THE BLACK BEAR SITS on a rock across a small clearing from Dawn. She has her big hiking pack beside her, half full or a little less. She doesn’t look as tired or, you know, gaunt as Lucas did, or Dawn feels. She looks like she’s spent some time in the woods, sure, but she doesn’t look like she’s about to die from it. She looks like she could go another week or so, easy.

Wordlessly, Brielle hands Dawn a granola bar, which Dawn devours. She’s so hungry she can barely tear the wrapper open, but she gets it done, and gets it down.

Brielle hands her another bar. “Last one,” she says. “For now. We have a long day ahead of us.”

Dawn eats the second bar slower, but not by much. Slow enough that she can taste the chocolate chips, anyway. When she’s done, she stuffs the wrapper away. “How did you find me?” she asks.

Brielle shrugs. The expression on her face is still inscrutable. It’s impossible to tell what she’s thinking, about Dawn or the situation or, like, life in general. “Your flashlight,” she tells Dawn. “I saw the beam. You know you’re on the wrong ridge, right?”

Dawn nods. “Warden kicked over the cairns,” she says. “It got dark. We got lost.”

Brielle’s expression softens, just a tad. “You could have died,” she says.

Dawn says, “I’m still not sure I didn’t.”

According to Brielle, Dawn made it nearly all the way back to the main ridge before she took her little tumble. Hence why Brielle was able to see the beam from her flashlight—and why Brandon and Evan and Warden may have seen the same.

“I followed them out of camp,” Brielle tells Dawn. “Yesterday morning. After you and Lucas turned back.”

Brielle looks at her. “That was pretty brave,” she says. “Going up against Warden like that.”

Dawn looks away. “I couldn’t just let him get away with murdering Alex and Christian,” she says. “No matter how much I wanted to escape.”

She closes her eyes. Feels tired and weak, despite the food, despite the rest. Feels overwhelmed by what lies out there waiting for them, by the magnitude of what’s left to do.

Brielle snaps her fingers. Dawn opens her eyes.

“Wake up,” Brielle says. “We gotta go. I don’t know where the boys are, but they’re bound to be somewhere close.”

Dawn doesn’t say anything. She listens instead, to the sound of the mountain. Hears wind, and nothing else. Nothing that suggests Brandon and Evan and Warden are nearby. But they’re out there, Dawn knows. And Lucas’s clock is ticking.

Amber’s is, too….