Scott nodded, and he and Carly helped to ease Mira into a sitting position on the ground as gently as they could, while Naya laid down her jacket beneath her. Carly found her water bottle, unscrewed its lid and lifted it to Mira’s lips, let the last couple of sad drops fall onto her tongue.
Mira looked up at the three of them; saw Naya’s face screwed up in concentration.
‘What is it?’ Mira asked.
Naya shrugged. ‘I was just thinking... we need some other way of making contact with rescuers... if only that satellite phone was working, or we could make a smoke signal with fire – anything,’ she said.
‘The satellite phone... hang on a minute,’ said Scott. The last dregs of colour seemed to have drained from his face. ‘Who was the last person to use it?’
Slivers of ice travelled from the top of Mira’s neck down to the base of her spine.
‘It was me – wasn’t it?’ Carly said. ‘We just tried it again this morning...’ But her words hung in the air. ‘Oh my God,’ she said softly. ‘I gave it to Ben. He shoved it in his bag, didn’t he?’
‘Yeah, I thought so,’ said Scott.
Carly’s expression was flat. ‘I shouldn’t have let him do that.’
‘Guys, does it even matter?’ said Naya. ‘He can’t use it anyway, can he? The phone is dead. Who cares if he’s taken it with him? And at least we have the knife now – he didn’t run off with that as well.’
‘Yeah, I know – but sorry, that’s not the point,’ said Scott. He paused, looked at the others, one by one. ‘Carly, the fact that he asked you to give the phone to him earlier – did we even need to try it again today? He knew it wasn’t working – why did he even do that?’
‘Are you saying... you think he planned it?’ said Mira, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice.
‘He must have done,’ said Carly, her mouth set in a tight line. ‘And I think it can only mean one thing, to be honest. Ben must have been planning something like this all along.’ She swallowed, gathered her strength with a deep breath before she spoke again. ‘Naya, I think you’re right. He might have killed Hannah.’
Mira waited for the others to speak; but in the pause, there was a sound – a new one, unfamiliar, so different to the calls and cries of the rainforest, the beats of nature, that her ears couldn’t quite fathom it.
Chug chug chug.
Chug chug chug.
This noise was rhythmic, mechanical.
And it was coming from above them – above the trees, even. It was coming from the sky.
Chug chug chug.
Chug chug chug.
It was getting louder; the sound was coming closer.
‘Do you hear that?’ said Naya, pointing wildly towards the sky through a gap in the trees. ‘I think it’s... oh my God, look! They’re here to rescue us!’
Mira’s gaze followed the direction of Naya’s finger.
And then, as she watched in mute shock, Naya, Scott and Carly all began screaming and waving, up towards the light, the break in the thick canopy, where a red and white helicopter had appeared, hovering above them, directly within their line of sight.
BEN
Ben felt bad for turning and bolting away from the others like that. Bad – and now scared.
He didn’t have the navigation skills of Carly or Scott, and he no longer had the knife to help quicken his progress; his best hope was to work his way along the path of the sun in the same direction – south, he was sure that was where the lodge had been in relation to the rainforest – and pray for the best.
Shit. Perhaps he should have stayed, confessed to everything, tried to explain himself.
No, it was too late for that.They’d never have believed me. They’ve all already turned against me.
Ben wasn’t sure if it was the shock of Hannah’s death, the fear of being lost alone in this place, the relentless heat or the onset of dehydration – but he felt like he was starting to lose his grip on reality. He was sweating from every pore after that run through the forest, the wet slick on his body exacerbated by the thick, damp air.
