AFTER ALL OF THAT CAMPSITE DRAMA, the day truly begins with a steady climb through a moderately steep alpine boulder field. The Pack plans to camp by the tarn again tonight, so they leave most of their belongings at the campsite. Christian and Amber bring daypacks with food and emergency supplies, and everyone in the Pack carries water and a couple of energy bars for snacks.
It’s lighter going, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Dawn is worn out and sweating through her shirt within ten minutes of leaving the campsite. The ground is slippery with loose rock and dewy lichen, and she can’t find her footing and nearly twists her ankle a few times. Besides, her muscles are burning from just hiking to the base of this stupid mountain; she’s not sure she has enough in the tank to make it up to the summit, and it’s starting to scare her.
Lucas and Alex fall in beside her. “Crazy morning, huh?” Lucas says, panting for breath. “Christian’s such a weirdo.”
I guess it’s friends-on again, Dawn thinks. “Did you see what happened?” she asks the boys. “I was peeing.”
“I guess he touched that girl Kyla’s ass, just like she said.” Alex pulls himself over a boulder the size of a fridge. “It could have been an accident, but I don’t really know.”
Lucas helps Dawn over the same boulder. “Nah,” he says. “I see no reason to doubt Kyla; Christian’s done it before.”
“He’s a creep,” Dawn agrees. She cranes her head toward the front of the Pack, high above, where Warden and Brandon and Evan are leading the way, climbing fast and steady with long, powerful strides.
Dawn has to tear herself away from watching how Warden’s muscles ripple through his shirt, the way his triceps flex when he reaches to pull himself, the definition in his calves.
Down, girl.
“I think those guys are sick of it,” she tells Lucas and Alex. “Like, if Amber hadn’t stepped in, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Lucas and Alex follow her eyes to the boys at the front. Lucas frowns. “Those guys are bad news,” he says. “Don’t you think?”
Dawn shrugs. “We’re all bad news, dude,” she replies. “That’s why we’re here.”
Alex laughs. “You guys don’t seem so bad to me,” he says. “All things considered. But that counselor—Christian? He’s fucked.”
Lucas makes to answer. Loses his footing on a patch of loose shale and slips and slides down about five or ten feet, ripping his pants, his palms coming up bloody. “Shit,” he says, the conversation forgotten. “I freaking hate Fart Mountain.”
When they reach the spine it’s like the sky opens up and they’re standing on top of the world.
“You can almost see the ocean,” Amber tells them, pointing in a direction that must be west. Dawn follows her gaze, but she can only see mountaintops and vast forest, same as always except more of it, miles and miles of unbroken wilderness.
Some of the mountains have snow on their peaks. The Raven’s Claw doesn’t, not yet. “Not the south face, where we’re climbing,” Amber tells Dawn. “It all melted away in the summer sun. But when we get to the top and you look down on the north side, I’m betting you’ll see snow. That stuff lingers year-round. No sun to fall on it and melt it away.”
At least I’m learning something, Dawn thinks. Who knew kidnap and torture could be so educational?
From their perch on the spine, the campsite down below looks tiny, the tarn barely the size of a postage stamp. And they haven’t even climbed halfway to the summit yet. Ahead, the spine extends northeast, humping and rising along a thin, narrow crest, with sheer drops and gullies falling away on either side.
“Careful with this part,” Christian calls back as he leads them onto the spine. “And if you have to fall off, fall to your right, so we can collect your body at the campsite when we come back tonight.”
He grins back at them. It’s not a nice grin. He motions to the north side of the mountain, where a long, steep glacier zone culminates in another perfect blue lake, a million miles from anywhere.
“You go that way, we’re not coming to save you,” Christian tells them. “That’s helicopter territory, assuming you don’t die outright from the fall.”
The Pack just kind of stares at him, then at each other. Even Brandon and Evan look worried.
“I think I’m afraid of heights,” Dawn tells Lucas.
Lucas nods back, grim. “Yeah,” he says, looking up the narrow spine to the summit. “Me too.”