“John!” she called. Her voice echoed off the stone, but there was no reply.

Lavender cupped her hands to make her voice go farther.

“John!” she called again.

Still no answer.

She ran back and forth around the mountaintop, shouting his name in every direction without any success. Even the short distance left her exhausted and panting for breath. Lavender could hardly think straight.

John couldn’t have gone that far … He could probably hear her but was just too stubborn or too upset by all the fighting to answer back.

Lavender trudged in a circle around the perimeter of the mountain, looking for a clue. There had to be something to tell her which way he’d gone. On the steepest side of the mountain, where there were boulders piled up like children’s blocks, she could see imprints in the dirt from all their feet. No wonder they were so drained. They had to have come up the mountain by the most difficult route possible.

Lavender didn’t think John would have tried to climb down that way. She kept looking, and on the far side of the peak, she found a few footprints in the dust. He was walking east.

She didn’t know why, and she didn’t know what he hoped to accomplish, but the footprints in the dirt had to be his. Holding her head in her hands, Lavender walked a few yards, calling his name, and scanning the area. If only she could focus. If only she’d brought her binoculars or something. She found no trace of him other than the fuzzy outline of his sneakers’ soles.

“John!’ ”

She tried calling his name a few more times. Lavender was as irritated as she was exhausted. They didn’t have the time or energy to go stumbling after John, but she also knew in her heart that it was wrong to split up. If they were going to find a way to survive, they had to work together, and they had to find John.

She jogged back to camp as quickly as she could, which wasn’t very quick at all.

“Rachelle! Marisol!” she called out. “Get out here. We have to go!”

There was a rustle, and Rachelle emerged from the shrubs. “What do you want?” she said.

“Hurry up! We have to keep going.”

“What? Why?” asked Rachelle. “Is there a bear?”

“We have to catch up with John if we’re going to find him before dark.”

“What are you talking about?”

“John. He left. Ran off. We have to catch up with him.”

Rachelle rolled her swollen red eyes. “I thought there was an emergency.”

“This is an emergency. We have to stop him from going off on his own. Before he gets attacked by animals or—or—”

“If you want to find him, go for it.”

“We have to stick together,” Lavender said slowly and clearly. “What happened to leave no man behind?”

“He left us. It’s different.”

“But we all need each other. We’ve helped each other so many times.”

Rachelle snorted. “Last time I checked, we’re still stranded in the middle of nowhere without any water. So I don’t think we’ve actually helped each other all that much.”

Rachelle trounced back into the bushes. Lavender took a few steps after her. She would drag Rachelle and Marisol out of there if it killed her—or them—but then Lavender hesitated. She didn’t want to hurt Marisol. Not again.

For a moment, the mountaintop was perfectly quiet, perfectly still. There was only silence. Lavender looked off into the distance. The world was beautiful. Dramatic gray-blue skies stretched endlessly into purple mountains. She could see trees and mountains and the “Wonderland of Rocks” stretching in their endless columns, making this one of most the incredible sights that Lavender had ever encountered.

But she could also see the sun low on the western horizon, and she could feel the chill in the air as a breeze picked up again, reminding her of nightfall, when temperatures would plummet and they were exposed on a mountain with no shelter.

She couldn’t leave John to face the night alone, and there wasn’t any more time to argue with Rachelle or to try and coax Marisol out of hiding. Every minute she hesitated was a minute farther that John could get. Lavender had to catch up with him and talk him into returning. He had voluntarily helped her when the flash flood came, and now it was her turn to help him … when he really needed it.

She wished she could leave a note. Lavender would have liked to give Marisol and Rachelle details: which direction she was going and when she’d be back and how long they should wait before coming after her. But since she had no real answers and nothing to write with, she settled for cupping her hands and shouting in their direction.

“I’m going to get John. Be right back!”

Lavender waited, hoping for a reply. When none came, she walked east and started following the footprints that led away from camp. She went slowly, because she didn’t have the energy to go fast, and also because a little part of her was hoping that Marisol and Rachelle would run after her.

She did hear some scuffling, and then loud voices. But no one called for her. Lavender continued a few more steps in the direction of John’s footsteps. They were harder to trace than she’d thought they would be—unclear in the dirt and patchy. It didn’t help that her muscles ached and her head throbbed.

Lavender wished that she’d been trained how to track animals. She had seen television shows where expert hunters or survivalists knew how to identify animals by their prints and then follow them. Lavender knelt by one series of footprints on the dusty mountain peak and tried to read the story there.

This particular patch of ground zigzagged with sneakers that seemed to be facing toward camp and other prints that looked headed in the exact opposite direction. To her, it looked like John had almost turned around.

If she was right, he was having doubts. Maybe John had run off because, like Marisol, he needed a few minutes alone. He was exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and upset. He was clearly not in his right frame of mind. None of them were. If he was unsure … if he didn’t actually want to be separated … she should be able to catch up with him. She stood and started to walk after him.

“John!” she shouted. “John, come back!”

There was no reply.

She tried again. “John! Answer me!”

This time, Lavender did hear a returning cry. Her call was followed by a shrill, piercing shriek, but it wasn’t John. It was Marisol.