was indistinct. There was a piece of him, small and naïve, that thought maybe there was no danger. But given Liv’s injuries, there’s no denying it. She’s been attacked.

The first dregs of daylight pepper the night clouds. Aidan stokes the fire, Hannah prepares breakfast, and Ollie waits. One of Liv’s eyes is bruised so dark her eyelashes disappear. Three identical scratches are gouged into her neck, the skin around them pink and puckered. Every few breaths, she hiccups, jolting her into semiconsciousness.

Eventually, Ollie touches Liv’s knuckles. “Can you hear me?”

Liv doesn’t stir at first. She eases her head to her shoulder. Then, softly, she mumbles, “I hear…”

Aidan and Hannah freeze. Ollie swallows, damming his explosion of questions into just one.

“Are you … okay?”

“I…” Liv sputters. Hacking into the crook of her elbow, Liv leans forward. She presses wisps of blond hair from her face and, shockingly, she smiles. “… I’ve been better.”

Ollie laughs, nervous. When he looks back, Aidan is grinning, too. But Hannah watches Liv with a grimace. Her brow furrows in either fear or … anger?

“Water,” Liv croaks. “Please.”

Hannah snaps out of her strange mood and grabs her water bladder. Liv takes it and tilts her head back, drinking it dry before casting it aside. They wait for her to say something, but she’s quiet.

Ollie clears his throat. “Uh … what happened?”

“I can barely…” Liv starts. She massages the tangled mass of her hair into a ponytail. “How many days has it been?”

“Seven.” Aidan’s answer is quicker than Ollie expects. He adjusts his broken glasses on his nose. “That’s the last time we saw you. A week ago.”

“A whole week,” Liv rasps. She looks at the group and her eyes widen. “Where’s the rest of you?”

Ollie looks down. “They went to find rescue.”

“Oh.”

“We’re so sorry,” Aidan says quickly. “We didn’t want them to go. It’s not our fault.”

Liv shakes her head, which seems to take considerable effort. “No, it’s probably a good thing. There’s something out there. We need to get out of this forest.”

Hannah’s hand finds the back of Ollie’s arm, startling him. Wordlessly, she squeezes. He doubts he’ll be able to offer her much comfort. His heart races, too, eyes tracking the trees. There’s something about seeing Liv afraid that makes his blood run cold. She was supposed to know these woods better than anyone.

“What’s out there?” he asks.

“A bear, I think,” Liv whispers. “I don’t know. It was dark when it found us. I couldn’t see it clearly.”

“It attacked you in camp?” Hannah asks.

Ollie eyes her.

“Not in camp, I guess,” Liv says. “It’s hard to remember. It was a long night. Apparently a week ago. Most of it’s fuzzy.”

“You were attacked near camp and then crawled away from camp?” Hannah asks. “We looked everywhere for you.”

“Hannah,” Aidan warns.

“What about the rest of the week?” Ollie asks. “Where were you?”

“Looking for you,” Liv says. “Or Ethan. Anyone.”

“Ethan?” Aidan asks.

Liv’s expression darkens. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to him. I lost him.”

Hannah squeezes Ollie’s arm again, and when he turns to face her, her expression is dark. This isn’t like the Hannah Ollie met his first night here, timid and kind and deathly allergic to confrontation.

“Hannah and I need to go talk,” Ollie says to Aidan. “Can you make sure Liv stays awake?”

“What?” Aidan pouts. “No. If this is a meeting, I need to be part of it.”

“Fine.” Ollie sighs. To Liv, he says, “Do you mind if we talk in private really quick?”

“Fine with me.” Liv breathes. “Might rest my eyes for a bit.”

Ollie stands and his muscles ache. The cold wind through the campsite chaps his cheeks and nose. He wonders if he’ll be able to make it through a full day of hiking like this. He wonders if Liv will be able to make it through a full day of hiking. The patches of sky they can see through the trees are a sickening swirl of gray and orange as the sun breaks through.

Once they’re out of earshot, Hannah takes Ollie’s arm, turning so that Liv can’t see her face.

“Do you believe her?” she whispers.

“What?” Aidan snaps. “What do you mean believe her? What would she be lying about?”

Hannah shrugs. “It doesn’t add up to me. She got attacked in camp, but then ended up miles away? And where’s Ethan? How did she catch up with us if she’s that injured?”

Ollie swallows. He sneaks a glance at Liv, whose head lolls back in exhaustion. Hannah’s questions are valid and Liv’s answers don’t make sense. But if Liv is lying, he can’t fathom what the truth is. He can’t wrap his head around what she’d be hiding from them. He wipes his nose.

“She’s probably just confused from being alone out there,” Ollie says. “I know some of it doesn’t make sense, but … I think we can still trust her.”

Hannah squeezes his arm again. This time, Ollie pulls way.

“I’m not trying to be dramatic,” Hannah pleads. “Why are her wounds so fresh? She was attacked a week ago. They should be … I don’t know, infected?”

“What do you even know about injuries?” Aidan asks, indignant.

“Aidan,” Ollie warns. “Let’s just calm down, okay? I know this is weird but … I don’t think we should get into conspiracy theories. We should just talk to her, figure out what we’re doing, try to get as many people out of here as we can.”

Aidan nods vigorously, but it’s not Aidan he’s worried about. After a moment, Hannah nods, too. She looks at Liv and the panic washes over her face again. For some reason or another, Liv doesn’t just make Hannah uneasy, she terrifies her. Ollie takes Hannah’s hand and immediately feels like he’s overstepped.

But Hannah doesn’t pull away.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Ollie says. “You can tell us stuff that bothers you. I just don’t think we should do anything crazy right now.”

“Okay…” Hannah whispers. “Okay. If you say so.”

They make their way back to Liv as a unit, but she doesn’t stir. Ollie gently rocks her shoulder to wake her. When she comes to, she gasps like she’s been hit.

“Sorry,” she stammers. “I’m still kind of out of it.”

“That makes sense,” Ollie says. “We’ve been, uh … we were trying to follow your guys’ milestone path. We’re about a day or two behind, but we thought this would be the best way to get rescued?”

“That was smart,” Liv says. “You know, I’m really proud of how you three handled this. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to guide. Hopefully I can help now.”

“Thanks,” Ollie says. “Do you think you’ll be able to hike today?”

Liv leans forward, claps her hand on her knees, and pushes herself up. Despite the severity of her injuries, she rocks onto the balls of her feet and stands. When she stretches her arms over her head, Ollie has to blink to process it. Her injuries aren’t that grave, then, and as much as he wants to be excited, Hannah’s doubts darken his joy. She isn’t as hurt as she looked. He wonders if she ever was.

“I’ll do better than hike,” Liv says with a smile. “I’ll do what I should’ve been doing the whole time. I know this forest inside and out. I’m getting us out of here.”

11

By all accounts, it doesn’t make sense.

Ollie wakes on the morning of their twentieth day in the woods and tries to do the math. When they found Coach Liv, she was on the brink of death. They were already at least a day behind on the milestone path. If they were meant to reach a milestone every ten days, they should’ve wound up at the second milestone on their twenty-first day at the very earliest. With the severity of Liv’s injuries, they should’ve fallen even further behind. And yet, as dark set in last night, Liv stopped, motioned to a large oak, and declared, That’s milestone number two.

Even after they set up camp and make dinner, Ollie can’t stop thinking about it. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense.

The days since they found Liv have been odd in more ways than that. True to her word, Liv knows these woods like the back of her hand. She navigates with ease, sometimes cutting across patches of the forest without a trail, slinking between rocks and through moss-bedded ravines. She recovers from her injuries fast and, within a day of crash-landing in their campsite, hikes like there’s nothing wrong.

Ollie tries to convince himself it’s a good thing.

It’s a good thing she’s better. It’s a good thing she’s back. It’s a good thing they’ve made it to the second milestone a full forty-eight hours early.

When Ollie finally crawls out of his tent, he’s the last one awake. Hannah and Aidan sit at the fire, Hannah gnawing at a thin piece of jerky while Aidan pokes the logs with a stick. A few feet from the campfire, Liv stands at the base of the impressively large oak with her hands on her hips. The gouges that ran the length of her arms a few days ago are nearly gone.

“Morning,” Hannah says softly. “You slept okay?”

“Like a baby,” Ollie says, voice warping into a yawn. “How long have you guys been up?”

“Only like thirty minutes,” Aidan says.

Hannah says nothing. She casts a glance at Liv, then looks down.

Ollie expected Hannah’s hang-ups about Liv to get better over time, but it’s been the opposite. The faster Liv recovers, the more she leads them through these woods at a blistering pace, the deeper Hannah’s doubt grows. As much as Ollie wants to convince her she’s wrong, he can’t shake the feeling that something is off.

But if Liv is lying, he can’t figure out what the truth is.

“So,” Liv says, turning to face the fire. “Originally, we thought this would be a good exercise in communication. We’ve got, uh…”

She gestures up the length of the tree.

“… there’s a sack of food up there. We’ve got a pulley system, but I think it’s busted.”

“So even if nothing had happened to you guys, we wouldn’t have been able to get up?” Ollie asks.

“Oh, I’m sure we would’ve figured something out.” Liv brushes a loose strand of hair from her brow with an unrealistically bright smile. “We’re still getting that food. Now that you’re all awake, let’s get moving.”

Liv directs Ollie to one side of the tree and directs Hannah to the other. Then she hesitates, scowls, and ushers Hannah away, moving Aidan into her place. Ropes hang from branches too high up to see. Liv slides into a harness, fastens it, and hooks the hanging ropes to her hips. She stretches her arms and gives Ollie a quick nod.

“I should be okay without much help, but just make sure you’re holding the ropes in case I slip. Hannah, watch the fire and make sure no one is coming our way.”

“No one?” Hannah asks, nudging a log farther into the flames. “If there are people out here, wouldn’t we want them to find us?”

Liv ignores her, turning back to Ollie. Wisps of hair stick to her brow, sprung loose from her ponytail. Up close, Ollie can see that the scratches on her cheeks and neck are gone entirely. She tugs once on her ropes, then grips the trunk of the oak, hoisting herself up.

Ollie goes silent, watching in awe as Liv easily scales the tree. He grips the rope, but it doesn’t make a difference. He isn’t even vaguely helping, and glancing across the tree, it’s clear Aidan isn’t, either. Ollie feels the prickling of Hannah’s stare at the back of his neck, but he doesn’t look at her.

Because he knows. He knows it doesn’t make sense.

Aidan smiles. “This is good. More food, and I actually got the fire on the first try last night. Maybe I should teach you guys how to make them, too.”

“Maybe,” Ollie says, and if his arms were a little longer, he’d pat Aidan on the back. The fire did last through the night. Aidan may not remember much from his Boy Scout days, but what he does remember is saving their asses.

Once Liv has climbed high enough to vanish from sight, Hannah stands. She joins Ollie, watching Liv, hands clenched into fists. Without thinking, Ollie puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Aren’t you supposed to be holding the rope?” Hannah asks, but she doesn’t pull away. “Wouldn’t want to drop her.”

“What are you thinking?” Ollie asks.

Hannah glances at Aidan, then at Ollie again. Under her breath, she says, “I’m thinking something’s wrong.”

“I know.”

“You got me down there?” Liv calls, voice muffled by the rustling leaves. “I’m about halfway. Shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Halfway…” Hannah trails off.

“She got better really fast,” Aidan says earnestly. “We could’ve been way more behind. I think that’s amazing.”

Hannah fixes Ollie with another look.

“Yeah,” Ollie says. “Amazing.”

Behind them, there’s a rustle in the leaves.

Ollie, Aidan, and Hannah all turn together. On the other side of the fire, just at the edge of their makeshift camp, a deer freezes midstep. A perfectly round spot of white is stamped over the deer’s left eye. Its sandy ears twitch, eyes deep and dark, and its wide nose scrunches at the sight of them. It doesn’t run.

“Quick,” Aidan hisses. “Get the spear.”

Ollie’s eyes find the spear leaning against his tarp, halfway between him and the deer. He doubts he has the grace to reach it before the deer runs. It lowers its head, nibbling at a tuft of grass.

“I don’t know…” Ollie trails.

“We need food,” Aidan says.

Ollie takes a step toward the spear, but Hannah grabs his wrist. She looks him hard in the eyes. “We shouldn’t kill it.”

“What?” Aidan whispers. “Why?”

“Because we’re thirty seconds from getting food,” Hannah says. “And because … I don’t know. Look at its eye. I feel like it’s good luck.”

Ollie swallows hard. The deer lifts its head again, blinking like it’s waiting for him to make the decision. Even if he kills the deer, he has no idea how to skin it, cook it, or actually use it. He’s willing to do a lot of things out here to survive, but wasting the only animal they’ve seen in weeks is not one of them. The leaves around the deer shift and rustle and the deer doesn’t move. Ollie focuses on the place where Hannah’s hand closes around his wrist.

From above them, Liv calls, “Coming down!”

The noise is enough to startle the deer. Its head snaps up and it bolts away.

Ollie exhales.

They carefully ease Liv to the ground with the ropes. Once she hits the ground, though, her expression is different. She shoves the burlap sack of food against Ollie’s chest, barrels past Hannah, and scoops up her water bladder. In one motion, she uncaps the water bladder and dumps it over what’s left of Aidan’s fire.

“My fire…” Aidan gasps.

“I saw smoke.” Liv breathes. “From the top of the tree, I saw smoke from another campfire. We need to keep moving.”

“What?” Ollie asks. “There’s another campfire? What if it’s Devin and Sheridan?”

“I doubt it,” Liv says. “If they went the route you said, there’s no way it’s them.”

Hannah looks at Ollie, sunlight turning her eyes to agate. Evenly, she asks, “Why wouldn’t we want to run into other people out here?”

“Because it’s dangerous,” Liv says. “We don’t know what they want.”

“They could have a phone,” Ollie says.

“Or supplies,” Hannah adds.

Liv looks at Hannah, then at Ollie. Her smile melts into a scowl. Out of options, she spins to Aidan. “Are you gonna fight me on this, too?”

Aidan’s sunburnt cheeks drain of color. His eyes are wide through the crack in his lenses. Ollie wants to tell him he doesn’t need to answer. It’s not fair to force him to decide.

The battle between his need for guidance and his loyalty rages in his expression. Finally, he sighs. “What if the people at the campfire … have something to do with all this?” he says to Ollie and Hannah. “They could be dangerous.”

“Thank you.” Liv sighs. “Let’s pack up and get moving.”

“That’s only two votes,” Hannah insists. “We’re tied.”

“I don’t remember saying this was a vote,” Liv says coolly. “If so, I’m an adult. My vote counts as two.”

“But—”

Liv steps forward, stopping only inches from Hannah’s face. She’s a full head taller than Hannah, the sharp angles of her face are cruel in the direct light. “I don’t know why you feel the need to fight me on every single thing, but try to remember I’m the adult here. I’m in charge of your safety. I’m making an executive decision. Are you with us, or are you staying behind?”

“Staying behind?” Ollie asks. “You wouldn’t … leave someone, right?”

“Not if I can help it, Ollie,” Liv says. “Hannah, you’re not gonna make me leave someone, are you?”

Hannah holds Liv’s gaze for a long, silent moment. Her jaw clenches, fists tightening at her sides. For a second, Ollie thinks Hannah might hit her. Then, she relaxes, gaze falling to her feet. “No. I’ll go.”

Liv puts a hand on Hannah’s shoulder and pulls her into an uncomfortable hug. “Okay. You guys pack up. I need to go refill my water, then we can get moving.”

She releases Hannah and walks into the trees, blond ponytail swinging at her back. The thick foliage parts around her, swallowing her whole. The moment she disappears, Aidan clears his throat.

“Can someone get one of the paper food packets from last night?” Aidan says softly. “And a marker?”

Ollie fishes through the ashes in the spent fire, plucking out an untouched chunk of paper. Hannah grabs her backpack and pulls out a black marker.

Quickly, with his eyes trained on the trees, Aidan writes, If you’re reading this, send help. He wedges the paper under a rock near the fire and briefly closes his eyes. Without a word, Hannah, Aidan, and Ollie nod to each other. Because whatever Coach Liv is afraid of, she won’t say. Whatever she thinks is coming, she doesn’t want anyone else to know about. Only a few days ago, Ollie thought Liv wandering into their campsite was a miracle.

Now, he knows Hannah was right. Whatever brought Liv back to them, they’re in more danger than before.

The way down the mountain is easier than the way up. Sheridan leads them along the scraggly mountainside and Devin follows in quiet compliance. She’s been good these last few days, just like she promised, following Sheridan and keeping her comments to herself.

Without all the arguments, the little details of Sheridan begin to bleed through. At first, Sheridan mentions that she loves playing horror video games. She tells Devin about her massive tabby cat named Totoro. Later, she tells Devin that she hasn’t spoken to her closest friends outside of school in months. That she has no idea if they’re still friends or if she’s been completely forgotten. She tells Devin that her house is a big, ugly mansion and that she only sees her parents once a week when they’re staging an intervention. She tells Devin that she’s been cycled through dozens of counseling programs, and each time, her parents are devastated to find that she’s unchanged. She’ll be a senior at a private school somewhere in Seattle, and to her teachers’ dismay, she has no college plans and no goals.

Bit by bit, Devin’s picture of Sheridan transforms, clarifies, unblurs. She isn’t the popular, merciless girl leading a pack of bullies that Devin imagined the first week of this program. She’s a lonely girl locked in her house, slowly wasting away. Sheridan isn’t a girl Devin imagines she’ll ever like, but now she’s at least a girl Devin can understand.

They follow a weathered hiking trail down the mountain, and today, they follow something real. A thin wisp of smoke just breaks the tree line at the base of the mountain, the first they’ve seen since the group split up over a week ago. Which means one very important thing: there are people at the bottom of this mountain. If Sheridan’s map skills are as accurate as she claims, it’s the rest of their group approaching their twentieth campsite.

And if she’s wrong, it’s strangers.

Strangers could mean rescue.

When they arrive at the campsite, though, they’re too late. A massive oak takes up a majority of the clearing, wide-trunked and imposing. The campfire still glows and a handful of logs are pushed to its edges, but any campers are long gone.

“Damn,” Devin says. “We missed them.”

Sheridan collapses onto one of the logs, leaning on her knees to catch her breath. Wisps of her hair stick to her face, brow glistening with sweat. Breathily, she says, “Look at you. That’s a very rational reaction.”

Devin turns. “What did you think I was gonna do?”

“I don’t know.” Sheridan shrugs. “Last time we got somewhere and it wasn’t what you expected, you flipped.”

“I’m working on that, okay?”

Sheridan plucks a stick from the dirt and pokes at a dead leaf half-buried in the soil. She chews on her words for a long time before she finally speaks. “He shouldn’t have said that where I could hear it. Just so you know.”

“Who?”

“Ethan.”

A cool breeze skirts over the exposed back of Devin’s neck and she sighs. “I mean, he wasn’t wrong. He’s just an asshole. Or was. I don’t know.”

“Legally, he literally was not supposed to say anything about your issues to me,” Sheridan says. “I’m not that surprised he did, though. I doubt there’s anything legal going on here.”

“Really?” Devin laughs. “You’re a lawyer now?”

“Not a lawyer, just very used to these things. Unfortunately.” Sheridan tenderly massages her ankle. Bruises pepper the insides of her shins from where her boots have knocked against skin. Through a wince, she says, “He and Liv both refused to show me their credentials. Within the first few days I counted, like, fifty HIPAA violations.”

“What’s HIPAA?”

Sheridan eyes her, and Devin could almost mistake her expression for sympathy. “It’s laws about things you share about people. Medically. But these guys don’t seem to care. I thought my parents would’ve been pickier. This group is mostly rich white kids, so I figured they’d be more by-the-book. Most of our parents have lawsuit money.”

“Except me.”

“I said most.”

Devin scoffs. “How do you know so much about all of this?”

“I spend a lot of time in ‘programs,’” Sheridan says with a dismissive hand wave. “If you’re bad enough, the whole system decides to fix you.”

“Huh.” Devin sits on a log opposite Sheridan and pops her neck. “I’ve been in trouble a thousand times and I didn’t know any of this. I don’t know if we’re talking about the same system.”

Devin uncaps her water bladder and pours the liquid down her throat. She doesn’t miss the way Sheridan watches her with wide eyes. It’s a strange look, not anger or amusement or any of the others Devin’s gotten used to. It’s almost … fascination.

“You wanna talk about it? I wouldn’t make any jokes,” Sheridan says, surprisingly soft.

“Why would I do that?” Devin muses, taking another swig of water.

“I don’t know,” Sheridan says. “Just trying to break up the quiet. It’s not like we have anything else to talk about.”

Devin shrugs. She massages a sore muscle in her shoulder. Talking about it means she’d have to understand what happened. And even though it’s been almost a month and even though she’s sat in a dozen counselor meetings about it and even though she read the letter from the school, she doesn’t fully understand it. But if Sheridan could muster up the will to share what she was going through, Devin can at least try returning the favor. She closes her eyes, focusing on the warm spots where the sun soaks into her dirt-stained shins, and she starts talking.

“If you’re specifically asking about the last fight, I don’t really know. It feels small now.”

“I don’t think it was that small if you ended up here.”

“Not small like that,” Devin says. “More like … okay, there was this girl, Danielle. I had her in a few classes. We talked two or three times, but I didn’t know her. She had a group of super pretty, super rich friends. For some reason, they were always whispering about me. From the first day I transferred in. Danielle would look at me and say stuff to her friends and they would laugh like it was the funniest shit they’d ever heard.”

Sheridan props her chin against her knees. If Devin were an idiot, she might believe she was actually listening, not just gaining ammo for later.

“I was just minding my business and I saw them doing it again. Whispering and pointing. Laughing.” Devin inhales. Even now, it feels hazy, the details that built up to it. They crumble at the slightest touch. “I went up to them and told them to stop talking about me. I might’ve said I’d come to their houses if they didn’t … which I think is what got this whole thing on the radar.”

“You’re sure she wasn’t just into you?” Sheridan asks.

Devin blinks. “What?”

“Never mind.”

Devin waits for Sheridan’s joke to make sense. When it doesn’t, she keeps talking. “Anyway, a few weeks later, these guys found me after school and said Danielle was reporting me to CPS. Or her parents were gonna talk to my case worker. I … don’t actually remember.”

Sheridan arches a brow. Devin’s cheeks burn because it should feel clearer than this. She should remember exactly what Danielle said, should remember hearing her say it. But all the buildup slips away and the only thing she can remember for sure is the moment it ended. She presses her fist into her palm.

“Everyone was saying it. Danielle is getting you kicked out of school. And, I don’t know, I’d gotten kicked out of so many schools. I’d barely started at this one. I already found out I wasn’t graduating. I was just so mad at her for making up her mind about me when she didn’t even know me.” Devin looks down. “After school, I went out to the parking lot and found her by her car. And I…”

Sheridan’s posture straightens. “I’m not trying to make you—”

“It’s not painful,” Devin hisses. “It’s just humiliating.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t even say anything to her. I just hit her. And I kept hitting her.” Devin clenches her fists, the memory of her knuckles meeting skin still soft like a phantom touch. “She didn’t even fight back.”

“Jesus.”

“I didn’t even think it would stop her,” Devin says. “It’s like … sometimes I feel like no one actually cares if something bad happens to me. Or if they ruin my life. It’s so easy to get rid of me.”

Sheridan’s face does something strange at that. Her lips pinch into a small, crooked frown. Devin grasps for the right words, because it was never just the fights. It was never just the principal’s office or the detentions or the guidance counselors. People were hurting her long before that, smashing it down where no one would see, counting on the fact that it’s easy to sweep her away when she gets inconvenient. Maybe it’s foolish to fight back, but if she can make it just a little more inconvenient for them, that’s something.

“I don’t think that’s embarrassing,” Sheridan says.

“That wasn’t the embarrassing part,” Devin says, face burning. “The embarrassing part was looking up and realizing the entire school was filming.”

“… Oh.”

“They told me later there were all these posts saying to be in the parking lot after school. Everyone already knew I’d do it. They wanted me to. They, uh … they said all that stuff to me on purpose. Because they wanted me to freak out. God, it feels so stupid.”

“That’s pretty bad,” Sheridan says, sweeping her hair over her shoulder. “Those people don’t care about you, though. They’ll forget.”

Devin chews the inside of her cheek. The bluntness of Sheridan’s words would’ve set her off even a week ago. It’s the same way she spoke to Hannah about her father. But now it feels … honest. Genuine. Normally, Devin would tamp down what she wants to say next. But the sun is light and cool and Sheridan is strangely tolerable today. Devin closes her eyes and says, “When I first met you, you reminded me of them. The Danielles of the world.”

“What?” Sheridan laughs. “Innocent victims?”

“Don’t push it,” Devin says, and it’s friendlier than she expects. “You are an asshole. But I guess I jump to conclusions about people sometimes. And I … do things before I think about them. I shouldn’t have hit you.”

“Are you apologizing?”

Devin groans. “Yes. I am apologizing to you.”

“Apology accepted. It was a good punch, honestly. I’d never actually been hit before.” Sheridan smiles, and it isn’t her usual crooked, smug smile. This smile is easy and natural. It catches Devin off guard. “I’ve never really been like that. It was more Theda’s crowd than mine.”

“Theda?”

“My twin.”

Devin snorts. “There’s two of you?”

“There were.”

“Oh.” The temperature in the clearing plummets. Devin searches for words. The way Sheridan says it is too casual. Her expression doesn’t change at all. The words feel gummy in Devin’s mouth. “I, uh … I’m sorry?”

“Wow, I should not have said it like that,” Sheridan says, staring at her own kneecaps. “I’m just … I’m not used to talking about her with people who didn’t already know. Yes, I used to have a twin sister.”

“Can I … ask what happened?”

Devin doesn’t know why she’s asking. She doesn’t know why she’s sharing so much, and she doesn’t know why Sheridan is giving so much back. They sit across the campfire from each other and the distance is shrinking, sinking away in the quiet.

Sheridan’s expression darkens. “Yeah, well … she had a really hard time with things. With everything. She just felt everything so much all the time. When she was happy, she was really happy. And when she was sad, she was really, really sad.”

“Oh,” Devin says.

“She did it our sophomore year of high school,” Sheridan says, and there’s a haunting finality in her voice. “It’s been about two years?”

Devin swallows. “I’m sorry.”

“Obviously I miss her. After it happens, you walk around the world feeling like half a person for a while. Everything I used to go to her for, I was suddenly doing it alone. And I did not … handle that very well.”

Devin almost says I’m glad you’re here, but it’s stale. She isn’t glad Sheridan’s here—in fact, she’s certain she’d be a thousand times less stressed without her. And she doesn’t care what Sheridan thinks of her, but she wants to say this right. A few seconds pass and the tightness in the air fades. Devin looks down, suddenly very sure it’s too late to say anything at all.

Sheridan slaps her knee. “We should check the area. Make sure they didn’t leave anything behind.”

“Right.” Devin motions vaguely to the stretch of trees beyond the campfire. “I’ll check over there and you go the other way. And we’ll just, I don’t know, yell if we see anything?”

“Sure.”

Devin moves past the campfire, deeper into the trees. She tries to imagine Ollie here, tries to picture this campsite the way he would have. If Sheridan is as good with maps as she says, Ollie’s group shouldn’t have been here yet. Either they’re moving much faster than they should be, or someone else used this camp. Devin trudges through the brush along the forest floor, but nothing stands out. The woods stretch on for miles, uninterrupted and all-consuming.

A breeze snakes down the ridge behind her, faintly whistling from between the trees. Devin’s hair ripples at the side of her face. She’s sure she hears a familiar voice tucked into the wind, a whisper tight against her ear.

Bedtime.

Her blood runs cold.

“What did you say?” Devin asks.

But Sheridan isn’t behind her. No one is. The trees close in and the wind is cool and there’s no one in sight. Devin’s heart races so fast she thinks she might black out. It’s been years since she’s heard that word. It’s been years since she heard that voice. She closes her eyes to keep from feeling incredibly, pathetically small all over again.

“Who was that?” she calls.

Something shuffles in the trees above her. Devin looks up just in time to see a cluster of branches swinging, as though a squirrel just darted between them. She steps back, squinting to see more clearly, but there’s only green and brown and blue sky leaking between. The sweat at the nape of Devin’s neck is icy.

She opens her mouth to call out again, but a voice far to her left interrupts her.

“Devin?” Sheridan calls. “Can you come here?”

Devin casts another look up at the trees, but there’s nothing. She makes her way to Sheridan because she’s sure it was just the wind. It’s the stress of the situation and the exhaustion catching up to her, putting words in her head that she’s spent years trying to scrub out. It’s the same reason she dreamed about him. Fear and stress.

But no matter how much she tries to rationalize it, her heart races and her skin feels cold. She swallows, but she can’t get the moisture from her mouth.

Sheridan stands alone, shoulders slumped. When Devin makes it to her, she gasps. A deer carcass lies in the grass, its stomach a mess of blood and viscera, bowels spilled from a tear in its belly. Its glassy eyes are open, legs splayed like it meant to run. A circle of white fur rings one of its eyes.

“Jesus,” Devin manages.

“I know.” Sheridan puts a hand on her hip. “I just found it. Do you think it was a bear?”

“I hope not,” Devin says, though she’s not sure what the better option would be. “Maybe Ollie’s group … hunted it?”

“Then gutted it and left it behind?”

Devin grimaces. Sheridan is right, a sentiment she’s felt uncomfortably often these past few days. The other group wouldn’t have torn the deer apart, wouldn’t have left so much of its meat behind. Even after Sheridan’s meal-stealing, they wouldn’t be this desperate for food yet.

“The only problem with the bear thing,” Devin says, eyes scanning the trees, “is this is the first animal I’ve seen in days.”

They make their way back to the campfire, lacing their boots for the rest of the hike. The atmosphere feels different now, tense in a way that makes her stomach churn. Devin looks at the campfire to avoid looking at Sheridan and a discolored bit of dirt catches her eye. She narrows her eyes, leaning down to brush the dirt away.

Under a layer of soil, the corner of a paper packet pokes Devin’s finger.

“What’s that?” Sheridan asks.

Devin pulls the packet from the dirt. She meets Sheridan’s gaze and swallows. In thick black Sharpie, someone’s written a message.

If you’re reading this, send help.

12

Night falls early at Ollie’s campsite.

They arrive before the sky darkens, but only by a hair. Liv spends most of their hike alternating between being wilderness guide and substitute therapist, a role she seemed to loathe before her disappearance. She asks Aidan about his school friends and his difficulty fitting in. She asks Hannah about her siblings. She pries hard into Ollie’s relationship with his grandma, her life expectancy, how bad her death will hurt. It isn’t just Hannah that’s cagey with Liv, now, delicately dodging her most invasive questions. All three of them answer in as few words as possible. And the less they give her, the pushier Liv gets.

“We could probably keep hiking a bit,” Liv says when they finally settle at their next campsite. She scans the stretch of trees ahead, hands on her hips. “It’s not dark yet. Might be nice to get ahead.”

“We’re already a full day ahead,” Aidan says, sinking to a log. “I don’t think I can go much more.”

“Are you kidding?” Liv teases. She makes her way to Aidan, ruffling the sweaty mess of his hair. “I was on the brink of death a few days ago and I could keep going for hours. I bet you’d be fine.”

“I want a break, too,” Hannah says.

Ollie nods. “Same.”

Liv looks between the three of them and shakes her head. Resigned, she throws her backpack down and unzips it, digging through her things in a way that borders on violent. She unfolds her tarp, tosses out a few food packs, and throws a block of kindling to Hannah.

“Think you can handle the fire?” Liv asks.

Hannah eyes the kindling and nods.

With the extra food from Milestone 2, Ollie’s spoiled for dinner choices. He watches the trees behind them and, maybe pathetically, picks a packet of chicken stew. Devin’s favorite, and even though it does nothing to assure him she’s safe, it feels like something.

Hannah and Aidan slip into their tents early, and Ollie waits for Liv to join them. It’s his night on watch and he was supposed to finally have a few hours of peace and quiet. But as dark sets in, Liv sits on the log across from him, apparently uninterested in sleep. She’s quiet, eyes trained on Hannah’s and Aidan’s tents like she’s waiting until she’s sure they’re asleep to speak. After what feels like hours, she rests her elbow on her knee, head cocked slightly to the left. “You’re quiet, aren’t you?”

“Am I?” Ollie asks without looking up from the fire.

“Quiet,” Liv says again. “But not shy.”

“I thought Ethan was the therapy one,” Ollie muses, desperate to weasel out of whatever psych session Liv’s attempting to open. “You’re very into our personal lives these days.”

“Pfft.” Liv leans back, blond ponytail swishing. “I was interested in your lives, too. The whole time. I just tried to give Ethan space to do his thing.”

“Thanks.” Ollie laughs. “We really enjoyed that.”

“God, you’re funny, too. I’m trying to be serious here.” Despite her words, she doesn’t laugh, hardly even sounds amused. Her expression sobers. “I’m really impressed with you, Ollie. You’ve stepped up more than I ever expected. The other two really trust you. I just … this is the kind of stuff Ethan was so excited to see.”

Ollie looks down. He doesn’t actually want to think about Ethan. In fact, he hardly wants to think about what happened to Liv. He just wants to be alone, a feat that seems impossible now.

“You seem sad, Ollie,” Liv continues. “Sorry. Ethan knew how to ask without it being awkward.”

“No, he didn’t.” Ollie breathes.

Liv smiles at that. “We’re doing okay, aren’t we? We’re on the right path, we’ve got food and water and a map. If we don’t run into Devin and Sheridan before we get back, I’m sure a rescue team will find them.”

Ollie considers. Liv is right; objectively, things have gotten much better since she came back. The wrongness of it isn’t something he knows how to begin explaining. It’s bone-deep, nauseating, intangible.

He shrugs.

“Holding things inside is how you explode, Ollie,” Liv says. “Talk to me about what’s going on with you. Are you scared to go home?”

“What?” Ollie asks. “No.”

“I know things weren’t … great. You think it’ll be better when you get back? Hopefully your dad will be excited to see you.”

Ollie laughs, earning him a concerned face from Liv. He doesn’t want to get into it again. That’s what these weeks have been from the very start, the same story of him and his father on repeat. Don’t you love him? Doesn’t he love you? As if Ollie hasn’t asked himself the same questions a thousand times. He’s a wound opening again and again, not even given a chance to scar.

“Can you talk to me about it, Ollie?” Liv says. “I’m really worried.”

“About what?”

“About your dad.” Liv shifts. “Ethan and I wondered if there was anything … if you felt safe at home.”

“You think my dad hits me?”

“Does he?”

Normally, Ollie wouldn’t answer. He’d tell Liv to stay out of his business, or maybe he’d tell a joke, deflect the question back to her, slink away undetected. But there’s something about Liv’s voice now, the way her head tilts and her eyes darken. It’s like he’s sinking, like he’s just taken a long hit and the world is getting heavier. It’s like she pulled him in for a hug, even though she hasn’t moved.

“It’s not like that. I guess I’m just … everything here reminds me of him,” Ollie says finally, and the words feel barbed on their way up his throat. “Everything everyone says. Every time I get scared. I just think about stupid stuff I did at home and everything we said to each other. Every second I’ve been here, I just keep thinking about my dad.”

“What are you scared of?”

“I’m not scared.”

“Look at you,” Liv says, voice warm as the fire. “You’re shaking.”

When Ollie looks down, he realizes Liv is right. His hands quiver at his knees. He doesn’t remember feeling afraid like this, but suddenly, it’s all he feels. The not knowing what he’s scared of only deepens the fear.

“Wh-what if I can’t fix it?” Ollie asks. “What if I go home and I didn’t do good enough. And even though I’m back safe, I’m not … fixed?”

“Oh, Ollie.” Liv sighs. Her head tilts again, just slightly, and the fire turns her blue eyes gold. Her voice is heavier when she speaks again. “You won’t be fixed. If anything, all this stress will only make it worse.”

Ollie blinks. “What?”

Liv leans forward and a silvery chunk of hair slides over her shoulder. The warmth is still there, the empathy in her light eyes. Nothing has changed, but everything feels different. The sinking quickens and Ollie finds himself struggling to breathe. He should look at Hannah’s and Aidan’s tents to see if they’re awake, but he can’t bring himself to turn his head.

“I want to be honest with you,” Liv says. “So many adults think kids want to be babied. But you want someone to be honest with you, right?”

“What do you mean?”

His jaw is clenched too tight, voice syrupy and stuck in his throat. Liv smiles sweetly, a sharp contrast to her words. Ollie runs his knuckles over the dirt. It feels real, even if the rest of this doesn’t.

Something rustles in the bushes behind him.

“Tell me what kind of person your father wants you to be, Ollie,” Liv says. “When he sent you here, he wanted a specific version of you to come back. Tell me about that version.”

For a brief, glittering moment, Ollie thinks of the vague plans he had for his life after high school. Of the Ollie in his dreams and all the things he would get up to. The version of Ollie that would make his father proud is about as opposite of that dream as possible.

“He wants someone like him,” Ollie says. “Someone who has opinions, but only if they match his. He wants me to want to work hard and get good grades and make a lot of money. He just wants me to … want more. He doesn’t get the way I think.”

“Do you want to be the person your father is hoping for?” Liv asks. “I don’t see that for you. Obedient, driven, ambitious … That’s not you, is it?”

Ollie shakes his head.

“I didn’t think so,” Liv says. “Do you think your father deserves a son he actually wants?”

Ollie sucks in a breath. “What?”

“Do you think your father is a bad person?” Liv asks. “Do you think he deserves a son who will never amount to anything?”

The shrubs behind Ollie shift again. Something is happening to Liv’s voice, to the bushes, to Ollie’s head. His stomach churns. He grips the log under him for stability.

“I could amount to … something,” Ollie manages. Speaking is a strain. “Eventually.”

There’s something behind Ollie.

It’s lumbering. Slow. It isn’t a rustle in the bushes anymore. Its footsteps are heavy in the dirt, a wet breath hissing from an open mouth. It must be big, the way he feels its shadow blanket him. Firelight dances over Liv’s smile. She briefly looks up, gaze locking on the thing behind him, but she isn’t scared. She looks back at Ollie and her smile widens.

Ollie needs to look behind him, but he can’t. He can only look at Liv. He’s sinking so fast he can’t move. He can only hold on.

“Calm down,” Liv says. “Everything will be fine. Okay?”

Ollie nods.

“I want to help. Life has been really unfair to you. All this stuff got put on you and it changed you. It made you like this—lazy, uninspired, ambitionless. It’s so hard to come back from that. For some people, it’s impossible.”

Ollie’s mouth is dry and his throat is tight. Behind him, the thing takes another step. Twigs and leaves crack in its wake. It must only be a few feet from him now. If it’s the same bear that attacked Liv before, she isn’t scared of it now. She looks at it like she’s welcoming it. Like she’s been waiting for it.

“What’s happening to me?” Ollie stammers.

“You held it together this long because you wanted to be there for your grandma. You wanted life to be better when you turned eighteen…” Liv says slowly. She leans in. “Right? That’s been the plan?”

More branches crack behind him.

“The truth is, your grandma’s probably already dead,” Liv says calmly. “You probably won’t have the money to get a clean break from your dad. You’ll spend the rest of your life working as a shelf stocker at some chain store, no high school diploma to help you get ahead, asking your dad for money every few months until you accept you can’t afford to live on your own. And then you’ll be right back where you started.”

It’s like the ground caves under Ollie’s feet, and this time it’s so fast he loses his breath. Sounds turn inside out, silence pressing in. He can’t swallow the lump in his throat anymore. The only thing he can do is look at Liv’s eyes, blue and dim like a river on a stormy day. All he can do is soak up her every word. All he can imagine is himself thirty days from now, arriving home, boots streaking mud on the front step. He imagines prying open the door to an empty living room, dust and decay from his grandma’s final moments vacuumed away, the shag carpet clean for the first time in months. He imagines his life stretching before him, bleak and pointless. The version of himself he dreamed up was never real.

This is real.

A hand touches his shoulder, but Liv hasn’t moved.

“You already knew all this. These dreams you have, Ollie … they’re impossible. When they don’t happen, what will you do?”

“I…” Ollie starts, but his voice comes out sticky. “I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll—”

“We all tried, Ollie.”

This voice isn’t Liv.

It comes from behind him, and whatever composure Ollie managed until now melts. It’s his father’s voice, hoarse and monotone. Ollie closes his eyes. He just needs to turn and look, but he can’t peel his eyes from Liv. His brain isn’t working right, his body isn’t working right.

“He can’t be here,” Ollie whispers.

“He’s here to take you home.” Liv beams. “Are you ready to leave?”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s a way for everyone to win,” Liv explains. “A way for your father to get the son he wants without you having to do the work. Doesn’t that sound nice, Ollie?”

The hand on Ollie’s shoulder tightens.

“Would you like to become something new, Ollie?” his father’s voice mumbles behind him.

Ollie sucks in a breath and, mustering all the will he has, he tries to stand.

“It’s so hard out there, Ollie,” Coach Liv says. She takes Ollie by his shoulders, forcing him back down. “It’s so, so hard, and it’s not getting any better. If you become something new, it won’t be like that anymore. And if you say yes, you won’t need your body anymore.”

“Wh-what?” Ollie stammers. “My—”

“Don’t fight, Ollie.” Liv breathes. “Just listen.”

And then, two things happen at once.

Two figures crash into the campsite, faces blurry in the dark. Ollie inhales fast, like he’s spent the last several minutes with a fist around his throat. When the figures begin racing toward him, he sees them clearly. Devin and Sheridan, somehow, faces painted in fear. Before Ollie can fully register what’s happening, Devin yells, “Ollie, move!”

Liv’s face twists. She reaches for him.

Ollie turns to look at the thing behind him.

Creature is the only word he can conjure up for it. Most of its body looks human—looks like Ollie’s father, in fact—his company zip-up tight across his broad chest, weathered jeans too loose at his waist. But the space where his father’s head should be is empty. Sparks from the fire flicker in the dark above the thing’s neck and Ollie’s brain shuts down.

Then, he screams.

“Get up, Ollie!” Devin screams. “It’s gonna—”

The creature’s hand closes over Ollie’s shoulder again, jolting him to life. He wrests himself from the thing’s grip, tumbling to his hands and knees. Behind him, tarps crinkle as Aidan and Hannah wake. Chaos erupts and Ollie knows he needs to get up and fight. He needs to get his bearings straight. He needs to breathe.

He crawls along the camp’s edge and details of the scene start to register. The thing that grabbed him isn’t actually headless. Its neck is rubbery, head hanging from the fleshy end like elastic attached to a marble. Its face is almost identical to Ollie’s father’s, swinging as it moves. Its eyes are too big, bloodshot and dark from hanging upside down. It swings sideways to get another look at Ollie and its voice is too familiar. So achingly familiar Ollie wants to be sick.

“Don’t run,” it says in his father’s voice.

“Get away from me,” Ollie cries.

At the campfire, Liv turns to face Devin and Sheridan, face entirely blank. In an instant, she warps into terror, pointing at the twisted illusion of Ollie’s father. “Oh my god,” she cries. “What is that?”

Devin freezes, eyes flitting from Liv to Ollie. Sheridan stands behind her and her fear is different. She grips Devin’s sleeve like she might float away if she lets go. Her eyes are glued to the creature, knuckles white.

“Don’t listen to her,” Ollie finally manages, words stumbling back to him. “She was … trying to do something to me. She knows what this thing is.”

Hands touch Ollie’s back. Hannah and Aidan crouch beside him and, like a veil being lifted, the night begins to clear. The firelight on the trees sharpens. He leans into Hannah and Aidan, gasping for breath as the panic runs him through. Everything stills.

Then Devin lunges for Liv.

Ollie loses most of the details. Devin and Liv grapple on the forest floor, Devin’s fist coming down on Liv in a blur. The creature’s shape warps, the outline of Ollie’s father disappearing, melting into something else. It’s dizzying to watch, the creature’s movement so disorienting Ollie has to close his eyes. Its limbs rise like it’s shrugging on a jacket, and then it’s someone else. Another man, this time in a dress shirt and jeans, black hair buzzed close to its skull, its face gaunt and nearly skeletal.

“Devin,” the creature says. “Stop.”

Devin freezes, and in the moment she hesitates, Liv kicks her to the ground, wrapping her hands around her neck.

Ollie dives for the creature in the same moment Sheridan grabs Liv’s shoulders. Liv reaches for a knife at her belt, but Sheridan’s grip miraculously slows her. Liv spins Sheridan over her back, slamming her head to the earth. They become a mess of fists and elbows and knees, punctuated somewhere by a blade. The dark makes it impossible to see.

Something collides with Ollie’s cheek, pinging off his face to slice his shoulder. He catches a glimpse of Liv’s knife meeting Devin’s brow. The fire is dangerously hot at Ollie’s side, but rolling away from the flame means losing sight of Liv and the creature completely. Ollie is sure he hears Aidan’s voice in the fray.

He looks for Hannah.

She stands at the edge of camp. When her eyes meet Ollie’s, it’s like she comes to life. She grabs a fistful of something and dashes to the campfire. In a moment that stretches for hours, Hannah dips a bundle of sticks into the fire. She waits for it to catch, sucks in a breath, and tosses it into the fray.

And then the impossible happens.

Immediately, the fire swallows Coach Liv and the creature whole. Ollie rolls away, wincing at the lick of fire on his arms. Devin and Sheridan seem to do the same, Sheridan narrowly missing the fire completely.

Almost instantly, Liv and the creature are coated in flame before they’re both reduced to ash on the forest floor. Ollie topples to the dirt in a tangle of limbs and wounds, gasping for air. He rolls onto his back, pressing his hand to his chest, and he watches the treetops spin. He thinks he hears Devin ask what happened, thinks he hears Aidan retch, but it’s like his ears are filled with cotton.

A hand touches Ollie’s face and the night fades away.

13

Ollie is the first to pass out, Sheridan losing consciousness only seconds later. Devin miraculously keeps hold of reality long enough to scoop up a fistful of dirt, searching for anything to prove that, seconds earlier, there were two creatures here.

In the minutes that follow, reality flakes away. Hannah helps Devin to her feet, dabbing at the blood in her eyes from her brand-new forehead gash. Ollie blearily wakes and Hannah moves to tend to him. Aidan elevates Sheridan’s head and checks her pulse, and Devin sits and stares into the fire, heart racing. It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense.

What she saw was impossible. It looked like Liv, but it wasn’t her. When it grunted, there was something animal to it. When it pushed her to the ground, it was ten times stronger than Liv should’ve been. It was too quick to be human. It burned too fast to be human. Devin sits with her elbows on her knees, mouth pressed to her hands, and she tries to find a single rational explanation.

She comes up empty.

Sheridan sleeps for what feels like hours, though Devin’s sense of time is a little different tonight. Eventually, she blinks awake. There’s a bruise blossoming along her jaw. Her lip is split and crusted with blood. Aidan tells her she might have a concussion and she laughs. Devin watches her and remembers a brief, hazy moment where Sheridan jumped at Liv to save her. Sheridan meets her eye and says nothing.

Another item for the list of things that don’t make sense.

Eventually, night smears away and sunlight touches the east-facing trees. The fire putters until it’s out, tendrils of smoke thinning as the sun washes their camp with light. Devin’s stomach growls, but she doesn’t move.

Finally, Aidan breaks the silence.

“So…” he starts, voice hoarse. “Should we talk?”

Devin clears her throat, feeling the soreness from where Liv—or not-Liv—tried to choke her. She massages her neck before croaking, “Okay. What was that thing?”

“Liv?” Aidan asks. “Or the thing with her?”

Silently, all eyes slide to Ollie. His cheeks are hollow, the bags under his eyes dark. In the time they’ve been apart, the woods have changed Ollie. The softness in his cheeks, his eyes, his posture, is gone. He presses his knuckles together, but he says nothing.

“Both?” Devin offers. “I guess?”

“I don’t know what the thing with her was,” Ollie finally mutters. “But that was Liv. We were with her for days … there’s no way it wasn’t her.”

“We did feel like something was off with her,” Hannah cuts in. “She was acting weird from the minute she found us. I thought it was just her injuries, but the more she got better, the weirder she was acting. Right?”

She looks to Ollie and Aidan, waiting for them to back her up.

“Wait,” Devin says, pinching the bridge of her nose. “How did you guys even find her?”

“She found us,” Ollie says numbly. “A few days ago, she found our campsite and she was really injured. I should’ve … she got better so fast. I guess I thought it was weird, but—”

“—but how were we supposed to know she was a freaking monster?” Aidan finishes, voice wispy like he’s winded. “I mean, is that what she was?”

“If she wasn’t a monster, the thing with her was,” Hannah says. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. Its head was…”

Ollie shifts. “It looked like my dad.”

The camp falls silent. Devin eyes Sheridan, but says nothing. She’s too quiet, slumped against a tree with her knees tucked to her chest, eyes idly fixed on her own knuckles. Aidan might be right about the concussion, but after ten days of exposure to Sheridan’s specific brand of quiet, Devin is sure something is wrong.

Aidan swallows. “I might’ve seen something like that before.”

Even Sheridan looks up from her daze at that. When Aidan speaks, there’s a quiver in his voice.

“The night we got lost,” Aidan says. “I left camp once you guys fell asleep and I swear I saw a … there was something behind a tree. Or, like, it was wrapped around the tree? Like its arms were snakes.”

“What the…” Hannah breathes.

“But it didn’t attack me,” Aidan clarifies quickly. “I ran away and I think I fell down a hill. I don’t remember. I hadn’t found the trail yet, but when I woke up, I was lying in the middle of it.”

“What?” Ollie says.

“Wait,” Devin finally cuts in, shaking her head. “You think this thing guided you back to the path?”

“You didn’t tell us,” Ollie says. “Why wouldn’t you—”

“I don’t know,” Aidan snaps, and Devin isn’t sure which statement he’s responding to. “I thought it was a dream or something. I didn’t know what happened, and I … I don’t know. I thought you guys would think I was seeing things.”

I thought it was a dream. Devin recalls the night they found the burnt cabin, the night she was sure she’d wandered into the trees and seen the long-legged creature that turned into Mr. Atwood. In her nightmare, she’d fallen to the ground and woke up in her sleeping bag. But that was different. She’d had a meltdown. She was feverish and tired and desperate and she saw something that wasn’t real. It was only a dream. She’s sure of it.

“How long ago was this?” Devin asks.

“Well, it was—” Aidan starts.

“Days,” Ollie says, jaw tight with frustration. “It’s been days.”

The entire campsite is silent, but Devin doesn’t miss the way Sheridan shifts. Her lips form a thin, tight line like she’s trying to keep herself from speaking. Briefly, she looks at Devin. “I saw something, too.”

Devin’s eyes narrow. “What? When?”

Immediately, the atmosphere is different. The open-minded awe the others lent to Aidan disappears. When the other three watch her, they look almost skeptical. They don’t trust Sheridan like they trust Aidan, and Devin can’t blame them. She isn’t sure she can fully say she trusts Sheridan, and they’ve been alone together for over a week.

“The night we were at the cabin. I just went to get some water and there was someone in the lake.” Sheridan shoots a look at Devin. “Before you ask why I didn’t tell you, I thought the same thing as the little guy.”

“Little guy…” Aidan mutters.

“I figured I was just seeing things.”

“What do you mean by ‘someone’?” Devin asks. “Did it look like a monster-thing?”

“Um…” Sheridan trails off. She looks hard into Devin’s eyes before she speaks, voice cautious like she’s afraid to give too much ground. “It looked like me?”

That stops Devin’s words in her throat. Because, if she’s reading Sheridan’s face right, the thing didn’t just look like her. She says it in vague terms, making it clear she doesn’t want the others to know about Theda. The distrust goes both ways.

“Okay,” Aidan says. “If she’s telling the truth, then there’s something going on out here. Something’s trying to … I’m sorry, I’m trying to figure out how to even…”

“… talk about them?” Hannah finishes.

Aidan nods. “So, I guess there’s a monster-thing that can look like other people. That just … exists.”

“Not just people,” Ollie adds. “It was my dad. It looked like him, it sounded like him, it dressed like him. How would it know how to do that?”

It looked like him, it sounded like him, it dressed like him. Devin was sure the creature pretending to be Ollie’s dad briefly took another shape. It’s like the sight of him is branded to the backs of her eyelids, the gauntness of his face, the timbre of his voice. Maybe this is just mass hysteria. Maybe they’re all losing their minds. She was promised that was a face she’d never have to see again and she’s seen it twice in these woods.

Sheridan raises her hand.

“Yes, Sheridan?” Aidan says.

“Why did you say, ‘if she’s telling the truth’?”

Aidan rolls his eyes. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now. We need to focus on the monster-things.”

“Can we stop calling them ‘monster-things’?” Devin asks. “I mean, maybe I’m the only one struggling to be okay with monsters existing?”

“What else are we supposed to call them?” Aidan asks, indignant. “If someone has the scientific name for shape-shifting, forest-dwelling, stretchy-faced creatures, we can use that. Until then, I think we’re stuck calling them monster-things.”

“What did Liv say to you?” Hannah asks, eyes trained on Ollie.

Ollie’s expression is difficult to read. He rubs his fist in the dirt. “It started as a normal conversation. She was just asking about my stuff with my dad, and then she started getting really … mean?”

“Mean?” Devin asks.

“Saying I would never amount to anything. And my dad deserves a better kid. And it would be better if I didn’t make it home so my dad could be happy.”

Devin’s eyes widen. “Jesus.”

“The thing is, I didn’t wanna listen,” Ollie says, a slight crack in his voice. “But I had to. Even if I thought really hard about waking you guys up or running away or even just standing up, I couldn’t. I was completely stuck. It was like I was…”

“… being hypnotized,” Hannah finishes.

“Yeah.” He nods. “Like that.”

“So, to recap,” Devin says, counting on her fingers. “These things can change shape and hypnotize us?”

“Plus, I don’t know what it did to Coach Liv,” Aidan says. “If it was her, she was possessed or something. If it wasn’t, it knew everything she knew. It knew where all the milestones were and it remembered everything we talked about before she disappeared. It could answer any question, even ones only the real Liv could answer.”

“If it wasn’t her, it was doing a damn good impression,” Ollie says.

“What do we do if there’s more of them?” Hannah asks.

The camp falls quiet again. Devin’s mind wanders back to the form the creature briefly took. Knowing it was fake doesn’t keep the electricity from her nerves or the nausea from her gut.

“What do we do now?” Aidan asks. “Do we stay here? Do we keep going?”

Ollie leans down, pressing his face into his hands. Muffled by his palms, he says, “Can we sit for a second? I think I need to, like … process.”

Devin takes stock of their tattered little group. Ollie isn’t the only one in shambles—Aidan is bruised, glasses cracked, blood crusted at his brow. Hannah’s usually neat hair is a mess, matted at the back of her head, purple bags heavy under her eyes. Sheridan’s head lolls back against a tree as she apparently fights sleep. Even if they need to keep moving, they can’t do it now. Ollie is right; they need a breather.

“Yeah,” Devin says. “Let’s rest. We’re gonna need it. I think it’ll be a long few weeks out of here.”

From across the camp, Sheridan snorts. When all eyes land on her, she shrugs, pulling her mess of hair over her shoulder. The sunlight is gold on her hollow cheeks. Her voice is painted with a laugh, but she isn’t smiling. Finally, she says, “If we make it out.”

And before Devin can consider her words, she frowns.

“Yeah,” she says. “If.”

After the group splits up for quiet reflection, Devin finds her way back to Ollie. He sits alone on a severed log, a long branch in his grip. One flick at a time, he whittles away the end of the branch with a hunting knife, sharpening it into a spear. A second spear, it seems, since another crudely sharpened stick leans against a nearby tree. He’s more haggard than he was the last time Devin saw him, the sandy curls at his neck matted and the bags under his eyes dark as bruises.

But when Devin settles on the log next to him, he smiles.

“So, you’re still alive,” Devin says.

“I’m more shocked that you’re alive,” Ollie says. “Or, I guess, that you’re both alive.”

Devin glances across the campsite at Sheridan. She sits with her back to the same tree as before, her hiker’s journal splayed across her knees. Devin scoffs. “You make it sound like you think there’s a chance she’d be the one coming back.”

“I don’t know.” Ollie chuckles, taking another swipe at his spear. “She seems kind of scrappy. I could see her waiting until you fell asleep and rolling you off a cliff.”

Devin shrugs, eyes still glued to Sheridan. “I don’t know. She’s okay. Evil, but … I kind of get her.”

“You do?”

Devin looks back to Ollie, and it takes more effort than it should. Watching Sheridan feels like waiting for a pot to boil. But she didn’t come here to talk about Sheridan. She motions to the spear. “What’s this about?”

“Well,” he says, and there’s a weight to his voice that makes Devin nervous. “At first, we decided we needed to start hunting because somehow a bunch of our food disappeared.”

Devin grimaces. “Ah. That.”

“You knew?”

“I mean, I didn’t know she took the food when she took it,” she says. “We got into it about that, though. She … it’s different now. I’m not promising she won’t do shit like that again, but I think she’d at least feel bad about it.”

“So, she didn’t feel bad about it then,” Ollie says. “Good to know.”

Devin nudges Ollie’s knee with her own. “I don’t wanna talk about her. I wanna talk about what’s going on with you. Are you okay?”

Ollie smiles. “I’m fine.”

Devin’s stomach sinks. She can’t look at Ollie without picturing that thing creeping up behind him. She wasn’t sure what to expect after finding the note at the campsite, but a lumbering, headless creature was certainly not on the list. And maybe they’ve made a general stab at understanding what they saw, but there’s a piece of her still stuck on their existence in the first place.

“You saved me,” Ollie says finally, softer. “I thought I was … I don’t know what I thought would happen. But I don’t think I’d be here without you.”

Devin laughs. “Listen, I want you to know that I had no idea these things existed. I was willing to kick the shit out of Liv just because you told me to. That’s called being a good friend.”

“It makes the world a little more terrifying, doesn’t it?” Ollie asks, scraping the end of his spear into a point. “Knowing stuff like this exists? I feel like my head is empty. I’m just…”

“… not able to get your brain around it?” Devin asks. “Yeah.”

“Do you wonder what they are?”

Devin looks up at the canopy and her stomach twists. The possibility that they’re surrounded is dizzying. She can’t even begin to think about what they are.

The log shifts. Aidan sits next to Devin, forcing her to scoot so close to Ollie their shoulders touch. He adjusts his glasses up the sweaty slope of his nose, expelling a familiar breath like they haven’t been apart for over a week.

“Welcome back,” Aidan says. “I didn’t even get to ask if you guys found anything good out there.”

“Oh yeah.” Ollie breathes. “I probably should’ve asked, too.”

“You’ve had stuff on your mind.” Devin laughs. “We all have. I wish we found more, but other than a lake and a burned-down cabin, we got nothing.”

“Sheridan was wrong about the cabin?” Aidan asks.

Devin shrugs. “Not wrong, I guess. She didn’t know it would be burned down. She got us back to you guys, though.”

Aidan thrums his fingers over his knees. “How did she get you guys back here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she couldn’t have known we were moving faster than we should’ve been.” Aidan shifts a little so he’s facing Sheridan. When he speaks again, it’s almost a whisper. “You don’t think it’s weird? There’s being good at maps, and then there’s finding us at a totally different campsite than where we were scheduled to be at the exact moment we were in danger.”

Devin narrows her eyes. The tone is different now. Ollie’s scraping at his spear has stopped. He sits entirely still, blade paused against the wood, eyes trained on his boots. Devin looks at him, looks at Aidan, and chances a glance at Sheridan.

“Are you trying to say something?” Devin asks, voice flat.

“I don’t know,” Aidan says. “I’m really confused.”

“I’m confused now, too,” Devin says. “Because it sounds like you’re implying Sheridan had something to do with this?”

“I’m not implying anything.”

Devin shakes her head. “She told me she spends a lot of time on Google Maps. I don’t know. We thought we’d get to the campsite before you, but when we got there, you’d already left. We probably would’ve stayed there for the night, but we saw the note.”

Aidan pauses. “Oh.”

“I don’t even like her,” Devin says, “but she pushed through a lot to get here in time to help. She jumped into that fight, too.”

“Yeah.” Aidan’s nose scrunches up. “I really thought she’d have a concussion. She seems fine, though. Kinda weird.”

Devin stands. Both Aidan and Ollie eye her, brows knit with concern. It’s like the forest is spinning. It was one thing to find out there are monsters, that they did something to Liv, that both Aidan and Sheridan have seen one in the wild. But the idea that someone in their group is working against them is too much to process. It’s a stupid suggestion, and Devin has half a mind to pretend Aidan never said it. It’s impossible, and it’s especially impossible that it would be Sheridan.

“Don’t freak out, okay?” Aidan says. “I’m just … I don’t know how, but Liv was helping that monster. She knew her way through the woods super well. Her injuries healed really fast. And why would Sheridan see one that looked like her? Why wouldn’t she tell you about it?”

“You didn’t tell Ollie and Hannah when you saw one,” Devin snaps.

“Why did it look like her, Devin?” Ollie asks.

Devin almost explains it. The dead sister, the withdrawals, all the cruel ingredients in the cocktail that make Sheridan the way she is. If they knew, she’s sure they would drop this. But there’s a heat at the side of Devin’s face. When she looks up, Sheridan is watching her, paused mid-page turn. Her brow arches in a question and guilt squeezes in Devin’s chest. As much as it would help, this truth isn’t Devin’s to share.

“I’m not gonna speak for her,” she says. “But I promise there’s … there’s stuff about her you guys don’t know.”

“That’s the problem,” Aidan says quietly. “There’s too much we don’t know. I just … think we need to be careful.”

Devin watches Sheridan a moment longer as thin sunlight just breaks the tree line, sliding like a mask over her eyes. She tries to understand their suspicion, but it’s out of the question. As infuriating and frustrating as Sheridan might be, she isn’t dangerous. Devin presses her forehead to her hand and sighs.

“I said don’t freak out,” Aidan says.

Devin turns her glare on him quick enough to make him flinch. “I’m not freaking out. Me and Sheridan saved you guys, so sorry if I’m a little frustrated.”

“You don’t have to be violent.”

“I’m not being violent,” Devin snaps. She motions to Ollie. “And I’m not the one making weapons and accusing friends of being monsters.”

“Devin—” Ollie starts.

“She’s not my friend,” Aidan says. “Or did you forget what she—”

“I’m done talking to both of you,” Devin says.

She turns, walking a few feet to the other side of camp where she can duck behind a particularly thick tree trunk. She crouches and she doesn’t look back at her supposed friends, ready to pull the group apart. She doesn’t look at Hannah, innocently sorting food. She doesn’t look at Sheridan, the source of all her frustrations since they entered this forest. Instead, she looks up at the trees, knees tucked to her chest, and she thinks of the one face she can’t get out of her head. In the quiet, the rustling leaves sound like silk curtains, like the tangling of blackberry bushes in the fields beyond a back porch. The wind sounds like a whisper in the middle of the night.

There were monsters following Devin before she ever got to these woods.

She doesn’t need conspiracy theories. She needs to get out of here.

14

It takes Ollie too long to approach Hannah.

After Devin storms off, Ollie sits in the quiet for a long while. Hannah sits alone, too, settled across the campsite by the food packet pile and gear. She massages her wrist and, as he gets closer, Ollie spots a fresh bruise blossoming across her forearm. Guilt tightens in his gut. He sinks his spear into the earth beside her, startling her from her daze.

“Hey, you.” Ollie sighs. He motions to the bruise. “Does that hurt?”

Hannah shakes her head. “It’s not that bad.”

Ollie nods. He eases himself to the ground next to her. Even hours later, there’s a ringing in his ears and a dryness in his mouth. He thinks of last night and his blood runs cold. He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Hannah. Devin and Sheridan may have distracted Liv and the creature, but Hannah was the only one who thought to use fire. He can’t find the words to say how grateful he is, so he just smiles.

“How are you?” Hannah asks, almost a whisper. “You said you were fine earlier, but…”

“Oh, you know … I’m breathing,” Ollie says. “Trying not to think about the shape-shifting dad-shaped monster that tried to…”

He tries to finish his sentence, to say what the thing actually wanted from him. But it’s a formless danger, a knowledge that the thing could’ve killed him but no distinct understanding of how or why. He wonders how it knew his father’s voice, the shape of his face. He wonders how any of this is possible. Maybe he’s already dead and this is all just some pre-death vision. He thinks so much it makes him dizzy.

“I wanted to thank you,” Ollie says, quieter. “You saved me.”

“Devin and Sheridan saved you,” Hannah clarifies. “It was luck that the fire did what it did. I just … I was really scared and didn’t know what to do. I’m glad it worked, but I’m not as brave as they are.”

Ollie rubs his eyes. In the dark behind his eyelids, he sees Liv again. Leaning in, tilting her head, widening her sickening smile. He feels a hand on his shoulder. The woods are getting to him—that’s all. None of them have been the same since last night. Tension is high, Devin is angry, Aidan is paranoid, Sheridan is oddly quiet. In a way, Hannah is a safe space. A place to come down from the fear, melting back into who he was yesterday.

“Can I tell you something?” Ollie says.

Hannah’s eyes widen. She puts down a stack of food packets and nods, angling to face him.

“The stuff about my dad never being proud of me and my grandma being dead … it’s not like I’ve never thought that before. But she also said that I’m too … broken? To have a normal life after this. Even if I try. And I know she was just saying things to hurt me, but…”

“Do you believe her?” Hannah asks.

“I don’t know.”

“You shouldn’t.”

Ollie pauses.

“You’re not too broken to keep going,” Hannah says firmly. “I mean, I don’t know your whole life story. But you’ve been keeping us alive out here. I think you can handle going back in the real world.”

Ollie sighs. He wants to believe her, and he knows in an objective sense that what she’s saying is true. But when he feels for a vision of his life beyond these trees, he’s got nothing. It feels pointless. Even if he makes it back to Portland, stands on a cement sidewalk again, eats a french fry, he imagines a part of him will still be in these woods. Like a bit of fabric snagged on the leaves, he’s sure he’s already left a piece of himself here. Something he can’t get back.

“You don’t look great,” Hannah says. “Do you need to lie down?”

“I’m okay,” he says. “I can’t tell how much of last night was weird hypnosis power and how much was me just … listening?”

“If you were listening, I think you should forget it. She was lying to make you feel bad.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know.” Hannah shifts again, this time fully facing him. Her kneecaps press against his and Ollie tries not to think too much about that. She runs a hand through her hair and says, “You’re not getting weaker out here, though. You’re getting stronger. We all are.”

Ollie nods. It’s impossible not to notice the way Aidan is more comfortable sticking up for himself, even to someone as intimidating as Devin. It’s impossible not to notice how much more Hannah speaks her mind. How much more controlled Devin is. He has no proof that Sheridan’s improved beyond what Devin says, but if it’s true that Sheridan led them back here, she’s at least grown a sense of empathy.

“You care about stuff more,” Hannah says. “You’re just … more you, I guess.”

“You don’t even know me.” Ollie laughs.

“I feel like I do, though,” Hannah says. “The stuff you told me about your dad … I do feel like I see you now.”

Despite himself, Ollie smiles. When Liv spoke to him, it was like he was being dragged over the jagged spikes of his own memories, seeing all the pieces of himself he’d done his best to tamp down. But when Hannah speaks, it feels different. When he talks to Hannah, he sees a world where their lives stretch out in front of them, good and bad all mingled together, all of it too precious to lose.

“Well,” Ollie says in a huff. “Saving me for the second time in twenty-four hours. I think I owe you dinner when we get out of here.”

Hannah laughs, picking up another handful of food packets. “Who knows what my dad’s gonna do when I get home. I might have to take you up on that.”

“You pick the time and place, we’ll make it happen,” Ollie says. Softer, he adds, “I don’t know what my dad will do, either. I guess the members of the Bad Dad Club have to look out for each other.”

Hannah pauses. Her smile fades slightly, the dark brown of her eyes swallowing what sunlight leaks into the clearing. Ollie is sure he’s overstepped; as objectively horrible as Hannah’s father has been to her, she’s never committed to saying she hates him. She’s never even admitted he’s bad.

But then she lets out a wisp of a laugh. “Bad Dad Club for life.”

Amid the chaos, Devin feels one absence like a sore spot in her side. Sheridan sits alone at her tree doing the same thing she’s been doing all day, dirt-smattered knees folded up to her chest, journal resting against them. Devin doesn’t want to talk to her. She doesn’t want to check on Sheridan, encourage her to talk to the others, ask her how she’s feeling. For the first time since they left to hike up the mountain, they aren’t inextricably connected at the hip.

She should be enjoying her newfound freedom.

Instead, she feels miserable and anxious, and not just because Aidan mentioned his suspicions. Sheridan isn’t the same girl she was when they started, and now that it’s the subject of conversation, Devin sees it clear as day.

She sinks to the dirt across from Sheridan, just far enough to keep their knees from touching. Without waiting for Sheridan to look up, she says, “Good stuff?”

Sheridan keeps her eyes on the journal. “Riveting.”

“You’re feeling okay?”

“We got attacked by a shape-shifter last night. Which, by the way, shape-shifters are real,” Sheridan says. “So, no. Not particularly.”

“Other than that.” Devin’s throat feels like sandpaper. “You’ve been really quiet. It’s freaking me out.”

“I thought you’d appreciate it.”

Finally, Sheridan glances up from the journal. There’s a wicked amusement to her stare that softens the peaks of Devin’s anxiety. Her lips slant in a smile that’s shaped more like a taunt. The Sheridan she’s suffered the last week or so is still in there. Quieter, maybe, but still there.

“I think you gave me Stockholm syndrome or something,” Devin says. “I used to wanna hit you every time you talked. Now, if I don’t hear you for half an hour, I’m worried you died.”

“Aw, that’s cute.”

Devin scoffs. She watches Sheridan turn back to the journal, watches the darting of her eyes as she reads. When she’s quiet like this, she’s almost tolerable.

“There’s a couple entries where this guy mentions seeing people on the trails,” Sheridan says, voice dimming from playful to more serious. She taps the page. “He kept seeing people and calling for help, but no one ever came to help him. I thought that was confusing before, but now…”

“… now you’re thinking it was the shape-shifters?”

Sheridan nods.

“Wow.” Devin shakes her head. “Why weren’t they attacking him like they attacked Ollie?”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Sheridan says.

She flips the notebook around, pointing to a scribble of frantic notes. Devin narrows her eyes to catch the words and she realizes how long it’s been since she actually read something:

I saw another person today. I think it was about ten in the morning, just after I’d found the water again. She was alone, walking along the water’s edge. When I called to her, she looked at me. I don’t know what to think. When I looked at her face, even from a distance, I recognized her. My aunt Eloise was out here. At least, I’m sure that’s what I saw. I think I’m losing my mind.

Devin scratches her head. “He saw someone he knew?”

“Apparently.” Sheridan wipes at her nose. “It lines up with Ollie seeing his dad. It would explain what I saw, too.”

“Oh.” Devin looks at her knuckles. She doesn’t think about her dream at the cabin because that was something different. Because she can’t explain that right now. Not to Sheridan. “I wanted to ask you about that. You told them you saw something that looked like you. Did it look like you, or like…”

“… my sister?” Sheridan finishes. “I don’t know. But something she said … I think it was being Theda. Not me.”

“That’s…”

Devin doesn’t know what to say to that. For a fraction of a second, she sees the thing impersonating Mr. Atwood again, but she chokes back that thought the moment it forms. Over and over, it wedges itself into her brain. She sucks in a breath, leaning a little closer to Sheridan.

“Why didn’t you tell me what you saw?”

Sheridan shrugs. “I told you I was seeing things.”

Devin glances back at camp. Ollie chats idly with Hannah while Aidan organizes their things. There’s a peaceful quiet, even after the attack. This group has fallen into step with each other. They understand each other, ebbing and flowing in harmony. It should’ve been obvious to Devin that she and Sheridan wouldn’t have the same kind of bond—they weren’t starting from zero, they were starting from the negatives—but it still eats at her that Ollie, Hannah, and Aidan can easily vouch for each other. When they ask her about Sheridan, she doesn’t know what to say. Is she different now? Maybe. Nicer? Probably not. Easier to stomach? Marginally.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Devin says, quieter.

Sheridan laughs. She snaps the journal shut and lays it at her side. When she eyes Devin, she’s already defensive. “I should’ve known you didn’t just miss me.”

“Calm down,” Devin says. “You know the other three have been bonding or whatever. They trust each other. And before we left, you were…”

“… a massive bitch to them,” Sheridan says. “Yes?”

At least she’s self-aware. Devin leans in and Sheridan’s expression darkens. She seems, for once, to understand that Devin is serious. Her brow furrows with semi-concern.

“I was talking to Ollie and Aidan earlier. Aidan was really hung up on how he was sure that was actually Liv. Now, he’s thinking other people in the group could be sabotaging us.”

“Oh.”

“And I think you saying that you saw something threw him off.”

“He saw something, too.”

“He’s really concerned about the one you saw looking like you.” Devin mulls over how to say what she means. “I think, if you told them about—”

“No, thanks,” Sheridan cuts in, sharp enough to draw blood. “So, what, he thinks I’m an evil creature?”

“He was just talking. He’s really scared. But … he thought it was possible.”

This time, Sheridan’s laugh is genuine. She leans back to the bark, frizzing the purple hair pooling at her shoulders. “Was he being serious? Me?”

“I told them you’re an asshole, but you’re not a shape-shifting monster,” Devin says. “I would know. I think they believed me because they know I wouldn’t defend you if I could help it.”

“True.”

There’s an uneasy quiet between them. Or maybe it’s too easy. It’s like the way they despise each other is an inside joke now. It’s a familiarity that makes Devin squeamish. She forces her smile to flatten. There was a point to telling Sheridan this.

“What if you showed everyone the journal?” Devin suggests. “It would help Aidan relax. If you had info, he wouldn’t be suspicious, you know?”

“Who cares what he thinks?” Sheridan muses. “I don’t.”

“Ollie does. Hannah does, too.”

“I don’t care what they think, either. I—”

“You should care what they think,” Devin says, cutting her off. She glances over her shoulder, then whispers, “There’s three of them and two of us. You need to care what they think.”

“Funny you count yourself on my side.” Sheridan folds her arms over her chest. “I would’ve said it’s four versus one.”

“I’m not on a side,” Devin says. “I’m just trying to keep the peace.”

“What are they gonna do, burn me at the stake?” Sheridan asks, but the laughter in her voice has died. “They already hate me.”

Devin sucks in a deep, aggrieved breath. “Just try, please?”

Sheridan stares at her, then sighs. She grabs the notebook and pushes herself back to her feet.

It’s not a bulletproof plan, but maybe it’ll help ease some of the tension. If they know Sheridan is a monster only in personality, Devin can salvage this.

The others notice the movement, their stares finding Sheridan. All three of them already distrust her. Aidan’s anxiety has spread like ink in water, coloring the whole group. When they look at Sheridan, they go on high alert. Devin’s gut twists.

“Hey,” Ollie says when Sheridan holds the journal directly out to him. “What’s this?”

“I, uh…” Sheridan looks at Devin, and it’s unclear if she’s asking for reassurance or conveying just how much she hates this. Devin motions her on. “When we were at the lake, I found this journal. It’s from some guy who hiked in this area back in the seventies. I’ve been reading it.”

This grabs Aidan’s attention. He sets a bundle of meal packets on the ground. The disbelief is plain on his face. “You just found it?”

“Yes, I just found it,” Sheridan says, clearly mocking. “It wasn’t bestowed upon me by a divine being. It was in a burnt-down cabin.”

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” he asks.

“I don’t know, because we’ve had a lot going on?” Sheridan says. “I’m telling you now.”

“There are other questions we should be asking,” Ollie cuts in, ever the diplomat. “What’s in it?”

Sheridan carefully eases to her knees, placing the journal in the dirt. The group gathers, Devin lingering at the back with her hands on her hips. Ollie’s eyes find her, questioning, and she motions to the journal. Truthfully, Devin hardly knows what’s in it. Whatever is is, it certainly seems to hold Sheridan’s attention. Considering where they found the journal, Devin’s spent the last few days assuming it wouldn’t be particularly helpful in getting them out of the woods. She doubts Josiah Templeton met an optimistic end in that cabin. It didn’t occur to her until now that, tucked into those pages, there might be something useful.

“The guy who wrote it was lost, just like us. The cabin was burnt down, so I don’t think he found a way out. But the part I read today talked about people this guy was seeing in the woods.”

“People?” Hannah asks.

“Yeah, people.” Sheridan flips to the next page, finger landing at the passage about the hiker’s aunt. “Specifically, people he knew.”

The group falls quiet. Sheridan looks over her shoulder and Devin gives her a quick nod. If Sheridan was working against them, there’s no way she would share this. Still, there’s a fear in her gut that this won’t be enough. That the group already decided against Sheridan before they ever reunited, and that Sheridan doesn’t have what it takes to steer them back.

“This … does sound like what we saw,” Aidan says. Softly, he asks, “Does it say anything about him seeing someone that looked like him?”

Sheridan’s hand stills. “It doesn’t say anything about him seeing one wrapped around a tree, either.”

“I’m just asking a question,” Aidan says, indignant. “Is no one else—”

“Thank you for showing us, Sheridan,” Ollie interrupts, placing his hand squarely on Aidan’s back like he’s a worked-up little brother. He flips to the next page of the journal, but hardly looks at the words. “Maybe you can keep reading and tell us what else there is?”

“Agreed,” Devin says.

Aidan eyes her like she’s kicked him. “I think all of us should read it, then.”

“I’m not reading all that,” Devin scoffs.

“I found it,” Sheridan says, snapping the journal closed. “I want to read it first. I won’t spoil the good parts, I promise.”

“But—” Aidan starts again.

“I think that sounds fair,” Devin says.

She moves around the group, crouching so that she can face Aidan. She’s struck again by how much smaller he is than the rest of them. His cheeks are still round with youth, eyes wide and teary like someone’s just taken his favorite toy. It occurs to her that she’s never asked how old he is. She softens a little.

“We’re all scared,” Devin says. “But we need to stick together. We can’t trust anyone else, but we should trust each other.”

“Agreed,” Ollie says, and he’s echoed by Hannah.

This time, it’s Sheridan who fixes Aidan with a softer expression. Quietly, she says, “We both saw something and we were too scared to say anything. I think we need to trust the others on this.”

Devin swallows.

After a moment, Aidan slumps. He holds his hand out and mutters, “Fine. Truce?”

Sheridan takes his hand and Devin expels a pent-up breath. The trees overhead shift and even though their peace is temporary, it’s a relief.

As the day wears on and the sun begins to set, they make a plan to keep moving. Even though it feels like danger is only seconds behind them, Devin imagines herself making it out of these woods. She imagines herself back in Portland sharing an apartment with Ollie, finding a job, becoming a human again. And over and over, her eyes land on Sheridan. She imagines Sheridan outside these woods, too.

She imagines neither of them will be alone anymore.

She doesn’t know what to do with that.

15

For the next few days, the group is relatively peaceful. Peaceful, but cautious. They keep to themselves, eating, moving, and sleeping in silence to avoid giving away their location. It’s impossible to tell if they’re being watched. They hike without breaks, Sheridan and Aidan co-leading the expedition, each sticking to their own map and occasionally pausing to argue in sharp whispers. Ollie wakes each morning expecting to find himself face-to-face with another monster. When he manages to sleep, he sees his father again, head hanging at his back, calling him home.

They reach their campsite hours earlier than expected and Ollie blinks at it, grasping for memories of how they got there. Once they unpack, set up their tarps, and pick out their meals in silence, the quiet makes them antsy. Hannah sits alone, running fingers through her hair to straighten it out. Aidan stacks the supplies they have left, then seemingly changes his mind and begins stacking them a different way. Devin carves a stick while Sheridan fiddles with her shoelaces. They’re alone, but they’re not far apart. More and more, the two of them seem to gravitate to the same corners of camp.

Ollie hasn’t missed that change.

When the silence gets so thick it’s unbearable, Sheridan stands.

“Okay, this is getting insane.” She motions to the rest of the group. “Someone needs to lighten the mood.”

“We should be quiet. What if—” Aidan starts.

“We haven’t seen anything in days,” Sheridan says. “If something’s following us, it’ll know we’re here whether or not we talk.”

Ollie takes one look at Aidan’s frown and he already knows what he’s thinking. He’s kept his paranoia about Sheridan to himself for the last few days, but to him, Ollie is sure it sounds like Sheridan is suggesting they make their location obvious. Let down their guard. If their caution has saved them, Sheridan wants that to change.

As much as Ollie wants to believe it’s just Aidan’s imagination running wild, he can’t deny the hours he’s spent awake at night, staring at the wrinkles in his tarp, listening for the sound of Sheridan moving. Hannah was certain there was something wrong with Liv and he ignored her. And Aidan isn’t wrong; the Sheridan who’s with their group now is different from the one that left with Devin two weeks ago. The only question is what kind of different she is.

“I hate to say it,” Devin chimes in, standing next to Sheridan. “But she’s right. It’s too quiet.”

“You think it’s smart to make ourselves obvious?” Ollie asks.

Devin shrugs. “We don’t have to throw a party.”

“Working together is the only way we’ll get through this,” Hannah says. Her nervous gaze flickers to Sheridan, then lands on Ollie. She’s afraid to agree with Sheridan, shamefully avoiding eye contact with Aidan. “Maybe we should just focus on that. Working together.”

Sheridan smiles.

They push their logs to the center of the clearing and break out their food packets. Ollie pretends not to watch the trees for onlookers. He pretends everything is normal. The girls are right. Normal is what they need right now.

“What do we think happens when we get out of here?” Devin asks. “Like, we get rescued. But after that? Will you guys go back home?”

Out of instinct, Ollie’s eyes find Hannah. She’s come a long way in these woods, but maybe it isn’t enough to unwrap herself from her father’s grip. He delicately avoids thinking about his own father. His own house waiting for him. He massages the back of his neck, wondering if he’s untangled himself, either.

“I will,” Aidan says. “It’s not like my mom knew all this stuff would happen. If I go back, I think we’ll be better.”

Devin nods, but her smile is half-hearted.

“I don’t know if I can,” Ollie says numbly. “It depends what’s going on at home when we get out. Like, if my grandma’s still there, I’d want to stay until … yeah.”

The group falls silent. To Ollie’s surprise, Aidan chews his way through a bit of rib meat and smiles.

“What?” Ollie asks.

“Oh, I just realized we can all do whatever we want when we get out.” Aidan beams. “We’re gonna be rich.”

“Are we?” Hannah laughs.

“I bet our parents filled out a thing saying if we get hurt, they can sue,” Aidan says. “So, I’d say we’re each getting, like, millions of dollars. Probably.”

“I like the sound of that,” Ollie muses.

“Close your eyes,” Aidan says to the group. “Imagine what you’re gonna buy. ’Cause I already know.”

“New PlayStation?” Ollie asks.

“I’m getting a whole gaming shed,” Aidan says. “I’m buying me and my mom a new house with a game shed for me and a scrapbooking room for her. She’s, like, seven years behind.”

Ollie tries to picture what extravagant purchase he’d make with a million dollars, but all he comes up with is a small apartment in downtown Portland with a river view. New clothes, a normal job, enough food to keep him comfortable. A place where he isn’t afraid to round a corner.

“Question,” Ollie says. “Is the money going in a trust or right into our bank accounts?”

“Good question,” Aidan says. “Is anyone eighteen?”

Ollie shakes his head. Around the circle, everyone shakes their head. Everyone except Devin, who gazes out between the trees. The stare is so intense Ollie worries she’s seen something. He turns to follow her gaze, but there’s nothing there. When he looks back, Devin is counting on her fingers.

“Wait, how many days have we been out here?” she asks.

“Twenty-five,” Aidan says.

“And we got here what day?”

Hannah shuffles through her bag, fishing out a crumpled green paper with the word REVIVE in thick black lettering. She scans the paper and says, “June sixth, according to this.”

Devin goes back to counting. “So, it’s July first today?”

“I guess so,” Ollie says. “Why?”

Devin’s laugh comes out in a single huff. She shakes her head. “Uh, today is my birthday. I’m eighteen.”

The group goes deadly quiet. Suddenly, Aidan stands, dropping his empty food packet at his feet. There’s a determined slant to his brow. “I know I said to be quiet, but we have to have a birthday party.”

Devin stands, too, and Ollie worries she’ll lunge at Aidan just for suggesting it. “No, we do not need a party. We need to eat dinner and go to bed.”

“Respectfully,” Ollie says, “no.”

Devin shoots him a glare. “I knew I couldn’t trust you.”

Ollie shrugs and Devin’s expression softens. Underneath the tough attitude, Ollie sees Devin for what she is. He sees the girl looking for a soft place to land. She wants to be celebrated and she doesn’t know how to ask. For the first time since his run-in with Liv and the creature at the fire, Ollie feels sure of something; Devin deserves a night without the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Aidan points to Hannah and Ollie. “We have to go out and find decorations.”

“Oh,” Hannah says, looking out at the expanse of trees. “I don’t know if that’s safe? Shouldn’t we stay at camp?”

“We could just go back the way we came,” Ollie suggests. “Since we know that way is clear?”

“Wait,” Sheridan says. “How should I help?”

Ollie scratches the stubble on his chin, pointedly ignoring Aidan’s stare. Devin’s stare bores into him, too, and he understands what she wants here. For some reason, she needs the group to give Sheridan a chance just as badly as Aidan wants them to lock her up.

Ollie motions to his backpack. “I think there’s a Funfetti packet in there. I saw it on the first day and I’ve been saving it.”

Devin crosses her arms. “No.”

“Sheridan,” Ollie says, pointedly ignoring Devin’s protests. “Can you please get that ready for when we come back? There aren’t any candles, but it’ll work.”

Sheridan smiles. “Sure thing.”

Devin waits until the others are gone before she lets out a miserable groan. She doesn’t want the group split again, doesn’t want party decorations, and she does not want to celebrate her birthday.

It’s not just about the woods. She’s never been big on birthdays. The first few years she was with fosters, they’d been deliberate about throwing her birthday parties. But once she hit her second home, that stopped. Some fosters remembered, others didn’t, but it was never worth getting her hopes up. The friends she’d think of inviting to a party were usually far out of reach by the time the next year rolled around, and the other foster kids in her orbit felt the same way she did. Birthdays became a countdown. Twelve meant six years until she was eighteen. Fifteen was only three away.

Of all the ways she imagined she’d spend her fateful eighteenth birthday, this was not on the list.

She sits on a log across from Sheridan, who’s diligently following the instructions on Ollie’s Funfetti cake packet. Sweat plasters wisps of hair to her forehead, but the bags under her eyes are lighter than they were a week ago. Devin tries not to linger much on Sheridan’s health, but the idea that she’s finally feeling better is, surprisingly, a relief.

“You don’t think they’re gonna make me wear something, do you?” Devin asks. “I know I said I’d stop punching, but I might not have a choice.”

“Hey,” Sheridan says, peering up from her packet. “I am slaving away over your birthday cake. If you ruin the party by hitting someone, I’ll spit in it.”

“If you spit in that cake, it’s not me you have to worry about,” Devin scoffs. “Did you see Ollie’s face? That thing is all he’s got left.”

Sheridan shrugs, skimming her plastic fork through the cake mix. “I already got hit once. How much worse can it get?”

Devin pauses.

Sheridan flashes her a mischievous smirk. “Kidding.”

Eager to guide the conversation as far from that punch as possible, Devin clears her throat. “I’m glad you’re trying with them.”

“Being nice is not my forte,” Sheridan says. “But if it gets us out of here…”

“I think it’s working.”

Sheridan fixes her with an amused look, brow quirked. “You know we don’t have to be nice to each other just because it’s your birthday, right? It’s weird.”

“Oh yeah. Horrible.”

“Good. Just making sure that’s clear.”

Devin sits in the easy quiet and, in the space between words, she almost forgets the danger they’re in. She doesn’t watch the shadows between trees for strange faces. She watches Sheridan ease a tiny brick of cake from a packet onto a handkerchief and she wonders how they’ve managed to come this far. It feels easier and harder all at once, the anger replaced with something infinitely more uncomfortable. Devin stares into the soft lines of Sheridan’s face, scrunched in concentration, and she tries to summon up some of the bone-deep rage she felt only a week ago. But for a reason she can’t fully grasp, it’s gone.

“Making sure I don’t poison it?” Sheridan asks when she catches Devin staring.

“Can’t be too careful.”

Sheridan plucks a pine needle from the forest floor and pokes it through the top of the cake.

“Is that supposed to be a candle?” Devin laughs.

“I’m very innovative,” Sheridan says. “No blowing it out and no wishes until everyone gets back, though.”

Devin makes her way to Sheridan’s side of the fire. The forest floor is soft at this campsite, the dirt loose and pillowy under Devin’s boots. The last shards of sunlight cut through the trees, the gray-blue of Sheridan’s eyes clear enough to mirror the gold. She glances at Devin and her face is a question.

“I haven’t had a birthday party in years,” Devin says. “I think the last one was when I was ten?”

“Well,” Sheridan drawls. “I’m sure this goes straight to the top of the ranking.”

“It’s not the worst,” Devin says. “That would be the one at Chuck E. Cheese where my foster dad’s brother got drunk and threatened to kill the rat.”

“What? That sounds great.”

“I didn’t even get my birthday crown.”

Sheridan shakes her head. She reaches for the forest floor again, this time grabbing a fallen pine branch. With surprising grace, she twists it into a circle, finishing her art project with a forceful yank, and places the makeshift wreath on Devin’s head. Devin doesn’t flinch from the slight touch, no matter how badly she wants to.

“There,” Sheridan says. “Childhood trauma healed.”

Devin touches the crown and bites back a smile. “What happened to not being nice?”

“I’m very inconsistent,” Sheridan teases. “Never let them know your next move.”

Devin waits for the switch to flip. Waits for the intolerable, mean Sheridan to reemerge. But this time, she doesn’t. The coiled ends of Sheridan’s sweat-slick hair flutter at her ears, her dark brow raised in amused suspicion. Devin wonders if she’s supposed to be the one to ruin it. If she’s supposed to say the thing that will get them fighting again.

She doesn’t.

After a moment, Sheridan coughs, pointedly looking away. “Okay, jokes aside, I do have a birthday present for you.”

Devin arches a brow. “You just found out it’s my birthday. How could you—”

“Maybe it was originally a present for everyone,” Sheridan says. She reaches for the journal. With a mischievous smile, she says, “I found something.”

“In there?”

Sheridan opens the journal over her lap. On the ground beside her, she unfolds the map. She slides her finger down the journal page, then taps a sentence near the bottom.

Devin leans in.

July 15, 1974

I found a cabin today. I don’t know how I didn’t see it the other day from the mountainside. It sits on a ridge above the river, no trees in sight, bare on the ledge so you can see for miles. I’m watching the sunset and I can breathe for the first time since I got lost. When I first saw the thing, I thought it might be abandoned. The windows are dark and moss is caked into the roof like it hasn’t been touched in years. But inside, there are beds and enough food to last months. I ate beans and rice tonight and it’s the fullest I’ve been in weeks. No way to contact the outside world, but for now, food and a place to sleep is enough. I’ll stay here a few nights to gather my strength, and then I’ll try to find my way home again.

For when I need to find the way back: 45.789359,-114.703704.

Devin rereads the paragraph, then looks up at Sheridan.

“I thought it would be long gone by now, but I checked the coordinates on the map. Look at this.” She pulls the map over her lap and taps a circled spot along a cluster of deep green ridges. When Devin squints, she can just read the text: MAGRUDER POINT. Sheridan taps it again. “It has a label. It’s a fire watchtower. I didn’t realize how close we are to it, but I think it’d only be a few days’ hike. And if it’s as exposed as Josiah says, we could camp there and light signal fires until someone sees us.”

“That sounds…” Devin starts, and her instinct is to doubt. But the longer she looks at the circle on the map, a seed of hope starts to take root. Her laugh comes out in a single, breathless huff. “That sounds like it could work?”

“Happy birthday,” Sheridan says through her crooked smile.

Before Devin can say anything, the group crashes back into camp. Devin turns, smiling at first, but the moment she locks eyes on Ollie, she knows something is wrong. Aidan’s chest rises and falls like he’s been running, and Ollie and Hannah stand behind him with somber expressions. Hannah cups something dark in her palms. None of them look at her—they only look at Sheridan.

“Get away from her, Devin,” Aidan huffs. “Fast.”

Instinctively, Devin takes a step back. When she looks at Sheridan, there’s a glimmer of actual surprise in her eyes. She flips the map over like she doesn’t want the others to see it.

“What’s going on?” Devin asks.

“What’s going on is that she is trying to sabotage us,” Aidan says. “We have proof.”

Sheridan laughs. “Oh, do you?”

“Give us the journal,” Aidan demands.

“No.”

“Please,” Ollie says, softer than Aidan. “We need to check it with something we found.”

Sheridan doesn’t look at Aidan, Hannah, or Ollie. She looks at Devin and, in an instant, Devin understands that they aren’t a single group. They’re two factions, each with their own appointed leader. Somehow, Devin has become the leader of her faction, and its only member is Sheridan, of all people. She looks at Devin and her eyes ask, Do I have to play along?

Devin swallows. “Can you just say what you found? This seems kind of…”

“… dramatic, I know,” Ollie says. “But, uh, we don’t fully know what it is, yet.”

Sheridan shakes her head. “They don’t know what it is, but it’s ‘proof.’”

Hannah steps forward. Up close, it’s clear that the substance in her palms is ash. The breeze shuffles it over her pale, calloused skin, but buried in the gray, Devin can just make out a few scattered bits of cream-colored paper. The same paper she’s sure she looked at a few seconds ago, listing cabin coordinates. She looks at Ollie and tries to wrap her head around what they’re implying.

“We found this only a few minutes from camp,” Ollie says. “Back the way we came, freshly burned. It might not be journal pages, but what other paper would be out here?”

Devin eyes Sheridan. “Did you burn journal pages?”

“When would I have done that?” Sheridan asks.

“Who else could’ve done it?” Aidan snaps. “She wouldn’t let anyone else have the journal. She probably saw something in there that would expose her and got rid of it before we could see.”

“Expose her as what?” Devin asks.

“I … I don’t know.”

“Can we just see the journal, Sheridan?” Hannah asks. “Maybe it’s a weird coincidence. We just want to see if there are any pages torn out.”

Sheridan’s grip on the journal is tight. She holds Hannah’s gaze for a long, tense moment, then she looks at Devin one last time. There’s a piece of Devin that wishes she could crack her open and finally understand what she’s thinking. She doesn’t remember Sheridan leaving camp, but the longer Devin thinks on it, the hazier these last few hours feel.

“Fine.” Sheridan groans, rolling her eyes. She hands the journal to Ollie. “Happy reading. It’s a page-turner.”

Ollie takes a few steps from the group, leafing through it. Aidan follows at his heels, trying in vain to see over his shoulder. And Devin waits with the taste of iron on her tongue, watching each page turn with her heart in her throat. She waits for Sheridan to say something, but she’s silent. The woods are quiet tonight, like even the trees hold their breath.

“I’m sorry about this,” Hannah whispers to Sheridan. “I’m sorry they’re being so … I’m sure it’s not—”

“Oh,” Ollie says finally. He moves a page to the right, then to the left again, eyes trained on the center of the journal. He eyes Devin with a frown. “There’s some pages missing here.”

Devin moves to Ollie’s side. He’s right—there are at least three pages missing from the journal, only toothy strips of paper left where they used to be. Devin scans the writing and her stomach sinks. The page before the tear reads: I call them mimics, since that’s what they seem to do. By this time, I’ve seen enough of them to speak about them as a whole. Each of them is different from the last, some smaller than coyotes and others larger than a school bus. The only reason I can fathom why they haven’t been discovered by the outside world is the obscurity of this forest. They like to tuck themselves in the quietest parts of the woods. I believe that, at one point or another, I must have crossed some boundary and entered their territory. I don’t think I’ll be safe again until I find a way back out. Weeks ago, I was looking for a way out of these woods because I worried I would starve or be attacked by a wild animal. Now, starvation is the least of my concerns.

In the times I’ve encountered the mimics, this is what I’ve learned. They

The passage ends. The page after the tear details a grove where Josiah Templeton found berry bushes. Whatever information he wrote about the “mimics” is gone. Torn out and apparently reduced to ash. Devin purses her lips to keep from being sick.

“Well?” Sheridan asks. “What’s the verdict?”

“It’s, uh…” Devin trails off. “Josiah was writing about the monsters. He calls them mimics. I think he was about to list a bunch of stuff about them. To identify them. It’s all gone.”

“Did you tear it out, Sheridan?” Ollie asks.

“I mean, there are other things that could’ve happened,” Hannah cuts in. “What if an animal snuck into camp? It could’ve eaten the journal pages?”

“Then whoever was on watch did a shit job,” Devin scoffs.

“And when’s the last time we saw an animal?” Ollie adds.

“How would an animal burn the pages, anyway?” Aidan shakes his head, pointing to Sheridan. “It was someone who knew, if we had info to identify these ‘mimics,’ they’d be screwed. And that person would probably ask to read the journal first so they could get a head start on burying evidence.”

“Why would that person show us the journal in the first place?” Devin snaps.

Aidan turns on her, jabbing his finger in her direction. “Because you told her to.”

“I didn’t—”

Sheridan throws her head back and laughs. “You got me. I did it. I pretended to take a pee break and I burnt them. I saw a bunch of juicy details about ‘mimics’ and just ripped them right out. It was all part of my master plan.” She taps her temple. “You guys are just too smart, though. You caught me.”

“What?” Aidan breathes.

Devin turns on her. “Can you take this seriously for three seconds?”

“I’m dead serious,” Sheridan says with a smug smile. “I am completely, totally guilty. Wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“Ignore her,” Devin says.

“Why would we ignore our main suspect?” Aidan asks.

“I don’t know, because this isn’t a real trial?” Devin snaps.

For the first time since this fight started, she notices the rapid rise and fall of her own chest. She notices the blur at the edge of her vision, the feral anger folded up inside her, quickly unfurling. It’s the same as back home, the same as all those thrown punches she hardly remembers. She sucks in a breath, forcing herself to calm down.

Ollie’s hand finds her shoulder. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Devin says.

Hannah stares at her with some twisted kind of sympathy, Aidan stares at her like she’s already hit him, and Devin can’t bring herself to look at Sheridan. She clears her throat. “I’m not freaking out, I’m just trying to make you understand that it can’t be her. There are things she can tell you that will—”

“No.” Sheridan’s voice is suddenly cold as ice. “I have nothing to tell them.”

“I think we need to vote,” Ollie says finally.

“Vote on what?” Sheridan scoffs. “Are we executing me?”

Ollie ignores her. He looks Devin hard in the eyes and she doesn’t need a vote to know what will happen next. No one is listening to her, no one believes her, and nothing is different from back home. At least back then, she could make someone hurt for it.

“All who think Sheridan’s normal?” Ollie asks.

Weakly, Devin raises her hand. She has no reason to vouch for the girl who made the first weeks of this journey a living hell, the girl who told her that her fosters were right to give her up, the girl who digs under her skin every time they make eye contact. But Sheridan being human is the only thing left in these woods that makes sense.

“Okay,” Ollie says. “And all who think she isn’t?”

Aidan and Hannah raise their hands quickly. Ollie looks at Devin for another long moment, his hand still resting on her shoulder. His frown is small and afraid. Guilty.

Slowly, he raises his hand, too.

16

Sheridan’s citizen’s arrest is at least peaceful. She doesn’t resist being restrained, though it seems miles more dramatic than necessary. Ollie ties Sheridan’s hands behind her back and fastens them to the trunk of a particularly sturdy tree in camp while Aidan rips away a bit of his T-shirt for a makeshift blindfold. They hoist a tarp over her, which Aidan claims is to protect her from the elements, though Devin knows it’s a lie. They cover her so they don’t have to feel bad when they see their prisoner sitting alone, tied to a tree in a forest of monsters.

“I would’ve known,” Devin says when it’s all done. When it’s just the four of them left. “If she got replaced or possessed or whatever, I would know. We were together the whole time.”

“I know,” Hannah says, perched gracefully on a nearby log. They’re making her talk because they think she’s the one Devin’s least likely to explode at, a fact Devin doesn’t miss. “I’m just trying to think in terms of … I don’t know, gut feelings? I knew something was off with Coach Liv and I was right. Maybe she’s not one of them, but something is off.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Hannah says. “Can you try to trust us?”

Devin turns. Aidan and Ollie stand behind her, all three of them eyeing her like they think she’ll burst. She shakes her head. “I’m not saying you guys are lying. Trust me, I do not wanna be the one defending her. Which is why you should trust me when I say I know she’s human.”

“She’s so different now,” Aidan says, voice soft like he’s talking to a preschooler. “You see that, right?”

“Different how?”

Aidan looks at Ollie.

Ollie’s frown deepens. From a distance, Devin can’t tell if it’s dirt under his eyes or if he’s just exhausted. He clears his throat in the crook of his elbow. “She wouldn’t shut up before you guys left. She didn’t want to help with anything. She complained all the time.”

Devin laughs.

“Then it’s my fault. I told her to be more helpful,” she says. “I told her she needed to make up for being such a bitch. She’s only acting different to apologize.”

“The Sheridan I met wouldn’t’ve apologized,” Aidan says. “If you told her to, she’d spit on you.”

Devin narrows her eyes. “Maybe you. Not me, though.”

“You?” Aidan asks, indignant. “She hated you worse than everyone else.”

Devin casts a glance at the tarp that covers Sheridan’s makeshift prison. They might’ve blindfolded her, but she can still hear. Devin’s stomach turns at the thought of Sheridan hearing Devin defend her this hard. God, she cannot believe this. Of all the things Sheridan has made her do, forcing her to argue on her behalf is the worst of it.

Devin folds her arms. “Let me talk to her.”

“I don’t think—” Aidan starts.

“Give me a chance to ask her a few things. And then we come up with a plan. I don’t like her, but I don’t want to hurt her. I assume none of us do.”

Hannah closes her eyes and Ollie looks at the ground. But Aidan just stares, blank in a way that doesn’t say yes or no. Which means there’s a very real chance he does think violence is the answer. For the first time in her life, Devin finds herself the group’s only pacifist.

“What kind of questions?” Ollie asks.

“What is this?” Devin spits. “Am I a suspect now, too?”

Ollie sighs. Aidan looks at him with wide eyes, clearly expecting him to say more. But Devin knows Ollie and she knows he won’t fight her if he can avoid it. “Just be careful. I told you what happened to me. If it’s … if she’s dangerous, it’ll be hard for you to not listen to her.”

“I’ve been with her a while,” Devin says, standing. She pats the dirt from her legs. Sheridan is listening, silently judging what she hears. “She hasn’t convinced me of anything except that I want to get out of this forest and as far away from her as possible.”

Aidan, Hannah, and Ollie look at each other. Ollie nods.

Devin ducks under the tarp and holds her breath. Sheridan sits so still against her tree, Devin thinks she might be asleep. There’s no room, and Devin finds herself hovering over Sheridan’s knees, fists sinking into the soft soil on either side of Sheridan’s hips. Too close for comfort. Sheridan’s chin rises slightly at the intrusion, but she says nothing.

“Hey,” Devin whispers.

“Devin?”

“You got it.”

Sheridan sighs. “You’re in my bubble.”

“Sorry,” Devin says. “This is the only way I can talk to you right now.”

Sheridan swallows. The tattered T-shirt blindfold is too big for her slender face. It slips down her nose, exposing the sharp line of her brow. This close, Devin notices the way her lip quivers. No matter how hard she tries to deflect, there’s a part of her that’s afraid.

“What’s your problem?” Devin says, careful not to breathe on Sheridan’s face. “You didn’t even argue with them.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Sheridan asks. “They already made up their mind.”

“No, they didn’t. They wanted you to prove them wrong.”

Sheridan scoffs. “I doubt it.”

“Are you understanding? They think you’re like Liv. You don’t want to defend yourself at all?”

“I had the journal.” Sheridan breathes.

“Did you burn the pages?”

Sheridan is quiet for a long moment. “No.”

“Why didn’t you say that?”

Sheridan is silent.

“Why wouldn’t you tell them about your sister? Or the withdrawals? Now it sounds like you’re hiding things.”

“I’m not telling them.”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t deserve to know,” Sheridan hisses. “Everyone back home got to know everything about me all the time. They don’t. I get to choose who I tell, and I’m not telling them anything.”

Devin eases back, sucking in a cool breath. Against her better judgment, she believes Sheridan. She believes she’s real, and she believes she’s telling the truth. Which makes everything a thousand times more complicated.

“Why’d you tell me, then?” Devin asks. “You think I deserve to know?”

Sheridan turns away.

“Were you…”

… manipulating me? That’s what she wants to ask. Were all of Sheridan’s little truths meant to reel her in? That’s what Aidan and Ollie would tell her. But asking it out loud feels like cementing her doubts. Giving them life.

“Never mind. You need to give them a reason to trust you. You think they want there to be a threat in camp with us?” Devin asks. “If you’re not one of those things, or not helping them, just prove it. It should be easy.”

“Not without the pages saying how they work,” Sheridan says.

“There are other ways.” Devin runs her hand through the greasy mop of her hair. “If you aren’t—”

“You keep saying if,” Sheridan says. “You think I’m evil?”

Devin pauses. “Not like that.”

“How do you know?” Sheridan’s chapped lips twist into a somber smile. “What’s your proof?”

Devin ignores the baiting. She’s been in these woods with Sheridan long enough to know a cover when she sees it. Sheridan is afraid of what’s going to happen to her if they decide she’s against them and she’s afraid of what will happen to her if they don’t. Devin doesn’t know Hannah and Aidan as well as she knows Ollie. She might know for sure Ollie wouldn’t hurt someone “just to be safe,” but she’s less sure of the others. The woods have changed them. Taken pieces of them away. They’re more cautious now. More guarded. Paranoid. She needs to prove Sheridan is just a regular, run-of-the-mill asshole, and she needs to prove it quickly.

“You’re so confusing,” Sheridan whispers. “Why are you here?”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“Why, though?”

“Do you want to die?” Devin asks.

Sheridan raises a brow. “Am I up for execution?”

Devin pauses. When she doesn’t answer, Sheridan’s smile fades. A slow breeze ruffles the tarp on either side of them, fluttering against Devin’s arms. “I don’t know what they want to do.”

“Right.”

“If I’m gonna do this, I need to know I’m not wrong. I need to know I’m…”

Sheridan scoffs.

“Hold still. I’m gonna just…”

Devin reaches up and touches the tip of Sheridan’s blindfold. She waits for an objection, but Sheridan is silent. Delicately, Devin peels the blindfold up and Sheridan blinks at the sudden light. Her steely eyes are watery, red-rimmed, pupils the size of pinpricks. It should feel good to see her shaken like this, but when Devin looks into her face, it’s like something takes her by the lungs and squeezes.

“No jokes,” Devin says. “I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me you’re not one.”

Sheridan looks at her, hard. In her eyes is the same girl Devin met on day one, still riding a high, still unconcerned and cruel. She sees the girl who lashed out at anyone who dared breathe her air. She might be a nightmare, but she’s a human nightmare.

“You’re acting different from before, too,” Sheridan says. “The Devin I met when we got here wouldn’t be helping me. I don’t get what you’re—”

“Stop,” Devin snaps. “I just need you to tell me.”

“I could lie.”

“You could,” Devin says. “I’d prefer you didn’t.”

The air between them shifts like summer dipping into fall. There’s a seriousness to Sheridan’s face that Devin’s been waiting for. A glimpse of a girl she’s seen a few times since this nightmare began, who actually cares about what happens next.

Sheridan swallows. “I’m not one.”

The longer Devin looks at her, the more she’s sure this is the truth. Sheridan is right—everything is different now. When she looks into Sheridan’s face, it’s like a fist clenches between her ribs. Maybe trusting will make her a fool, maybe it’ll doom them, but it’s the only answer she has.

Which means something else burned those journal pages, and something else is working against them. It means they’re in more danger than they thought.

“Okay,” Devin says. “I believe you.”

Sheridan’s eyes flutter shut in relief.

“The fire watchtower you found in the journal,” Devin says. “You’re a thousand percent sure you can get us there?”

Sheridan nods.

Devin wipes the sweat from her brow. She leans back, suddenly aware of the shrinking space between them. This isn’t just a mission to clear Sheridan’s name. They need to find an escape or they’ll have bigger problems than the mimics. The longer they’re lost, the fewer search parties they’ll send. If they don’t manage to make it to the pickup point on time, the woods will get colder and they’ll run out of food. They don’t have what they need to last much longer, with or without monsters.

“Okay,” Devin says, her breath flush against Sheridan’s pale face. “Hold tight. I’m gonna save your ass.”

“We need to be prepared,” Aidan says under his breath. “She’s had so much time to work on Devin. There’s a good chance she could—”

“Aidan,” Ollie warns. He massages his temples. “We don’t know anything. About anything.”

The three of them sit on the log nearest the fire. Ollie trusts Devin, even after ten days apart. When he looks in her eyes, he sees she’s real. When he looks into Sheridan’s eyes, he’s less sure. But he was unsure of Sheridan before any of this happened. He doubted her when she was human, too. It’s like his head is full of TV static.

“If she says she trusts her?” Hannah asks, softer.

“Then I guess we believe her.”

“No,” Aidan argues. “I’m sorry, but we can’t let her stay with us.”

“What are you pitching?” Ollie asks. “Exile?”

Aidan looks at the ground and pouts. He doesn’t know what he wants to do with her, either. But that’s been the issue from the start, hasn’t it? In a classic Sheridan move, she’s become the group’s great unsolvable problem. Maybe she’s a monster, maybe she isn’t, but they can’t afford to take risks. Ollie imagines people have been wondering what to do with Sheridan since the day she was born.

When Devin emerges from the tent, Ollie straightens. Usually, he can read her like a book, but now her expression is indecipherable. She looks at the ground, scratching the back of her head like she can put off having to deliver her verdict. He knows what she’ll say long before she says it.

“I’ll just get it out of the way,” Devin says. “I believe her.”

“Are you kidding?” Aidan spits. He turns to Ollie. “I told you this would happen.”

Ollie ignores him. “You’re a thousand percent sure?”

“Uh.” Devin’s laugh is small. “A thousand is a lot. But I’m sure.”

“What do we do if you’re wrong?” Ollie asks. “Are we supposed to trust her on watch? What if she targets one of us like Liv did?”

“I’m gonna suggest something and I want you to hear me out,” Devin says. She looks pointedly at Aidan when she speaks. “Really consider it. You know I don’t like being shot down.”

Aidan rolls his eyes.

“We’re not gonna agree. I don’t think she’s playing us. You do.”

“I—” Aidan starts.

Devin turns on him. “What did I say?”

Aidan falls quiet.

“She’s positive there’s a fire watchtower on top of that”—Devin points to a steep incline to their west—“mountain. She’s seen it on the map and in the journal. She says she’ll guide us there if we untie her. Before you guys came back with the accusations, she told me she wanted us to hold out there and wait for rescue, but I said I think you guys will want more proof before you follow her anywhere. So here’s my suggestion. Sheridan leads me and Aidan up the mountain.”

“What?” Aidan asks.

“Hannah and Ollie stay on the milestone trail. Sheridan says there’s a way for us to meet back up with you in a few days. If the watch is there like she says, we’ll need three people to bring the supplies back to the group, anyway.”

Ollie swallows. “And if it isn’t?”

“Then she’s outnumbered,” Hannah suggests. “That’s the thought?”

“That’s the thought,” Devin confirms.

“I don’t like this,” Aidan says. He looks to Ollie, desperate. “I don’t want to go with them. What if she’s already got Devin. What if—”

“Maybe I should go with you, instead?” Ollie suggests. “I’d probably be a better bet to stop her if something happens.”

Devin shakes her head. “She’s, like, a hundred pounds soaking wet. Besides, I’m not worried about proving this to you. I want to prove it to him.”

She turns to Aidan and Ollie frowns. She’s right, but Aidan is too scared to see the logic. All his vitriol boils down to the same thing, Ollie thinks. The same raw fear, curdling itself into anger.

Ollie puts a hand on Aidan’s shoulder. “If you go with them and come back telling me she’s legit, I’ll believe it. More than anyone else, because I know it’ll take a lot to convince you. You could save us.”

“But…” Aidan trails.

Hannah wraps an arm around Aidan’s shoulders, too. Together, they hold him and wait for his posture to soften. Softly, Hannah says, “Devin won’t let anything happen to you. And she’s right. We do need supplies.”

“We all want the same thing,” Ollie says. “Right?”

Aidan exhales. “I guess.”

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” Devin says, crouching in front of Aidan. “Look me in the eyes. I have a clear head on this. I swear.”

Finally, Aidan nods. A breeze runs through the campsite, just lifting the edge of Sheridan’s tarp. Ollie catches a glimpse of her pale hand at her side, clenched in a fist.

“She’s…” Devin glances back at Sheridan, jaw tight. “She’s got stuff going on that she doesn’t want to tell you guys about. I think if you knew, you wouldn’t … I don’t know.”

Ollie looks over the crown of Aidan’s head to eye Devin, brow furrowed. “What kind of stuff?”

“I can’t tell you,” Devin says. “I’m just asking you to trust me.”

Aidan puts his head in his hands and the camp falls quiet, the crinkling tarp the only sound. Finally he stands, brushes himself off, and turns to the fire. “Okay. If I did go, would you guys be okay starting fires without me?”

Relief floods Ollie. “Yeah. I could do that.”

Aidan looks at him for a long moment. “Then I guess I’ll go save us.”

17

Until yesterday, Devin didn’t think a worse combination than she and Sheridan existed. Between the fighting, collapsing, and general emotional turmoil, it’s a miracle they didn’t kill each other the first time they split off. In a way, Devin thought introducing Aidan to the group would relieve some of the tension.

She thought wrong.

They wait until morning to leave, though it doesn’t make Devin as fresh eyed and energized as she’d hoped. She convinces Aidan to leave the spears behind, takes a portion of the remaining food, and they head for the mountain. Gold sunlight washes out the horizon, even in the cool morning. Sheridan leads them upward, Aidan squarely behind her, Devin watching the trees at their backs.

They get halfway up the mountain and make camp as afternoon leans into evening. The sky, at first ripe with fiery red and streaks of marigold, finally begins to purple. Back home, this was the type of night Devin only knew by the way headlights shone brighter against the dying light. Out here, though, every hour is distinct. Every passing minute is its own world. Every type of light has its own weight, color, and heat against her eyes. She knows the velvet feeling of early evening better than she ever did back home.

They sit at a meek fire and, just like on the hike, they’re completely silent. When Devin cranes her neck just right, she can see the shadowed concave of the mountain’s peak—part shale and gravel, part deep green forest, like a blanket pulled over the cliff’s shoulders. Aidan sits in the dirt, shifting one wedge of firewood over another. The crack in his lenses gleams like stained glass in the light. Across from him, equally quiet, Sheridan sits with her knees to her chest, her back to the group, facing the setting sun.

“We’re running kind of low,” Aidan says finally. “Firewood-wise.”

“How?” Devin asks. “This is our first fire.”

Aidan chews the inside of his cheek. “I might not have grabbed very much? I was so out of it this morning, I guess I didn’t get everything I was supposed to.”

Devin and Aidan lock eyes, then slowly turn their gaze on Sheridan. She doesn’t even have the energy to be mad at Aidan. Sheridan’s silence eats at her in a way that’s almost embarrassing. She doesn’t move. She just watches the sun, the frizzy outline of her hair shrouded in light.

“Do you want to get firewood with me?” Devin asks her.

Sheridan says nothing.

“Sheridan—”

“I’m okay,” Sheridan says. “You can go.”

“No,” Aidan snaps. “The buddy system—”

“—is useless when there’s three of us,” Devin says. “There’s no buddy system unless all three of us go.”

Aidan looks from Devin to Sheridan, an unspoken question plain on his face.

Before he has a chance to suggest another impractical solution, Devin grabs the ax and sling from his side. She massages out a knot in her shoulder and sighs. “Well?”

Aidan hesitates. “We should all go.”

Sheridan doesn’t look at them when she speaks. “Scared to be alone with me, nerd?”

An argument is decidedly not how she wanted to break the silence. Devin can’t take another second of it. She shoulders her bag. “Both of you. Up.”

They trek into the trees, following the last dregs of daylight. Dark nests into the nettles and brush of the forest floor, webbed and thick. Even with their lantern, the terrain begins to turn on them, grabbing ankles and calves as they look for wood. Devin hacks away at the low branches she can find, Aidan and Sheridan at her back. She topples the last of her collected logs into her sling and sighs. It clouds in the air. It’s colder this high up, Devin realizes. Dangerously cold as they get closer to the summit. They can’t afford for this peak to be empty.

Aidan reaches out to her. “Give it to me. I can carry it.”

“I’m fine,” Devin says.

“You did all the work,” Aidan says. “I can carry it. So everything will be fair.”

His voice is pointed and, through his broken glasses, he eyes Sheridan. She arches a brow, but she doesn’t bite. In classic Sheridan fashion, she waits for Aidan to dig his grave a little further before lunging.

“You don’t think you should help at all?” Aidan asks.

“With what?”

“You just walked around and watched.”

“So did you.”

“I’m carrying the sling.”

“How kind of you.” Sheridan laughs. “Devin will remember that.”

Devin groans. She doesn’t want to mediate some stupid argument. She wants to hike back, stoke the fire, and go to sleep. “What now?”

“Even before, you were so selfish,” Aidan snaps. “Like with—”

“—the food?” Sheridan asks. “I knew it.”

Devin rolls her eyes. “Okay, we are not talking about this. We’re going back to camp.”

“If she wants to prove she wasn’t trying to literally kill us, she should explain why she took a bunch of our food.”

Sheridan dons a lopsided smile. “If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve taken all of it, wouldn’t I?”

“She was not trying to kill anyone,” Devin says. “She—”

“I can actually speak for myself,” Sheridan snaps, taking Devin aback. Her smile is gone now, eyes narrowed. “This ruins your theory, anyway. Doesn’t it prove I’m just as much of a bitch now as I was then?”

Aidan squints. “What?”

“You said you think I’m a mimic because I’m so different,” Sheridan says. “Now, you’re saying I’ve been like this the whole time. Which is it?”

“I…”

A breeze rocks through the trees and Devin’s had enough. She snatches the sling of firewood back from Aidan, plunging her ax into the earth. Aidan and Sheridan fall silent, eyes landing on the blade.

“I don’t care why Sheridan took extra food,” Devin says. “I don’t care what issues you have with each other. It’s cold and we need to get back to the fire, go to sleep, and get to this cabin tomorrow. That’s what matters.”

Aidan nods solemnly. “She’s not even gonna say sorry?”

Devin groans. “Okay, Sheridan is—”

“I’m not sorry.”

Sheridan takes a long step, stopping inches from Devin’s face. And suddenly, this isn’t about Aidan. It isn’t about the food. Since they started hiking, there’s been something wrong in the air between them, some conflict wedged into her skin like a splinter. Devin swallows, but she doesn’t back off. Sheridan’s breath fans over Devin’s cheeks and she tightens her jaw. If this is some kind of intimidation tactic, it won’t work.

“You wanna get out of my face?” Devin whispers.

“I’ve been wondering since we left camp,” Sheridan says, unflinching. She motions to the space between them. “What’s with you defending me all the time? When did that start?”

At that, Devin laughs. “Should I stop?”

Sheridan’s eyes narrow. Devin thinks back to their moment in camp. The Devin I met when we got here wouldn’t be helping me. She’d known Sheridan was confused, but angry? It doesn’t make sense. She should want to get out of here. She should want someone to stick up for her. She should want her name cleared.

“Guys—” Aidan starts.

Sheridan holds a hand up to silence him. “The river wasn’t that long ago. You know what she told me when we crossed? She wished I drowned.”

Devin tenses. The breeze slides sickeningly between them and, as even as she holds her expression, she wishes she could go back to that moment. Maybe even further back, to the moment she leapt from Ethan’s grip to hit her. She wishes she could do it all differently. Sheridan’s eyes search Devin’s, twinkling with a hint of sick amusement Devin can’t begin to decipher. She made the mistake of thinking a few good days down the mountain meant they were on the same page. Clearly, she was wrong.

“Are you actually mad at me for trying to help you?” Devin asks.

“I’m just saying, if we’re trying to figure out who’s changed the most, I think it’s—”

“Guys,” Aidan hisses.

Devin and Sheridan turn on him in unison. Aidan isn’t watching them, though; his eyes are trained on the trees. He reaches out, touching Devin’s wrist. She follows his gaze, but she only sees the shifting, darkening canopy above them.

“You saw something?” Devin whispers.

Aidan shakes his head. “Heard something.”

Something shifts again, this time where Devin can see it. The branches overhead rustle, a handful of leaves breaking away to flutter to the earth. Devin holds her hand out, feeling for a breeze, but the air is stagnant. Another patch of branches shake farther away in the canopy, where evening shadows mask the details of the trees. Slowly, the sounds intensify until they’re surrounded.

Instinctively, Devin eyes Sheridan. Whatever anger she might’ve been feeding into a moment ago is gone now, replaced by ice-cold fear. Aidan’s eyes are wide, a faint sliver of moonlight clear in his glasses. She has to get them out of here in one piece.

“Don’t look up,” Devin whispers.

“It’s—” Aidan starts.

Devin takes his wrist, leaning down to his eye level. “I know what it is. We have to go, okay?”

The rustling continues, but Devin tilts her gaze to the forest floor and holds her breath. Fear buzzes in her veins. The canopy moves in all directions.

Then, like hands cupped over her ears, the woods go quiet.

Her heartbeat feels so close she can taste it.

A voice slithers from the trees, just like the one that whispered bedtime into her ears days ago. This voice is slightly different. A boy’s voice, warm and inviting. Confident, but soft. It coos:

“Come back, Aidan.”

Devin’s grip on Aidan’s wrist tightens.

She casts a glance over her shoulder toward camp. The fire’s glow is just visible through the trees. They could make it. They could get out in time. Slowly, she takes a step back, and then another. Once Sheridan and Aidan follow, she keeps moving. She takes Sheridan’s wrist in her spare hand, looks her in the eyes, and breathes, “Run.”

They turn in unison, bolting away from whatever lingers in the trees behind them. Devin sprints over roots and rocks, breath whistling in her lungs. She focuses on the sound of Sheridan and Aidan behind her. As infuriating as they might be, she won’t leave them behind. She won’t. She keeps running until they break through the trees and tumble back to camp. The fire is reduced to embers and smoke, but it’s still alive. Their gear is safe.

When Devin turns to the trees behind them, she’s sure she sees the flash of moonlit eyes tucked between the leaves.

It’s too quiet without the others.

At first, Ollie is grateful for the chance to hear his own thoughts. He’s come to love Devin and Aidan like siblings. Hiking with the two of them has a funny way of making the quiet of the woods disappear. With just Hannah, the quiet is so thick he feels it press in. Sun streaks through thick bushels of leaves overhead, warming the soil in patches. In the quiet, Ollie takes stock. He notices a pulled muscle in his back for the first time, a blister running the length of his foot, a scratch that stretches from his elbow to his wrist.

Hannah doesn’t speak until they find a place to rest. A rippling brook runs along the incline, pebbled with round white rocks as smooth as pearls, moss turning the water green in the sunlight. Hannah settles on a nearby boulder while Ollie fills their water bladders. He fights the urge to cuff up his pants and walk into the stream just to relieve some pain in his feet.

“It’s really quiet.” Hannah laughs, unsheathing a granola bar. “Is it just me, or do you kind of miss Aidan talking?”

“Oh my god,” Ollie says. “I miss it so much.”

“I miss him.”

“Same.”

Looking at Hannah too long makes Ollie sweat. He looks away fast, focuses on the pinpricks of white glare dancing on the leaves of a nearby tree. He didn’t sleep much last night, and not just because they were losing half of the group in the morning. The thought of these next few days alone with Hannah makes his blood feel electric. He worries he won’t be able to keep them alive, won’t be able to find food, won’t be able to keep them on track. He worries he’ll run out of things to talk about and Hannah will get bored. He worries he won’t impress her. And he knows that last part shouldn’t matter, but it does. It matters more.

“How do you … feel okay?” Ollie asks.

Hannah grins. “How do I feel okay?”

“Sorry.” Ollie chuckles, cheeks burning. “I was failing English.”

“I feel okay really well,” Hannah says. “Thanks for asking.”

Ollie nods. It was easier with Aidan as a buffer—something fragile they were both determined to protect. They had common ground. Now it’s just the two of them and Ollie’s out of ground to stand on.

Hannah pulls her arm across her chest to stretch. “Tell me something about Ollie.”

Ollie raises a brow. “What? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Hannah muses. “Because we’re spending the next few days alone and I want something to talk about?”

Ollie shrugs.

“I think you already know most of it,” Ollie says. If his cheeks were burning before, they’re scorching now. “I … there’s not a lot I like to talk about from before. It wasn’t a good time. You have to be more specific.”

“I’m sorry,” Hannah says. Her dark brow furrows. “What about Future Ollie? When you get back and you’re eighteen and can do whatever you want. Tell me about him.”

Ollie scoffs at that. “What about him?”

“Where does he live?”

Finally, a question Ollie doesn’t hate. He’s almost embarrassed by how much he’s thought about it. “Still Portland. In an apartment that’s at least ten stories up so I can see the river. Maybe close to Powell’s.”

“Powell’s?”

“It’s a really big bookstore.”

“I see the vision,” Hannah says. “Okay … and what’s Future Ollie’s job?”

“Future Ollie is living on lawsuit money.” Ollie laughs. “He doesn’t need a job. But if he still wanted to work, he’d do something random. Like, part-time at a bike store. Something small and specific.”

Hannah shifts on her boulder, tucking her knees up to her chest. “This is good. Does Future Ollie live by himself?”

“Well, Current Ollie promised Devin he’d be her roommate when we got back,” Ollie says, and even if he only half meant it, he doesn’t want to face the consequences of backing out. “So, not at first.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

Ollie’s pulse stutters. He blinks, letting the question fully take shape before he fumbles his way to an answer. “I mean, Past Ollie didn’t have one. I don’t … know if Future Ollie does?”

“Depending on how much lawsuit money you’re looking at,” Hannah grins, “you might have a line.”

“That sounds like a nightmare.”

Hannah’s smile sobers slightly, her gaze falling from Ollie’s face to the ground between them. She parts her lips a full second before she speaks. “Do you think you’ll talk to your dad when you get back?”

Ollie’s laugh is weak. “Are we talking about Future Ollie?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t know. There’s so much I wanna say to him, but I don’t know how. I don’t know if he’ll feel responsible for this or if he’ll just blame REVIVE. I don’t know how to ask him anything, so part of me feels like it would be easier to just vanish. Start living a new life without him and see how it goes. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” Hannah says. “A lot.”

“But also, it’s like … I want to make him understand. I want him to know what we went through out here. And make him feel bad about it. But it’s not like he knew this would happen.”

“I hope not.”

“I’ll have to figure it out when I get back.” Ollie flicks a chunk of gravel from his elbow. “How about Future Hannah? What’s she doing?”

Hannah smiles. “I don’t know. Future Hannah has a lot of options. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Is Future Hannah going home?”

Hannah’s eyes find Ollie’s. She traces her finger along the smooth surface of her boulder and says, “No. I don’t think so.”

“Where’s she going?”

“I’d like her to go with you and Devin,” Hannah says. “If you two were okay with that.”

Despite himself, Ollie beams. There’s something about Hannah that feels almost impermanent. Like whatever Future Hannah does, Ollie might not get to see it. But she wants to leave with them, start a new life, find new footing …

“I think that might be doable.” Ollie swallows. “I kind of want to go in the water. Do you?”

“Now?”

“Yeah,” Ollie says. “It’s gonna suck later, but … I don’t know. It just feels right.”

Hannah helps herself up. Together, they slip off their shoes and socks. Hannah slides her hand against Ollie’s and it’s like every color in the clearing gets brighter. They carefully plod into the water and it’s even better than Ollie imagined. The cold numbs the blister on his foot, the soreness in his ankles, the swelling of his shins. He grips Hannah’s other hand to brace himself and he laughs.

“Okay,” Hannah says. “This is worth it.”

Ollie looks into Hannah’s face—the pink in her cheeks, her full lips, her eyes so dark her pupils and irises are indistinguishable. Before he can put thought behind the words, they spill out. “I’m really proud of you.”

“Oh?”

Hannah’s eyes widen. She drops Ollie’s hands. Around his ankles, the water feels colder.

“Sorry,” Ollie stammers. “I just meant I’m really happy for you. Planning a new life and stuff. Sorry. Is that weird?”

“No,” Hannah says quickly. “It just surprised me.”

“I’m sorry. I—”

Hannah stares, but it’s like her gaze stretches past him. Sunlight ripples off the water, sparkling on her cheeks. After a moment, her strange daze breaks and she smiles. She gathers up her pants and inches back out of the water.

“Hannah, are you—”

“That was really nice. But we should keep going,” she says. “I don’t wanna get there in the dark.”

She holds a hand to Ollie and, for the life of him, he can’t fathom what just went wrong. Maybe it was too much to say he was proud of her, but now it’s like they never had this conversation. Like things never eased up between them. The air is stiff like they’re back to square one. He wants to ask why, but Hannah’s face is expectant. Urgent.

Afraid.

Ollie takes her hand and steps out of the water, onto the soft soil. The stream keeps moving behind him and the magic of whatever they had moments ago washes away with it.

18

They arrive at the fire watchtower before sundown and Devin nearly collapses in relief. Not a burnt husk, but a real building. Magruder Point is just like Josiah Templeton said—a sturdy block of wood built high on a rugged cliff overlooking the dense green valley below. A deck wraps its way around the building like a belt, a solid ten feet from the ground. The trees cut off a hundred yards from the building, leaving the cliffside entirely exposed.

Devin doesn’t hesitate. She drops her backpack at her feet, dashing up the gravelly incline. The deck groans under her weight, but it doesn’t crumble. After days of traveling with Aidan’s paranoia, Sheridan’s strangely hostile quiet, and the shadow of mimics at her back, she doesn’t need this thing to be a resort. She needs it to have something to eat, blankets, and a night away from the cold. She throws herself against the front door and tugs hard, but it doesn’t open. She presses her face to the door’s murky glass pane, cupping her hands just enough to see inside.

A sink. A bed. Shelves that aren’t empty.

“Is it locked?” Aidan calls up to her, slowly mounting the stairs to the deck.

Sheridan stands at the base of the gravelly slope, hands on her hips. Devin can’t tell if it’s skepticism about the watchtower or something else, but for the first time in a few days, she doesn’t care what’s going through Sheridan’s head. She pulls her spare pants from her backpack and wraps them around her arm before smashing her elbow through the glass.

“You’re breaking in?” Aidan gasps. He finally reaches the deck and drops his bags at his feet. “We shouldn’t … what if someone lives here?”

Devin reaches through the door, careful not to slice her underarm on the jagged glass. Her fingers close over the metal trigger of a lock and she pulls the door open, exhaling her relief. “If someone calls to say we’re breaking in, that’s good for us. That means we’re getting rescued.”

“And maybe going to prison,” Aidan adds.

Devin snorts. “They have food in prison.”

Once the door is open, Aidan’s protests stop. The station is bigger inside than it seemed. On one end of the massive room, there’s a desk and wooden chair coated in inches of dust, a gas lantern sitting on top. There are five beds in the station: two sets of flat-mattressed bunk beds and a single bed by the desk. Devin notices the kitchenette, briefly wonders if the sink works, but the thing that really grabs her eye is the massive pantry. Tin cans are stacked one on top of the other, mingling with dusty mason jars and burlap sacks.

Devin and Aidan run to the shelves and begin pulling things down. A can of peaches, strawberry preserves, black beans, corn. Things she might’ve eaten reluctantly back home. Now, her stomach groans so loud she has to fight the urge to bust the cans open with her teeth.

Aidan clutches a jar of preserved pears and looks up at her. “There’s enough that we can eat some now, right?”

“Open ’em up,” Devin says. “We deserve it.”

And then Aidan does something that surprises her. He throws his arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug. Devin stiffens, panics about whether to hug him back. But as quickly as he grabs her, he lets her go and unscrews the lid of his mason jar, sliding a wedge of pear into his mouth.

Devin’s fingers brush the cans, eyes scanning for anything with protein. She grabs a squat can marked SALMON, prying it open on the corner of the counter. Without hesitation, she spills the contents into her mouth, the salty brine blossoming on her tongue so fast it makes her dizzy. She hadn’t realized how deeply she craved real food. When she looks down, Aidan has finished his entire jar of pears, already plucking a bag of jerky from the back of the shelf.

Sheridan’s shadow stretches across the floorboards. Devin turns, waiting for her to join them, but she doesn’t. She leans against the door, arms folded over her chest, watching them feast. Devin wipes her mouth and looks away.

The first time the two of them split off, they might’ve hated each other, but at least they spoke. Since they untied Sheridan, she’s been so quiet it’s unnerving. When she speaks, it’s strange and barbed. It isn’t even the amused cruelty she used to inflict on everyone in sight. And Devin wants to understand it. She doesn’t want to slip right back into hating Sheridan. But it’s hard not to when she’s so indifferent to the second chance Devin fought to give her. It’s almost like she’s angry she was given a second chance. Like she’d rather they just exiled her.

Aidan tears open the pack of jerky, handing a strip to Devin. He almost tosses one to Sheridan, but one look at her face tells them both she’s uninterested. Sheridan points to the bed in the farthest corner of the cabin.

“This one’s mine.”

“I don’t think anyone cares what bed you take,” Devin says. “Come get food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Devin eyes Aidan, but he’s lost in the cabin’s cupboards, flinging open dust-coated doors to reveal shelves upon shelves of food. Some of it is aged beyond rescue—a block of something on one of the old counters is blue and shriveled—but there are cans of beans, more jarred fruits, packages of nuts. No more relying on their ravaged food drops. They’ve found months of food in one place. If they can transport even a fraction of this back down the mountain, they’ll have enough to last the rest of the trip. They found it thanks to Sheridan, and for some reason, Sheridan acts like she has nothing to celebrate.

“This is awesome,” Aidan says. “We’re … we’re not gonna die.”

“Nope,” Devin says. She chances a look at Sheridan as she drops her things on the farthest bed, standing with her back to them. With a sigh, Devin adds, “And we can thank Sheridan for finding this place. Right?”

Aidan eyes Devin, then Sheridan.

“You were right about the cabin,” Aidan says.

He pointedly doesn’t say thank you. Devin doesn’t want to be the mediator, but the tension in the air is thick enough to taste. Before they go to sleep tonight, this needs to be sorted out.

“You wanna thank her?” Devin asks. “And maybe apologize for the other stuff?”

“For what?” Aidan asks.

Sheridan turns now, eyeing Aidan with a raised brow.

“Coach Liv knew where things were, too,” Aidan says. “She knew how to get to all the milestones. I know you’re helping us, but … I mean, if she was good at maps before, she would probably still be good at maps now.”

“Or maybe,” Sheridan says, “if I’m a mimic, I’d already knew this place was here. Who knows?”

“Aidan.” Devin sighs, ignoring Sheridan. “Why would she—”

“Jesus,” Sheridan snaps. “If that’s what he thinks, that’s what he thinks. Why don’t you stop trying to force it?”

“Excuse me?” Devin asks.

“Just leave it.”

All three of them stare at each other now, Devin with half a strip of jerky tight in her grip, Aidan with his arms full of cans, Sheridan with a glare sharp enough to cut. Devin wants to push her on this because it doesn’t make any sense. They should be celebrating. They should be relieved they won’t die.

Aidan moves first, unloading his bundle of cans on the countertop. “I’ll take first watch, I guess.”

“You can stay inside,” Devin says. “It’s—”

“I’d rather be outside,” Aidan says. “I need fresh air.”

Aidan shuffles outside, closing the door behind him. With only Devin and Sheridan left, the atmosphere turns to ice. Devin pulls a few cans down from the shelf, stacking them into a pyramid on the counter. She swallows, avoiding Sheridan’s eyes. “You really should eat something. I know your situation makes you … not hungry. But you should—”

“I’m fine.”

Sheridan kicks her boots off and climbs onto her bed. Devin should leave her to stew in her feelings, but instead, she makes her way across the room. Sheridan stiffens, but says nothing.

“Whatever your deal is,” Devin says under her breath, “I suggest you get over it.”

Sheridan looks up. “What?”

“You’ve been acting weird,” Devin says. “Clearly you’re going through something, but I risked a lot vouching for you. Keep acting all ice queen and you’re not going to convince anyone to trust you.”

“I’m not the only one acting weird,” Sheridan says.

Devin narrows her eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Sorry I’m not grateful enough,” Sheridan says, looking back down at her knees. “Maybe I just think it’s weird you never used to stick up for me.”

Devin stands at Sheridan’s side for another few seconds, waiting for her to say something that makes sense. But Sheridan turns over so her back faces Devin. She stays that way until Devin finally heads back to the pantry. Outside, Aidan carefully makes his fire, the setting sun turning the whole cliff bronze. Devin tries to convince herself it was a good idea to come here. It was a good idea to vouch for Sheridan. They’re going to make it off this cliff, out of this forest, back to the real world. They’ll survive. She doesn’t have to deal with Sheridan or these woods for much longer.

In practice, the spear is heavier than Ollie thought it would be. He flips it in his palm, squeezing until his knuckles hurt. One way or another, they have to eat. The last of the hash browns are still warm in the pit of his stomach, staving off the hunger for now, but potatoes can only do so much heavy lifting. Eventually, they’ll need something with substance.

The day is even quieter than the first day without the others. Hannah sits under her tarp with the last packets of food in a circle around her. She counts them, sorting them into a system Ollie can’t begin to understand. She’s rationing the food, but not evenly. She gives him more, thinking he won’t notice.

He does.

Hannah’s hair is in two braids today, the tips of them brushing her shoulders. Her hair is longer than it was when they started this program, the ends more jagged and unkempt.

Maybe the measly pile of food will last until the others return, if they return at all. And maybe Sheridan wasn’t lying and there really is a cabin full of supplies waiting for them at the mountaintop. But Ollie’s father had a saying about these kinds of things. Hope for the best and plan for the worst.

He stands. “I’m gonna hunt, I think.”

Hannah’s eyes snap from the food. When she looks back down, she presses her palm to her forehead. “I lost count. I … nope. It’s gone.”

“Sorry,” Ollie offers. “If I get something, we can hold off on the rationing, right?”

“Maybe.” Hannah taps her pencil to her chin. “Depends on what you catch. And if we can figure out what to do with it.”

“I’m sure Aidan would have a whole list of fun facts about whatever I catch,” Ollie says. “I bet he’d know how to cook a deer.”

Hannah looks out at the trees and frowns. “I hope he’s okay. I hope they’re being nice to him.”

“Devin won’t let Sheridan say anything to him,” Ollie muses. After a moment, he adds, “You’d be okay with that? Hunting?”

Hannah sighs. “I’m anti-hunting food we don’t need. But we’re gonna starve out here. All the food drops are ruined. I don’t like it, but we have to do this or we won’t make it.”

Ollie nods. He doesn’t want to kill, either. In fact, the thought of having to skin something, having to transform it from animal to food, makes him nauseous. But hunger is worse than nausea, and it doesn’t go away. If he doesn’t figure out how to do this now, they’ll run out of time. He turns to leave, but Hannah takes his wrist.

“Oh,” Hannah says, quickly smiling. “Sorry. I just … wanted to go with you.”

A feeling bubbles up in him, a mixture of nausea and dizziness. He sucks in a deep breath. It feels familiar and disorienting all at once. Hannah reaches out and lightly touches his elbow.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Ollie says. He offers a feeble smile. “You can come with.”

They hike from camp in silence, the quiet settling in like a deep breath. They crest a small, wooded hill that dips into a lush valley of trees green as emeralds. A creek splits the valley floor in two, a vein of glassy water trickling through the quiet. Ollie eases down the hill, scouring the creek for any movement while Hannah creeps in his shadow.

As they trudge along, Ollie can’t help but think about his father again. It’s almost nonstop, the further they go. He’d thought this would get easier with time, but it only gets harder. Ollie thinks of the width of his father’s pale, calloused hands and the slivers of gray rooted in his sandy hair. He doesn’t miss the yelling or the silent nights spent on opposite sides of the house. He doesn’t miss his father cornering him in the hall, hand hard on Ollie’s shoulder, a report card crunched in his fist.

But no matter how hard he tries, Ollie misses the good. He misses his father’s smile in the living room doorway, watching Ollie place a damp cloth to his grandma’s forehead. He misses that nod at breakfast, the silent acknowledgment that they’d made it through another day. That they’d last another. God, he misses it so fucking much. Without warning, the woods go quiet.

It’s sudden, like missing a step. It stops Ollie in his tracks. He presses his palm to the nearest thin-barked tree and turns to Hannah. She eyes him and her gaze widens.

There’s nothing.

Not the trickle of running water, not the wind as it swells through the leaves, not the rustle of branches colliding overhead. Ollie breathes and the wheeze in his chest is the only thing he can hear.

A hundred yards away, a small deer leans over the stream, pressing its nose to the water. Ollie freezes. It should feel like a miracle, but instead, it feels like a trap. Instinctively, he reaches behind him and places a hand on Hannah’s shoulder.

“We have to get closer,” Hannah whispers.

Ollie nods.

They inch forward as a single unit and the spear feels slick in Ollie’s sweaty hand. He doesn’t want to kill, but his stomach rumbles. He’s heard Hannah’s stomach growling these last few days, too. It makes him sick, but there’s only one choice.

The deer continues lapping at the water, unaware of the threat. Ollie’s grip on the spear tightens.

Something rustles nearby.

Ollie expects the deer’s eyes to land on him and Hannah, but instead, its head darts up. It scans the trees, ears swiveling with alarm. Ollie follows its gaze and his blood goes cold.

A face is tucked in the foliage directly above the deer. Its skin isn’t the color of human skin. It’s green-gray, sickly, and dark enough to blend into the trees. Its head is lolled to the side, the skin on its face drooping like it’s melting. One moment, its eyes are locked on the deer, but slowly its gaze slides to Ollie. Its thin, rubbery lips curl into a smile.

“Oh my god.” Ollie breathes. “Oh my god. Is that a…”

“… mimic?” Hannah asks shakily. “I think so.”

It shouldn’t floor him like this. He saw the rubber-necked mimic at the campfire, and he heard Aidan describe one with arms that braided around a tree trunk. He knows the impossibility of them, but it doesn’t stop this one from snatching the air from his lungs.

The mimic shifts, its long fingers parting the leaves. It doesn’t come down from the tree, though. It stops once it has a clear view of them on the forest floor, smile widening by the second.

“We need to go,” Ollie says.

“No,” Hannah says. She pulls Ollie to face her. “We need this. Let’s just … wait and see what it does.”

“Wait?” Ollie hisses.

“What if it doesn’t do anything to us?”

“What if it does?”

As the mimic rotates, its hanging flesh rotates with it. Ollie’s never had a real panic attack before, but if the whip-sharpness of his breath means anything, he’s sure he’s having his first. He imagines the mimic wearing his father’s skin again and he fights the urge to run. He can’t feel his fingers.

“I’ll be right behind you,” Hannah says. “If you get the deer, I think we can grab it and get away before that thing catches up.”

Ollie turns to make sure it’s still Hannah behind him. Her eyes are wide like always, watery with fear. She meets his gaze and arches a brow, overgrown bangs fluttering against her forehead.

“Why aren’t you scared?” Ollie asks.

“I am scared,” Hannah says. “But I’m more scared of starving.”

Above them, the mimic shifts again.

Ollie sucks in a breath, draws his arm back, and launches the spear at the deer. It’s a messy throw, the spear wobbling in the air before planting itself in the earth a few feet in front of the deer. At the sudden noise, the deer bolts into the trees.

Ollie bolts after the spear, but in the seconds it takes him to reach the creek and grab it, the deer is long gone. He turns back to face Hannah, but she hasn’t moved an inch. She looks up, eyes wide, as a long, oozing tendril of the mimic’s skin drips toward the forest floor. Ollie follows the flesh up to the canopy, finds the mimic’s face again. Its wide, bright eyes are trained on Ollie. It licks its lips.

“Ollie…” Hannah warns. “Hold very still.”

Ollie swallows hard, clutching his spear for dear life. His eyes don’t leave the mimic. “I don’t think I can move.”

Slowly, the mimic begins easing itself from the trees. Its shoulders and torso are just as rubbery as its face, spilling from the canopy in one long column like a snake. When its skin finally reaches the forest floor, it begins to pool. Its head teeters as it descends so that its eyes are always upright, always watching Ollie.

Ollie raises his spear.

“Wait,” the mimic says.

Ollie recognizes its voice, but this time, it isn’t fear that fills him. It’s anger. Again, the mimic wears his father’s voice. Its face begins to bubble like a pot coming to boil. Its jaw hardens, eyes sinking before lightening. The outline of his father’s face begins to take shape.

“No,” Ollie says, adjusting his grip on the spear. “I don’t know what you want, but I’m not doing it. You can’t—”

“Ollie,” the mimic says. “Please just listen.”

It shakes its head as its body rises, taking shape. Within seconds, Ollie sees the most obvious features of his father setting in—his thick brow, his crooked nose, the scar on his upper lip from a boating accident. But there are details the mimic has wrong, too. His eyes are too light, too even, too wide. His neck is too thick, shoulders just slightly too broad. He’s a close imitation of his father, but that’s it. An imitation.

“Why do you look so scared, Ollie?” the mimic asks. “I know you aren’t scared of me. C’mon … talk to me.”

“How…?” Ollie whimpers.

From behind the mimic, Ollie hears the thumping of footfalls, and then the mimic’s eyes go wide. It topples to the forest floor. Hannah straddles it with their hunting knife wedged between her trembling fists. She pulls the knife out of the mimic—out of Ollie’s father—and brings it down again. There’s no blood splatter, no crunching of bones.

Ollie drops his spear. Every inch of him goes numb.

“Leave. Him. Alone,” Hannah roars, punctuating each word with another stab.

She pulls the knife out one last time and stumbles off the limp mimic. Before Ollie can catch his breath, Hannah crawls to him and pushes the spear back into his hand. They clamber to their feet together, retreating downstream. Ollie’s breath is razor-sharp, the edges of his vision blurring, but he runs. Before they can break into the cover of the trees, Hannah turns back to the clearing.

“We already killed two of you!” she cries out. “We’ll kill more if you don’t leave us alone!”

When Ollie turns, the mimic that was disguised as his father is back to its rubbery, green form. But it isn’t dead. It pushes itself from the forest floor, slinking back to the nearest tree trunk. In silence, Ollie and Hannah watch it climb into the leaves.

“Why did it…?” Ollie starts.

Hannah grabs his hand, pulling him along behind her. They dash through the trees, branches and vines whipping Ollie’s cheeks as they go. If the mimic follows them, it’s silent. Ollie stumbles over rocks and roots, but he never fully loses his footing. He keeps his eyes on the bob and sway of Hannah’s braids, the rise and fall of her shoulders. They run until they crash back into the campsite, collapsing into the grass.

Ollie rolls onto his back, staring up into the punch of blue sky visible between trees. His vision spins until he closes his eyes to keep from throwing up. Behind his eyelids, he sees the mimic bubbling into his father’s face. Over and over, more grotesque each time. His hands ball into fists at his sides.

“Hey.”

Hannah’s voice breaks through his panic. When he opens his eyes, Hannah is hovering over him, cheeks red with exhaustion. She tucks a braid behind her ear and Ollie’s heart stammers.

“You saved me…” Ollie says. “You—”

Hannah leans down, quieting him with a kiss. And maybe it’s the adrenaline and the fear and the relief rushing through his veins, but he takes Hannah’s face and kisses her back. He kisses her until she pulls away, out of breath, a half smile soft on her lips. Ollie smiles, too, brushing a bit of her hair away from her face. He feels it again, that dizziness. That draw, like he’s being pulled up by his chest. When his eyes drift down, something strikes him.

Hannah’s cross necklace is gone.

19

“Wake up.”

It’s pitch black in the cabin, but Devin doesn’t need to see to know who’s talking. There’s a dip at the end of her cot, a weight where Sheridan sits beside Devin’s shins. Devin catches just the glassy glint of her eyes. Her hand squeezes Devin’s knee.

“Are you awake?” Sheridan asks.

“Jesus.” Devin groans. “What do you want?”

She blinks, but it doesn’t help orient her in the dark. The night is colder than it was when she fell asleep, the air sharper at her cheeks where her rugged blanket can’t quite reach. A shimmer of orange dances in the far corner of the cabin. A reflection from Aidan’s fire outside. She can just hear the murmur of his usual self-directed pep talk. It can’t be time for her watch yet. Sleep sits too heavy in her bones for four hours to have passed.

Sheridan doesn’t tell her to take watch, though. She leans so close Devin can feel the quiver of her breath. “What’s going on with you?”

It takes Devin too long to understand the question.

“What?”

“Tell me what your deal is,” Sheridan demands. “Now.”

“My deal?” Devin asks, voice muffled in a yawn. “I’m going back to bed. Get off.”

“You’re acting like … not you,” Sheridan says. She briefly glances at the window, and it’s clear she doesn’t want Aidan to hear. “I can’t say anything to him because he’ll think I’m lying. That’s what you wanted, right? Make me the liar?”

It finally clicks.

“Wait, you don’t think I’m—”

Devin moves to sit up and something cold meets her throat. If it weren’t for the sting, Devin might think this was just a dream. She can’t see all of Sheridan’s face, but it’s clear her eyes are wide. Frantic. The cold at Devin’s throat quivers. Sheridan’s breath comes out jagged.

“Is that a knife?” Devin hisses. “Where did you—”

“Did you do something to her?”

“It’s me,” Devin says. She adjusts, careful to lean away from the knife. “You think I’m a mimic?”

“If it’s you, why are you acting so different?”

“When have I acted different?”

“The real Devin wouldn’t keep defending me.” Sheridan breathes. “She wouldn’t.”

The heat of her grasp on Devin’s knee is the only warmth between them. Their fights the last few days finally feel clear. Sheridan wasn’t being a menace just because. She’s been building this theory in her head for days, collecting evidence in silence. Now, with just a knife in hand, she’s decided to be brave. Devin wonders how long Sheridan’s been harboring this suspicion.

“I did, though,” Devin says, practically choking on the words. She can’t find the right way to explain it. Maybe the old Devin wouldn’t defend Sheridan, but it’s different now. “We’ve both been acting different. That doesn’t mean anyone’s—”

“Where did you go the night of the cabin?”

“What?”

“The burnt cabin. The night I saw the mimic that looked like Theda. You weren’t there.”

“Yes, I—”

“No, you weren’t,” Sheridan spits. “You pretended you were there, but I remember. And I’ve been trying to figure out when you could’ve … when things could’ve changed.”

Devin blinks. In a rush, she’s back outside the cabin’s husk, ambling to the tree line while the stars spun overhead. The wide-faced mimic was a nightmare. The long-legged mimic was a nightmare. The familiar face she saw—the one permanently tattooed to the back of her mind—was a nightmare. It has to be. Her breath comes up short.

“The next morning was when you started being nice to me. And when I started…” Sheridan presses the knife harder to Devin’s throat. “Where did you go?”

“I saw something.” Devin breathes.

“What?”

“I saw a mimic, too.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“I thought it was a dream.”

“What about when we all said what we saw? When we all realized we weren’t dreaming.” Sheridan’s grip on the knife slackens. Her hand shakes. “Why wouldn’t you—”

“I…” Devin’s tongue feels too big for her mouth. The air is cold and Sheridan’s touch is scorching. “I couldn’t say…”

Sheridan’s breath fans over Devin’s face. God, she’s close.

“Ollie said Liv messed with his head.” Sheridan adjusts her grip on the knife. She swallows so hard Devin can hear it. “You could make me trust you. That’s how you get me to tell you things. You want me to let my guard down. You could be doing it right now.”

Before she can put thought behind her words, Devin speaks.

“You made me trust you, too.”

Sheridan says nothing, but she burns. Her grip is so tight Devin has to pull her leg to freedom. The sound of Sheridan breathing—too fast, quicker than a heartbeat—is electric. In an instant, Devin sees this for what it is. The only universe Sheridan can imagine where she cares for someone—where someone cares for her—is one where it was never real. Where it was all a ploy. Against her will, Devin softens. She sees the cracks in Sheridan, the places where her life before the woods pushed her down too deep to swim back up. And it dawns on her in a single, suffocating moment that she does care about Sheridan. She cares about her even now, with a knife to her throat.

“If you’re not a mimic,” Sheridan breathes, “why do I…?”

Devin’s mouth goes dry.

Sheridan’s hold on the knife eases and Devin seizes her chance to snatch it, throwing it across the cabin. It clatters against wood somewhere in the dark. Devin grabs Sheridan’s wrist and she doesn’t let go.

To her surprise, Sheridan doesn’t fight it.

And then her spare hand finds the back of Devin’s neck and she pulls Devin to her, crashing their mouths together with enough force to press Devin to the wall. Devin’s gasp is muffled in Sheridan’s mouth and it takes her too long to understand she’s being kissed. She’s being kissed. A moment ago, Sheridan had a knife to her throat. Now, she kisses Devin like she’s got seconds to live.

Sheridan’s mouth is surprisingly soft, her fingertips cool and frantic as her hand crawls up Devin’s neck to knot in her hair. This isn’t supposed to happen. It short-circuits Devin’s already sleep-fogged brain. Here in the cold, in the dark, surrounded by mimics, it’s this that makes her heart race.

Devin’s fight folds quicker than it should. She doesn’t linger on how badly she’s wanted this, too. How long she’s wanted it. Instinctively, she clutches the fabric of Sheridan’s T-shirt and pulls until there’s no space between them.

They’re a blur of raspy breath and teeth clashing, hands searching for traction. Sheridan’s lips part and Devin tastes iron in her mouth. Whatever inch of rational space was left in her head burns away and Sheridan is all there is. In the sliver of moonlight through the cabin window, Sheridan pulls away for air. Her pupils are wide and electric, silvery hair spilling over her narrow shoulders. Devin wraps her arm around the small of Sheridan’s back and pulls her down to the mattress. Sheridan gasps, pushing both hands into Devin’s hair. They kiss until Devin can’t feel the cold and she doesn’t stop to wonder if she should be doing this.

She shouldn’t. She knows she shouldn’t.

Devin’s mouth finds Sheridan’s jaw, kissing down her neck. Sheridan groans, fingers in Devin’s hair tightening until her scalp stings. She hardly knows why she does it—maybe it’s because, for the first time since they set foot in these woods, she can pretend she’s somewhere else, living a different life, heart racing only from wanting and not from fear. She wedges her leg over Sheridan’s hip, wresting control back, drawing Sheridan’s mouth up to her. She’s halfway tugged up the hem of Sheridan’s T-shirt when something shifts.

In an instant, she’s dizzy. Not in the normal kissing way. It’s enough to make her sick, like a plane losing altitude. She’s forced to jam her palm to the cabin wall for balance.

She’s felt it before.

Devin straightens, clambering off Sheridan. She can’t see her, but she hears the hoarseness of her breath. Greedily, she wishes she could see what Sheridan looks like now, lips swollen, eyes wide, neck still exposed. There’s a fire still ripping through her, even under the fear, and it humiliates her. Devin touches her own lips and they burn.

“What?” Sheridan breathes.

“What is that?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Yeah,” Devin whispers. “That’s the problem.”

They should be able to hear the wind through the gaps in the cabin wall and the shifting of the trees up the cliffside. Even the crackle of the campfire was audible when Sheridan woke her, but now it’s gone. It’s unearthly quiet.

Across from her, Sheridan goes stiff. “Who’s he talking to?”

Devin listens harder and she hears it.

“It’s okay,” a voice says, and even though she’s sure it comes from outside, it’s like they’re speaking only feet from her bed. “I’ve been watching you. I’m sorry I didn’t help more. I know you’ve been trying.”

Devin’s hand finds Sheridan’s wrist and she squeezes. They hold their breaths and wait. Aidan murmurs something, but it’s impossible to make out. There’s a smoothness like velvet to his voice. If Devin didn’t know better, she’d think he was drunk.

“I know,” the other voice says. “I wanted to make it work, too. I wish there were people who got you like I do.”

Aidan’s voice comes next, this time clear as day.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says. “I just keep messing up.”

“I wish we had more options,” the stranger’s voice coos. “Maybe there’s nothing else you can do.”

Devin’s grip on Sheridan’s wrist tightens. “Mimic.”

She bolts out of bed, scrambling from the cabin into the cold. The trees are dark, swaying and crashing into each other all the way up the cliffside. The fire was roaring when they went to sleep, bright enough to blanket the tree trunks in light all the way to the trail. Now it’s only a bed of glowing embers and cracked, burnt logs.

“I know you’re scared,” the mimic says from everywhere at once. “Do you still trust me to help you?”

“Aidan!” Devin cries. “Aidan, stop listening to it!”

She stumbles to the crooked staircase at the front of the cabin, tumbling to the packed earth below.

“Devin?” Aidan manages. His voice shakes like he’s crying.

“I’m here,” she says. “Focus on my voice.”

It’s only when she makes it to the fire that she realizes she’s unarmed in complete darkness. Overhead, the stars streak as she turns, feeling around the fire for their lantern. Judging by the slurred drawl of Aidan’s voice, the mimic has worked its strange hypnosis on him, just like Liv did to Ollie. She tries not to let it scare her that, suddenly, the mimic is done talking. The world is still deathly quiet. It hasn’t left them yet.

It isn’t running away.

“Sheridan!” Devin calls.

There’s no response. If Sheridan followed her out, the mimic’s unearthly silence swallowed the sound. Devin’s heart pounds. A rotten thought comes to her: The mimic might have turned its attention from Aidan to Sheridan. It might have her cornered in the cabin all alone.

Finally, Devin’s fingers close around the handle of their lantern. She flicks the switch, bathing the campsite in light. When she turns to Aidan, she freezes.

He lies in the dirt, his broken glasses in the soil by his arm. Standing over him is a man who shouldn’t be here. The sight of him stops the air in Devin’s lungs. Her grip on the lantern tightens until her fingernails break the skin of her palm.

It’s the same man she saw the night of the cabin, that she saw the night they fought Liv.

“Devin,” he croaks, voice too low. His thin lips curl into a smile. “It’s been years.”

She can hear her pulse.

The cold means nothing, the fire means nothing, the stars mean nothing. It’s like she’s ten again, lying in her twin bed, hearing that voice from the living room. It’s like she’s focusing on patches of dry grass tapping at the window, waiting for it to be over. She’s going to vomit.

Footsteps thump from the deck. There’s a moment of complete silence, then an orb of light sears past her. It collides with Mr. Atwood and Devin stumbles back as he’s engulfed in flame. Devin’s back hits the dirt and she gasps.

The mimic curls over itself so that its meaty fists touch the ground. Fire moves over its skin, burning it away like paper. The mimic begins expanding, widening until its massive body bridges the space between Devin and Aidan. Its face stretches so far Devin is sure it’s wider than the tree trunks behind them. Its body looks human—no claws or sharp teeth—but it’s wrong. It’s wider than physically possible, dredging up rain-wet bits of dirt as it continues swelling. Its gray skin stretches until Devin can see flushes of bones and viscera beneath its flesh. Finally, when the growing stops, the mimic throws its massive head back and screams.

The fire continues to work its way up the mimic’s body, but it isn’t fast enough. The mimic turns, eyes set on the cabin porch, and Devin realizes that the fire didn’t come from nowhere. Sheridan stands at the handrail holding a flare gun, panting for air. She saved her—saved both of them.

“Aidan,” Devin snaps. “Aidan, wake up. Where’s the lighter?”

Aidan groans, lazily pointing to the other side of the fire.

The mimic shifts its weight from side to side. Sheridan fiddles with the flare gun, aiming at the mimic again, but it doesn’t fire. She runs back into the cabin, but Devin knows she won’t have enough time to get away. Not with the size of the mimic, and not with its attention fully on her. Devin crawls to the other side of the fire, clutching the lighter to her chest.

“Sheridan,” the mimic whines.

It begins shifting again, shrinking. With each inch it shrinks, its voice pitches upward, softening. By the time Devin stands, the mimic is human-sized again. It sounds like Sheridan. It looks like Sheridan. The only difference is the color of its hair, muddy brown instead of lavender.

“Sheridan, are you cold?” the mimic asks.

Devin doesn’t wait. She bounds after the mimic, flicking the wheel of her lighter until she feels the lick of a flame against her skin. She gets within arm’s reach of the mimic and grabs it by the shoulder, eliciting another angry whine. Before the mimic can turn on her, Devin shoves the flame against its neck.

It screams again as the flames swallow it. Between the lighter and the flare, the mimic’s entire body burns. It smells like burnt plastic, like rotting meat, like decay. Devin crawls back again as the mimic collapses, a blackened husk withering in the fire.

When the mimic is finally reduced to nothing and the firelight snuffs out, Devin slumps. Her head hits the soft wet dirt like it’s a pillow and the stars blur. She hears Aidan breathing, Sheridan’s footsteps on the porch, and she knows they’re alive. It’s enough for now. They barely made it, but it’s enough.

20

With the mimic dead, the world is quiet. Devin notices herself again in details—the dampness of the soil at her fingertips, the chill of the wind over her quickly numbing nose, the feeling of Sheridan kneeling at her side, waving a hand over her face. Quietly, they gather up what they can and huddle back into the cabin, but they don’t sleep. Devin sits on her bed, sweaty sheets stuck to her thighs.

She doesn’t think about Sheridan finding her in this bed with a knife and she doesn’t think about what happened after.

They silently wait for dawn, and even if the sun does nothing to stop the mimics, there’s comfort in it all the same. It’s easier to breathe when she can see the corners of the room, the wall of trees ahead of them, the green valley below the cliff. When the last bits of night finally ebb, Aidan speaks.

“Remember I told you about my friend Landon?”

Devin sits up, and across the cabin, Sheridan does the same. Aidan’s eyes are trained on his knees. His knuckles are clenched and white. He looks older than he did when they first arrived in these woods, Devin thinks. At the same time, he looks the youngest she’s ever seen him.

Finally, he manages, “The mimic looked like him. It was pretending to be him.”

Devin’s eyes widen.

She looks at Aidan, but all she sees is Mr. Atwood again, hands clasped behind his back, taking a step toward her. She sees him in the halls of a gray house, the buckled floorboards creaking under his big feet. Miles from the city, miles from neighbors, tall grass rustling at her bedroom window. She closes her eyes so hard her head aches.

If Aidan notices, he doesn’t say anything.

“It knew all about me and Landon. Stuff I didn’t tell anybody here. Even the coaches.”

“Like what?” Sheridan asks.

There’s an edge to her voice, too. The sound of it rakes over Devin’s skin. She’s just as scared as the rest of them. The mimics have claws that sink deeper than regular impersonation. Somehow, they have memories at their disposal. They have deep-seated fears at their fingertips. The mimics are plucking things from their heads.

“Landon was my best friend,” Aidan says finally. “I didn’t have a lot of friends before high school. I think he asked for help on his homework? I didn’t think he’d wanna be friends for real because we’re so … different. He’s a junior and I’m a freshman. He played sports and had this amazing girlfriend. I’d never really hung out with anyone but my mom. He started inviting me to all these parties at his house. I think he actually liked me being there. Then his friends started hanging out with me.”

There’s a dreamy look on Aidan’s face when he talks. Even under the bruises and scrapes from last night, he glows. All over again, Devin’s chest feels tight. It’s not fair that he’s here. It’s not fair that he’s young and that he’s hopeful and that he’s here.

“You know that feeling when you’ve got a friend, but you know it’s a mistake? Like, you know if they knew about you for real, they’d leave. I wanted to be the person they saw so bad.” Aidan swallows and looks down at his hands. “I told Ethan I used to take my mom’s pills sometimes when I had a lot of homework to do. A few months ago, I started taking them before I hung out with my friends, too. It made me feel … focused. Like I was really there.”

Devin pictures him holding his backpack straps too tight, just like he did on their first hike, watching everyone else at his school float easily through their days. He closes his eyes and rubs his nose. The cool wind up the mountain comes through the window, ruffling his hair. It occurs to Devin that, if this story is recent, he really is younger than the rest of them. Her stomach turns.

“My mom found out and took me to the doctor. He said the Adderall was probably hurting me. My mom said I couldn’t take any more. And, like, I did try not taking them, but it was so … it was like all the worst parts of me started coming out again. I was being so weird with my friends. I didn’t want them to stop liking me.”

“You went back?” Sheridan asks.

Devin expects an edge to her voice, some degree of malice like usual. But there’s no edge. Her lips press together in a knowing frown.

Aidan nods, but he doesn’t look up.

“I did,” he says. “I thought it was working, but then this one day at school … I don’t know what happened. I must’ve timed it wrong, or my mom changed her prescription. I took some before lunch and it was like my brain shut down. I was literally talking to Landon when it happened. I kind of remember, but most of it’s blurry. They told my mom it was a seizure. I never had one before.”

“They’re the worst,” Sheridan offers.

“You’ve had one?”

She shakes her head. “My sister had them. Since she was little, she’d get them every once in a while. I always thought she was gonna die.”

“Yeah,” Aidan says, and surprisingly, he laughs a little. “It turns out too much Adderall can do that to you, too. Which is how everyone found out what I was doing. And I … my mom kept me home for a few weeks and I thought she was gonna let me go back to school, but then I ended up here. I didn’t get to talk to Landon and the others. I wanted to explain. I don’t even know if they know what happened or if they just think I’m a druggie freak.”

“Hey,” Devin snaps.

It’s almost involuntary. She doesn’t look at Sheridan, but she feels her tense.

Aidan blinks and, too late, it dawns on him. He looks at Sheridan and adjusts his glasses. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s cool,” Sheridan says with a shrug. “I am a druggie. And a freak.”

“No, I shouldn’t have said that.” Aidan sits up straight. Now, instead of looking at his boots, he focuses on Sheridan. “I’m sorry. About all of it. I should’ve believed you.”

“Well,” Sheridan says. “I’m not very reliable.”

“Thank you both,” Aidan says.

“Sorry it took so long,” Devin says, scratching a burn on her forearm. “We almost didn’t hear it.”

“I’m surprised you did,” Aidan says. “Weren’t you sleeping?”

Devin meets Sheridan’s gaze and her stomach turns.

“Yeah,” Devin says. “Sheridan woke me up.”

“Oh.” Aidan frowns. “I’m double sorry.”

“You can buy me dinner or something when we get out of here,” Sheridan says, and she’s so much better at acting casual than Devin. “To make up for it.”

“I’ll buy you a million.” Aidan laughs.

He climbs out of bed and starts assembling their gear for the hike back. Devin eyes Sheridan and her throat is tight. She waits for something to click into place, some definitive verdict on how she feels. She waits for something that would explain why, the moment Sheridan’s mouth crashed into Devin’s, she was pulled under. It doesn’t make sense, and the longer she stares, the more confusing it gets. She should help Aidan. She should do whatever it takes to get out of this forest as soon as possible.

But she stays still. She waits for Sheridan to look up.

Finally, Sheridan meets her eyes. The slow tilt of sunlight through the window spots her cheeks. The purple in her hair is fading fast now, closer to silver than lavender. Her light eyes take on the sherbet glow of sunrise and, pathetically, Devin has to look away first.

She’s never been a good pretender.

Devin nods at Sheridan, then motions to the cabin door. She makes her way outside with Sheridan at her heels and sits on a severed log out of earshot of the cabin door.

Sheridan wordlessly sits next to her. She’s an inch too far away to be friendly, and an inch too close to be keeping her distance. She swallows, then mutters, “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“The mimic? Or the other thing?”

Sheridan wipes her nose. “The other thing.”

“Yeah,” Devin says. She clears her throat because she is not going to sound timid. “Yeah. I’d rather not.”

“Same.”

“Good.”

They sit in silence, the frigid air growing even colder. Devin curls her toes in her socks, gritting her teeth. The cold light gives the outline of the cabin a dreamy yellow glow. There’s something uncomfortable between them now, worse than it was before. Devin feels cautious, like she might around door handles after working up a static charge. The idea of touching Sheridan feels like life or death. She’d just gotten used to being friendly, then to being unfriendly, and now the rules have changed again.

“It pretended to be your sister again.”

“Yeah,” Sheridan says. “It asked if I was cold.”

“What does that mean?”

“This might be nothing, but…” Sheridan looks down at her knuckles, apparently chewing on what she means to say before she spits it out. “I think it means these mimics don’t know anything about the people they’re pretending to be. They don’t have their memories. A little bit after Theda died, things got really bad for me. I wrote her this letter and never showed anyone.”

Devin nods.

“I told her I didn’t want to be here without her. I said I was gonna … join her.”

“Oh.”

“I told her it was too cold here.”

Devin blinks.

Brushing right past the horror of that, Sheridan says, “Theda wasn’t here anymore when I wrote that. If the mimic was really her somehow, or if it was accessing her real memories, it wouldn’t have said that. They’re just becoming the versions of these people in our memories. They’re doing what it takes to break us.”

Devin swallows. She should tell Sheridan about Mr. Atwood, should explain it all. She should tell someone, but it’s like the words are stuck in her throat. Before she can force it out, though, Sheridan touches her knee. She looks hard into Devin’s face.

“I don’t know who it was for you, but it wasn’t real.”

“You, uh…” Devin starts, but with Sheridan’s hand on her knee and Mr. Atwood’s eyes burned into her mind, speaking feels like she’s wading through molasses. “You thought I was one of them. Last night. Do you still…?”

Sheridan shakes her head.

“I saw you out there,” Sheridan says. “Unless you’re a way better actor than I thought, I’m pretty sure you weren’t on that thing’s side.”

“Why do they do it, though?” Devin asks. “What’s the point?”

Sheridan shrugs. “I don’t know if there’s a reason. Josiah keeps wondering about the same thing in his journal. But we know more about them now. A lot more. We know fire kills them fast. We know things get quiet when they’re close. I don’t think they can fully surprise us anymore.”

Aidan opens the front door of the cabin, all three backpacks slung over his shoulder. He drops them at the top of the stairs and lets out an exasperated breath, doubling over. “I packed all the food I could fit. I also found a knife on the floor?”

Devin meets Sheridan’s stare. The sun catches the knife in Aidan’s hand and it’s absolutely the same one Sheridan threatened her with. She stands, walking to the cliff’s edge to look out at the valley. Somewhere out there, Ollie and Hannah are trekking along, waiting for them. As horrifying as last night was, they’re coming back with a victory. Backpacks full of food, a dead mimic in their wake, and more information than they had before. She tries not to let the dread form cobwebs in her chest. They won here.

She turns back to Sheridan.

“I have an idea,” Devin says. “A way to prove I’m not one of them.”

She pulls the lighter from her pocket. Aidan locks eyes on it and seems to understand. Devin holds her hand above the lighter, palm facing down, and she clicks. A small flame sparks and Devin can just feel the heat of it on her skin. She lowers her palm slowly until the flame barely touches her skin, then pulls away. No skin burning like paper, no instant flames.

“That’s proof, right?” she asks.

“Good enough for me,” Aidan says. He reaches for the lighter and does the same, holding the flame under his palm just long enough to show it doesn’t catch. “That’s two for two.”

Sheridan takes the lighter last, turning it over in her palm. Reluctantly, she clicks the flame on and holds it to her hand. She winces, but her skin doesn’t catch.

Devin exhales.

“Wow,” Aidan says with a mischievous grin. “So you guys just act like this normally.”

“That’s enough,” Devin says, shoving Aidan’s shoulder. “Let’s get moving before the other two starve.”

Devin grabs her and Sheridan’s backpacks from the stairs and groans. Hers is much heavier than Sheridan’s. But she touches the skin of her bicep, tracing the corded muscle there. She’s stronger than she was when they entered these woods. Despite everything, she feels a flicker of pride at that. She swings her backpack over her shoulder and hands Sheridan the lighter pack. Sheridan takes it, but her eyes don’t leave Devin, drinking her in for a moment that lasts too long.

“When we did the test,” Sheridan says, quickly veering back to safe ground. “Were you nervous?”

Devin rights herself. “No.”

Sheridan smiles.

“If you really want to prove you’re on our side, though, get that map out.” Devin peers out at the valley before them. The mimic’s shadow still darkens the corners of her mind, but when she looks at Sheridan, a little of it burns away. Despite herself, she smiles, too. “We’re getting out of these woods.”

21

Yet again, Sheridan proves herself to be a genius with the map. Before they leave Magruder Point, she tries explaining her process to Devin—how she times their departure so they’ll leave the mountainside and wind up at Hannah and Ollie’s camp by sundown the next day—but it makes Devin’s head hurt. They pack what they can, clipping a skillet, a small gas tank, and other cooking supplies to the underside of Devin’s backpack. Aidan pilfers the shelves for first-aid supplies and comes away with a roll of bandages, antiseptic wipes, and a sling. They leave a note with their names in the station and Sheridan adds the coordinates of their next campsite.

And, to Devin’s surprise, the descent is easy.

Aidan and Sheridan easily work the map. Apparently killing a massive mimic together is enough to convince them they can trust each other. When they take a break, Sheridan lays the map in the dirt and shows Aidan her methods. Aidan traces their path, smiling at Sheridan when it clicks.

Sheridan smiles, too.

In the moments between, she watches Devin.

Devin supposes she watches Sheridan, too. She watches her hike longer each day, watches the color fill her cheeks again, watches the easy way she laughs. She’s changing. She’s always changing.

They don’t talk about the shapes the mimic took at the cabin and they don’t talk about the kiss. Devin hardly talks at all as they descend. She lingers behind the group for once, eyes on the trees, drinking in silky blue afternoons and the vastness of the night. She doubts there will be much in the way of peace during their final push for escape. For now, she takes what she can get.

But the peace never lasts. In the stretches of quiet, the mimic’s face comes back to her over and over. She sees him tucked into the shadows between trees, staring down at her from nearby ridges, in the dark when she closes her eyes. Day and night, it’s Mr. Atwood’s gaunt face again and again.

She’s never told anyone, but the mimics didn’t need her to. They don’t care that this is the one thing she’s kept out of every case file and every behavior meeting. The mimics tore him from her head, dancing him around for everyone else to see. Devin tries not to feel naked, knowing the others have seen the face that’s polluted Devin’s nightmares for years. They’ve heard the voice Devin can’t scrape from her head. She doesn’t need to explain Mr. Atwood to anyone—half of her would rather die than have to say it out loud—but she wants to say it to someone. If the monsters in these woods get to broadcast all the worst of it, if they can use it against her, she deserves to tell someone herself.

“Hey,” Devin says, crouching next to Sheridan and Aidan’s map lesson. Her voice must be different from usual, because when Sheridan looks up, her eyes are wide with concern. Devin motions to a small alcove up the hill. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Surprisingly compliant, Sheridan follows her off the path between the trees until they reach the alcove. Devin doesn’t stop walking until they’re just out of Aidan’s line of sight. The wind is warmer halfway down the mountain, sweet and sharp with summer. The sun dapples the trees in orange light and a part of Devin worries that it’s too beautiful, too serene to taint with the ugliest secret she has.

“You okay?” Sheridan asks.

Devin leans against a nearby tree and slides to the forest floor. Sheridan follows her, sitting across from her in the dirt so that their knees almost touch. It’s funny, Devin thinks, how often they’ve been in this exact position, knees pressed to knees, trying to pull something out of the other. This time is different, though. Rotten and terrible, like bile in her throat. She wants to say something sarcastic, wants to tell a joke that’ll wipe the concern from Sheridan’s face. She wants to be seen and she wants to be invisible all at once.

“At the fire watchtower,” Devin starts. She scratches the back of her neck, feels it slick with sweat. “You asked where I went. That night we were at the cabin.”

“Oh,” Sheridan says. “I know you’re not—”

“I saw him then, too. I’ve seen him a lot, actually.”

Sheridan nods.

“His name is Atwood,” Devin says, and she prays Sheridan is following along, because saying more than a few words at a time feels like wading through wet cement. “He was one of my fosters a long time ago. When I was ten.”

“Oh.”

“He was … the worst one I ever had. I heard you get ones like him sometimes. Complete fucking creeps.”

Sheridan’s eyes widen. “Oh…”

She looks down and Devin is sure she’s uncomfortable. She must already know. Sometimes, Devin wonders if people can sense it on her. Normally, the discomfort would make Devin stop talking, but not today. The wind up the mountainside is bracing and a shiver runs through her. But she keeps talking. She has to.

“He, uh … he seemed really together at first. I’d never lived in a house that nice, so I was really excited. I had my own room. I was the only kid there. But he, uh…” She stumbles over it, searching for footing in her own memory. It makes her sick, coming back here. She can’t mold the memory into words without finding herself there all over, lying still, fists balled in the cotton sheets of her twin bed. She hears the creak of the door, sees his silhouette in the hallway. Her mouth is dry and the sun is too bright. She doesn’t say it because words won’t work, so she just says, “… I heard it happens to lots of us.”

She’s broken.

She’s sure she is. Big talk about being honest, but she can’t even say this out loud. If she says it, she’ll look small. If she says it, Sheridan will know all about the rotten seed he planted in her. The one that’s been growing for eight years, now. It’s starting to choke her.

Sheridan is quiet for a long time.

Finally, she leans forward and the wind pushes her hair over her shoulders. Devin can’t look at her face. Quietly, tenderly, Sheridan asks, “Did he touch you?”

Devin doesn’t speak.

She closes her eyes and nods.

She waits for the fall. The consequence of letting someone see it, but it doesn’t come. When she opens her eyes, Sheridan is staring into her face with an expression Devin hasn’t seen before. There’s a gentle lilt to her brow, a flattening of her lips. Devin wants to crawl in a hole and die.

“Did you tell anyone?” Sheridan asks.

Devin shakes her head.

“I asked my case manager to rehome me,” Devin says. “But she wouldn’t do it unless I gave her a good reason. And I couldn’t … I didn’t want to say it. It just felt so … disgusting. So I started acting up. Making problems for everyone at school. Whatever I could do to get a transfer.”

“And then?”

Devin shrugs. “And then they transferred me. I was with him for a few months. That’s it. It wasn’t, um … it wasn’t that bad.”

Sheridan watches her and she doesn’t speak. Devin waits for a joke to stop the churning in her gut. She waits for Sheridan to break up the quiet so she can pretend she didn’t say anything. She wishes she could gather it all up again and tuck it away where no one can see.

“I mean it,” Devin says. “It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t—”

Sheridan reaches out cautiously, taking Devin’s face in her hands. It’s like Devin’s pulse stutters to a stop. Sheridan’s blue eyes are unrelenting, more delicate than Devin’s ever seen them. She expected Sheridan to deflect, to make a sharp comment so they can argue and it can all go away. She shouldn’t be kind like this, shouldn’t be patient and understanding and tender. There’s a piece of Devin, pathetic and small, that wants to bridge the space between them and kiss her again. She wants to shed the pain of it and pretend she can go back to normal.

Instead, she leans forward and presses her face to the crook of Sheridan’s neck, wrapping her arms around Sheridan’s shoulders. She lets the heat, the hurt, the unrelenting force of it all undam, and it barrels up her throat. Before she can stop it, she’s sobbing into the coarse cotton of Sheridan’s shirt.

Sheridan wraps her slender arms around Devin and pulls her close, tangling fingers into her curls. She holds her and holds her and she doesn’t let go. Under her breath, she whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

Normally, Devin would try to stop this. She’d make an attempt to save face. But she’s raw and bleeding and she can’t remember the last time she was held like this. She can’t remember if she’s ever been held like this. Sheridan rubs circles into her back until the tears quiet, until the shaking stops, until Devin can feel the sun on her skin again. When they pull apart, Sheridan swipes a tear from Devin’s cheek, offering a somber smile.

“These things are evil,” she says. “Pure evil.”

Devin nods, throat too tight to speak properly.

“Are you gonna be okay?” Sheridan whispers.

Devin scoffs at that, wiping away more tears with the heel of her hand. “Are any of us?”

Sheridan moves to stand, helping Devin to her feet. She casts a look down the clearing toward the trail. “Let’s go make sure none of these things kidnapped Aidan. And then let’s burn every last one of them.”

They descend the mountain faster than they’ve hiked before. Devin ignores the searing blisters on her feet that haven’t turned to calluses, determined to make it back to Hannah and Ollie by nightfall. They hike until the sun is directly overhead, drawing sweat from Devin’s brow only to immediately dry it to her skin. When the wind cools and the sound of trickling water pierces the quiet, they see it.

The faint glow of a fire at the base of the hill.

They abandon their cautious descent, scrambling down until they empty into a lush, green clearing. Two tarps are draped across the trees, the firepit already loosing fat plumes of smoke from the center of camp.

Sitting at the fire, idly picking through a pack of peanuts, is Ollie.

Devin drops her bag at her feet, running to the campfire. Ollie hardly has time to stand before she crashes into him. Ollie goes rigid, then he melts into her. A moment later, Aidan joins their hug. Devin casts a glance over her shoulder and eyes Sheridan standing a few feet away, a wistful smile soft as a ghost on her lips.

Ollie pulls away, running a hand through his hair. He’s gaunter than he was when they left, eyes darker and smile dimmer. Devin looks hard into his face for a moment, but he quickly looks away.

Something’s wrong.

“Okay, first,” Aidan says, apparently oblivious to Ollie’s discomfort. He turns to Sheridan. “She’s not a mimic. She saved us from one.”

“Oh?” Ollie says.

Sheridan gives him a wave like she’s embarrassed to take credit for saving them. But Sheridan is the least of their worries now. Hannah’s gone and Ollie looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“You okay?” Devin asks. “Where’s Hannah?”

Ollie looks over his shoulder. “Yeah. I’m good. Listen, I’m glad you’re back. I need to talk to you about—”

Hannah stumbles into the clearing. She holds a full water bladder in each hand, stopping short when she catches sight of them. For a moment, Devin is sure she sees a bolt of fear in Hannah’s face, but she quickly breaks into an easy smile, jogging to the campfire to join their embrace.

Devin doesn’t miss the way Ollie goes quiet.

She swallows her confusion, surveying Ollie and Hannah’s gear. “You guys are pretty hungry, right?”

Devin hauls her backpack to the campfire. Three cans roll to freedom, hitting the forest floor with a weighty thud. Hannah and Ollie go still. They look at each other, and the wild hunger in their eyes makes the long hike worth it.

They sling the pot over the fire, combining a can of tomato soup with black beans, a pouch of rice, and a handful of spices Devin can’t name. The smell of it, musky and sweet, soaks the air. When the soup is done, they take turns slurping it straight from the pot.

Devin listens to Aidan recount their mimic run-in, listens to Ollie and Hannah describe their own encounter with a mimic that dripped from the trees, and she eats until her stomach is warm and she can taste the salty film of soup coating her tongue. Hannah and Ollie stare into the fire, eyes half-lidded, and Devin has no doubt they could clean another several pots of soup given the chance. When quiet settles in, Devin clears her throat.

“Okay,” she says, clapping to tug Hannah and Ollie from their daze. “We need to make a new list of what we know. We’re still twenty days from pickup and we’re seeing mimics more often, so I think this is gonna get more frequent. We need to … we have to figure out a way to stay safe.”

For a fraction of a second, Ollie looks at Hannah. He nods, wiping a bit of soup from the corner of his mouth. “We don’t know what they want. But the one with Liv and the one we saw the other day didn’t attack us first. They wanted to … talk?”

“Yeah, that happened with mine, too,” Aidan says around a mouthful of soup. “It just said really mean stuff. Like it wanted me to give up on my own?”

Devin shakes her head. “I don’t get it.”

“Maybe they need permission,” Sheridan says.

“To do what?”

Sheridan shrugs.

“You can’t kill them the normal way,” Hannah says. “Fire killed them before, but stabbing doesn’t kill them. It just slows them down.”

Devin arches a brow, looking from Hannah to Ollie and back. With an amused smile, she asks, “Who stabbed one?”

Ollie’s eyes flash to Hannah, but it’s wrong again. Hannah’s cheeks flush and she raises her hand. Sunlight shifts over the gaunt lines of Ollie’s face, and Devin spots his fist clenched at his knee. He isn’t proud. Devin narrows her eyes.

“We killed ours with fire, too,” Sheridan says. “It was bigger, so it died slower. But it worked.”

“So what are we at now?” Devin asks. “They’re super strong, they heal fast, they know things about us they shouldn’t, they can only be killed with fire, they can hypnotize us … anything else?”

Aidan presses his face into his hands. “We’re gonna die.”

“No…” Devin trails. “No, because this whole thing about not just killing us is clearly some kind of boundary they can’t cross. I don’t know what they want, but I think Sheridan’s right. I think they need our permission to do it.”

“We should have two people stay awake each night,” Aidan says. “That way, if one finds us, it can’t hypnotize two people at once.”

“What if they can?” Hannah asks.

Aidan opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

“I think two people is all we can spare,” Ollie says. “The main thing is that we need to stay on track and meet that pickup.”

“We just keep outrunning them,” Devin says. It doesn’t feel like it’s enough, but it’s all they’ve got. For once in her life, the solution is to keep her head down and keep moving. “We don’t engage. Whatever faces they pull, we stay focused. If they need permission to hurt us, they won’t get it.”

“What happens when they decide to stop asking?” Sheridan says, inspecting her nails. She looks up at Devin, her half smile devoid of humor. Slowly, her eyes find the rest of the group one by one. “What happens when they decide they don’t need permission anymore?”

After dinner, the five of them spread to their own corners of camp. Hannah sidles up to the creek, washing her spare set of clothes while Aidan takes the backpacks and distributes their cans and jars more evenly. Ollie sits by the fire and looks idly into its flames. Devin needs to talk to him—needs to figure out what’s shaken him like this—but she can’t pry her eyes from Sheridan.

Like usual, Sheridan is back to sitting alone with her hiker’s journal. Her hair is wet, even an hour after washing it, hanging limp at her neck. Her eyes trail each page of the journal. There’s something softer about the Sheridan that exists when she thinks no one is watching, but Devin got to see it briefly on the mountainside. Now, like a clenched fist finally unfurled, Devin’s picture of who Sheridan was before the woods changes. Maybe that’s the problem. She’s looking the wrong way, trying to puzzle out a Sheridan long-dead. Maybe the Sheridan that existed before the woods is gone now, and the Sheridan who sits across camp is someone new. Not replaced, but new.

Devin is sure she’s someone new, too.

When Sheridan’s eyes slide up from the page and find her, Devin looks away. She clears her throat and makes her way to the fire, sitting so close to Ollie their legs touch. When she leans over to bump his shoulder with hers, he blinks out of his daze.

“Hey,” he says. “What’s up?”

“That’s what I came to ask,” Devin says. “You’re being quiet. What happened?”

“Nothing, I’m just…”

“The mimic attack?”

“It’s not that.” Ollie runs his hand through his hair. His eyes are glued to the fire, but Devin is sure his lips quiver. “I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know if I should say anything.”

Devin narrows her eyes.

Ollie casts a quick glance over his shoulder at Hannah. She dips her pants in the stream, massaging a bit of dirt away with her thumbs. Devin places a hand gently on Ollie’s back and leans in so he can whisper. When he speaks, there’s a crack in his voice.

“I think there’s something wrong with Hannah.”

Devin leans back and looks him hard in the face. Whatever peace she felt a moment ago evaporates and she’s left cold. Everything was supposed to be okay once they were all together.

She swallows. “In what way?”

“You know.”

Devin grimaces. “You’re sure?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Devin expels a breath, careful to speak quietly. “I don’t want to freak out. We were wrong last time.”

“It’s not like last time,” Ollie says.

Aidan must have seen them whispering. He abandons the backpacks and sits in the dirt across from Devin and Ollie with an eager smile, wiping at his dirt-smudged nose. “What’s happening?”

Devin’s eyes don’t leave Ollie’s face. “Ollie was saying how happy he is to be together again.”

“Right,” Ollie says with a terse nod. “I had a good time with Hannah. She’s gotten so much more confident than she used to be. I’m really proud of how much she’s changed.”

Devin chances a look over Ollie’s shoulder. Hannah isn’t watching them, but she’s stopped washing her clothes. Her hands are frozen in the water, shoulders rigid. She isn’t looking, but she’s certainly listening. A bead of sweat tickles Devin’s hairline. She touches Ollie’s shoulder, and when she speaks, it’s hardly more than a whisper. “We need to have this conversation later. Outside camp.”

“What conversation?” Aidan whispers.

“Later,” Devin hisses.

She looks up and Sheridan is watching them, too. Her eyes narrow and Devin looks pointedly to the bank of the creek. But Hannah isn’t there anymore.

Devin’s heart stops.

Boots crunch behind her. She turns to find Hannah only an inch away, a rosy smile on her lips. She must’ve made it to them in a fraction of a second. In complete silence, too. Devin’s stomach turns.

“What are you guys talking about?” Hannah asks.

“I didn’t even hear you.” Devin laughs, trying to keep her breathing even. “We, uh … Ollie was just telling us you guys had a pretty peaceful hike over here. Other than the attack, obviously.”

“Yeah,” Hannah says with a weary sigh. “But we missed the rest of you, for sure. It sounds like it was less peaceful for you?”

“Yeah.” Devin nods, unsure of whether or not she’s in danger. She feels the heat of Aidan’s stare on her. There’s something dizzying about looking right into Hannah’s face. After a moment, she clears her throat. She needs to come up with something fast. “Actually, we did figure something out. The mimics … their skin burns. Like paper. We realized you can use that to literally test if someone is a mimic or not.”

“Really?” Hannah asks. “How?”

Devin swallows. “Aidan?”

Aidan stiffens.

“Can you be my practice person please?” she asks, eyes wide. “I just need the lighter. Remember?”

Aidan’s nod is rigid. He fishes the lighter from their supplies and settles in front of Devin. The fear is plain in his face, and Devin prays he’s following her line of thought. She can’t say it out loud; if Ollie is right about Hannah, one wrong move could blow this whole thing up.

Devin takes Aidan’s wrist gently, turning it palm-down. “We tested each other before we left the cabin. You just light it, and…”

She clicks the lighter and eases the tip of the flame to Aidan’s palm. Once it touches him, Devin pulls the lighter away. Aidan recoils, cradling his hand to his chest. Not a mimic.

“Oh, interesting,” Hannah says.

“We just did it to be safe,” Devin says. It’s like there’s a boulder wedged in her throat. “Should we do another test now that we’re all together?”

Hannah’s eyes narrow.

“That would make sense,” Ollie chimes in. “I can go first.”

“You think someone here is a mimic?” Hannah asks. “If you just tested each other, why do we need to do it again?”

Devin thanks the stars that Ollie thinks fast. He offers a bittersweet half smile and turns to Sheridan. “Sorry. I know you said you all tested each other, but with how things were before you guys left, I just…”

Sheridan looks to Devin. In a fraction of a second, she seems to understand, too. She gives Ollie an exaggerated eye roll, setting her journal in the dirt. “… but you want to see it yourself, right?”

“If that’s okay,” Ollie asks.

Sheridan hauls herself to her feet. She stands in front of Devin and holds her hand out, exasperated and petulant. She’s quite a performer, firing an incredulous glare at Ollie as the lighter clicks. Hannah’s expression is still inscrutable, eyes narrowed and trained on the flame.

Somehow, she doesn’t hear the thundering of Devin’s heart.

“I don’t feel like this is necessary,” Hannah says quickly, touching Devin’s wrist. “Aidan said you guys feel confident she’s safe. I trust you.”

“No, no…” Sheridan muses. “He feels like he needs proof. I’ll give him proof.”

Hannah scowls, but she moves her hand. Devin presses the flame quickly to Sheridan’s palm and it doesn’t catch.

“Okay,” Sheridan says sharply, pulling her hand from the fire. She points at Ollie. “Your turn. If I had to prove it, you do, too.”

Ollie nods.

Devin takes his hand and holds his gaze. Once they do this, Hannah is next. If she’s a mimic, she won’t let this happen. One way or another, they’ll know the truth in a few seconds. The heat of Hannah’s glare is hot on the side of Devin’s face. If she’s one of them, if they make her do this, everything is going to explode.

She swipes the flame across Ollie’s skin and nothing happens.

Without a word, all eyes find Hannah.

“Everyone feels safe now?” Hannah asks. The change in her expression is quick. She goes from solemn to cheery in a blink. “You guys are so paranoid.”

“C’mon,” Sheridan says. “Do it for team unity.”

Hannah arches a brow.

“Nobody thinks you’re a mimic,” Aidan says, and Devin is sure he’s genuine. “But just so we know we tested everyone?”

“I…” Hannah starts. When she looks around, there’s a primal fear in her eyes. She’s surrounded, and she begins to slip. “I don’t get why you guys are being so pushy. We shouldn’t be … thinking like this about each other anymore.”

“We won’t if we’ve seen proof that we’re all human,” Ollie says. “I know you are, but let’s just prove it so we all feel better.”

“She hasn’t done it yet,” Hannah hisses at Devin.

Devin rolls her eyes, quickly opening a flame under her own palm. It scorches a little, but Devin holds it a second longer than necessary just to make a point. Before Hannah can protest, Devin grabs her arm with her burnt hand. Hannah tugs it back with more force than Devin expects. She hands Ollie the lighter and grips Hannah’s arm with both hands. There’s no point in pretending anymore.

“Ollie.” Hannah breathes. “What is this? You know I’m not—”

“I know,” Ollie says.

Tenderly, he touches Hannah’s wrist and flicks the lighter on, but he hesitates before holding it to her skin. Devin watches Hannah’s face for fear, but that’s not what she gets. Hannah’s eyes darken, gaze finding the flame. She sucks in a breath and Devin realizes a moment too late that she’s not resigning herself to the test.

She’s gathering herself.

In a flash, Hannah knocks the lighter from Ollie’s grip, grabs two fistfuls of his shirt, and throws him to the ground. She raises her foot and brings it down hard on Aidan’s leg behind her, earning a yelp of pain. Aidan crumples and, before Devin can reach for him, Hannah’s elbow meets her nose.

Devin reels back, cupping her hand under her nose. The campsite spins, a blur of green and black. When she looks down, all she sees is red. Blood pools in her palm, dribbling down her upper lip into her mouth. She spits it in the dirt and touches her nose tenderly. It throbs.

Ollie was right, then.

Just like Liv’s uncanny strength, Hannah’s quick movements are inhuman. Devin focuses just in time to see Sheridan dive for the lighter. Hannah stomps down on Sheridan’s hand with a sickening crunch. Sheridan cries out, clutching her hand to her chest, and Hannah grabs the lighter. She casts one glance over her shoulder at the carnage, then bolts into the trees.

But Devin isn’t letting this one get away. She’s endured enough since they started this journey. They all have. She takes one look at the others and bursts into the trees after Hannah. They aren’t losing anyone else.

22

For a split second, Ollie considers staying down.

Hannah’s footsteps thunder away from camp and, moments later, Devin launches after her. Ollie rolls onto his elbows, coughing into the dirt. Sheridan lies on the ground a few feet away, clutching her hand to her chest. Her fingers are swollen, skin red as a ripe tomato.

“Oh god…” Ollie says.

“It gets worse.” Sheridan breathes.

Ollie briefly thinks she means Devin. Sheridan isn’t looking to the trees, though. She looks across the campfire, brow raised in uncharacteristic concern.

Aidan is on his back, arm tenderly draped over his eyes. His breaths come out in short sputters. His leg is splayed out under him, straight until a sharp bend at the mouth of his boot. Ollie closes his eyes. He doesn’t need a medical degree to know Aidan’s ankle is broken.

“I gotta…” Ollie stammers. “I gotta go help Devin.”

Sheridan nods.

Ollie stumbles to his feet. He reaches for his spear, but hesitates. Even if he’s sure Hannah is a mimic, he can’t hurt her. Even if he’s spent the last twenty-four hours afraid for his life, Hannah hasn’t done anything to him. In fact, she saved him. Even a few seconds ago, she only pushed him when he’s sure she could’ve done much worse.

He has to go unarmed.

He takes off into the trees, breath cold in his lungs. There’s a flash of movement in the distance, but it’s impossible to say if it’s Hannah, Devin, or something else. Ollie feels the close heat of eyes on him from all directions.

“Devin?” he shouts.

The woods are quiet.

He should’ve done this differently. He should’ve had a plan for when they accused her. If she’s a mimic, the thought of what happened to the real Hannah makes Ollie sick. He wonders when they lost her.

Ollie spins, eyes trained on the branches. Liv was able to climb a tree in a matter of seconds, even injured. If Hannah got the slightest head start, she could already be above him. He’s done everything wrong, and the fear makes his head spin. He listens for the sounds of running, but there’s only silence. Like every other time he’s been near a mimic, it’s too quiet.

She’s close.

“Hannah?” Ollie calls. “Where are—”

Behind him, a twig snaps.

Ollie turns and finds himself face-to-face with Hannah. Her wide brown eyes search his face, fearful breaths spilling from her split, chapped lips. Immediately, Ollie is disarmed. She looks like she did the first day they met. Her expression is so human there’s a flicker of doubt in Ollie’s mind. Maybe he has it wrong. Maybe he spent the last day afraid for no reason.

“Ollie,” Hannah says. “I’m sorry … I got so scared. You know I’m not one of those things.”

“Okay,” he says cautiously. He raises his hands in surrender. “Okay. If you’re not, we have to prove it.”

“What do I do?”

Ollie swallows. “Let’s go back to camp.”

He extends a hand, and maybe it’s delusion, but he isn’t afraid.

Hannah watches him for a long moment and, as hard as Ollie tries, he can’t read her. She nods, defeated. And then it’s there again, like TV static in his skull. A deepening nausea, a dizziness, a brightness to the green in the leaves. He realizes a moment too late what’s happening.

“Wait—”

Hannah grabs a fistful of his hair and slams his skull into the nearest tree. The sky flashes white, and then night circles his vision like he’s peering through a kaleidoscope. A sickly throb squeezes his brain so tight he lets out a whimper. He crumples to the forest floor, drunkenly opening his eyes just enough to see Hannah’s blurry outline crouch in front of him. Her fingertips ghost his brow, pushing a tangle of hair from his face.

“I could kill you,” she says, her voice warped like pulled taffy. “But I don’t want to.”

Ollie blinks over and over, but his vision is slow to clear. He crawls back, but Hannah quickly shoves a hand to his chest, pinning him to the tree. Her breath is quick, desperate.

“We should go back to camp,” Hannah whispers. “And I think you should tell everyone you were wrong. Can you do that?”

“Hannah…” Ollie croaks.

Before she can say anything else, something equally blurry slams into her. A slender, spindly figure holding what Ollie’s sure is a hefty branch. The figure scrambles over Hannah’s limp body, gathering her arms behind her back. Through the darkening haze, Ollie is sure he sees a flash of lavender hair.

“Devin!” Sheridan calls. “She’s over here!”

It’s not like the river, he thinks faintly as night closes in on him. Sheridan didn’t let him drown this time. He doesn’t see if Devin makes it to them, doesn’t see if Hannah gets back up. His skull finds rest against the tree and he rolls out of consciousness.

When Hannah wakes, Devin is waiting for her. Rope binds her to a tree near the campfire, but it feels silly given the kind of havoc they know she can wreak. Just like with Sheridan, they’ve fashioned her a blindfold from a bit of T-shirt, and just like with Sheridan, they have no way to keep her from hearing them.

It’s a problem Devin will have to solve later, but for right now, she wants Hannah to hear her every word.

Sheridan sits on a stump near Devin, nursing her swollen fingers. The bleeding from Devin’s nose has mercifully stopped. Without a mirror, she doesn’t know how bad the damage is. When she asks Sheridan, all she gets is a tight-lipped smile. She supposes it’s better than laughter.

Ollie and Aidan sit together, Aidan’s leg propped up in their sling with his boot lying in the dirt beside him. In only an hour, his ankle has swollen to twice its normal size, bruises so dark they’re nearly black. Devin tries not to think about how they’ll haul him out of these woods on it.

But it’s Ollie she’s worried about.

He came to life only a few minutes after blacking out, but even now, he’s too quiet. His head lolls back against the tree, eyes fluttering open and shut like a cat lounging in the sun. When they ask him about Hannah, he just shakes his head and winces. His pupils are too wide, devouring the green of his eyes.

Sheridan’s fingers are broken, Aidan’s ankle is broken, Devin’s nose might be broken. Ollie’s broken in a way they can’t see; maybe in a way that’s worse. Hannah might not have escaped, but she certainly fucked them over.

Hannah groans and scrunches up her nose. When she speaks, it’s a croak. “Where … where am I?”

“You’re awake,” Devin says, tamping down the quiver in her voice. “We have questions.”

“Devin?” Hannah asks.

Devin rolls her eyes. “Yes, it’s Devin. All of us are here. We’re not feeling great. You wanna explain what happened?”

“What do you mean?” Hannah asks. “What happened?”

“Oh, this is good.” Sheridan laughs.

Hannah stiffens. “Why is she laughing?”

Behind them, Aidan shifts to get a better look at Hannah. Ollie seems unfazed, which makes Devin’s stomach sink even further. Whatever she did to him when she ran from camp, they need to get him out of these woods and to a hospital. The damage is worse than any of them realized.

“We asked you to do a lighter test, remember?” Devin asks. “You freaked out and beat the shit out of us. Let’s talk about that.”

“I what?”

“Stop acting,” Sheridan says. “You’re not very good at it.”

There’s a piece of Devin, under the panic, that enjoys this dynamic. She and Sheridan on the same team, terrible in tandem. Only a few weeks ago, Devin was throwing fists at Sheridan for speaking to Hannah like this. Finding the wounds in a person and plunging a knife in is a talent, though, and Sheridan’s better at it than anyone in this group. It used to scare Devin to see her do it. Now, with Sheridan pointed like a blade to Hannah’s throat, it feels powerful.

“You know, I actually wondered about you,” Sheridan says, scooting an inch closer to Hannah. “We were all seeing these horrible mimic-versions of people … except you. None of them turned into your shitty dad, did they?”

“I don’t understand!” Hannah cries so loud it echoes from the trees. “You’re all crazy!”

When Devin and Sheridan don’t reply, Hannah slumps. Her shoulders shake, a little at first, then violently. It takes Devin a moment too long to realize she’s crying. Maybe it’s because Hannah—or not-Hannah—doesn’t cry like she should. When she cries, it’s like an infant wailing. A few puckered breaths at first, then a screech that makes Devin step back.

“Stop!” Devin snaps.

“Why are you doing this?” Hannah sobs.

“Devin…” Aidan says. “This feels—”

“—bad?” Devin finishes. “I know, but—”

Hannah screams again, voice pitching so high Devin has to clap her hands over her ears. This time, her eyes find the trees. They still know virtually nothing about mimics. This could be how Hannah summons more of them.

“Hannah,” Devin barks. “If you’re not a mimic, we gave you a way to prove it.”

“Ollie?” Hannah calls, ignoring Devin. “Tell them I’m not a mimic. We don’t have to use fire. You can tell them.”

Against his tree, Ollie tries to sit up. Aidan reaches to support him and Devin’s stomach drops. He won’t last much longer if they don’t get help now. They need to save Ollie and they need to break Hannah and they’re running out of time to do both.

“Aidan, what do we do if he has a concussion?” Devin asks.

Aidan touches Ollie’s knee. “Limit light exposure? Have him lie down? I don’t know. You’re not supposed to treat them at home. And I think this is … worse than that.”

“Damn,” Sheridan says. “Maybe we should call 911?”

“You’re hilarious,” Devin says flatly. She crouches in front of Hannah. “Listen. Either you let us do the lighter test, or we—”

Hannah swallows. “Kill me?”

Devin digs her knuckles into the dirt. She doesn’t actually know what they’ll do. Letting her go means she can escape or, worse, lead more mimics back to them. But killing her feels beyond extreme. Even if she knows this version of Hannah isn’t human, the mimic wears her face, her voice, her memories. Devin can’t watch the life drain from her, can’t imagine being the one to snuff her out.

“We won’t kill you,” Devin says. “I promise.”

Hannah falls quiet. She cocks her head to the side. “No matter what?”

At that, Devin looks at Sheridan. Now they’re getting somewhere. Hannah’s posture shifts, easing into her restraints like she plans to be here a while. Devin suddenly regrets the blindfold; without Hannah’s eyes, her expression is a mystery.

“You mean no matter what you tell us?” Sheridan asks.

Hannah nods.

“Okay,” Devin says. “We promise.”

Hannah smiles and Devin thinks she might be sick. It’s all wrong. She steels herself because she’s done an okay job of keeping the idea of “real” Hannah out of her head up to now. But this twist of Hannah’s lips is all the confirmation she needs. The Hannah they knew when they entered the woods is gone, and for better or worse, they’re going to learn where she went.

She hopes Ollie’s concussion is bad enough to keep him from listening.

“You’re not the real Hannah, are you?” Devin asks.

“I am now,” Hannah says. “I’m Hannah in the ways that matter.”

Devin eyes Sheridan, but she only shrugs.

“Where’s our Hannah?”

Hannah’s head tilts farther, ear touching her shoulder. “Nowhere. Here. It depends on what you mean.”

“I didn’t realize we were talking to the Joker,” Sheridan mutters.

“Is she still in there?” Devin asks.

“Should I explain?” Hannah asks. “I don’t think you know the right questions. Hannah is here and not here. I’m her and I’m not. I don’t think that’s the information you want.”

Behind them, Aidan whimpers.

Devin grits her teeth. She’s a thousand things at once—glad their suspicions were correct and the real Hannah didn’t hurt them, disgusted at the time she’s spent in the company of a mimic, crushed at the idea that this is what’s left of the girl they entered the woods with.

She exhales in a hiss. “Why do you pretend to be her?”

Hannah’s brow lifts. “I’m not pretending. But I understand what you’re saying. I decided to become Hannah because I want to leave the woods.”

“Can you change into anyone else?” Sheridan asks.

“No.” Hannah hesitates. “Not anymore.”

“What does that mean?” Devin snaps.

“Hannah and I made a deal.” Hannah shifts in her ties just enough to cross her legs. Her dark hair gathers at her shoulders. “I’ll make you a deal, too.”

Devin and Sheridan lock eyes again, and for the first time, Devin lets fear overtake her. She doesn’t care if Sheridan sees it in her face. She wants Sheridan to see she’s scared. Because as much as Devin wants to get them out of these woods, this is beyond the scope of what she can understand. It was one thing for monsters to exist in theory, but now it’s real. This monster is real, it’s speaking to her, and it did something to her friend. The impossibility of it is crushing.

“What kind of deal?” Sheridan asks before Devin can gather herself. “You guys spend a lot of time harassing us and not a lot of time saying what you actually want.”

“I don’t want what the rest of them want,” Hannah says, snapping to face Sheridan. “I don’t care if you all make it out of here. I won’t stop you.”

“Then why did you hurt us?” Aidan asks.

“You tried to kill me.”

“Wait, no,” Devin says. “No, we are not accepting deals. We’re asking the questions right now. What are you?”

Hannah goes still again. The quiet stretches so long Devin thinks she might be done talking. Finally, she sighs. “Here are the terms of my deal. I will get you out of this forest in one piece. When we make it out, you let me go.”

“What?”

“I’ll answer every question, but only if you promise I’m free when we escape. That’s my deal.”

“No,” Devin snaps. It sends a shock of pain through her nose. “No, we’re in control of this conversation. We’re not talking to you about deals until you explain what you are and what you did to Hannah.”

Hannah sighs. “I guess we’re stuck, then.”

“We promise,” Sheridan says, shooting a quick glance at Devin. “We promise we’ll let you go.”

Hannah shakes her head. “You have to mean it.”

“How do you know I don’t mean it?”

“I’ll tell you how I know,” Hannah says, “when you make a deal with me.”

“Jesus, you’re annoying,” Sheridan scoffs.

Devin turns away and eyes the boys. Even with all their setbacks, they’ve stayed on track for pickup so far. But looking at them now, rescue feels miles away. Aidan can’t walk. Ollie’s on the brink of collapse. And then there’s the Hannah problem. She turns back to Sheridan.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers. “We can’t move them and her.”

“What?” Sheridan asks, brow raised. “You don’t think my newly developed muscles can help transport two critically injured boys and an inhuman creature of the woods?”

Devin blinks. “Sometimes you just … say so many words.”

Despite the terror of their situation, Sheridan smiles. There’s a small comfort in knowing they’re in this together. They’re awake and alive, and even if everyone else is out of commission, Devin doesn’t have to do this alone. When she looks at Sheridan, she’s a thousand times less scared than she should be. It takes her by surprise.

“I don’t think we can keep going like this,” Devin says. “If we stay put, do you think we can keep her contained?”

Behind them, Ollie groans.

“She didn’t…” he manages. His head lolls back. “… want to leave. She wanted to stay with us.”

“Why?”

Hannah smiles sweetly. “If I leave this camp, they’ll kill me. You won’t.”

“How do you know we won’t kill you?” Devin says at the same time Sheridan asks, “Why would they kill you?”

Hannah pointedly ignores Devin, turning to Sheridan. “Because I killed them first.”

“Aren’t you all on the same side?” Sheridan asks.

“Only a few of us will be able to leave this forest. I would love to tell you more about it…” she trails off, turning back to Devin. “… when we have a deal.”

“We’re done talking,” Devin says, jaw tight. “We’ll just wait. You’re gonna … stay against that tree and you won’t get to drink or eat or move until you tell us. That’s our deal.”

There’s a hush over their campsite. It takes Devin a moment to realize the quiet comes from Hannah herself. It presses low to the earth, blots out any other sounds the forest might make, and if Devin didn’t feel the rise and fall of her own chest, she might doubt she was breathing.

After a moment, Hannah nods.

“If that makes you feel better.” She settles like she’s shrugging into a sleeping bag. “I’ve waited much longer to eat.”

Devin turns away fast. There’s something about the way she says it that makes her ill. Sheridan moves quietly to her side, her fingers just finding Devin’s elbow. It takes her by surprise, the tenderness of it. If she didn’t know Sheridan better, she’d say it was meant to be comforting. It isn’t, though; since the watchtower, every time Sheridan touches her, it burns.

Devin steps away.

“I think this is what we’ve got,” she whispers to Sheridan and Aidan. Ollie’s eyes flutter shut again, and Devin doubts he’s retaining much when they’re open. “We can’t move. I think we need to just … hold down the fort here until she gives us something. We have the supplies.”

“Should we look for the real Hannah?” Aidan asks.

Suddenly, Devin wishes Sheridan’s fingers still ghosted her elbow. “I think we can’t. I don’t … I don’t know what happened to her. But with Ollie like this, the three of us have to stick together or someone will be an easy target.”

When she looks at Sheridan, it’s clear they’re thinking the same thing: there is no Hannah to find. She wishes she didn’t think it.

Aidan seems to understand, though. He nods and turns to Ollie, pulling up his eyelids to check the whites of his eyes. Even if Aidan can’t walk, he does what he can. They all do. Devin just prays it’s enough.

“We stay here,” Devin says. “And we wait.”

23

Time moves differently when you measure days by light and dark. Tracking hours is more than Ollie can handle, so he judges time of day by brightness. Daylight burns, so he rests when the sun is out. Like a wilderness vampire, Sheridan says, and Ollie manages to laugh.

Sometimes, Aidan slips a water bottle under his neck. Other times, he tells Ollie to sleep upright. Devin dabs his forehead at night with a damp cloth, and soon, his vision creeps back. He sees the silver of Sheridan’s hair first, the sun gleaming from the crack in Aidan’s glasses second, the black of Devin’s eyes third. He manages to keep down a few bites of rice and jerky and it feels like progress.

By the third day, Ollie is more or less himself. Dizzy, confused, and seconds from collapse, but himself.

He’s scooping oatmeal straight from the pot when Sheridan slaps her journal closed. For days, she’s approached the end of Josiah Templeton’s time in the woods. Wordlessly, all eyes land on her, waiting for the final review.

“Well?” Devin asks.

Sheridan’s frown telegraphs a bad ending for their friend. In a forest like this, completely alone, Ollie can’t imagine what a good ending would even look like.

“It was all a dream,” Sheridan drawls. When no one laughs, she straightens. “You want me to read it? Warning, it’s a bummer.”

When everyone nods, Sheridan clears her throat.

“I don’t know why I’m writing anymore, given what I’ve planned. I guess, at a certain point, I stopped thinking of this journal as something for myself and started using it as a letter. I don’t know what will last if I do this right, but if someone finds my journal, I hope it helps them do what I couldn’t.

“I thought finding this cabin would save me, but it’s become more of a tomb. I haven’t written in days because I don’t have words to explain how miserable I am. I brought what food I could carry from Magruder Point, but I’m only a few days from running out again. I’m a horrible hunter, and even if I weren’t, I haven’t seen an animal in weeks. I should keep moving, but honestly, I’m tired.

“The mimic comes to me every night.

“I don’t know if it can’t get into the cabin or if it simply chooses not to. It has tried many shapes these last few days, and I think each one whittles a bit more of me away. At first, it was my brother asking me to come meet his baby. His baby! It could be lying just to hurt me, but I wept myself to sleep thinking I might die without hearing my real nephew’s laugh. It tried my mother next. Her voice was even softer than I remembered. She follows me from outside the house, mirroring my movements, coming up to the windows in the dark to comfort me. Even when I cover my ears, I can’t help remembering how soft her hands used to be. The mimic has worn the faces of people I love and people I hate. Lately, it’s been wearing the face of my wife.

“Maria.

“If they somehow get this journal to you, I hope you know you’re the one I’ve craved the most out here. I’ve missed you more and more every day, so it’s fitting that the mimic has chosen to haunt me with a pale shadow of you. I know I should keep looking for rescue, but I think I miss you too much to leave you. If I’m meant to die out here, I want your face to be the last thing I see. Fire destroys the mimics. I’m praying it destroys me, too.

“It’s beautiful outside tonight. The lake glitters under a wide moon, the sky near-red and hazy with dying light. I hear the mimic in the grass again. Its breath sounds more and more like yours as night comes. I’m sorry I didn’t have the strength to find you again, Maria.

“I think tonight I’ll invite my creature inside.”

The camp falls quiet.

“Okay,” Devin says finally. “Guess we know what happened to the cabin.”

Ollie heard most of the words, but his head is full of cotton. He blinks into the too-bright sun and it rings in his ears. When he snaps his gaze away, it lands on Hannah.

Though a part of him has spent the last few days aware she was with them, staunchly not talking, something new comes over him seeing her now. The pain in his head throbs, but that isn’t the worst of it. When he looks at her, his understanding of the last days—weeks, even—in these woods begins to unravel.

Static buzzes in Ollie’s head as he forces himself to stand. He thinks he hears Aidan’s meek voice warning him to stay down, but he tunes it out. He grasps a handful of sticks and plunges them into the campfire. The campsite spins on its axis and Ollie has to close his eyes to stay balanced. He stumbles forward, catches his breath, and jabs the burning sticks at Hannah.

She recoils. “What are you doing?”

“We’re not dying out here,” Ollie says. “You should start talking.”

“Ollie,” Devin says, rushing to his side. “If you touch her with that, she’ll—”

“Die, right?” Ollie says. “Like the real Hannah?”

“I…” Hannah starts, pressed hard to the tree. “I told you what I need if you want answers.”

“Okay, well, I’m not promising you anything,” Ollie says. “But I heard you say you can tell if someone means the things they say. If you don’t tell us what happened to Hannah, I’ll use this right now. I don’t care if it kills you.”

“Ollie,” Devin snaps, gripping his arm.

Ollie’s face burns. Through a ragged breath, he asks, “Do I mean it?”

Hannah swallows.

“She’s dead.”

It’s like someone has pulled the stopper from their clearing. The campsite exhales, deflates, and it’s all Ollie can do not to fall to his knees. He knew it already, knew it the way some truths are bone-deep. But hearing her admit it in words is too much.

Through gritted teeth, he asks, “Because you killed her?”

Not-Hannah hesitates. “Yes.”

Even Sheridan winces. Ollie should ask more questions, but now it feels like unburying her. It’s all wrong. He wants to know how long ago they lost her, and he’s ashamed he didn’t notice sooner. His grip on the sticks is shaky as the flames begin to sear down to his hand.

“When?”

“Three weeks.”

Ollie tries to think back that far and it’s like his memory hits a wall. It’s not possible. They can’t have been without her that long. He would have known. No, he’s sure she’s lying to hurt him. It must’ve been a few days ago. Ollie tries to recall any nights Hannah was on watch by herself.

“The night I left camp…” Aidan speaks up from behind them. When Ollie turns to face him, Aidan looks down. “If it’s exactly three weeks, it would’ve been the night I went to find the trail. When we got lost.”

“Oh.”

“Yes,” Hannah says coolly. “After I moved you back to the trail.”

Devin sinks, sitting with her head in her hands. Sheridan pulls her knees to her chest, similarly horrified. Ollie tries to understand it, but he can’t. The brush that surrounds their campsite rustles quietly, bright green and light with summer. It’s too warm for him to feel this cold. None of it feels real.

“Why?” he asks.

“I didn’t want to be Aidan. I wanted to be Hannah.”

When no one speaks, she shakes her head.

“I spent hours watching you all before I decided. Most of us have been watching. We only have a small window of time to make a choice. Most of them wanted the strongest body or the brightest future. They were determined to become one of your adults, and that became a bloodbath.”

“A bloodbath?” Aidan echoes numbly.

“How do you…” Devin starts, voice froggy with disgust, “… become someone?”

“You ask.”

Ollie snatches the makeshift blindfold from Hannah’s eyes. She blinks in the sunlight, focusing on the fire. Her nose wrinkles and the expression is so human it throws Ollie off-balance.

“I’m answering your questions,” Hannah says, eyeing the fire. “You can put that down now.”

“No,” Ollie snaps.

“Be careful.” Hannah smiles sweetly. “The things you’ve seen are just a fraction of what I can do.”

“Then why are you trying to become someone else?” Devin asks.

“I have to,” Hannah says. “It’s the only point of being alive.”

Ollie doesn’t lower his arm. “Why did you choose her?”

Hannah meets his gaze, but Ollie isn’t afraid. Maybe it’s because he’s still recovering from his brain being rattled around like a Ping-Pong ball, but he isn’t scared of what this creature will do to him. All he feels is burning, suffocating anger.

“She was closest to giving up,” Hannah says. “She was easiest.”

“No,” Ollie snaps. “That’s not true. She was getting better. She—”

Hannah tilts her face to Sheridan. “It’d be pretty fucking stupid to believe the family that sent you here and didn’t even write to see how you’re doing still loves you.”

Sheridan stiffens at that.

“That’s what you do?” Ollie asks. “You break a person down until they don’t want to live anymore, then you take their place? Why?”

Something close to remorse twitches in Hannah’s expression. “I don’t want to answer questions about this part anymore. You want to get out of this forest and so do I. Let me help you escape.”

Ollie shakes his head. “I don’t get it.”

“You crossed into our territory,” Hannah snaps. It’s the first time she’s shown them true anger. The first time she seems to feel anything, for that matter. “I do what I need to survive, just like the rest of you.”

Ollie means to say more, but Sheridan perks up, surfacing like she’s just come out of a dream. She motions them all away from Hannah, toward a small patch of dirt near the creek. Ollie helps Aidan to join them, and once they’re settled, Sheridan pulls her map from her backpack and splays it across the dirt. She traces a finger back along their trail before tapping a spot near the beginning of the hike.

“It wasn’t like this at the beginning, was it?” Sheridan asks, more to herself than anyone else. “All the weird quiet spots and mimic attacks. That didn’t start night one.”

Ollie narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“She says we crossed into their territory. Josiah said he thought he crossed a barrier at some point, too.” Sheridan runs a hand through her hair. She looks at Devin. “When did things start getting weird?”

Devin’s eyes widen, and it suddenly hits Ollie, too. They crossed into the mimics’ territory. Sheridan is right.

“The river,” Devin and Ollie say at once.

“The coaches disappeared the night we crossed the river,” Aidan says. “Do you think the river was the boundary?”

At once, they turn to Hannah. There’s something like sympathy in her eyes, which makes Ollie’s stomach turn. The piece of him that wants to march back up to her and demand more answers wars with the part that never wants to look at her again.

“If we cross the river again,” Sheridan asks, “will we be out of your territory?”

Hannah considers. “Yes.”

Ollie sighs. The river winds its way all over their map. As they’ve hiked, their trail has more or less run parallel to the water the whole way. They’ve been hiking the border of mimic territory this whole time, then. They were always only a mile or so from safety.

“And if we cross the river,” Sheridan continues, “will mimics be able to follow us across?”

Again, Hannah considers. “I’ve never tried.”

Ollie grimaces. It occurs to him that, if they really are just skirting along the edge of mimic territory, things could be much worse. They need to get out of these woods fast. To Sheridan, he says, “We should try.”

They pore over the map for a long time, but one thing seems abundantly clear: not all four of them will make it across the river. Not in their condition, and not if the mimics think they’re losing their chance at a body. The closest place to cross is at least three miles from camp, which Aidan certainly won’t be able to do on his ankle. And though he’s starting to feel clearer, the dizziness and haze in Ollie’s skull make the hike feel impossible for him, too. He swallows hard, resigned.

For the third time since this nightmare began, they’ll need to split up.

24

The plan is set. In the morning, Devin and Sheridan will split off again, this time toward a patch of river that looks narrower than the rest. If all goes well—which is a massive “if”—they’ll cross as fast as possible, find help, and get Ollie and Aidan rescued. All Ollie has to do is keep himself and Aidan alive until then. It seems simple enough. He and Aidan decide to plan out a trap to stop the mimics, or at least slow them down.

The whole time, Ollie thinks about Hannah.

The horrific implications of not-Hannah’s existence roll in one by one. Almost every conversation he’s had with the kind, wide-eyed girl from California, he begins to realize, was a performance. All the stolen glances, half smiles, unexpected kindnesses,… all of it was a lie.

Ollie fights to keep his food down.

Sunset settles between the trees as Ollie helps Aidan to his tarp. Once Sheridan leaves to refill water bladders and Devin goes to collect firewood, he’s practically alone with the monster. She hasn’t moved in hours, head lolled back against the bark of the tree she’s bound to, but he feels her watching him.

But Ollie won’t let this thing get to him. He won’t think about what the mimic did to Hannah, how it must’ve happened feet from where he slept. How he closed his eyes that night thinking about how it might feel to hold Hannah and woke up looking into the eyes of the creature that killed her. He racks his brain trying to understand how he missed it. How he didn’t hear.

“You don’t want to ask me anything?” not-Hannah finally asks.

Ollie refuses to look at her long enough to see if she’s being sincere.

She shifts against her ties. “It’s just the two of us. I know everything about her. You could ask me anything.”

Ollie snaps, sharp, like one tendon rolling over another.

He looks at the mimic finally and his face burns. She looks just like Hannah, from the deep black of her eyes to her round upper lip, the way her lashes were full and dark, the way her cheeks were always a little rosy, even when she was sick. Looking into the mimic’s face, he should be able to tell the difference. But he can’t. It isn’t like the mimic impersonating his father. Every ridge and line of her face is exact. If it weren’t for the missing necklace, Ollie wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.

“Don’t talk about her.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t deserve to.”

“But you do?” Hannah asks. She arches her brow with a kind of smugness the real Hannah never would’ve worn. “I know everything about her. You only knew her for a few days.”

“She—”

Ollie starts his sentence, but he can’t figure out what to say. He can’t find the shape of his anger, even as it burns in his throat.

“In fact,” the mimic muses, unconcerned, “I think you’ve known me longer than you knew her.”

Again, Ollie finds himself sinking. She’s right.

“I was awake,” Hannah says distantly. “The night the others tried to take you.”

Ollie’s stomach turns. “What?”

“I was listening.”

Ollie’s head spins from standing for so long and he doesn’t want to keep talking to this pale imitation of a girl he … he doesn’t know now. Hannah saved him that night. She’d thrown the fire at the mimics. It was the first time they saw the mimics burn, and he realizes now how she knew to do it.

With each thing he learns, it gets harder to get his head around it. He’s spent nights looking into the dark of Hannah’s eyes picturing the ways they might come to know each other on the other side of these woods. He was so sure of her. But it’s not just that she’s gone; it’s that she was never there. The night she held him as he cried about his father, the day at the creek when she encouraged him to dream, the way she touched his cheek before kissing him, it was all the mimic.

“You could’ve let them take me,” Ollie says. “You wouldn’t have been so outnumbered in camp.”

Hannah laughs. “Their strategy wouldn’t have worked. Desperation for a body made them reckless. They were more interested in taking you quickly than taking you well.”

Ollie shakes his head. “The things they said…”

“… were hurtful, but not enough to make you give up,” Hannah says. “They barely knew you. You wouldn’t have caved in to them. I listened and decided if I should help them or help you.”

She sighs and closes her eyes.

“Before we commit to a form, we can change shape freely. We see humans … differently from the way you see each other. When I look at you, I see dozens of faces. They color you like paint. I don’t always know what they mean, I just know they’re important. Your grandma, your father, a few of your friends from school. The others here, too. They mean something to you now.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Ollie says.

“You don’t have to,” Hannah says. “I can’t see much about you anymore, anyway. Most of what I know now is from the things you told Hannah. She liked learning about you. She liked that you wanted to know things about her.”

Ollie’s hands ball into fists. “You don’t know what she thought.”

“Yes, I do,” Hannah says, and it’s almost like there’s a glimmer of remorse in her. “In theory, I knew what it was like to commit to a form. When we absorb the one we’re becoming, we see all of them. Beginning to end, everything they ever felt, everything they remembered, every little detail that clung to their mind over the years. I didn’t realize how … overwhelming that would be. At first, I felt the joy of Hannah’s childhood, the way she loved her siblings and her first cat and the sparkly notebook she used for math class. And moment by moment, I felt Hannah’s joy die. It wasn’t a quick thing. They crushed it out of her so slowly she didn’t realize it was happening, but feeling it all in a matter of minutes … I know you’ll blame me, but he killed her as much as I did.”

Ollie tries to process what she’s saying, but his attention snags on one piece of it. “What do you mean by ‘absorb’?”

Hannah blinks. “I don’t think I should tell you.”

“You have to.”

“You won’t like it.”

“What part of this do you think I like?” Ollie snaps. “Everything you’ve told me is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard. So just … I need to know what happened to her. I need to—”

“We consume the one we become,” Hannah says flatly.

The world drops out from under him.

“It’s painless, Ollie,” she says. “If you’d agreed to let that mimic take your place, you wouldn’t have felt a thing. Just joy and warmth, like sinking into a pleasant dream.”

“You ate her?”

Hannah says nothing.

“You’re lying,” Ollie snaps. “Say you’re lying.”

“I didn’t want to tell you,” Hannah says. “I … when it was done and I realized what I’d done, I wept for hours. I was so ashamed, and that feeling was so human. I realized I was feeling things as she would and it was excruciating. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. And then, when you woke up, you comforted me.”

Ollie’s stomach twists in a knot. He remembers it now—the morning Aidan was lost, the morning it rained, the morning Hannah was sick. He’d never seen her so miserable. All he’d wanted to do was make her feel better.

“The way you spoke to her—to me—changed my mind,” Hannah says, a hint of warmth to her voice Ollie hasn’t heard since she revealed herself. She looks at him and there’s a weight to her stare. “I decided to do this for her. Make it out of this forest, go back to Sacramento, and tell her family I’ll never speak to them again. I decided I’d go out into the world and do all the things she didn’t get to. I want to be her as she was when she was alive, but more. So, when I was deciding if I would help the ‘mimics’ or help you, I chose you.”

Ollie is almost convinced by it. And then he feels the dizziness again, the buzzing in his brain, the unearthly quiet. “You do that when you’re trying to control me, don’t you?”

Hannah sighs. “It’s weaker now. The more I become like her, the less I can do.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because I’ve appreciated the time we’ve spent together. And because I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

“Are you?”

“I am.” Hannah looks down. “More and more, I find myself becoming what she was. I knew the convergence of our minds wouldn’t happen all at once, but it’s jarring. The violence … it doesn’t come easily to me anymore. She wouldn’t have hurt you. It feels wrong that I did.”

Ollie looks away to keep his composure. Maybe it’s the head injury or the exhaustion, but his feelings sit so close to the surface now. He wants to believe her, but the pain twisting its way through him is suffocating. He was in the same camp as Hannah when this happened. He should’ve heard her. He should’ve saved her.

“She should’ve gotten to do it all herself,” Ollie says finally. “You think she wouldn’t have been able to, but she would’ve. You can say anything you want about doing this for her, but you took it away from her.”

Hannah says nothing. Her head hangs low, knees tucked together. Ollie briefly thinks it might be genuine remorse she’s feeling. When she looks up, though, her expression is cool and distant. Any traces he saw of the old Hannah in her face are gone now.

“They promised no one would hurt me,” Hannah says.

Ollie swallows. “I didn’t.”

“I wish you would give me a chance to leave this place,” Hannah says. “I wish you would give me a chance to prove I can be just like her.”

Ollie turns away from her at that. The fact is that he’ll be here alone with Aidan and not-Hannah tomorrow and he can’t rely on her strange pacifism. He can’t count on her to save them again, and he can’t think about what they’ll do with her when they cross the river. He can’t think about losing this imitation of Hannah, and he can’t think about the real Hannah being gone, swallowed up by a beast.

He needs to get out of this forest before he loses his mind.

25

Devin makes it to the water as the rain begins to clear. Punches of sherbet peek between storm clouds, coating the trees in rosy light. This lake is bigger than the mountaintop lake she and Sheridan found days ago. Along the shore, rugged cliffs peter out to make room for scraggy alcoves that lap up the slow waves. Low-hanging tree branches bow, soundlessly submerging their leaves in gemstone water. The murky clouds are tight to the mountains here, sitting like a mist on the horizon. In another forest—in another lifetime—Devin imagines spending the long hours of a summer night at this lake, watching the sun sink until it’s gone. Sheridan sits alone at the lake shore.

No, not at the shore.

She sits in the water, facing the setting sun with her knees bundled to her chest. The slow ebb of the water pulses against her thighs, but the water soaking through her shorts doesn’t seem to bother her. Devin’s mouth feels dry. Her chest is tighter than it has any right to be. The group’s water bladders sit in the gravel behind Sheridan, full and forgotten. Devin half expects her to be reading the journal again, but it sits untouched in the dirt beside her.

For a moment, Devin does nothing but watch the wind flick bits of Sheridan’s hair at her neck. Finally, she drops her firewood sling and crunches her way down the gravelly shore. Sheridan doesn’t turn to face her, but a quick glance over her shoulder apparently tells her all she needs to know.

She sighs. “Was I taking too long?”

“I started to think the water was fighting back.” Devin stands at the water’s edge, just far enough to keep the slight waves from touching her boots. She swallows. “You feeling okay?”

“Oh yeah.” Sheridan scoffs. “Fantastic.”

Devin finally rolls her eyes and peels off her boots and socks, letting the crisp air skim the blisters aching on the soles of her feet. She steps into the water until she’s standing in front of Sheridan, then sinks to a seat, facing away from the sun so she can look into Sheridan’s face. Her shadow covers Sheridan like a mask, blocking the sun from her glassy eyes, and Devin has half a mind to lean away just to see the gold reflection in them again.

Something is wrong with her.

“When we first started this whole thing,” Devin says, “you said I was always being dramatic. But I’m not the one sulking in the water by herself.”

Sheridan’s eyes flit away from the sunlight. She scans Devin from head to toe and arches a brow. “You are now.”

“Pfft,” Devin says. “I’m not sulking.”

“I’m not, either.”

“And I’m not alone.”

“Neither am I.”

“Okay.”

Sheridan narrows her eyes. Devin’s gaze snags on her lips, a cut from their altercation with Hannah almost entirely healed. Sheridan doesn’t move, but her posture is rigid. Something has her on edge.

“Is there anything else?” Sheridan asks. “Or is this just a reminder to hurry up?”

Devin looks over her shoulder into the sun. As it sinks, her eyes adjust to the brightness, and she understands why Sheridan paused here. “Maybe I just wanted to see what was so interesting. You want to be alone?”

It’s clear Sheridan considers saying yes.

And Devin’s heart flutters with a brief, crushing sadness at the idea that Sheridan might send her away. What a strange, upside-down world they’ve ended up in, she realizes. Only a month ago, she would’ve done anything to avoid sitting here, looking into the face of a girl she hated. She’s spent weeks trying to find that feeling again, but like a candle snuffed out in the dark, she can’t even see the smoke anymore.

“You can stay,” Sheridan says. With a smirk, she adds, “I guess.”

Briefly, Devin closes her eyes and lets the breeze float gently through her hair. Soon, she’ll need to go back and help Ollie lay his trap. She’ll have to look not-Hannah in the face and decide what they’ll do with her. She’ll need to go back to being the one in charge and it’ll weigh so heavy on her it aches. When they leave this lake, she’ll have to prepare to cross the river in the morning. She’ll have to reckon with what the world looks like outside these woods. She’ll be alone, just like she wanted the first day they hiked into the trees. No one left to care about her. Just freedom.

It doesn’t feel like it should.

“When everyone thought I was a mimic…” Sheridan says, eyes glassy and trained on the horizon. “How were you so sure I wasn’t?”

Devin considers her. The answer should come easily, but it’s like the words are lodged in her throat, waiting for a single coherent thought to form. She could say it was the maps or the flare gun or the night she jumped into the fray with Liv. She could give one of thousands of rational answers, but none of them would be the horrible, humiliating truth. When she thinks back on her life before these woods, it’s like everyone she knew in the real world is a smudge. A faint memory, only real to her in flashes. She knew Sheridan was real because she knows Sheridan better than anyone she’s ever known. Even then, even when it hurt, even when no one else did.

Instead of saying any of it, Devin shrugs. “I feel like a mimic would’ve tried to be nicer to me.”

“Oh, wow,” Sheridan says, knocking her knee against Devin’s in gentle protest. “You’re such an asshole.”

Devin wipes her nose with her wrist. “I don’t know. I just … felt it.”

“Lucky guess.” Sheridan hugs her knees tighter to her chest. The quiet is heavy with something unspoken. Her eyes are watery, brow softened in something that almost looks like sadness. Finally, she manages, “Why do you think it picked her?”

“Hannah?”

Sheridan nods.

Devin shrugs. “It said all the mimics are looking for people who they can convince to give up. She was just … closer than the rest of us, I guess.”

“Yeah…” Sheridan’s mouth does something funny at that, lips pressed tight together like she might cry. “And a few days before she decided to give up, I told her she was an idiot and her family would never love her.”

Devin’s stomach sinks. “Oh.”

“If she was already close to giving up, I’m sure that helped scoot her a little closer to the edge. Pretty monstrous, don’t you think?”

Maybe she should say it isn’t Sheridan’s fault, that she didn’t cause this, that what she said wasn’t that bad. But it doesn’t matter what Devin says now because the person she needs forgiveness from isn’t here anymore. So instead, she places her hand tenderly on Sheridan’s knee.

“If they wanted someone close to giving up, they picked wrong, anyway,” Sheridan says, voice gravelly like it might crack. “I’m the one who had nothing going for her. I’m the one who’d already tried to … yeah. Maybe they knew my life was too miserable, even for them.”

“Hey,” Devin warns.

“I’m not fishing for sympathy,” Sheridan says, fixing Devin with a hard look. “If these things are trying to replace us, maybe they should’ve chosen differently. If they can do it better than me, maybe they should’ve—”

“Sheridan,” Devin snaps, more urgent than she means. She leans in, forcing Sheridan to meet her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

Almost too quiet to hear, Sheridan says, “I can’t go back.”

Devin blinks.

“I can’t do it,” Sheridan says. “I can’t go back and look at them again.”

“Your parents?”

Sheridan nods.

“Who cares what they think?”

“I do,” Sheridan says. “I care.”

Devin narrows her eyes. “Since when?”

“My parents are…” Sheridan pauses, lips parted, the ghost of a thought dead in her mouth. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I’ve been thinking about them a lot. I don’t know if they know we’re missing yet. I don’t know if they’re looking for us. I know they’re worried, but … I wonder if this would be convenient for them. If this is how it ended.”

Devin runs her hand through the water between them as she waits for Sheridan to find the right words. Of all the things Sheridan has spoken about from home, it occurs to Devin that she’s never really talked about her parents. Not in detail.

Sheridan’s eyes leave Devin’s face again, sliding up to the sun as it sets. “Even when Theda was around, I was leftovers. Theda had friends and cared about school and wanted to do family stuff. She helped my mom cook dinner when she finished her homework. She went to the golf course with my dad just so she could spend all day talking to him. They won’t say it to my face, but … I think even then, they had one and a half of us. If there was one they thought would go like that, it was me.”

Devin expels a breath. “And they lost her instead.”

Sheridan’s smile is bittersweet.

“It was easier when there were two of us. I could just hide behind her. And then, when she was gone, it’s like my mom and dad realized I was all they had left. All the stuff I was hiding from them—bad grades, letters home, sneaking out—was suddenly all they cared about. They wanted me to get better so fast.”

Suddenly, Devin can picture it perfectly. Sheridan a few years ago, lurking in shadows, grateful for the dark. Sheridan pulled by her neck into the light with all the worst pieces of her under a microscope. It’s a feeling Devin knows well, and she supposes she and Sheridan have spent all these years craving the same thing. A window open just enough to slip back into the night. There’s something comforting about living unseen, knowing your wounds are yours to nurse alone.

“The more they wanted me to get better, the more stressed I got. And then I’d end up using more, which made things worse with them.” Sheridan swallows and now Devin is sure she’s fighting tears. “I wanted to stop, but I’d look at their faces and it made me so sad I wanted to disappear. So I’d just … use again, I guess. I figured eventually it would just take care of things for me. If I got lost out here, they wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“You think they don’t want you to come home?”

“They’d never say that,” Sheridan muses. “I don’t think they think that’s how they feel. But they’ve tried a hundred times to help. They’ve put me in every program that’ll take me. The worst part is always coming home knowing it didn’t stick. Knowing it’ll get bad for me again and they’ll be that much closer to giving up.”

“Sher—” Devin starts.

“I think I might be a really selfish person,” Sheridan says.

Devin’s grip on Sheridan’s knee tightens, and god, she can’t believe she’s about to give a pep talk to the girl who threw her letter from home in the fire a few weeks ago. “But you’re different now. Maybe you can’t tell, but you’re a totally different person than you were when we got here.”

“Oh, am I?” Sheridan says, a hint of her smile returning. She presses the heel of her hand to her eyes, swiping away a tear. “Please, tell me more.”

“This is not me complimenting you.”

“I should’ve guessed.”

“I’m also not saying this program was what did it. I think we all … I don’t know, changed together?”

Devin hardly knows what she means to say. But when she imagines the fabric she’s sewn from, there are bits and pieces of the others stitched into her now. Ollie’s calm patience and observant eyes. Aidan’s big feelings and his unrelenting optimism. Hannah’s kindness and her willingness to see the good in others. But so much of her is made of Sheridan now she can hardly tell them apart. She wishes she could reach into Sheridan, pull the fabric of her into the light and see how much of it is the same.

“All it took was some monsters and a forest of unrelenting psychological torture, right?” Sheridan muses. “Seems like a good method.”

Devin shakes her head. “I think it was us. Together. I think we all made each other want to change.”

Sheridan doesn’t have a snappy comeback to that. She laughs a little under her breath, reaching into the water with her unwrapped hand. And Devin knows she’s right—the woods didn’t give them these new hearts. If anything, the woods spent the last month whittling bits and pieces of them away. It forced them to look at all their worst, most rotten parts, stealing away what good there was left. She can’t say it out loud, can’t find the words for it, but she knows already that, what the woods took from her, Sheridan gave back.

“Well,” Sheridan says, clearing her throat. She wipes her eyes again. “You haven’t gotten any better. You were supposed to come check on me and you made me cry. Pretty horrific.”

“That’s me.” Devin chuckles. “Can’t even get water without causing a mental breakdown.”

“What will the people of Portland do when you’re back to terrorizing the public?”

“I could ask the same thing about Seattle.”

Sheridan rolls her eyes, splashing Devin with her free hand. Devin splashes her back and the sun is the color of grapefruit bleeding down the horizon. Sheridan’s eyes are wide open, cheeks flushed, lips just slightly parted. And that squeeze in Devin’s chest tugs harder than she’s ever felt. Even in the cold, it sets her on fire. Her heart beats so fast she can feel it punctuate her breath.

“When I saw you came here alone, I hoped…” Sheridan’s voice is quiet as a confession. “I thought it was something else.”

Devin holds her breath.

“There’s stuff out here that makes me happier than I’ve felt in years. I don’t know what to do with that.”

“You’ll find things that make you happy at home, too.”

“I don’t do a good job with stuff that makes me happy,” Sheridan says. With a small laugh, she adds, “Historically.”

Her fingers skim the surface of the water, swimming dangerously close to Devin’s legs. But they don’t touch, and that’s almost worse. A ripple in the lake pushes a layer of water over Devin’s knuckles, silt tickling the skin between her fingers. There’s an electricity in the air. Devin can taste it when she breathes.

“For a long time, there was one thing that made me happy,” Sheridan says. “I almost killed myself with it.”

Despite everything, there’s a pathetic piece of Devin that wants to be the thing that makes Sheridan happy now. She wants to say things that make her laugh, she wants to take Sheridan into her arms when things get bad and hold her until they’re better, she wants to look up in every room and meet Sheridan’s eyes. She wants and wants and wants and it’s a bottomless pit. She’s tried to avoid looking at it but now, knees touching in the cool water, sunset blanketing them, it’s all she can feel.

Sheridan’s eyes flutter to Devin’s lips.

She says nothing, and her quiet says everything. Devin’s chest tightens around her tenderly thundering heart. She’s spent more time than she’d like to admit thinking of the night in the ranger station. If you aren’t a mimic, why do I feel …

She never finished that sentence.

“Devin—” Sheridan starts.

Devin moves without thinking. She takes Sheridan’s face in her hands, drawing their lips together. The water ripples under her, falling in sheets from her hips as she leans in. Briefly, Sheridan goes still, and Devin half expects her to pull away.

She doesn’t.

Sheridan sits up, too, easing into Devin’s mouth. Her lips part, inviting, and her kiss is different from last time. She still kisses like she’s starving, but this time she’s starving without anger.

“You make me happy,” Sheridan mumbles into Devin’s mouth. Her fingers cradle the hard line of Devin’s jaw. “How messed up is that?”

When Devin leans away, she searches Sheridan’s face for the cruel, vindictive girl she met the first day in the woods. She didn’t spend every hour of the day wanting that girl, but she wants this Sheridan, soft as clay in her hands, more than she’s ever dared to want anything. For weeks, she’s wondered where her anger went. She’s wondered what replaced it. Looking into Sheridan’s face now—eyes half-lidded, expression soft in a way Devin’s never seen—she understands perfectly.

She plunges her fingers into Sheridan’s hair, kissing her again, deeper, until it feels like she’s drowning. Sheridan balls her fists in the fabric of Devin’s shirt, pulling Devin on top of her. Devin kisses the narrow point of her chin, the soft line of her jaw, the inch of space under her ear, tasting the salt on her skin. Sheridan’s breath is weighty and ragged, her hand snaking around the small of Devin’s back to creep below her shirt. Devin’s pulse stutters, the base of her stomach tightening. She’s hungry in a way she’s never felt before, starving for the heat of Sheridan’s breath against her ear and her fingers in her hair. She pushes Sheridan to the gravel, a gush of water rippling under her.

A bolt of pain shoots through her nose.

She pulls back, breath heavy, untangling a hand from Sheridan’s hair to touch the bridge of her nose. “Sorry…”

Water pulses at Sheridan’s shoulders, twilight vibrant across her reddened cheeks. Her pupils are so wide they nearly swallow the blue. She touches Devin’s knuckles, her fingers, then the straight ridge of her nose. Devin lets out a nervous laugh and Sheridan’s expression softens. She trails her fingers along Devin’s brow. Her breath is hot and Devin wants to kiss her again and again and again.

“Don’t be sorry.” A breathy laugh spills from Sheridan’s lips. “It makes you look tough.”

And then Sheridan strains to sit up, angling their mouths together, tender and careful not to hurt. Devin doesn’t bother coming up for air, sinking into Sheridan until the world spins.

She can’t say it in words. She doesn’t know how, yet.

But she can say it like this.

If the breeze whistles over them, if the water chills her to the bone, if the sky is the color of fire, Devin doesn’t notice. It all dulls until the only thing sharp enough to cut is the wanting. Devin doesn’t linger on what their life will look like when they make it out of these woods or even when they get back to camp. Instead, she spends a few moments in a dizzying fever dream, kissing a girl she cares about more than she thought she could care about anyone.

She kisses Sheridan until the sun dives below the horizon and the dark swallows them whole.

They make it back to camp later than anticipated and Devin prepares for the questions. Why did it take so long? Why are you both drenched? What are you smiling about? But when she and Sheridan get back from the lake, Ollie doesn’t say a word. He’s been hard at work laying his trap, it seems. The campsite is rearranged and laid bare, bordered with rope that’s been drenched in gasoline from the fire watch.

Devin doesn’t say anything to Sheridan, but she doesn’t need to. There’s an electricity in the space between them, even when they’re quiet. As miserable as they are and as tired and exhausted as the woods have made them, there’s an exit. Not another few weeks of this. Just one day. Tomorrow they’ll find help and this nightmare will finally be over.

Ollie catches sight of Devin and flashes a quick, somber smile. “Oh, there you are. Sorry I did most of it without you, I just … needed to get my mind on something.”

Devin looks briefly at Hannah, whose lips curl into an almost genuine smile. Whatever residual happiness she felt from the lake sours. Ollie walks her through his setup, showing her the lengths of rope that lead to the center of camp. Lure the mimics in, wait until they’re holding still, light it up. He points to a spot in the middle of the clearing without rope.

“So, let me get this out of the way now,” Ollie says. “Aidan already said he agrees with this plan. If we hear someone coming, we’ll have Aidan sit—”

Devin stops. “No.”

“They’re not gonna come if they think we’re all just waiting for them, but they’re not gonna come if they think the clearing is empty, either. They like to focus on one person at a time,” Ollie says. “I know it’s risky, but we need someone for them to target.”

“Okay,” Devin says, eyeing the patch of exposed dirt. “Then have it be me.”

“No,” Aidan whines, slumped against a nearby tree. He shifts a little, wincing when his ankle moves. “Ollie said I get to be the bait.”

“What are you gonna do if it attacks?” Devin asks.

“How is he supposed to help if you get attacked?” Ollie asks, pointedly. “He can’t protect you. We’d just be down a person. This is how he can help us.”

Devin bites her tongue, half because of Ollie’s explanation and half because of the excitement on Aidan’s face. He hasn’t looked this optimistic in days, and as dangerous as this might be, if it gives him a purpose, Devin can’t stomach taking it from him. She walks to the center of camp, eyes trained on the trees.

“How many do we think we’ll get?” Devin asks. “One? Two? I don’t think they travel in packs.”

Ollie and Devin both eye Hannah at the same time. She just sits and listens, a pleasant smile soft on her lips. Ollie won’t ask her for help—that much is clear—but without insight, there’s no way this trap will work. Devin sticks her hands in her pockets and stands a few inches in front of Hannah.

“I know you’re listening,” Devin says, nudging Hannah’s foot with the side of her boot. “Any input?”

“It sounds like you have it all figured out,” Hannah says. “What could you possibly need from me?”

Behind her, Sheridan scoffs.

“You won’t get all of them,” Hannah continues. “Usually, you wouldn’t get more than one. We work best one-on-one. We don’t like competition.”

“Great.” Devin groans.

“Ollie is right about hiding. If they know you’re all here, they won’t come. They’re running out of time to get a body. If they think Aidan is alone, more than one will come. They’ll want an easy ticket out.”

The casual way she talks about it makes Devin sick.

“Will the trap work?” Devin asks.

Hannah shrugs. “I’ve never seen anyone try.”

Devin casts a quick glance at Ollie. She runs the side of her boot along one of the ropes and swallows. If the mimics come before morning, they can do this together. But if not—if they wait until it’s just Aidan, Ollie, and Hannah left, Ollie will have to spring this trap alone. It feels like a suicide mission.

“What’ll you do if they come when you and Aidan are alone?” she asks Ollie.

He shrugs. “Do my best, I guess.”

“Hmm,” Hannah hums. “You might not have to worry about that. It might be time for you to test it now.”

Devin turns on her. “What does that mean?”

“Someone is coming.”

The clearing is eerily silent. Devin waits for Hannah to say she’s just making a joke of them. Instead, Hannah sniffs the air and her lips make a tight line. Devin’s eyes find Sheridan in the half dark, her fists white-knuckled around her sleep clothes. Aidan straightens against his tree, eyes darting to Ollie in panic.

“They’re circling,” Hannah says. She shudders. “I feel them nearby.”

“Circling?” Sheridan breathes, joining them.

“We need to set the trap now,” Devin says. “Obviously they know we’re trying to escape. I think … I think this is the only time we’ll get the element of surprise.”

“Are you sure?” Ollie asks.

She isn’t sure. She hasn’t been sure of a single thing in weeks, but if they’re going to strike back at the mimics, now is the time. If they wait, the mimics will only strike again when there’s less of them to fight back.

Wordlessly, Devin nods. She gestures to the rope. “I’ll light the first one. Don’t light yours until you see mine, okay?”

And normally, she knows Sheridan would fight her on this. She knows the old Ollie would say she’s being too aggressive, not thinking enough. But now, they both nod. Even Aidan, pale and afraid at the prospect of actually pulling this off, gives Devin a shaky thumbs-up.

They’re doing it—the thing Hannah said no one’s ever tried. The thing Josiah Templeton tried in his final moments. They’re inviting their monsters inside, and they’re burning it all down.

In the dark, they move Aidan to the center of the campsite. Ollie covers Hannah with a tarp to keep her out of the conflict. He scurries to his hiding place nearby, quickly ducking out of sight.

Devin gives Sheridan a small nod. The last streaks of dusk glow in her eyes and Devin nearly kisses her again, just in case. Instead, she clears her throat, taking Sheridan by the shoulder. “Don’t die.”

“I’ll try my best,” Sheridan whispers.

She slinks into the shadows and, just like that, Devin is alone.

She settles behind her tree, resting her forehead to the bark, breathing slowly to quiet her heart. They aren’t prepared for this, but after everything they’ve been through to get here, she can’t let this be the end. They strike now and escape tomorrow. No one left behind. That’s how it has to be.

Dark settles into the clearing, thick between the trees and shrubs. Aidan sits alone, and from a distance, it’s impossible to tell if he’s shaking. She hopes he can be brave enough to hold out until they have more than one mimic.

Eventually, there’s a rustling in the brush. But it doesn’t come from the trees above their campsite or the space in front of Aidan. It’s quiet, and it’s right behind Devin.

She spins, but it’s just Sheridan.

Devin’s muscles slacken. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” Sheridan whispers. “This is taking forever. Are we sure they’re coming?”

Devin arches a brow. “I mean, we’re not sure. But we don’t have a choice.”

“Can I hide with you?”

Devin glances at Aidan again. Sheridan’s post is on the other side of the clearing. It’s down to the three of them—Devin, Ollie, and Sheridan—to execute this plan. As much as she wants to wait this out with some company, wants to tangle their fingers together and make the quiet and the dark slightly more bearable, they can’t afford to attack from only two points. She sighs. “Are you scared?”

Sheridan shakes her head.

“You should stay over there, then,” Devin says. “Just until this is over.”

“I know,” Sheridan says. “I just missed you.”

Devin’s eyes narrow. In the dark, it’s hard to see Sheridan’s face, hard to tell if she’s joking. They’ve gotten softer with each other, sure, but Devin didn’t expect this bold-faced … kindness? It’s dizzying, like there are tears behind her eyes. The tenderness of it isn’t like the Sheridan she knows.

It isn’t like the Sheridan she knows.

Devin turns in time to see a glimpse of lavender tucked behind a tree across the clearing. Sheridan, still waiting in her hiding place. She realizes her mistake a moment too late. Before she can scream for help, not-Sheridan grabs a rock from the ground at her feet, bringing it down hard on Devin’s temple.

26

The first mimic enters the clearing in complete silence. It’s already transformed when it arrives, stepping between the trees as a young woman with a blond ponytail that bobs at the small of her back. Her shoulders slump, the bags under her eyes deep and gray with exhaustion. When she spots Aidan, she beams.

“Oh, my god,” the woman cries. “I didn’t think … I’ve been going crazy looking for you.”

It’s difficult to see Aidan in the dark, but Ollie is sure he stiffens. Already, Ollie has to fight the urge to leap out and help him. The idea of waiting in the dark while more mimics gather around Aidan makes him ill.

The mimic looks over its shoulder into the trees behind it and its eyes widen. When it looks back at Aidan, desperation warps its face. It approaches fast, dropping to its knees in front of him. It takes his ankle in its hands, shaking its head.

“Aidan, I can fix your ankle right up,” the mimic says with a near-manic smile. “Why don’t you look me in the face? You see it’s me, right?”

Aidan looks away.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Aidan.”

Aidan doesn’t budge. His eyes are just visible to Ollie, a glint of moonlight glowing from his glasses. He’s more scared than Ollie’s ever seen.

“I am your mother.”

Ollie blinks. If the mimic is accurate, Aidan’s mother is younger than he expected. He’d thought the mimic was impersonating one of Aidan’s teachers, maybe, or an older cousin. She’s a young mother, though, and she’s in over her head. Aidan’s stories about his mother being barely able to keep up with him suddenly make sense.

Another figure enters the campsite, sidling up to Aidan’s mother without a word. This one is a tall, broad-shouldered boy Ollie’s age. Ollie ducks down farther in the brush, his lighter slick in his hand. Two mimics in the camp now. Still not enough to trigger the trap, but he doesn’t want Aidan enduring much more of this. He watches Devin’s hiding spot.

“We’ve been worried about you, man,” the broad-shouldered boy says. He holds his hand out, pushing past Aidan’s mother. “We should go tell everyone you’re okay.”

“No,” Aidan’s mother snaps, pushing the boy.

And then they do something Ollie hasn’t seen before.

The two mimics turn to each other and lunge. The boy tackles Aidan’s mother to the forest floor and brings a meaty fist down on her face. They morph into a blur of scrapes and snarls. Ollie watches them, eyes wide, mouth dry. Another mimic enters the clearing, this one a middle-aged man with a rugged head of hair the color of pepper. He easily steps over the tangle of the other two mimics and plants a hand on Aidan’s shoulder, donning a sympathetic frown.

“I never should’ve left you with her,” the man says, shaking his head. “If I took you to Chicago, you never would’ve gotten all banged up like this. I should take you back with me.”

Aidan doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t look away, either. Something about this one compels him where the other two didn’t. The first two mimics continue to thrash and tear at each other and a horrifying realization comes over Ollie. All three mimics have tried to get him away from the campsite. They’re pushing for Aidan to follow them somewhere they can be alone, which means they know Aidan isn’t alone here. They know they’re surrounded.

They need to start the trap.

Ollie looks for Devin, but her side of the campsite is dim. Sheridan’s side is dim, too. Another mimic enters the campsite, and when Ollie looks up, he sees more in the trees. More than the four or five he expected. It’s only been a few minutes and they’re being swarmed.

“Ollie.”

Ollie jumps. When he turns, Devin is crouched behind him. She presses a finger to her lips, edging close to him.

“What are you doing?” Ollie asks. “You’re supposed to be—”

“Shh,” Devin hisses. “I couldn’t see over there.”

“We need to start now,” Ollie rasps. “There’s tons of them, and more coming. Aidan’s gonna get torn apart if we don’t light this thing now.”

“No,” Devin says. She points up into the trees. “We need to wait until more of them are on the ground. That’s the only way it’ll be worth it.”

“It’s not worth it if he dies,” Ollie hisses.

“Just do what I say.”

Ollie stares at her for a long moment, watching the tilting of faint blue moonlight over her eyes, and he tries to understand. She’ll risk her own life in a heartbeat, sure, but risking Aidan’s life just to get a few more mimics? Ollie’s heart races.

Across the clearing, there’s a shriek.

“It’s not her!” Sheridan cries.

In a flash, Devin turns her gaze on Ollie and it clicks. He reaches for his lighter, pressing the flame to the rope at his feet.

The fire catches immediately, soaring down the rope. Not-Devin lunges for Ollie, knocking him to his back. Devin wasn’t lying before when she said the mimics are unnaturally heavy and unnaturally strong. Not-Devin pins him to the ground like it’s nothing, slamming his wrists over his head. She looks him hard in the face, dark eyes shining. With a ragged breath, she says, “Listen to me. I am going to have this body.”

Ollie kicks, but it’s no use. He strains to look across the campsite, waits for the real Devin to light her fire, but nothing happens. He prays she’s just grappling with her own situation. Devin is safe, Devin is alive, Devin is going to save them like always.

“Get off me,” Ollie snarls, kicking the mimic again.

A wicked smile spreads over not-Devin’s face, too wide to be real. “This will either be painless or it won’t, Ollie. Let’s make it painless.”

Ollie closes his eyes. He gathers up what strength he has, angles his hip, and shoves the mimic toward the fire. The fire just catches the crook of not-Devin’s elbow and her shriek drowns out everything else. He clambers out from under not-Devin as the fire overtakes her, scrambling to his feet.

When he steps into the campsite, it’s chaos.

Devin’s side of the campsite is empty. Aidan sits in the center as the fire crawls toward him, surrounded by mimics clawing for his attention, his head in his hands to block out the noise. Sheridan grapples with her own mimic, this one an older blond woman. Their trap has only half-worked. Some of the mimics are engulfed in flame, but most are unaffected, gracefully dodging the lines of fire in the clearing.

One thing catches Ollie’s eye, though. The spot where they left the mimic impersonating Hannah is empty.

“Fuck,” Ollie mutters, bracing himself against the nearest tree to keep his balance. He staggers around the campsite’s perimeter, careful to stay out of the light, eyes trained on the place Devin should be. If something’s happened to her … he can’t think about that. He needs to see for himself. He needs to help her.

The quiet of the mimics smothers the chaos of the campsite, leaving it eerily soundless. The silent bloodshed is enough to make Ollie’s head throb. When he finally makes it to Devin’s hiding place, it’s empty. He gasps for air, the smoke choking him. No Devin, no sign she ever even tried to light the ropes. If she’s gone, she’s been gone a long time.

He turns back to the center of the campsite and barrels toward Aidan. If he can’t find Devin, he can at least pull Aidan to safety. He can salvage this.

Before he reaches Aidan, though, something slams into his side.

Another mimic, this one guised as his grandmother, stands in front of him. Ollie staggers back, falling to the forest floor with a thud. The mimic moves to lunge at him, but another blurred figure tackles her to the ground. Ollie’s heart thumps and his head spins and it takes him too long to understand that his savior is Hannah. Or not-Hannah. She eyes Ollie and her expression is impossible to read. Fire roars across the campsite and she seems unafraid of it.

“You need to run,” she says. “We all do.”

“How did you…?” Ollie asks.

Hannah shakes her head. “I could’ve gotten out at any point. I told you it was safer for me to stay with you. If you don’t run, you’ll die here. Do you understand?”

Numbly, Ollie nods. Voice hoarse, he points to the center of the campsite. “We have to save Aidan.”

Hannah looks over her shoulder.

“It’s what Hannah would’ve done,” Ollie says weakly.

Solemnly, Hannah nods. She turns toward the fray. Toward Aidan. Ollie crawls to his knees, then to his feet, scrambling toward Sheridan. She’s managed to fend off the blond mimic, but now she’s surrounded by more of them. Ones that look like her, like Devin, like adults he doesn’t recognize, like other girls her age. And Ollie knows, even together, they don’t stand a chance. He reaches into the tangle anyway, grabbing Sheridan by the shoulder.

“We have to go,” Ollie pants. “We have to run.”

In a jolt, one of the mimics focused on Sheridan grabs Ollie by his shirt. It pushes him and Ollie’s vision blurs. In the campsite, there’s a chorus of voices begging to be heard. The voices call Aidan’s name, Ollie’s name, Sheridan’s name. But they don’t call for Devin. The mimic pushes Ollie again and his foot catches on something.

His heart briefly stops as he free-falls.

He hits the stone floor at the bottom of a jagged ledge. His lungs empty of air and all he can do is stare at the swaying treetops and patches of sky as flashes of fire pulse above him.

“Ollie!” someone calls.

Aidan.

Ollie hardly knows if it’s real or just another mimic, but he rolls onto his side, groaning with pain. Slowly, achingly, he climbs back up the ledge in time to see Hannah drag Aidan from the fire, his legs scraping up dirt and ash in his wake. It takes Ollie a moment to understand that Hannah did what he asked her to. She went into the fire, even if it was dangerous. She saved Aidan’s life.

Just like the real Hannah would’ve.

Hannah drops Aidan and wipes the sweat from her brow. When she spots Ollie, her eyes widen.

“I told you to run,” she says.

“I know, but I had to—”

“We need to run now,” Hannah snaps. She marches to him, reaching for his arm. “If I don’t get out of here, someone will—”

There’s another shriek only inches to Ollie’s left. He turns at the same moment as Hannah and barely sees it in time. Another mimic, entirely ablaze, bounding toward them. The flaming mimic collides with them both, knocking Ollie and Hannah back off the ledge.

Ollie hits the ground harder this time. The pain is piercing and precise, so intense that he momentarily can’t see anything but strokes of color.

When he turns to look at Hannah, his heart sinks.

She swats at her ankle, but it’s too late. A single spark is caught on the tattered edge of her pant leg. The fire creeps up her leg, moving so fast she doesn’t have a chance to put it out. Ollie reaches for her, but by the time he understands what he’s seeing, the fire has caught her skin.

Hannah takes his hand, eyes shifting from panic to calm. In a matter of seconds, the fire takes the rest of her, but she doesn’t stop watching Ollie. He squeezes his eyes shut because he can’t do it. He can’t watch her go, even if it isn’t her.

When Ollie opens his eyes, he is alone at the bottom of the ledge, the last trace of Hannah Kennedy gone in the dark.

27

Ollie doesn’t know how long he stays at the bottom of the ledge, lying face up under the stars. He should get up and check the carnage for survivors. He should face the fact that their trap completely failed. Something happened to Devin, he gave up Aidan as bait, Sheridan faced the mimics alone. They lost Hannah.

Or not-Hannah.

It feels like losing her twice.

She meant it when she said she would protect them. Ollie doesn’t know what to do with that. She might’ve killed Hannah, might’ve lied to them for weeks, might’ve only used them for a ticket out, but she died saving him. Maybe it’s because she still needed his help, or maybe it’s because she really was becoming more like the real Hannah.

Whatever the reason, she’s gone now.

Eventually, a face peers over the ledge. Aidan’s tattered glasses are just distinguishable in the smoky moonlight. Ollie sighs; at least Aidan is alive.

“Are you breathing?” Aidan asks.

“Yeah.” Ollie groans. “Unfortunately.”

“Thank god,” Aidan says. He leans back over the ledge and calls out, “He’s alive, too. He’s over here.”

Sheridan appears at Aidan’s side. She clambers down the ledge, crouching beside Ollie to help him up. Pain sears through his head, so hot and fast it momentarily blinds him. He leans into Sheridan’s torso, breathing through his teeth.

“Is it your head?” Sheridan asks.

Ollie nods.

Sheridan turns him over in her arms more tenderly than he expects, tucking his forehead to her shoulder. He inhales the smoky scent of her shirt and closes his eyes. They need to get out of here, but it’s too much. He’s battered, aching, confused. He’s tired.

Sheridan pats his back. “Did you see where Devin went?”

Ollie shakes his head.

Sheridan is quiet. Ollie’s sure she’s battling her instinct to abandon him and go look for Devin. She doesn’t leave him, though. She hooks her arm under Ollie, easing him up to a seat. She brushes the dust from his brow and he sees her clearly for the first time since the trap fell apart. Soot coats her hairline and jaw, and there’s a deep burn on her wrist. Her fingers, which were already mangled, are swollen and purple. Her eyes are watery, pupils like pinpricks in the blue.

“God.” Ollie laughs. “Not our best work.”

Reluctantly, Sheridan laughs, too.

“Good news is that, once the fire started really picking up, all the mimics ran away,” Aidan says, resting his chin against the ledge. “Bad news is that the mimic got out of her ties. I think she got away.”

Any humor Ollie found in their situation dies. “No, she uh … she tried to help us.”

“What?” Aidan asks.

“Wait…” Sheridan breathes. “When?”

Ollie points to Aidan. “I asked her to get you out of the fire. And she did. Then she…”

Over and over, he pictures it. Only a few seconds, but it lasts hours in his mind. A tug, a flame, and then she was gone. Everything left of Hannah, gone. He shouldn’t feel like this about it—only a day ago, he was threatening to do it himself—but there’s a rotten, fetid feeling collecting in him. He lost Hannah and didn’t realize it. Now he lost her for real and it’s like the grief doubles.

“Here,” Sheridan says quietly. “Let’s get to camp. You need water.”

Sheridan helps Ollie to his feet, guiding him back to their campsite. Ollie sees the wreckage for the first time. Blackened strands of scorched rope lie in the grass like limp spider legs, smoke still coiling in the dark. Their gear lays in tatters, tarps singed and melted, fused with the earth. The fire is out, but its carnage remains. It’s incredible that any of them survived. Ollie should feel grateful to be here, but he looks to the last place he saw Hannah before she was gone and he has to suck in a breath to keep from vomiting.

He points to the spot. “That’s where she was.”

Aidan hops to the spot and sticks one of their spears in the dirt. He tears away a thin piece of his T-shirt and wraps it around the stick before lighting it. It burns silent and slow, the flame bowing and rising in the breeze. It casts Aidan’s face orange with flickering light. His eyes are closed. In his own way, he’s saying goodbye.

Ollie closes his eyes, too.

In a way, he supposes the flame is for both the Hannah that entered these woods with them and the Hannah that took her place.

The campsite is quiet and smoky and cool with dew when Sheridan finally speaks. “We need to look for Devin.”

He hasn’t thought about Devin because, if the Devin that sabotaged him last night was a mimic, he doesn’t know what happened to the real one. If there’s no trace of her, there’s a chance a mimic got her the same way they got Hannah. If they haven’t already replaced her, they will soon. After last night, they can’t face a horde of them again.

“Sheridan,” Ollie says carefully. “You think you can get us to the river?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Sheridan glowers. “After we find Devin.”

“Sheridan—”

“What if she’s already gone?” Aidan asks.

It takes them both by surprise. Aidan holds his glasses in his lap, twisting and turning them into a shape he can keep on his face. He’s miles different from the boy who entered the woods with them, all covered in soot and scrapes and bruises now, face hard and cold like he’s come straight from the battlefields. In a way, Ollie supposes he has.

“Then we need to find proof,” Sheridan argues. “We can’t leave without her.”

“We can get help,” Ollie says. “They can come back and find her.”

“What if it takes days?” Sheridan asks. “Or weeks? What if, by the time we find someone, she’s gone?”

Ollie’s chest aches. He doesn’t want to be on the other side of this argument. Devin is his best friend in these woods and he wouldn’t leave her if he had a choice. But if they look for her now, they’ll lose their chance to get out. They’ll die in these woods and all of it will be for nothing.

“They won’t get her,” Aidan says. “She’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”

“Being stubborn doesn’t save you,” Sheridan snaps. “You both know that.”

It strikes Ollie how different Sheridan is, too. It’s the opposite of Aidan in a way. She hasn’t hardened, hasn’t become colder. If anything, it’s the first time he’s seen her truly care about something. She doesn’t crack any jokes, doesn’t play her anger off as anything but anger. Her breath is short, fists clenched, glare sharp enough to cut.

She reminds him of Devin.

“Sheridan…” Ollie says.

“We can’t leave without her,” she says again. Voice heavy, she adds, “I can’t leave without her.”

Ollie and Aidan are quiet.

“I won’t go back without her.” Sheridan’s voice shakes. “If you need to cross and get help, that’s fine. I’ll look for her.”

“We’re not leaving you,” Ollie says.

“But you’ll leave her?”

“Because I don’t know if she’s alive,” Ollie snaps. “We already lost Hannah. I don’t want anyone else to die.”

“She saved me,” Sheridan hisses. “She’s saved all of us, like, a million times since we got here. She saved me in a way I can’t even … I won’t leave without her. I won’t. And I think you should both think about all the times Devin could’ve left you behind and didn’t.”

When he looks back at their time in the woods, he sees it all. Devin handing him berries when he’d forgotten to collect his own, Devin telling him stories about Portland to remind him they’d make it out, Devin pulling him from the river, Devin tackling Liv to save him. It’s been Devin saving them—saving him—the whole time. Apparently, she’s saved Sheridan in ways Ollie can’t begin to understand.

He presses his face into his hands. “She won’t forgive us if we die looking for her.”

“If any of us went missing, she would look,” Sheridan says. “You know she would.”

He does. In his bones, he knows.

And so, even with the river looming nearby and a clear escape laid out in front of them, they gear up for the last time and wade into the sea of trees and smoke. Ollie tries not to think about what happened the last time someone disappeared from camp, tries not to think about what they’ll be forced to do if Devin’s been replaced. He walks and he calls her name and, for the first time in years, he prays.

Devin wakes to the sound of water dripping. Her eyes are crusted shut, and though she’s sure the air in front of her is velvety and dark, she doesn’t open them. She breathes in and the inch of expansion stabs. When she yelps at the pain, the sound echoes back to her. The ground under her spine is stone, the air cold and wet, the scent so musky and dank she can taste it.

It occurs to her slowly that she isn’t supposed to be here. She was at the clearing, setting the trap. She was talking to Sheridan and realizing it wasn’t Sheridan. She was moving through the woods in a blur as night set in, the passing trees a smudge in her hazy vision. After that, she can’t remember.

“Are you awake?”

The voice echoes from everywhere at once, sending a chill down Devin’s spine. This time, the recognition is immediate. It’s Mr. Atwood’s voice again and god Devin wishes the mimics would pick another face. Any other face. The mimic moves somewhere in the dark. Its footsteps slap, growing closer.

Devin manages to open her eyes.

It’s even darker than she expects, a cave full to the brim with shadow except for a small mouth of light far to her right. She touches her temple and it stings. Her pants and sleeves are torn to shreds, crusted blood gluing the ribbons of fabric to her skin.

“What did you do to me?” Devin asks, and her voice comes out hoarse. “Where am I?”

“You’re in my home, Devin,” Mr. Atwood’s voice coos. “I’m sorry. You must be in a lot of pain. I wish I’d been able to carry you.”

She was dragged here, then. Wherever here is. Her heart races because a mimic would only drag her here, away from all the others, for one reason. They’ve been safe these last few days because they haven’t spent any time alone. If the mimic thinks it can get her like they got Hannah, though, it’s dead wrong. She trains her eyes on the light and tries to measure how far she’ll have to crawl to get there.

“What happened to the others?” Devin asks.

“I wish I knew.”

Devin shifts, finally managing to sit up. Gravel on the cave floor juts into an open wound at the back of her leg and she winces, but she doesn’t cry out. She just needs to get moving. The others will already be looking for her.

“I can taste your determination, Devin,” Mr. Atwood says. It’s impossible to tell how close he is. Devin tries not to squirm away from the timbre of his voice, but her skin crawls. The mimic takes a slow, labored breath. “You want out of here very badly, don’t you?”

Devin bites back a groan as she finally gets her legs under her.

The mimic chuckles, and just like not-Hannah’s crying, it’s unnatural. Almost infantile. Devin holds her breath to keep from vomiting. Somewhere to her left, it moves again. The light at the mouth of the cave disappears and Devin’s eyes widen. The mimic is somewhere between her and the exit. It’s like she’s back in the Pattons’ bedroom all over again: an unseen attacker somewhere in the dark and a narrow slot for escape.

She’s stronger now. Tired, but stronger.

“Devin, please listen when I’m speaking to you,” the mimic says. “I think we should talk about what leaving this cave looks like for you.”

“If you think looking like him is gonna get to me, it doesn’t,” Devin hisses through clenched teeth. “It just makes me want to kill you even more.”

Devin feels along the dank cave floor, but it’s smooth and flat. Slowly, she begins crawling. As long as she can fend off the mimic’s words, it can’t get her. As long as she stays strong enough to keep it out of her head, she’ll live. The others might’ve been sucked in by the mimic’s honeyed, hypnotic words, but Devin is different. She’s stronger, she won’t—

“Devin.” The mimic sighs, its voice sliding down to an unsettling rumble.

Something begins to crackle and slip in the cave. The mimic is changing, but she doesn’t know what it might change into. As far as she’s seen, the mimics only ever have one face for each person, but not-Hannah said they’re capable of much more.

“Do you think you’ll be able to just crawl out of here, Devin?” the mimic says, voice so deep it rattles the earth under Devin’s blistered hands. “I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”

“I don’t want to talk,” Devin says, crawling another foot before stopping to catch her breath. “I don’t think you guys can actually kill me if I don’t say you can. So, I don’t know how you plan to—”

There’s a clicking on the stone, like talons scuttling toward her. When the mimic speaks, its voice is so close Devin feels its breath fan over her face.

“You think I can’t hurt you?”

And then something collides with Devin’s chest, pulling her up from the cave floor until she hits the wall behind her. The pain jolts through her like a bolt of lightning. When her hands and knees meet the ground again, she gags. She tastes iron on her tongue. A foul, sickly smell burns in her nose.

“I’m sorry,” the mimic rumbles. “I’m trying to be gentler with you than I was with him.”

Devin’s hands shake. She feels along the cave floor again, but this time, she immediately brushes her knuckles over fabric. Cotton. A T-shirt, just like hers.

Her stomach sinks.

“You’re right. I can’t leave this forest in your body unless you let me.” The clicking continues, light and quick like a beetle. “But I may have pushed your friend a bit too hard. No matter how many things I told him I could do with his life, he wouldn’t budge. Did you find him particularly hardheaded when you knew him?”

Devin presses her mouth to her shoulder to keep from being sick. When her palm meets the fabric, it’s soft. Skin. A stomach, she thinks. She slides up and finds a taut-muscled shoulder. A scraggly bit of hair is limp at his neck. His flesh is colder than the cave floor.

“Some people don’t have the self-awareness to be miserable,” the mimic continues. “Your parents think you’re a failure because you couldn’t get into medical school, I told him. Your girlfriend hates the way you speak to her. Your roommates have been planning to kick you out for weeks. None of it mattered to him.”

Devin doesn’t need light to know whose body is slumped against the cave wall next to her. She’s spent weeks shutting off the part of her mind that wondered why only Liv came back. Why only Liv targeted their camp. Her stomach roils with the sudden, crushing answer.

She never liked Ethan, but she didn’t want this, either.

“You know, I even told him I’d have to go for one of the children if he didn’t give it up? I told him how I’d kill each and every one of you. He was a stubborn, thick-skulled man. In the end, I suppose I’m glad things didn’t work out.”

Devin holds her breath and reaches for Ethan’s body again, this time checking him for something she can use. The scent of his rot pulls tears fast and hard from her eyes. His abdomen is narrow and stiff from starvation, his limbs set with rigor mortis. Finally, Devin’s hand closes around something metal. She pricks her finger on a bit of broken glass and realizes what she’s touching. Lantern.

“All this to say, Devin, I think it’s a good idea for you to listen to me,” the mimic continues, voice as smooth as silk. “I knew you would understand better, anyway. Ethan couldn’t fathom just how painful life can be. He never understood you children, the things you’d been through, how hard it would be for you to come back from what you’ve seen. Not like I do.”

Devin doesn’t miss the threat nested in it. If you don’t listen, I can kill you. Whether or not you comply, you won’t leave this cave. She clutches the collar of her T-shirt and even that much movement sends a stab of pain through her. She whimpers, biting the inside of her cheek to bury the noise.

Before Devin can wedge the lantern to freedom, something touches her. It’s smooth and warm, sliding along her elbow before slowly wrapping around her waist. Like an inner tube circling her, its grasp quickly tightens. This mimic isn’t shaped like the others she’s seen. It’s strong enough to lift her from the ground.

For the first time, Devin is acutely aware she might die in this cave.

“I hope you don’t mind if I hide in the dark,” the mimic says. “I’m shy about my appearance.”

As it speaks, its voice changes again, softening until it’s familiar. This voice feels worlds different from the times the mimic turned into Mr. Atwood, like stepping into a warm tub after a long, cold day. The mimic dresses itself in Ollie’s voice this time, all mumbled and coarse like chalk. She isn’t going to fall for it, though.

“Why do you…” Devin gasps, wrestling against the mimic’s tightening grip. “Why do you do this to us?”

The mimic is quiet. In Ollie’s voice, it mutters, “I don’t know.”

“You want to be me?” Devin asks. “Wait until you get out there. I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“Ah.” The mimic sighs. “It’s so hard being you, Devin Green. Foster families don’t want you, schools don’t want you, girls don’t want you, and now you think none of the mimics want you, either. Even lost in the woods, you’re the bottom of the food chain. You just can’t catch a break.”

Devin struggles against the mimic’s grasp, but it’s no use. When she moves her leg, she just feels the corner of the lantern. “Saying mean things when you’re pretending to be him is ruining it. He’d never talk to me like that.”

The mimic quiets, but its grip doesn’t slacken. The slithering sound begins again, echoing from the wet cave walls. It’s changing again. Devin braces herself for the worst.

“Should I try someone a little more disgusting?” the mimic asks.

Its voice slides up this time, sharpening to a point, and Devin knows who it’s becoming long before it settles. A few weeks ago, it was her least favorite sound on the planet. Now, Sheridan’s voice means something else. When the mimic speaks again, it’s only inches in front of her.

“It makes more sense to say cruel things in this voice, doesn’t it?” the mimic asks. “Speaking of people who want you, you’ve really figured it out now, haven’t you? Finally, someone cares about you. You just had to hit her first.”

Devin grits her teeth, pulling the lantern until it’s between her ankles.

“I’m just trying to be helpful.” The mimic shifts, tightening its grip until Devin can hardly breathe. “She’s either afraid of you or she’s making a joke out of you. You just can’t figure out which it is. But you think, when you two get back to the world outside, she won’t see how many more options she has? Ones that aren’t so … feral.”

She wants to believe it isn’t true. But she feels the first traces of the mimic’s magnetism on her mind, the tremor of doubt, the whisper at the very back of her skull saying the mimic is right. She and Sheridan might fit together now because they’re alone out here, but back home, worlds apart, it’ll all fade. Sheridan will have her life to return to.

And Devin will have nothing.

With a final thrust, Devin brings her boot down on the front of the lantern. It sputters to life, flooding the cave with orange light. It’s like someone’s punched her in the eyes, momentarily blinding. She was hit harder than she thought.

Then, she sees the mimic.

Only inches in front of her, its face is half-transformed into Sheridan’s. The other half is sallow and gray as dishwater, its dark eyes sunken and its mouth drooping to expose a sliver of its teeth. Shaking, Devin looks down at what’s holding her in place. The mimic’s torso, stretched long like the twisting barrel of a snake’s body, wraps around her arms. Devin’s eyes widen.

Under her feet is Ethan. Wounds smeared with old, blackened blood cover his pale skin. His glassy eyes are open wide, fixed on the ceiling of the cave. His lips, now gray-blue with death, are parted in a final word he never said. He died alone here.

Devin can’t die the same way.

The mimic’s expression sours at the sudden light. It constricts, choking the words from her. With a small shiver, the mimic keeps changing. Its skin bubbles and droops until, finally, it looks like a near-perfect recreation of Sheridan. And for a brief, humiliating moment, Devin goes weak at the sight of her. The mimic reaches out hard and fast, gripping Devin’s jaw in its hand.

“I don’t think you understand, Devin,” the mimic hisses. “You think I’m out to take your life from you, but it’s more than that. I’ve been watching you since you crossed into my home. When you first washed up on that riverbank, I was there. When you slept beneath towering oaks, I watched from the branches. I followed you the whole way and, while all the others thought your friends would be easier, I only wanted to understand you. Ethan was only ever going to be a consolation prize for me. I was fascinated by you. What makes her life so bad no one else wants to touch it?”

The mimic’s hold on Devin’s jaw softens, but looking into its eyes, all she sees is Sheridan. All she hears is Sheridan, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. Mocking her. The cave begins to close in on her, rock walls flickering in the dim lantern light. She’s dizzy, and she isn’t sure if it’s the mimic’s grip on her abdomen or its grip on her mind. She bites down hard on the inside of her cheek, focusing on the pain and the tang of blood on her tongue. She can’t slip under.

“You know what I think, Devin? I think you’re exhausted.” Not-Sheridan brushes her fingers down Devin’s jaw, leaning forward to look her hard in the eyes. “When I looked through you, all I saw was people who left you in the dirt. Families you couldn’t keep, schools you couldn’t impress, girls you couldn’t connect with. People who hurt you and tried to hide it, people you hurt in a desperate attempt to leave a mark. And I saw you pushing through all of that because you really think that, one day, you’ll pull yourself out of this and show them all they were wrong.”

When Devin sucks in a breath, it’s ragged. “Why would you want to be me?”

“Your life ended years ago, Devin. Maybe before you were even born,” not-Sheridan says, a genuinely sympathetic tilt to her brow. “All those people you want to prove wrong? You can’t. You don’t have it in you. You’ll keep trying, but every time you take a real step out of those shadows, you’ll fall again. You’ll get so tired of it, at some point you’ll give up on hoping. You won’t live to be a weathered elder, looking back at your dark years as a distant memory. This shadow will follow you until it takes you.”

She should keep struggling against the mimic’s grip, but she can’t look away from its face. She begins to understand Josiah Templeton’s final journal entry. She begins to understand inviting her beast inside. She wants to tear herself away, crawl out of this cave, find the real Sheridan and get out of here. But she also wants to close her eyes and ease into the cruel words that somehow feel as smooth and magnetic as a kiss. When she focuses, she’s certain she sees long, pointed teeth emerging from between not-Sheridan’s lips.

“I don’t think that should be how your story goes, Devin. If I go back in your place, I’ll show them all. Mr. Atwood, the teachers that wrote you up, the fosters that tossed you out … I can show them all how wrong they were to hurt you. I’ll lead your friends out of the woods and I’ll make Devin Green a name nobody will ever forget.”

It isn’t real. But no matter how hard she searches for the alternative—the real truth—she can’t think of it. She tries to picture her life outside these woods and she comes up empty-handed. Fighting is only delaying the inevitable. Maybe it always was.

“What do you think, Devin?” the mimic says, its voice morphing back into the deep, rumbling tone from before. “Do you want to become something new?”

Blinking tears from her eyes, Devin nods.

Solemnly, the mimic sighs. “It will be painless, Devin. I promise to do something good with your life.”

Devin’s eyes flutter shut, the smooth quiet of night coming over her like she’s falling asleep. She feels the mimic’s mouth open wide, feels the heat of its breath on her skin, and she pretends it’s the warmth of the first summer sun after a long winter. Echoing faintly from outside the cave, she hears a voice.

Devin. Devin. Devin, where are you?

She blinks.

She didn’t imagine it. She’s sure she heard Sheridan somewhere outside the cave, calling her name. Not the false Sheridan, the real one. The voice comes again, closer this time, and it’s like the fog burns away. The silky warmth of the cave dies and the cold runs her through. Her muscles ache from being gripped, her head throbs from hitting the cave wall.

The mimic’s mouth is open in front of her.

Instinct kicks in and, arms restrained, Devin lunges forward and bites down on the mimic’s fleshy shoulder. She doesn’t let go, even as the mimic recoils, wailing so loud Devin thinks her skull might split. She doesn’t let go when something hot and wet floods her mouth with the taste of wet soil. She spits out the mimic’s blood on the cave floor. It’s grip eases as it shrieks and Devin hoists herself to freedom.

“Devin—” the mimic cries, a harmony half its own voice and half Sheridan’s.

Devin grabs the lantern from her feet and shoves the mimic to the cave floor. She slams it against the mimic’s chest, its throat, its face. All at once, the exhaustion burns away, replaced by the burning, searing need to survive. She swings the lantern again and the light goes out, glass fracturing and sticking to the mimic’s skin. It slices her hands, too, but she doesn’t stop. In the pure darkness, she pictures the mimic as Mr. Atwood again, taunting her with the worst moment of her life, goading her into the void.

With a shuddered breath, she crushes the lantern to the mimic’s face even harder. Something splits, the wet sound of it echoing from the cave walls.

“I want to be alive,” Devin cries into the dark, her voice hoarse and heavy with tears. She doesn’t stop. The mimic might believe there’s nothing good waiting for her outside this cave, but it isn’t true. She pictures moving the first boxes into her apartment with Ollie, lying down in a bed she won’t have to give up in a few months, drawing the real Sheridan’s face to hers knowing they aren’t running out of time. “It’s my life. You. Can’t. Have it.”

Devin brings the lantern down again with each word until it comes apart in her hands. The fire in her veins isn’t sated, though. She gasps for breath, wiping the blood from her face with the back of her wrist. She won’t let this mimic slither into the real world in her body, won’t let it reap the good she suffered for.

When the mimic makes a noise, it only comes out in a gurgle. Devin discards the lantern and begins feeling along the cave floor. Her brain might be fuzzy and her heart might be racing, but she remembers one thing: fire is the only thing that will kill them.

Finally, she touches her own pocket. The lighter from their last test is still there, round against her fingertips. Behind her, she hears the first shuffling of the mimic healing, reassembling itself bone by bone, preparing to come for her again.

Devin pushes herself to her feet. She clicks the lighter on.

The mimic lays at her feet, bloodied and bruised and, predictably, turned back into Mr. Atwood. His receding hairline, his lopsided glasses, his big, blank eyes.

When he speaks, he spits up blood. “There’s nothing for you to go back to.”

And for a moment, Devin is back in the house by the blackberry bushes. She’s standing on the back porch, looking at the expanse of grass. She’s wondering what it will take to get out. She’s dreading the night, the silence, the suffocating touch she can’t escape. Under all the wounds, he’s still got her in the palm of his hands. He still follows her like a shadow. Maybe he always will.

Devin’s hand on the lighter quivers. Then quietly, like a prayer, she stoops and presses the little flame to the mimic’s neck, watching unflinching as the fire eats the mimic—and Mr. Atwood—alive.

28

“Over here!”

Ollie meets Sheridan at the mouth of a cave as the black of the night sky just begins to lift, turning the woods eerie and gray. She crouches in the dirt, Devin’s limp body draped in her arms. For a brief, numb moment, Ollie worries she’s already dead. Her limbs are covered in bruises and scrapes, her face swollen and red. Her fists are smudged with dirt and, under the dirt, burn marks. Her fingertips and knees are bloody from crawling. The mouth of the cave is dark behind her, a trail of disturbed soil the only sign of her escape. When they prod her, she doesn’t move. When they say her name, she’s silent.

“Is she…?” Ollie starts.

Then Devin sputters to life, sucking in a ragged breath. Ollie slumps over in relief and he can feel Sheridan do the same. Behind them, Aidan releases a relieved sigh, too. They may have lost Hannah, but the rest of them can still make it out of here. They don’t need to lose anyone else.

“It’s you, right?” Sheridan breathes.

“Yeah.” Devin groans. She tries to sit up, but winces in pain. Through gritted teeth, she says, “You were being so loud. I had to come tell you guys to shut up.”

It takes Ollie a moment to realize she’s telling a joke. Tenderly, he and Sheridan haul Devin to her feet. The trees shift overhead, the sound around them ebbing and swelling like Ollie’s ears are popping and unpopping. The mimics linger somewhere in the shadows near them. The trap might’ve stopped the ones back at camp, but Hannah was right. There are far more than they imagined, and now they’ve drawn their attention.

“I can get us to the water,” Sheridan rasps.

Ollie nods. Sheridan impressively takes on Devin’s full weight, releasing Ollie to help Aidan. In the dark, they move as a unit toward the water. Ollie listens for it, the slow-moving roar of a distant river, but with the sputtering quiet, it’s impossible to make out for sure. They don’t move quickly, but they move. Every few steps, Ollie sees another one. Sometimes they’re in the shape of his father. Sometimes they’re in the shape of his grandmother. He sees his friends from school, the coaches, his teachers. He hears voices that he knows and feels hands on his arms, but he keeps pushing until finally, they reach the water.

Ollie eases Aidan to the ground and collapses to the dirt. His head spins so badly he thinks he might be sick. He’s never had a concussion before, but this seems worse than that. There’s a slithering in the trees behind them, but in the dark, he can’t see what’s followed them.

Sheridan takes a step toward the water and stops, cupping a hand at her brow. “Oh my god,” she whispers.

“What?”

“Look.”

Ollie rolls over and looks across the river. Far in the distance, beyond the scraggly patches of trees and gold grass turned blue in the dying night, Ollie sees it. A row of lights glowing against the dark. The kind of lights you don’t see in the woods.

The building kind of lights.

“Is that…?” Ollie mumbles.

“There’s people.” Sheridan lowers Devin to the ground and starts digging through her backpack. She tosses a bundle of rope into the grass near Ollie. For the first time since they entered the woods, Sheridan is the most prepared of them all. She gestures to the water. “We have to get across. For help.”

“Sheridan…” Ollie croaks. “I don’t think I can pull us.”

Sheridan pauses. She looks down at Devin and, in a moment of surprising softness, touches her cheek.

In an instant, Ollie sees the difference in her. Not just the way she’s grown, but the way she’s come to life. She casts a quick glance back at the trees, then slips the rope around her waist without hesitation. Once she hands the next section of rope to Aidan, she takes Ollie’s shoulder. “The river’s not that wide here. It doesn’t look that fast, either. I’m gonna get across and we’ll do it just like we did last time. Pull each other across one by one.”

“Last time, Ollie almost drowned,” Aidan warns.

“Last time was different. Last time was my fault,” Sheridan says. “We don’t have a choice. Let me do this.”

Ollie doesn’t have it in him to fight anymore. He agrees to cross last, only because he’s marginally more sentient than Devin. The forest behind him spins, but he doesn’t focus on it. He watches Sheridan wade into the vein of glassy, starlit water, kicking until, shockingly, she washes up on the other side. The branches crackle behind him as he feeds Aidan into the river next. Aidan swims weakly, mostly pulled by Sheridan, and Ollie crouches at Devin’s side.

“Hang on a little longer,” he says. “Almost there.”

She nods. “Alright, team head injury. Next stop, Portland.”

Despite himself, Ollie laughs. His laughter echoes from the trees, and it takes Ollie too long to realize it’s the mimics laughing back at him. They mock him in his own voice, swarming like birds. He imagines the only thing keeping them from attacking is the faint hope they can still get a body.

Once Sheridan helps Aidan out of the water, Ollie eases Devin in. Once the water takes her, the quiet sets in. It doesn’t flicker anymore, doesn’t swing in and out. It’s a suffocating silence, pressed in so close Ollie can feel it like a blanket. It wasn’t smart to be on this shore alone.

Behind him, the whispers continue to hiss, growing closer in the grass. It isn’t until Sheridan tugs the rope, pulling him off balance, that he realizes he needs to keep moving. Behind him, there are dozens of them slinking from between the trees toward the water, all half wearing the faces of people he knows.

Ollie stumbles, tripping into the water.

And miraculously, he starts moving. He sees the other three in a pile at the opposite shore, all gripping the rope. The mimics crawl up to the water, the mass of them shifting into one grotesque cluster of almost-familiar faces, and Ollie is thankful the dark makes them difficult to see.

Finally, six hands meet his shoulders and pull him to the mud. The sky begins to glow blue with the coming morning. Across the water, the mimics watch them.

But they don’t cross.

“Ollie…” Sheridan breathes. “Can you stand?”

Ollie rolls onto his stomach and, pushing through the pain, manages to sit up. The cold air chaps his river-wet cheeks and pulls tears from his swollen eyes. He nods.

“Okay. You have to get to that building.”

“Alone?”

Sheridan sits with her legs splayed in front of her, drenched in mud. When she breathes, it’s a wheeze. “I can’t … I don’t think I can do it. Not trying to be a quitter.”

Even in the dark, Sheridan’s face is white as a sheet. Her hand is swollen so bad she can’t make a fist. Her eyelids droop and her breathing comes fast. Ollie remembers the river on the other side of this program, remembers Sheridan letting him go.

He reaches out and pulls her into a hug.

“I’ll be back,” he promises.

And then Ollie runs. The river water dries on his cheeks and the blisters on his feet split. The hunger tears through him, but he runs. The lights in the distance grow, expanding as he gets closer. He doesn’t stop running when the grass becomes short and brilliant green. He passes an outhouse and a shed, and then the lights in front of him become clearer. It’s a lodge of some kind, massive logs jutting from its sides.

The lights are on because there are people inside.

Ollie thinks he might pass out.

His feet meet pavement and he keeps running. He stumbles to the door of the lodge and tears it open before collapsing inside. A wave of heat from a roaring fireplace rolls over him. Ollie’s vision spins, but he thinks he sees a wine-colored carpet, a mounted animal head, an antlered chandelier overhead. He falls to his knees, gasping for breath.

When he looks up, a small crowd has formed. At least a dozen people, all flannel and hunting caps, eyes wide with fear. A family, maybe, though Ollie can barely make out their faces. The lights are too bright and he fights to keep his eyes open. He hears someone mumbling, Call the police.

“My friends…” he manages, grabbing the arm of the nearest stranger for balance. “We were in the woods. We need help.”

29

“I think that’s the last of it,” Ollie says, scanning his empty bedroom walls. “Unless there’s stuff in the garage.”

His father stands in the doorway, arms folded. There’s more space in the bedroom than Ollie remembers, but maybe that’s because he spent over a month sleeping under a tarp and anything feels spacious. Or maybe it’s because the house feels less suffocating now that he doesn’t live in it. Without the bed, desk, posters, the piles of clothes, the empty soda bottles wedged wherever they fit, it doesn’t look so bad. Just lifeless.

“I checked the garage,” his father says flatly. “I know it doesn’t mean much, but you’re welcome back if you’re missing something.”

“Yeah,” Ollie mutters. “Maybe.”

It’s been three months, and this is what they’ve got.

It was July 11 when they were pulled out of the woods and flown to the nearest hospital in the early morning hours. Ollie remembers it only in flashes—the men at the hunting lodge scrambling to sit him up, someone dialing 911, someone else telling him to breathe through the pain. He remembers paramedics hauling him onto a stretcher, wheeling him from the lodge and back under the wide-open sky, the sprawl of white stars dizzying. He remembers wishing they’d wheel him back into the warmth, away from the trees.

He remembers the hospital and he remembers the phrase that finally let him rest. Your friends are all alive.

His father wasn’t allowed to see him for a week. It was all brain scans and tubes and mandated bed rest until, finally, Ollie woke feeling like a battered, sore version of himself. When the nurses told him he had a visitor, he expected one of the others—Devin, pushing her way past concerned nurses, maybe. Instead, it was his father stepping into his hospital room with deep gray bags under his eyes and a somber, harrowed smile on his face.

Ollie’s father held him, then. Told him how relieved he was to see him alive. Foolishly, Ollie thought maybe something had changed between them. But that first hug, the one that made Ollie think they might survive this, was a one-time deal. Even now, Ollie is sure it’s the only time since the rescue his father seemed relieved to have him back.

They move into the living room and Ollie looks at the empty stretch where his grandma’s hospice bed was parked. The carpet is still flattened in the shape of it. He wishes he’d gotten to see her. There was a moment when he first returned, when he realized that his grandma was gone and his father was just as cold as before, that he thought the mimic of Liv had been right. There was nothing for him outside the woods.

And then Devin came.

Ollie sets the last box of his things by the front door and pats the dust from his hands. His phone vibrates and he silences it. He watches his father, still leaning in the doorway, and he tries not to picture his head hanging behind his shoulder blades, his skin drooping from his face, all the other horrifying iterations the mimics came up with. There was one face they used to hurt him most in the woods. He tries not to shovel that fear onto his living, human father. But sometimes, when he looks at his father, he can’t see the difference.

“You look at me like I’m gonna hit you.” His father sighs. “I just … I don’t know if it’s because of stuff you told the cops you saw out there, or if we’ve got some kind of problem, but—”

“Stuff?” Ollie scoffs.

His father pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’ve got brain damage, Ollie. Two of you did, and the other two were a drug addict and a child.”

Ollie steels himself. They’ve had this argument so many times Ollie doesn’t bother anymore. Since their rescue, Ollie has tried to explain the mimics to anyone who will listen, but in the real world, shape-shifting creatures with a goal of replacing humans is too much to comprehend. On the news, the story was simple—a poorly managed behavioral program lost its way in the woods, and the troubled, delinquent survivors are too traumatized to coherently say what happened. Ollie’s seen his face on the news a thousand times now, each more exhausting than the last.

When Ollie doesn’t speak, his father looks him in the eye. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be living by yourself in your condition.”

“I’m not,” Ollie says. He pops the front door open with his knee and hauls his box through. Without looking at his father, he throws out a quick, “Bye, Dad.”

“Ollie—”

The door shuts behind him. His father doesn’t follow him outside.

Ollie loads his last box into the back of his car and looks back at his house. It’s almost serene in the early fall light, bordered with unruly shrubs and flowerbeds tangled with growth. It’s wilder than it was when Ollie left, the only indication he can find that his father was distressed by the last few months.

Ollie slides into his car and pulls away from the curb. Away from his father’s house, and he doesn’t think of it as home. His phone vibrates again.

He pulls it from his pocket and Aidan’s name pulses in the center of the screen. He slides to answer, pulling out of his father’s neighborhood entirely. “Hey.”

“Did you see what I sent?” Aidan asks.

Ollie blinks. At the first stoplight, he moves his phone from his ear and swipes into their group chat. A link to an article sits unread at the bottom of the chat: GETTING BETTER GONE WRONG—WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT REVIVE AND THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THREE IN THE SALMON-CHALLIS NATIONAL FOREST.

“Oh, god.” Ollie laughs, taking another turn. “Any highlights?”

“I think you should read the whole thing,” Aidan says. “Is Devin there, too?”

“No, she’s up north, remember?”

“Oh.” Aidan gasps. “Is that today?”

“Yeah. Did you send a card?”

“I forgot.”

“I’ll sign for you when I get home.” Ollie laughs.

Since their rescue, he’s spoken to Aidan almost every day. He and Devin may have ended up back in the same city, with Sheridan only a few hours north, but Aidan is in Montana. He’s on the other side of the woods that held them captive. At first, Ollie offered to find a way for Aidan to join them so he wouldn’t have to be alone with the weight of what they’d seen. But unlike the rest of them, Aidan had a home to return to. A real one.

Ollie pulls into his new neighborhood, adjusting his phone from one ear to the other. “How’s things with your mom?”

“Good.” Aidan sighs. “My friends from school came by last night to give me a care package. I wish you guys could sign my cast, too.”

Ollie chuckles. “Sign it for me and I’ll sign your name on the birthday card. How’s that?”

“Sounds good.”

Ollie parks at his new apartment building and looks out the windshield, down the tree-lined street, out to the water. It moves slow, cords of highway cast across the water like fishing line. This is what he wanted. This is where he wanted to end up. But there’s a hunger in him, still. An aching in his chest.

Something’s still missing.

After hauling his last box into the elevator, Ollie steps into his apartment. It isn’t much yet—a sofa, a TV, a plastic table for two. Nothing on the walls, since he and Devin realized almost immediately that neither of them have an eye for decoration. It’s bare and it’s simple, but it’s theirs. Neither of them have done this before; taken care of themselves, lived on their own, created a life they could actually like. But living with Devin feels familiar in all the ways living at home never could. In their sparse, poorly set up apartment, he can breathe.

Ollie tosses his keys on the kitchen counter and slaps his phone down. On the other end of the line, Aidan’s breath is quick. Ollie navigates to the article Aidan sent and is hit immediately with a harried photo of his own face. It’s from their rescue, a leaked photo of the four of them in blankets, being hoisted into the helicopter. Ollie presses the heels of his hands to his eyelids. “God, this looks fun.”

Aidan groans. “I hate that picture.”

Ollie skims the beginning of the article, which is the same as all the others. A summary of what went wrong—poor planning and food management, adults unequipped to handle the wilderness or the teens they were charged with, and a whole lot of question marks. They condemn REVIVE for faking letters to and from home to avoid finding ways to safely check in with the real world. And then, halfway down the page, there’s another cluster of pictures. Ethan at a party with friends from his college, laughing with a drink in hand. Liv at the summit of a scraggly, wooded mountain, flexing for a photo. Hannah’s school photo, cheeks rosy and eyes wide.

The last picture gives him pause. He keeps reading:

Many of us, however, are left wondering what became of the three missing persons in this ongoing case. Rescue officials continue to search for REVIVE coaches 22-year-old Ethan Carmichael and 21-year-old Olivia Reid, as well as 17-year-old Sacramento teen Hannah Kennedy. Given the vastness of the region and the remoteness of its trailheads, rescue efforts are slow. Search and rescue officers believe that there is a chance the three missing persons could still be alive, but at over four months from the time the group entered the forest, hope begins to fade. Sources close to the survivors, however, are aware of another theory behind the disappearances. Statements taken from survivors detail a complex, bizarre tale of shape-shifting “creatures” in the woods. Search and rescue officers have not encountered any such creatures during rescue efforts thus far, but will keep wildlife in mind as a potential explanation for the disappearances. This story will continue to update as the case develops.

Ollie shakes his head. “Well, at least no one’s accused us of killing them ourselves.”

“Yet.”

Ollie’s fingers brush over Ethan’s and Liv’s photos and there’s a tightness in his chest. They were only a few years older than him. Sheridan was right: they had no business guiding anyone through the woods. They were practically teens themselves. It hurts to look at them, but it hurts worse when his fingers brush over Hannah’s picture.

On the other side of the call, Aidan must do the same. “I really miss her.”

“Me, too,” Ollie says.

“Sometimes, when I start to miss her, I get scared I’m not actually missing her,” Aidan says, voice suddenly heavy. “Some of the things I remember about her weren’t even her.”

“Yeah,” Ollie says.

The room spins. Maybe it was the hit to his head, or maybe it’s just the blur of the days they were in the woods, but when Ollie tries to remember the difference between the real Hannah and the fake one, it’s impossible. He cried into not-Hannah’s shoulder long into the night, kissed her when he thought they were safe. The little moments he felt himself melting into her, opening up his chest and giving her bits of his heart … he can’t remember which Hannah saw him. He can’t remember which Hannah made him feel alive.

“I saw her dad on TV,” Aidan continues.

Ollie’s eyes widen.

“He’s suing REVIVE. Because of the fake check-ins thing.”

“I don’t know how fake it was that he didn’t write to her,” Ollie says. “God, if he knew the way he ruined her life.”

Aidan is quiet for a long time, but Ollie doesn’t hang up. His eyes slide back to Ethan and he frowns. Devin swears she saw his body, but even after months of searching, he hasn’t been found. The woods are endless and all-consuming. Ollie lies awake some nights wondering if they’ll ever bring Ethan home.

“What are you guys gonna do when it’s all three of you?” Aidan asks.

Ollie laughs a little, pulling himself from his daze. “I don’t know. We’re gonna make Sheridan decorate, first of all. Then just … I don’t know, live?”

“Do you think they’re still…?”

Ollie smiles. “Yeah. They definitely are.”

“Devin talks to you about it?”

“No.” Ollie laughs. “She won’t say a word about it.”

He paces to the window, eyeing the store-bought cake they got for Sheridan’s surprise party after a failed attempt at baking something from scratch. It will be different with Sheridan here, with Devin and Sheridan together again, with the three of them pent up in one little apartment. But even crowded, even turned into an awkward third wheel, Ollie’s excited for it all. For the first time in years, he’s excited to come home, excited to talk over TV and botch dinner recipes and spend his nights looking out his window, watching the river flow.

“You’ll be okay out there?” Ollie asks.

“I’ll be okay,” Aidan says softly. “And you guys will be okay, too?”

It’s a difficult question, but the answer comes easy.

“Yeah,” Ollie says, tracing the river against his window. “We’ll be okay.”

Devin pulls up outside a massive, well-groomed house in a sprawling neighborhood of massive, well-groomed houses. The sloped street is in a quiet part of Seattle, all presidential names and towering oaks. It was a three-hour drive to get here, and the sun sits high overhead, glaring through the windshield of Devin’s newly acquired used car. The breeze is cool with autumn and Devin really wishes she’d hashed out this plan ahead of time. She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes.

Should she go to the door? Should she just text? Should she, god forbid, introduce herself?

She steels herself. This is not the time to doubt. In a way, she’s spent the last three months preparing for today. All the apartment setup with Ollie, all the check-in calls with Aidan, all the legal documents and lawyer talks have been her life, but this is the moment she’s been waiting on. She’s parked in front of Sheridan’s house, a week after Sheridan’s eighteenth birthday, and she’s here to take her home.

Now that she’s here, though, staring into the second-floor windows of a house nicer than any she’s ever stepped foot in, it’s like her stomach has turned inside out.

She turns off the car and pats the fast-food crumbs from her jeans. She’s spent a not-small amount of time wondering what Sheridan will think of her without the uniform green T-shirt and cargo pants. If this—the hoodies and too-large jeans, short hair cropped closer to her scalp than ever—will live up to expectations.

When she makes it to the front door, she doesn’t get a chance to knock. The door inches open, revealing a woman on the other side. She briefly thinks Sheridan decided to abandon the pastel colors and reverted to all neutrals. But the woman’s eyes are set with faint wrinkles, the blue in her eyes dark and murkier. The woman in the doorway isn’t Sheridan; it’s her mother.

“Are you Devin?” the woman asks.

Devin cranes her neck, attempting to peer around the woman’s shoulders. “Uh, yeah. Is Sheridan here?”

The woman holds out a hand.

“I’m her mom. I’m … glad to finally meet you.”

Devin narrows her eyes, but tentatively, she shakes Mrs. West’s hand. Behind her, Devin can just make out a stack of cardboard boxes and trash bags. She clears her throat and takes a step back.

“Sheridan will be down in a second,” Mrs. West says. “But I wanted to say I’m … I’m very sorry for what you went through. And I’m very glad you’re alive. I’m very glad you kept Sheridan alive.”

The breeze buffets the wide legs of Mrs. West’s pants. Most of her hair is a satin brown, save for the first streaks of gray at her hairline. Up close, the lines of her face are deep, the skin under her eyes practically gray with exhaustion. Devin isn’t sure what she expected. Sheridan’s mother doesn’t seem evil. She just seems … sad.

“Well, um…” Devin clears her throat. “She kept us alive, too. She kept me alive a lot of times.”

Mrs. West offers a small smile. “Yes. Well, I think you know her very well now. You understand what I mean.”

Devin is left without words. The door opens wider and a man appears behind Mrs. West. He’s a full head taller than her, square jawed and broad shouldered with a tired set to his eyes. He pauses when he spots Devin, looking her over like a dog at the pound. Immediately, Devin’s jaw tightens.

“This is her?” Mr. West asks his wife.

“Yes.”

Mr. West motions to the curb with his chin. “Is your car unlocked? I’ll start loading.”

At Devin’s nod, Mr. West starts hauling boxes out of the house, down the pristinely maintained stone path, and into the backseat of the Honda. It’s too peaceful. Devin isn’t sure if she expected a fight—isn’t sure what she expected at all—but this isn’t it. There’s a buzz of anxiety under her skin, a question without an answer.

And then, finally, Sheridan appears.

She stands halfway up a comically grand staircase, hands on her hips. Devin’s heart drops a foot, a particularly humiliating reaction. But after three months of limited FaceTime calls and texts, she forgot how familiar it feels to see Sheridan. She’s redyed her hair, the vibrant purple of it shocking compared to the pale silver it was when they left the woods.

Sheridan lugs two suitcases to the bottom of the stairs and pauses to catch her breath. She eyes Devin with the playful half smile Devin’s spent the last three months picturing in her sleep. “I hope that car you bought is a U-Haul.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Devin says. “You get a Honda Civic.”

To Devin’s surprise, Sheridan makes her way to her mother’s side, pulling her in to a brief hug. Mrs. West plants a quick kiss on Sheridan’s cheek. “Okay. We’ll talk soon.”

Sheridan nods. “Yeah.”

After hauling the last of the boxes to the car, Mr. West joins them inside and pats Sheridan on the head. It’s more loving, more tender than Devin expects. It isn’t the bold-faced ire of Ollie’s father. The three of them look like a perfect family portrait, like they’re sending Sheridan off to summer camp.

They wheel Sheridan’s suitcases to the already-packed car and silently climb inside. Sheridan gives her parents a quick wave before slouching back in the passenger seat.

“Happy belated birthday, by the way.”

“You think we should hit Chuck E. Cheese?” Sheridan muses.

Devin laughs at first, but Sheridan doesn’t join her. There’s something off about her. Too quiet, too distant, too anxious. Devin pauses with her key in the ignition. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

Sheridan twirls the ends of her hair around her finger.

“That was extremely weird.” Devin waits for Sheridan to meet her eyes. “They’re being so…”

“Normal?”

“If that’s what you’re calling it.”

“We, uh … we talked about stuff. Everything.” Sheridan looks down again. “They didn’t like the idea of us doing this, but when I told them I don’t think I can stay better with them, they … yeah, it’s all good now.”

Devin blinks. “You told them?”

Sheridan nods, but there’s no joy in it.

“You feel okay about that?”

Sheridan looks back at her house with a small frown. When she meets Devin’s eyes again, though, she’s smiling in that easy, casually joking way she’s so good at. The one she wears when she’s hiding. “I would feel more okay if we started driving so I don’t have to carry boxes in the dark. Remember when you were the one telling me to hurry up?”

Devin laughs, but she can’t fight the twisting in her stomach. They pull away from Sheridan’s neighborhood and onto the highway, the quiet so thick it makes Devin ill. She clears her throat.

“You’re sure you feel okay about leaving?”

Sheridan is quiet for a long moment. “I’ve been feeling a lot of things about a lot of things. I don’t know how I feel about anything.”

“Okay,” Devin says carefully. “You feel okay about this, though, right?”

Sheridan says nothing.

“Sheridan?”

“Can we pull over?” Sheridan asks abruptly.

Devin hesitates. She pulls to the shoulder of the highway, shoving the Honda into park as other cars streak past them. Each passing car rattles the Honda in its wake. Devin doesn’t look at Sheridan, focusing on the early fall sunlight spilling across the dashboard. Because she already knows what this is about. She should’ve known that, just like the mimic said, this wouldn’t be good enough for Sheridan. A few months outside the woods and she’d change her mind.

“You okay?” Devin finally asks.

Sheridan sucks in a sharp breath and looks out the passenger window. “Is this real?”

Devin blinks.

“Like, are we really doing this?”

Another batch of cars rushes by and Devin tries to find her words. A good person would offer to take Sheridan back and call the whole thing off. A good person would be okay with that, and even though Devin has spent the past few months trying to become a good person, she doesn’t want to be good today. She wants to be horrible and selfish and she wants to beg Sheridan to stay. The Devin that stepped into the woods four months ago would be ashamed.

When Devin doesn’t answer, Sheridan eyes her. “Devin?”

“Do you want to go back?” Devin asks.

Sheridan reaches across Devin’s lap and turns the ignition off. The quiet pours in, heavy and hot. And Devin feels a thousand things at once. She wants Sheridan to stay, wants her to speak plainly, wants her to say something snide so they can fight about it. She wants to reach across the center console and take Sheridan’s face in her hands. She wants to kiss her so hard it leaves a mark.

“I don’t want to go back,” Sheridan says finally. “I just need a second. I’ve been … I was picturing today for a long time.”

Devin’s eyes widen. “Like for your birthday? I don’t want to ruin anything, but—”

“Oh god, no.” Sheridan laughs. “I mean the day I left home.”

“Ah.” Devin reaches over, cupping her hand on Sheridan’s knee. She clears her throat again. “Do you think you’ll still talk to them?”

Sheridan shrugs. “Does that make me a coward?”

“No,” Devin says. “No. I mean, Ollie said he was cutting his dad off but now it’s like … it’s different than he thought it would be.”

“Yeah.” Sheridan wipes her nose. “That sounds right.”

“I’m not gonna judge you for it,” Devin says. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I don’t think any of us have room to judge each other anymore,” Sheridan says through a laugh. The car rattles again and Sheridan shakes her head. “Never mind. I’m just being weird. We can keep going.”

Devin watches her. The sun tilts over her eyes, turning her watery blue irises the color of snow. And even if Devin had no home to pull her roots from when they got back, she understands. Sheridan’s life has been one long process of being pushed and pulled from her parents’ hearts like the ebb and flow of a tide. This time is different. It’s good and it’s healthy and it scares her.

Devin swallows. “You okay taking the long way?”

“I wouldn’t even know what the long way is,” Sheridan muses. “You can take me whatever way you want.”

Devin arches a brow at that, which earns her a playful smack on the leg. They peel away from the highway, whipping along rugged back roads until the last of the urban sprawl dies away and only the woods are left. Even this close to the trees, when they press in tight it’s like Devin’s blood vibrates. Sheridan is quiet, too. Devin imagines the fear and excitement and familiarity burns just as bad in her.

They spill into a small town somewhere near the coast and Sheridan raises a curious brow. But Devin reveals nothing. She texts Ollie to tell him they’ll be late. She doesn’t know the details of her plan yet, but she knows how she wants Sheridan to feel. Like everything is different, but nothing has changed. Like the life they promised they would reach for on the outside still exists. They don’t need to be lost to find each other.

She pulls into a fast-food drive-thru and purchases an obscenely large basket of fries. At a convenience store, she buys a two-liter bottle of soda and a bundle of candy bars. She drives farther into the trees, tuning out Sheridan’s playful demands for an explanation. It’s been years since Devin drove up this ridge—three fosters ago, she thinks—but she still remembers the way.

Once they’ve crested a steep hill, Devin finally pulls the car into a stretch of empty parking lot. Green grass rolls out until it meets the jagged end of a cliff. Past the drop-off, the ocean glitters, stretching wide across the horizon. The trees press in on all sides like the cliff was carved out just for this view. The sky is familiar, barely kissed with sunset, the first pinpricks of starlight seeping through. It takes Devin by surprise at first, how much it looks like the woods again.

Or maybe everything looks like the woods since they left.

“Are we having a picnic?” Sheridan laughs once Devin parks the car. “This is very sentimental for you.”

“Just grab your fries and follow me,” Devin says.

She climbs out of the car and clambers onto its hood, lying back so that her head leans against the windshield. The wind is cool over the ridge, the parking lot empty and the trails clear. There’s a tug in Devin’s chest at the loneliness of it. It’s too similar to the nightmare they just escaped, but alone in the woods with Sheridan, it all feels familiar.

Reluctantly, Sheridan lies back next to Devin, eyes trained on the sky, laughing a little under her breath. “You wanted to retraumatize me by bringing me here? You’re sick.”

Devin waits until Sheridan’s mouth is full of fries to speak.

“Okay,” she says. “Everything you think can go wrong with this. Go.”

Sheridan makes a muffled, surprised noise that Devin can’t decipher. When she swallows, she glares. “Right now?”

“Right now.”

Sheridan considers. “What if we fight too much?”

It’s a doubt Devin’s lingered on, too. It’s easy for their words to come out barbed, easy for them to shut down at the slightest sign of danger. When she looks at Sheridan, she sees a thousand fights down the line about dishes and alone time and car usage. Trivial things. But after the woods, she can’t imagine any of it sticking. With a small smile, she says, “Define ‘too much.’”

“Okay.” Sheridan huffs. “What if Ollie gets tired of us?”

“I’ll kick his ass.”

“What happened to personal growth?” Sheridan teases. “We’re threatening roommates with violence?”

Devin rolls her eyes. “Next issue.”

“What if we get tired of each other?”

Devin laughs out loud. “I was tired of you the minute I met you. You get used to it.”

“Wow.” Sheridan smiles. Without looking, her hand finds Devin’s wrist. She slides her fingers down Devin’s palm before tentatively lacing their fingers together. “You’re very romantic. Has anyone told you that?”

Devin squeezes Sheridan’s hand and it feels too normal. Too natural. Like the girls she saw holding hands with their boyfriends back at school, casually intimate in a way that makes her feel like she’s falling. She musters up what little bravado she has. “Glad to hear I’m sweeping you off your feet.”

Sheridan goes quiet. She looks up at the sky and something shifts in her eyes. Her hair flickers at her cheeks and, in an instant, Devin sees the entire history of her. The girl that lived in her sister’s shadow, the girl that found herself devastatingly alone, the girl her parents kept running through the wash, hoping each time she would come out clean. She sees the Sheridan from the woods, too, broken down and built back stronger. Smart and funny and cutting. Devin watches Sheridan’s face and she sees them all.

“What if I don’t get better?” Sheridan asks.

Devin stills.

“Like, ever.” Sheridan closes her eyes. Her grip on Devin’s hand tightens. “What if I keep trying and it never works? What if I go backward?”

“Like using again?” Devin asks.

“I haven’t since we got back. But I’ve been more … aware of it? When we were out there, relapse wasn’t an actual choice. It was survive withdrawals or don’t. Here, it’s different.”

Devin swallows. “You feel tempted?”

“I’m just scared it never really goes away. After everything, it feels like it was just waiting for me to come home. Like it didn’t end and I didn’t get better. It just paused.”

Devin chews on her answer a long time before she speaks. “The bad stuff follows me, too. It’s not like your stuff, but I feel it. So does Ollie. I think it follows all four of us. The things we did before. Who we were.”

She’d hoped that the moment she smashed the last of not–Mr. Atwood to pieces, the moment she set his body ablaze, the space he occupied in her would burn with him. But just like every fight, every loss, every night spent lying awake in the dark, every half-baked escape plan, none of it ever leaves. She’s made of every bad thing that has happened to her, just like she’s made of every good thing. She’s made of every good thing before the woods and every good thing she found in its unyielding grip. She’s made of Ollie and Aidan and Hannah and Sheridan.

Sheridan is made of her, too.

“What if we never get rid of it?” Sheridan asks, an edge of laughter to her voice like she plans to turn it into a joke. Instead of finishing the thought, she turns onto her side to face Devin, their hands still intertwined. “Is that good enough? Walking around with it hanging on us?”

Devin turns, too. Looking hard into Sheridan’s eyes, it’s like they’re back in the woods. Without thinking, Devin reaches over and brushes a strand of Sheridan’s hair behind her ear. The wind is cool enough to pull goose bumps from her forearm.

“We survived shit most people can’t even imagine,” Devin says quietly. “We’ve seen the worst. I’m not … I don’t know anything, but I think the rest of it will just be echoes.”

Sheridan raises a brow. “Echoes?”

“A little less every time,” Devin clarifies.

Sheridan smiles. She eyes Devin’s mouth and her expression shifts. “Okay. You make a compelling argument. I agree to try tolerating you long-term. How about I tell you something I’m not worried about?”

“Sure?”

“Now…” Sheridan trails off, voice heavy.

Her hand leaves Devin’s, creeping instead to her waist. She takes a fistful of Devin’s T-shirt, scooting until she’s conquered the few inches of space between them. Before Sheridan even touches her, Devin feels the dizzying warmth of her breath. Sheridan’s fingertips stroke Devin’s jaw.

Against Devin’s lips, she breathes. “… I can do this all the time.”

When she kisses Devin, it’s slow and aching. It’s a disorienting rush back to the woods, more tender than the ranger station, more hopeful than the lake. A sunset on the hungry, lonely girls they were when this nightmare began. A sunrise on something new.

Devin threads her fingers through Sheridan’s hair—soft now, like silk against her knuckles—and sinks into her. The trees shift around them, the roar of distant water no louder than a hoarse breath, the sky easing finally into night. And for the first time since she can remember, Devin wonders how she got this lucky.

It isn’t perfect, but it’s enough.

Acknowledgments

If there’s one thing this industry has taught me, it’s that every book’s a different beast. Like a great, unsolvable puzzle, the moment you think you’ve got your process down, it changes again. As I prepare for my third book to enter the world, I can’t help but feel so lucky I got to solve this particular riddle. I got to do this again, and I got to do it better than the last time and the time before that. Not everyone is given the chance to grow their craft like this, to feel around for the type of story they ultimately want to tell. What the Woods Took reminded me how wonderful it feels to write knowing that you’re producing your best work. I’m so incredibly proud of this book, and I have a never-ending list of people to thank for its existence.

To my editor, Sarah Grill. Thank you for seeing the magic in this book and for taking leaps and bounds out of your comfort zone to get into the nasty, nightmarish horror of this forest with me. Thank you for your insight, for your patience, and for championing this story every day. Also for the Google meeting titles that made me laugh at 7 A.M. when I needed it most. Thank you also to Vanessa Aguirre and Sara Goodman for stepping in to guide this book to the finish line. Publishing can be full of surprises, but I’m glad I landed with you!

Thank you also to all the folks at Wednesday Books who made this possible. To my wonderful cover designer, Kerri Resnick, and to Peter Strain for illustrating and always making my books shine. Thank you, Austin Adams, Brant Janeway, Lena Shekhter, Alyssa Gammello, Eric Meyer, Merilee Croft, NaNa Stoelzle, and Michelle McMillian.

To Claire Friedman and Jess Mileo, thank you for guiding this book to its home and for talking me off the ledge time and time again. Three books in and I think we’ve created a beautiful empire of terror lesbians together. The sky is the limit, and I can’t wait to see all the chaos we get up to next.

To Allison Saft. I cannot thank you enough for pulling me through the trenches until this book was done. We both know that you can love a project to pieces and still hate the grind, but you made every second of drafting this book a joy. These kids never would’ve made it out of this forest without you, and sometimes it feels like I wouldn’t have, either!

To the many folks who read and loved this book from its early stages. Thank you to Ava Reid, Rachel Morris, Adrienne Tooley, Rebecca Mahoney, Jessica Lewis, Elizabeth Kilcoyne, Alison Ames, Birdie Schae, Chloe Marron, Rosiee Thor, and Kalie Barnes-Young. To Lachelle for always being my first reader and for loving my characters in every evolution from idea to hardcover. To Megan Lally and Bekah Corral for being friends, sounding boards, cult brethren, shoulders to cry on, and always available for spontaneous celebration! You’ve made my time in this city a thousand times better. Thank you to Sytel Oelke for always being there, no matter how long it’s been. To the teatime crew: Ingrid, Rachel, Sylvie, Adrian, and Maylen. Thank you, Anna Loose, for seeing my emotional breakdowns and becoming the world’s funniest motivational speaker. Thank you, Alex Clayton, for everything, always, all the time. Words aren’t enough.

To those who read What the Woods Took and offered kind words to help me promote it—Ryan Douglass, Trang Thanh Tran, Adam Sass, and Ann Fraistrat. You are creating my absolute favorite stories in this corner of the queer horror universe, and having your eyes on this book meant the world.

Thank you, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Davis, and all the rest. The kids in this book don’t all have families that raise them up and make them feel loved, no matter what. We’ve all come a long way together, and I’m so grateful to have had you in my corner.

To Carly. I barely know where to start with you. This book wouldn’t exist without your passion for children and restorative care. You’ve taught me more than you know over the course of these last few years. You wield a kind of compassion that’s so rare in this world, and every child you’ve helped is better for it (including these fictional ones). From reading early chapters to offering feedback on the very bones of this book, you’ve been instrumental in its creation. I couldn’t ask for a better sister, friend, and ally on this journey. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And to the person reading this, thank you for picking up a story about a group of lost kids finding their way home. I hope you find home, too, whatever that looks like. I hope you learn to breathe again. You deserve it.

ALSO BY COURTNEY GOULD

The Dead and the Dark

Where Echoes Die

About the Author

COURTNEY GOULD writes books about queer girls, ghosts, and things that go bump in the night. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing and Publishing. She was born and raised in Salem, Oregon, where she continues to write love letters to haunted girls and rural, empty spaces. She is the author of The Dead and the Dark and Where Echoes Die. You can sign up for email updates here.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

First published in the United States by Wednesday Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group

WHAT THE WOODS TOOK. Copyright © 2024 by Courtney Gould. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.

www.wednesdaybooks.com

Cover design by Kerri Resnick

Cover illustration by Peter Strain

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-1-250-34067-2 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-34068-9 (ebook)

eISBN 9781250340689

Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

First Edition: 2024

Contents

1. Title Page

2. Copyright Notice

3. Dedication

4. Author’s Note

5. Chapter 1

6. Chapter 2

7. Chapter 3

8. Chapter 4

9. Chapter 5

10. Chapter 6

11. Chapter 7

12. Chapter 8

13. Chapter 9

14. Chapter 10

15. Chapter 11

16. Chapter 12

17. Chapter 13

18. Chapter 14

19. Chapter 15

20. Chapter 16

21. Chapter 17

22. Chapter 18

23. Chapter 19

24. Chapter 20

25. Chapter 21

26. Chapter 22

27. Chapter 23

28. Chapter 24

29. Chapter 25

30. Chapter 26

31. Chapter 27

32. Chapter 28

33. Chapter 29

34. Acknowledgments

35. Also by Courtney Gould

36. About the Author

37. Copyright