Hollis was lost.
She was all alone in the dark, but at least she wasn’t trapped anymore.
She’d been stuck for what felt like an eternity—first in the van; then on a muddy riverbank, wedged between slick river rocks; and finally in a section of trees with no visible outlet, until she’d found a path, crawling over a felled stump, a tangle of roots. Pulling herself from one place to the next, with no idea which direction she was heading. Only that she had to keep moving.
Her lungs were still burning, her arms and legs were numb, and she thought, not for the first time, I’m dead. I’m gone. None of this is real.
She thought she heard something under the sound of the river behind her. A crunch of leaves. A scurrying of footsteps. She spun around and called out with desperation into the night, “Hello?”
Her throat was raw from adrenaline and tears and exertion, but she screamed as loud as she could: “Is anyone out there?”
But whatever she’d heard, it wasn’t help.
She was still alone. Alone, though she didn’t quite feel it.
At the stop before the crash, she’d felt this way too. The vans had idled on the road, engines running, headlights the only beacons in the night. But there were things moving in the woods around her, and she kept getting this feeling that she was being watched as she argued with Brody.
Hollis knew how others saw her, the things they said when she passed—kind of odd; a little too quiet; sure, she’s pretty, but what a waste. Everyone in high school knew the things whispered about them, whether they’d admit to it or not. She just never knew that Brody thought them too, until that day. She’d won a scholarship, had been so excited when she told him, and he looked shocked. No, he seemed skeptical, even. As if he couldn’t imagine her being capable of such things.
And so she’d said, in a moment of hurt and surprise: I need a break.
It didn’t sink in at first. He’d tipped his head, jumped three steps ahead in the conversation, cutting her off: Hold on. You’re breaking up with me? Except it came out as: You’re breaking up with me?
She wasn’t thinking that, not entirely, until he said it. Just like that. She marched away from him, back toward the road.
Don’t be ridiculous. Get in the van, Hollis.
Which she’d been just about to do, until he said it, like that. And so she didn’t. She switched directions and slid into the other van, while he watched incredulously. She’d leaned forward to Ms. Winslow and said, Swapping seats, then slid the door shut behind her, so that Brody couldn’t follow her.
So definitive.
She understood, then, that Brody thought she was lucky to be with him. She understood that she had been undervalued, underestimated, underappreciated, and Brody could go fuck himself.
She couldn’t see straight she was so angry, but she didn’t want to crack. Didn’t want to give anyone else the pleasure of seeing Hollis March falling apart on a school trip.
That’s what she’d been thinking in the front seat of the first van, when it suddenly slammed on its brakes and veered, skidding, screeching, her hands braced for impact, careening off something, a weightless feeling, and then—
Impact. And then water. So much water.
Everything went numb. And then everything hurt, a jolt that worked its way from her skull to her legs.
It took too long to orient herself, to understand what was happening. To remember how to move.
She couldn’t get free. Couldn’t unhook herself from the seat belt for what felt like an eternity. Until finally the button disengaged, and then she felt herself caught in the tangle: arms, legs, bodies moving, desperate for an exit—hands reaching for a way out.
There were too many of them, and eventually, by instinct, she went the other way—down, deeper, until she felt broken glass—the front windshield?—and she couldn’t tell whether it was under her or on top of her, but she kept moving. And then, just as she hooked her hands around the opening—an exit, freedom, a chance—she felt a hand on her ankle, gripping her, pulling her back.
But her lungs were burning and she couldn’t help them. Her instincts took over, and she kicked, then kicked again, connecting with something solid, until the hold on her ankle dislodged, and finally, finally, she was through—
The first gasp of air over the surface, a desperate wheeze.
She’d let the current take her, until she felt a branch or a root, and grabbed on, held tight, climbed upward. And then she kept moving. The mud, the rocks, the trees. Until now she was here, in this in-between place. Hearing things. Feeling things.
Her head was ringing. She might’ve had a concussion.
With her feet sinking into the mud somewhere by the river, she kept feeling it: something brushing against her ankle, pulling her back.
This feeling that she wasn’t truly alone.
She had to keep moving. She couldn’t stand still. Every time she paused, she felt a tug. Pulling her back, killing her.
She had to get farther away. It didn’t matter that it was dark and that she didn’t know what direction she was heading in.
She stared at the dark river, alone. And she thought: You are underestimated.
A sound came from behind her, this time in the opposite direction of the river.
“Hello?” she called again.
She imagined the others escaping, the jumble and thrash of bodies.
No response but the sound of the river flowing, and a distant rumble of thunder.
And then: a change in the air, something carried on the wind. A whiff of something faintly chemical. Hollis whipped her head around, on high alert. A glow of red, in the distance, hovering faintly in the air—so faint she thought she imagined it. But she shifted to the side and saw it again: something glowing, or burning. A signal. Help.
She started moving toward it, as quickly as she could. She kept her eyes trained on that singular point, the light appearing and disappearing as she moved between the trees—a beacon for her to follow.
She kept moving, the river growing louder, taking her around another curve, another embankment.
And suddenly she stood on another riverbank, with her first clear view: a group of people on a cluster of rock, a red flare burning on the ground between them.
There they were, her salvation, on the other side of the river. Across a great expanse of darkness. The thing she’d just clawed her way out of, to freedom.
She had expected something else: someone here to rescue her. But they appeared to be looking for someone to save them as well.
She could see shadows moving on the other side, in front of the eerie red glow. She knew those people, knew that form, the way he walked with his shoulders slightly forward—
“Brody!” she screamed, but no one seemed to hear her over the river.
“Help!” she called again, but no one turned her way. And she had that feeling, again, that she wasn’t really here. She stepped into the river, felt the current moving a little too fast, and quickly scrambled back onto the rocks.
“Hey!” she screamed, waving her arms. They’d lit a flare, and she had made it, she had found them. But it was too far for them to see her in the shadowed tree line. She had to get closer.
She kept moving, up the riverbank, in the opposite direction of the current, to a place where the borders narrowed, and where a large tree protruded over the water, its roots gnarled into the surrounding area, a graveyard under the surface.
She thought it again: You are undervalued and underestimated. She could make it. Maybe it was a concussion, or this fear that she wasn’t truly there—but she was certain she would make it.
She shimmied out onto the felled trunk as far as she could, eyes still trained on the eerie red glow.
“Hello!” she called again, seeing the shadows moving back and forth, faster now.
Finally, she could hear someone screaming too. But not for her.
“Brody!” she screamed. But Brody was focused on someone else, and he didn’t see her. They seemed to be arguing, shadows backlit by the eerie red. She recognized him, even in the dark. The way he moved, the way his hands came out in front of him. To push, or to pull.
Finally, at the edge of the rocks, someone noticed her. An arm, gesturing other people closer, calling into the night. “Is that Hollis?” A girl’s voice.
Hollis laughed with relief. “I’m here!” she said, clinging to the trunk. She was alive, and she had made it, and she’d have to jump, she’d have to swim, but she could do it. She was stronger, more capable, than they thought. She’d done this much already.
When she jumped, there were several people linked together, reaching out into the water, arms outstretched, ready for her. There was a moment when she thought they might miss her, but they didn’t. She expected Brody, his arms swooping her up fast, holding her tight.
But it was Ian Tayler who had her around the waist. It was Cassidy Bent who grabbed on to her arms and didn’t let go, and said, “Oh my god, you made it.”
Until that moment, Hollis had no idea that others from her van had made it out. She’d thought that she was the lone survivor. It had been a frantic, desperate fight, a surge of limbs and adrenaline. The hand on her ankle, pulling her back—
But now there they were, pulling her closer: Ian, Cassidy, and hovering in the background, Joshua Doleman.
There could be more.
“I made it,” she repeated, staring back at Cassidy, both their eyes wide with surprise.
She scanned the group for Brody; everything would be forgotten and forgiven between them now. But Brody hadn’t looked up. He was hunched over the ground, and Grace was screaming for help. Hollis threaded her way through the group until she could see what had stolen Brody’s focus.
She saw, then, what Brody was hunched over: a boy named Ben, lying on the ground.
Clara was leaning over him too, shouting, “What happened? Did you see what happened?”
“I didn’t see anything,” Hollis said, though Clara didn’t seem to be speaking to her.
Ben, wide-eyed and confused in the eerie red glow, just shook his head, hands pulled back briefly from his stomach.
“Oh my god,” Amaya said, falling to her knees, pressing her hands over his.
It was then, finally, that Brody registered her presence. He looked shell-shocked, somewhere else. Stuck in that in-between place. “Hollis?” he finally said.
“We need help!” Clara yelled. Everyone was moving then, jostling Hollis back and forth, as if they hadn’t seen her there. Once again, Hollis felt alone. Trapped.
“Where the fuck is it?” Oliver asked, pushing closer, but she had no idea what he was talking about or what he was looking for.
In the final, sputtering sparks of the flare, Hollis saw a glint of metal on the ground, by her foot. A knife. Red in the glow. Red on red on red.
A shadow reached down for it, blocking the dying light.
And then it was dark.