After the river, the coaches separate Devin and Sheridan to keep the peace, a decision Devin is more than grateful for. They hike the rest of the way to camp in a silence that runs even deeper than the day she and Sheridan fought. It’s so routine it’s almost numb. They eat, the coaches express their deep disappointment in the group’s teamwork, and then it’s bedtime. The night is quiet and uncomfortable and Devin is happy to sleep it away.
In the morning, she stumbles into awareness slowly for the first time since this nightmare began. Normally, she would wake to Liv tapping the edge of her tarp, saying something about breakfast. But this morning, all she hears is the quiet of their campsite. No fire crackling, no voices. Trees swaying, wind shushing, nothing else.
Devin rolls to her elbows and peels up the edge of her tarp. The center of camp is empty. A thin coil of smoke drifts from the spent campfire. Everyone else is still asleep, or at least pretending to be.
The quiet makes sense, if she thinks about it. The coaches probably let them sleep in for passing their first milestone. They’re probably off collecting fungus for breakfast, thinking it counts as a reward.
Devin crawls out of her tent and the morning is cool and smooth as satin. There’s a red tint to the trees as the sun swells behind them. She stumbles to the campfire, still wearing her sleep shorts and sandals. Empty packets from dinner are littered around the husks of wood, only a few veins of fire left glowing in the cracks. Devin looks at the other tents, then at the fire, puzzling through it. No coaches, no fire, no one awake.
Beyond the fire, Devin spots the blue tarp where the coaches slept. She doesn’t know why her heart races as she approaches it, but the slight thrush of her pulse ebbing in her ears is all she can hear. She crouches in front of the tent, but when she looks under the tarp, it’s empty. Not just empty. Undisturbed.
Ollie isn’t hard to wake. Devin dashes to his tarp and shakes it. He rustles, then slowly sits up. “What?”
“The coaches are gone.”
Ollie narrows his eyes and blearily looks past her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean they’re gone.” Devin runs a hand through her hair. “They didn’t keep the fire going overnight. Their tent is empty.”
Ollie crawls out of his tent like he doesn’t believe her. A few feet away, Aidan’s tarp crinkles and he pokes his head out, too. Hannah joins them and then, like always, the entire campsite is awake except Sheridan. Devin tries to muster up the energy to be annoyed. She looks at Sheridan’s unmoving tarp a hundred feet or so from the rest of them and the knot tightens even worse. She’s going to be sick.
Devin reaches Sheridan’s tarp and shakes it.
“Ugh,” Sheridan groans from under the plastic. “What?”
“Okay, good,” Devin breathes. “Get up.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s an emergency.”
Sheridan says nothing, but she crawls out of her tent. With everyone awake, Devin waits for someone to offer an explanation that makes sense. Ollie pokes at the dead logs on the fire while Hannah starts collecting the loose packets of food, and Aidan inspects the coaches’ tent. They all seem to silently arrive at the same conclusion: something happened while they were asleep.
“You don’t think…” Ollie says softly. “I mean, no one heard any animals?”
“Jesus,” Devin says. “I think we’d know if they got eaten.”
“I heard them last night,” Hannah says, dumping an armful of meal packets into a bag. “They were wandering around the campsite for a while. Talking about the plan for today. I couldn’t hear what the plans were, though. Something about a food drop somewhere. They didn’t say anything about leaving.”
“They were still talking when you fell asleep?” Devin asks.
Hannah shrugs.
“What if this is part of the program?” Aidan suggests. “Like, maybe now that we passed the first milestone, we have to start the day on our own?”
“Without warning?” Devin asks.
Ollie scratches the back of his head. “He could be right. Like, maybe they want us to clean up, get our firewood, all that stuff. And then they’ll come back and lead us to the next camp?”
“Why would they do that?”
Ollie looks around, scratching his chin. The first spots of stubble have started to shadow his jaw. His shaggy hair juts out under the rim of his beanie, obscuring his ears.
“I don’t know,” he says. “They’re weird.”
Behind them, Sheridan laughs. Devin turns on her, maybe too fast, eyes narrowed. Sheridan is halfway through taking apart her tent. The sunlight hits the watery blue of her eyes, the patch of sunburn across her nose and cheeks, the tangled mess of her lavender hair. She doesn’t look worried, as unbothered now as the day they arrived.
“What’s your issue?” Devin asks.
“Devin,” Ollie warns.
“No, I’m just wondering what she thinks is funny. Because I don’t think any of us are laughing. Maybe Sheridan can add something to the conversation.”
Sheridan stops folding and fixes Devin with an entertained stare. “I have nothing to add.”
“Big surprise,” Devin says.
“Let’s just calm down,” Ollie says. He scratches his forehead and turns to Aidan. “Aidan, you think this is part of the program?”
Aidan nods. “What else could it be?”
Ollie sighs. “Then let’s just … clean up, gather firewood, and regroup in a little if they haven’t shown up?”
It’s wrong and Devin knows it. Something is off and playing house like everything is fine is not the solution. But she looks at Ollie and his eyes are a plea. He wants her to go with it and keep the peace. She sighs, running a hand through her hair.
“Fine, but we’re gonna be sitting ducks,” Devin says. “When whatever got them gets us, too, I don’t wanna hear anything from any of you.”
“You wouldn’t hear from us,” Aidan says, too earnest. “We’d be dead.”
Devin laughs at that, but it’s joyless.
She’s the first to leave the group, slinging their dust-coated firewood sleeve over her shoulder. She props the ax over her other shoulder and wanders into the woods. Other than the obvious strange tint to the morning, there’s something especially lovely about the trees on this side of the river. The canopy stretches higher, tangling so far overhead it’s like she stands at the base of a great wooded dome. She makes it fifteen minutes from camp—far enough for the others to fade from sight—and leans against the thickest tree she can find, sinking to the earth. Her heart thumps, fingers twitching against the ax handle. She looks out at the vast stretch of trees, just like she did when she first got here, just like the day they picked blackberries and she considered escaping. If there was ever a time to run without looking back, it’s now.
She could do it, maybe. She’s better at this now. She can hike for longer. She can forage. She can stretch her meals out long enough, chugging along until she finds civilization. If she just picks a direction, there has to be something eventually. The woods can’t go forever.
Devin stands, wandering through the trees until she finds a gap in the canopy. The only real problem with her escape is that, this far into the forest, they’re surrounded by toothy mountains on all sides. The odds of picking a direction and not ending up scaling one is slim. As good as she’s gotten at hiking, she doubts she can go over a mountain on her own. Not with the gear she has, and not without winter clothes. Staying might feel like dying, but leaving could mean dying, too.
If this is part of the program, she wants to push the coaches off a cliff.
If it isn’t, she might as well push herself.
Devin smooths the thought from her mind, focusing on severing low-hanging branches until she’s filled up her sling. If there’s one thing she’s actually enjoyed out here, it’s the way she’s allowed to slide into one task after another. Routines, Ethan emphasized when they started. She matches the rhythm of splitting branches with the beat of her heart, and in what feels like moments, the sling is full.
Behind her, something moves.
Devin turns fast, ax tight in her grip.
But it’s just Hannah. She smiles and raises her hands in surrender. Devin half expects her to say the coaches are back. That Aidan was right and this was all a test to see how they do on their own.
“Sorry,” Devin stammers.
“Just me,” Hannah says. “Are you okay?”
Devin motions to the sling over her shoulder, slowly catching her breath. “I’m fine. Are they back?”
“Who?”
“The coaches.”
“Oh.” Hannah blinks. “No. But you should come. Aidan found something.”
“Whose is it?” Ollie asks.
Aidan purses his lips, staring at the backpack. The contents spill from the bag’s unzipped mouth: two maps, a water bladder, and a brand-new bundle of meal packets. There are other odds and ends couched in the bag’s depths—key chains and snacks and small notepads—but Ollie’s eyes are stuck on the maps. One is detailed, veiny with trails and rivers and zoning lines. The other is simpler, clearly meant to outline their specific trail. There are faint markings all over the green expanse of the forest, citing nearby food drops, paths to the milestones, and good places to camp. He doesn’t want to buy into Devin’s skepticism, but it feels unlikely that either of the coaches would leave this behind.
Ollie stares at the bag, but he feels the heat of Sheridan watching. She sits on the pile of tarp and sleeping bag that used to be her tent. If she’s interested in their discovery at all, she has a funny way of showing it.
“I think it’s Ethan’s,” Aidan says, guiding Ollie back to the matter at hand. “Because of all the notes.”
“Right.” Ollie fishes through the bag, pulling out a wallet. When he flips it open, Ethan’s too-happy face is smiling at him. A Washington driver’s license for Ethan Carmichael from Puyallup. It shouldn’t be the first time it occurs to him that the coaches are real, breathing humans, but seeing Ethan’s details laid bare like this punches him in the gut. He definitely wouldn’t leave this behind.
Hannah rejoins them with Devin at her heels, carrying a full sling of firewood. Ollie half expected her to have run away already. A wave of relief floods him.
“Okay,” Devin says. “What did you find?”
Aidan motions to the backpack. “It’s Ethan’s. I found it, like, ten minutes outside camp. I don’t know. I didn’t see anything else.”
Devin pushes past Ollie to the backpack. She starts riffling through, inspecting the map, the water bladder, the food. She looks through Ethan’s wallet, just like Ollie did, and seems to land at the same conclusion.
“He left this?”
“I guess so,” Aidan says.
“And you don’t think something happened?” Devin turns the wallet over with a scowl. “This seems like something he wouldn’t leave on purpose.”
“I don’t think we should jump to the worst thing,” Hannah says.
“There’s no blood or anything on it,” Ollie says, running his fingertips along the vinyl lining of the backpack. “It doesn’t look like anything was taken. It was stuffed when Aidan found it.”
Devin grips the opening of the backpack, feeling around the bottom. “They had phones, right?”
“What?” Aidan asks.
“They had to get information to your parents somehow. Had to be able to get stuff from them, too. They were making contact with the real world.”
Behind them, Sheridan kicks a log into a place she finds suitable. Ollie watches Devin’s eyes lock on her like a sniper settling on its target, but for once, she chooses to say nothing. She’s finally found an evil she finds more pressing than Sheridan. Ollie sighs with relief.
“Okay, so…?” Aidan says. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we fan out or something,” Devin says. “Look for them. Or at least their phones.”
“No way.” Aidan unfolds the map on the ground between them, gesturing to the blank spaces that run along the margins. He’s strangely authoritative when he’s panicking. “We know how long the milestone path is, but we have no idea how big the rest of the forest is. If you’re right and something happened to the coaches, the chance of finding them is zero. Plus, finding them could mean we run into whatever got them.”
“Yeah, but what if that blank space is a town?” Devin says. “Tourists love places like this. There’s a town somewhere in those margins with a hotel and a phone. The coaches probably went somewhere nearby to get your parents’ letters.”
“Unless they were pre-written,” Ollie says.
“But if they weren’t, then what?” Devin asks.
Ollie shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“The most important thing is that we stick together,” Aidan practically screeches. “We finish the milestone path. This is clearly a test, and they’ve been telling us from the beginning that we need to stick to this path.”
“And if this isn’t a test?” Devin asks. “If something happened?”
“Then the milestone path is still the best option,” Aidan says. “We don’t know anything about this forest. We don’t even know what forest we’re in. We could be in Canada by now. We could be—”
“We’re in Idaho,” Ollie cuts in, placing a hand gently on Aidan’s shoulder. “We would know if we crossed a border, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have a passport. But Aidan’s right.”
Devin raises a brow.
Ollie can’t believe he’s saying it, either. Again, he’s stuck disagreeing with Devin. He’s sure if he keeps this up, she’ll kill him in his sleep. But leaving the path, trekking into the woods to “find help,” makes no sense. Devin isn’t suggesting this because it’s practical or because she thinks it’ll work. She’s suggesting it because she’s been waiting for a chance to try this since they arrived.
“They said it would take fifty days to do this program,” Ollie says before Devin can fight him. “Which means, in thirty-nine days, there’s a pickup at the end of the path, right? Or maybe that’s where the nearest town is and they planned to call transport once we got there. Either way, that”—Ollie points to MILESTONE 5 on the map—“is a for-sure way out.”
At first, Devin says nothing. He knows it doesn’t matter how much sense he made. Ollie is her friend and, according to her logic, he’s supposed to side with her no matter what.
Aidan nods at Ollie’s suggestion, eyes sliding to Devin. She takes one look around and her expression hardens. She realizes she’s outnumbered.
Hannah cocks her head. “I kind of agree with Ollie and Aidan. No offense. We don’t know what else is out here, but we know the path we’re on has already been scouted out and they decided it was safe. Aidan might be right about this being a test. Maybe this is like the program with no training wheels.”
“What’s wrong with you guys?” Devin pleads. “We are in crystal-clear danger and you wanna pretend it’s business as usual. We need to find the fastest way out before something happens to us, too.”
“Devin,” Ollie finally snaps. “We are telling you what the fastest way out is. You’re not listening.”
Behind them, Sheridan laughs.
The group turns to her. Up to now, Ollie had thought Sheridan was tuning them out. Instead, she’s been silently mocking them since this conversation began, finally cracking herself up too much to hide it.
“Okay, well, ignoring that,” Devin says, gesturing toward Sheridan. “Imagine how pissed you’d be if you got to the end and found out there was a town five miles off the path and you walked right past it because you had to stick to a map?”
“Imagine how pissed you’d be if you went into the woods and died when there was a map showing how to get out?” Ollie says.
“What is this?” Devin asks him, and it stops him in his tracks. She motions to him, hurt sharp in her eyes. He hates this more than anything else they’ve done since this began. Devin’s jaw is clenched. “Why are you arguing with me?”
“I’m not arguing with you,” Ollie says. “You’re being stubborn. I don’t want us to die out here.”
Without warning, Sheridan makes her entrance, snatching up Aidan’s map. He starts to protest, but for once, there’s a twinkle of determination in Sheridan’s eyes that seems to quiet him. She moves out of the circle, laying the map flat on the soil, and she traces the milestone path. Slowly, she fans her fingertips away from the path, into the rugged unmarked terrain that surrounds it. Like she’s feeling for life in the mapped-out expanse of forest.
“Okay,” she says, looking up. “The path obviously follows the natural hikeable area out here. But because it’s behavior therapy, it’s also gonna avoid any civilization. You have to look at the areas they deliberately guided us away from.”
“For what?” Ollie asks.
She leans close to the map, tapping a specific spot to the west of the milestone path. “There’s something here.”
Ollie crouches next to Sheridan and follows her finger. She’s right; there’s a small square directly to the west. It’s unlabeled, and it’s hard to say what type of terrain it’s couched in, but it’s something. He looks up and Devin is crouching, too, eyes trained on the same spot. If she’s repulsed by Sheridan being the one to find it, she keeps it to herself.
She looks at Sheridan and clears her throat. “You think there’s a phone?”
“I don’t know what it is,” Sheridan says. “It’s a structure.”
“How long would it take to get there?”
Sheridan mulls it over. “Based on how fast we’ve been going, maybe two days?”
Devin stands. She paces to the charred campfire and back and Ollie already knows what she’s thinking. It’s all she’s been thinking since they got here. The rest of them might see an oddity on the map, a far cry from rescue, but all Devin sees is escape. Like a trapped animal finally staring out an opened cage door, she can’t see this rationally. She can’t do the math on how easily these woods will kill her. She doesn’t care about the probability of there being people at the structure. She just cares that there could be.
“Devin, it’s not—”
“I’m going,” she says.
“You can’t,” Aidan spits out. “No. We can’t split up.”
“Yes, we can,” Devin says. “It makes more sense to have two groups, anyway. The rest of you on the milestone path while I look for help. I assume no one’s coming with me, so I’ll just need food and firewood. If I find something, I’ll send help.”
“And if you don’t come back?” Ollie asks.
“If I don’t come back, assume I died.”
“Devin,” Ollie says. “I was being sarcastic. You can’t go.”
“Yes, I can.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Again, the group looks to Sheridan. She’s straddling the map, a hand on each of her bony knees. Her eyes are still watery and expectant, still trained on the little square. She looks up at Ollie, at Devin, then back at the map. Her usual cruel, crooked smile is gone. When Ollie looks at Devin, she’s gone pale.
“Not with me, you won’t,” she says.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ollie says before snapping back to reality. “Wait, no, neither of you should go.”
“Oh, I’m going,” Devin says.
“We’re not gonna let her go alone, right?” Sheridan traces a line from their campsite to the square. “That’s a suicide mission.”
“A suicide mission is you going anywhere alone with me,” Devin says. “I’d rather go by myself. For her sake.”
“Is that a threat?” Sheridan asks.
“Stop,” Aidan snaps. “Both of you. Ollie said no one leaves the group. I agree. We have to stay together.”
Ollie isn’t sure when he was appointed leader, but he feels the burn of Devin’s glare. This is stupid and reckless, but he’s not sure what else he expected. Devin’s dark brow is furrowed, jaw tight with anger. There isn’t an argument he can make that will change her mind, and any breath spent trying is wasted. But she can’t go out there. Ollie eyes the rigid mountain range that scales up to their west and he imagines Devin up among the cliffs, falling to her knees with hunger, dying nameless and alone while the rest of them are rescued.
He makes the one argument he has left. “There are five of us. Let’s vote.”
“Okay,” Devin says without hesitation, folding her arms. “I vote yes. If you want out of this forest, everyone else should, too.”
Next is Aidan, who scowls at Devin. “I vote no. It’s too dangerous and we need to stay together.”
“But—”
“He gets to make up his own mind,” Ollie cuts in. “He voted no.”
Devin glares and he can feel what’s left of their tentative friendship splintering in his hands. Maybe she’ll hate him for this, but he’s going to keep her out of those mountains however he can. Everything is up in the air, but the one thing he’s sure of is that she’ll die if they split up. They may not have known each other for long, but he promised to look out for her. He didn’t imagine he’d be protecting her from herself.
“Hannah?” Ollie asks.
Hannah looks at him, surprisingly hesitant. Her eyes find the mountains, then her feet. For reasons Ollie can’t fathom, she’s doubting. She turns to Devin. “You think you can find something?”
“Yes,” Devin says.
Hannah looks at Ollie, necklace tight in her grip. “Then I vote for her to go.”
“What?”
“You said people get to make up their own minds,” Devin says. “Hannah made up her mind.”
All eyes turn to Sheridan. She sits in front of the map, but when she looks up, it’s clear which way she’s leaning. He knows it before she even opens her mouth. He looks at Devin, bracing for her face when she realizes Sheridan is going to be the one to push this her way.
“I say yes,” Sheridan says. “As long as I get to go, too.”
“No,” Devin says.
“Should I vote no?” Sheridan asks with a smile. “I think that would make three no’s for you.”
“I haven’t even voted yet,” Ollie says. “But obviously my vote is no.”
Devin glares at Sheridan, stewing over which hell is worse; staying together or enduring Sheridan on her own. He prays, just this once, that her hate for Sheridan will outweigh everything else. She presses her fingertips to her temples like it’ll massage away the stress.
“Okay,” Devin says. “Okay, Sheridan can come with me.”
“Devin,” Ollie says, as soft as he can manage. “Can we just give it a day to think?”
“You asked for a vote,” Devin says. “Your choice. We voted that I go.”
He doesn’t care that Aidan and Hannah and Sheridan are all staring. He takes a step forward and grasps for something that will change her extremely stubborn mind. “Please don’t do this.”
Devin pulls her backpack over her shoulder. He’s sure, for a second, that he sees a glimmer of hesitation in her. A glimmer of fear. Then she steels herself and looks hard into Ollie’s face.
“I’m gonna get us out of here. We’ll be home soon.”