It feels like the jungle is trying to keep us trapped here.
This wasn’t a track; it wasn’t a pathway. This was pure, untouched jungle. Every direction looked the same. Whoever had left Hannah in this patch of land knew it would be damn unlikely she’d ever be found.
No one belonged here, this deep in the wilderness.
The rainforest doesn’t want us here.
And maybe that’s why Hannah has ended up dead.
CARLY
Carly’s foot caught on a branch; she almost leapt out of her skin, only just stopping herself from tumbling head first onto the ground.
Hold it together. Come on.
It was understandable she could barely walk straight: the day had been a catalogue of horrors. Carly had rarely experienced anything like it in her life, nor could she imagine ever living through something like this again.
To have first watched Mira nearly die in one of the most appalling ways imaginable, suffocating, crushed to death under a pile of mud – and then to discover the dead and mutilated body of the very person who should have been there with them.
This is all my fault. I took us this way back from the waterfall.
She was jumpy; on high alert – she was becoming irrational. But she had to get a grip; the last thing she needed was to start falling apart now, unravelling at the seams. Even though she was no longer the one navigating, her survival depended on her holding things together; on helping keep the others calm too.
Her scrambled thoughts – racing, too fast to grab hold of – were telling her horrible truths.
Or were they lies? How was she supposed to know what was even real any more?
If only they hadn’t followed my lead.
If only we’d taken a different path.
If only none of us had come here at all...
It was too late for any of that now. She was here, and so were four other people who, after not even a full day, she felt connected to – and responsible for. She cared about them: Mira and her quiet determination to be alive; Naya and the way she seemed able to handle crises so effortlessly; Scott and his gentle awkwardness. Even Ben, who she suspected now, underneath the smooth, handsome exterior, was someone vulnerable; someone with extra challenges to deal with, based on the pills she’d seen at the waterfall. Perhaps hewasan addict, just like her first instincts about him had told her. The drugs could be legit, but his reaction – the way he’d grabbed them back, looking shame-faced – gave her cause for suspicion.
Carly shifted her attention back to the group ahead of her. They stepped out of the thickest of the foliage onto the narrow pathway they’d been following before they’d veered off to investigate the source of the buzzing. Bile rose in her throat again; she swallowed it back down.
‘Let’s stop here a sec and check the map again before we carry on,’ called Scott from further ahead.
The group formed a circle around him as he dug the folded-up scrap of paper from his back pocket, unfolding it and tracing his finger across its surface. She was relieved he was in charge of the navigation now; she’d made enough of a mess of things already.
Scott glanced skyward. ‘I’ve been checking the direction thesun’s been moving in for the past few minutes. It’s heading that way – see?’ He pointed to the right. ‘That means that direction is west. And this way’ – he gestured ahead – ‘is south. We know The Hideaway is at the southernmost point of Hannah’s land – see, here on the map? So, I reckon we just need to go in this direction – south – and we’ll get back to it.’
Carly hovered at Scott’s shoulder, checked the map, nodded. ‘Sounds like a good plan. Let’s move.’
Ben turned back towards the track, still holding the knife in his grasp, ready to start hacking at the foliage again as he went, when Naya’s voice, wobbling but firm, reached Carly’s ears.
‘Actually, everyone, before we get going again, should we stop and check how much food and water we’ve all got left? It might take us a while to get back, and I don’t know about all of you, but I’m pretty much out of my stock. Perhaps we can pool all our resources, share things out?’
Carly considered this for a moment. She was desperate to keep moving, to get as far away from the middle of the rainforest as possible. But a tally of their snacks and drinks wouldn’t take long, and it might help keep the others calm.
‘OK, let’s do it – but let’s make it quick,’ said Carly, leaning down to open her rucksack, starting to rifle through it.
Naya, Scott and Ben mirrored her: pulling out dregs of nut packets, a cereal bar, a squashed banana, water bottles that were now mostly empty.
‘Wow,’ said Carly, looking at the sad selection when they’d all finished. ‘Is this really all we’ve got?’
‘Well, I wasn’t expecting we’d still be out here by now,’ said Ben. ‘I thought Paola’s snacks would tide us over.’
