IT’S HER DAD WHO CONVINCES HER.
Now, Dawn doesn’t believe in ghosts. And the ghost of her dad doesn’t visit her in Kyla’s tent. Not, like, in a spiritual form. But as Dawn lies awake listening to the rain fall, she’s thinking about her dad anyway.
Dawn’s dad was a good man. He was kind and funny and generous. He was an accountant and he worked a lot, but he always made time to hang out with his children.
Help Dawn with her homework.
Take Dawn and Bryce out for ice cream on hot summer nights.
Watch movies.
Take walks.
He was a good dad, and he loved his kids. And he was always trying to teach them about Doing the Right Thing. Doing the Right Thing was important to Dawn’s dad. It was a big sticking point.
Find someone’s wallet on the ground? Give it back to them.
Make a mistake? Own up to it.
“Even if it’s not the easiest path,” he’d tell Dawn and Bryce, “do it anyway. In the long run, you’ll be rewarded.”
Dawn’s dad was all about Doing the Right Thing.
(Of course, in the end, it was Doing the Right Thing that got Dawn’s dad killed, but never mind that for a moment.)
Dawn knows that leaving Amber and Christian to die on the mountain is not the Right Thing to Do. She knows that letting one of the Pack members get away with murdering Alex is not the Right Thing, either.
She knows, as painful as it is to admit it, that following the Pack out to the highway and bailing for Chicago to see Nana is not the Right Thing. Not when Amber’s still out there and she might be alive.
Not when someone in the Pack stabbed Alex to death.
(Somewhere inside of her, Dawn knows that Cam and Wendy believed they were Doing the Right Thing by sending her to Out of the Wild. She knows that running away to live with a drug dealer was emphatically the wrong thing to do. She knows that she hasn’t been Doing the Right Thing for a long while now, probably ever since her dad died.)
(But that doesn’t mean she can’t start.)
As quickly and as quietly as she can, Dawn gathers her supplies in Kyla’s tent.
Warm clothes.
Camp stove.
Water pump.
(Just the basics.)
She leaves the books behind. Too heavy. She doesn’t pack her sleeping bag, either, or her tarp, for the same reason.
(She’s going to need to be quick.)
It will take two days to get to headquarters, she imagines. She’ll be lighter and faster on her own than with the rest of the group, but the storm’s coming back, and that’s going to be a big problem.
The weather will slow her down, make it hard to navigate. It’s going to be a difficult hike. But what choice does she have? Amber’s depending on her. And Alex deserves justice.
Going for help is the Right Thing to Do.
When Dawn has her bag packed, she slowly, gingerly, leans over and unzips the tent flap. Pulls her jacket tight around her and laces up her hiking boots and slips out into the storm.
(Behind her, Kyla stirs, but she doesn’t wake up.)
It’s nearly pitch dark and the rain is starting to spatter.
The wind is blowing and the air is raw.
Any normal person would just crawl back in their sleeping bag and zip the tent closed, and Dawn’s really tempted to do just that. But she keeps thinking about her dad, and what he would want her to do.
And she knows it isn’t even a question.
Dawn raids the Pack’s stash of food. Lowers the bag down from the tree where it’s hanging and turns on her headlamp and combs through it.
Thing is, there isn’t much food left. Dawn manages to salvage a couple of canteens and a pot. Emergency matches. Some energy bars and some trail mix, a pack of rehydration gummy candies. Two backpacker meals—Santa Fe Chicken and Bombay Delight—and three packages of instant oatmeal. She leaves the lentils.
It’s not much food for a solid two-day hike. Dawn knows she’ll be starving by the time she gets to headquarters, but so be it. Those Out of the Wild office nerds can cook her a freaking buffet when she gets there.
Dawn zips up her backpack. Buckles it closed. Lifts it onto her shoulders and fastens the straps. It’s lighter without her tarp and the books and her sleeping bag, so that’s a plus. All that remains is to take the first step, and the next.
All that remains is to Do the Right Thing.
But of course it’s never that easy.