“I’m sorry,” Maddy starts, before we pull her in too, and she tenses but she doesn’t disengage. The three of us hold one another and form our own shield against the world.
Of course, we can hardly keep it out forever.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Her answer is a simple, muffled, “No.”
“We have to keep moving. We have to get off this mountain.” Finn disentangles and says what we’re all thinking.
“Do you think that’ll be enough to end it?” Maddy asks.
He shrugs. “Maybe. Probably not.”
I grow cold again all over. “It has to be someone we know,” I say, detailing the recording with Elle’s voice. “I wouldn’t have gone back for any other reason than the idea that someone might still be here. So everything about this…it’s too personal. Everything is designed to hurt us.”
Maddy’s eyes go to the ground. “You don’t believe it’s either of us, do you?”
I stare at Maddy before I answer her question. I could have. I did. But what use is it to angle for other people’s secrets when I’ve never shared my own? Their actions have proven they couldn’t have been a part of it. “You wouldn’t be here if it were you, now would you?”
She seems to shrink in on herself. “But who? I didn’t think we’d have enemies.”
“I didn’t think so either, but maybe we do.”
“Who, then?” Finn demands.
I open my mouth and close it again. Zac was nothing more than an educated guess. Aside from those of us here—and no longer here—he’s the only one who knows our game well enough. He’s the only one who might be angry enough about how things ended. “Let’s move. We can figure it out once we’re safe, or—”
“The moment they strike again,” Finn supplies.
“Well, yeah. Are you okay to walk down the mountain?”
He winces. “It doesn’t seem like I have much choice, do I?”
“Outside of the boulders, the road should be clear enough for both of us,” Maddy says.
Finn nods. He licks his lips and glances at me. “Stay close to me?”
If it were up to me, I’d hold hands with both of them the entire way down, but I realize that’s less than practical. “Always. We’re here together. We’ll go into the woods, and out of the woods, and down the mountain, and be home before sunrise.”
He smiles at that.
* * *
The fresh air clears my head a little, makes it easier to think again, though the fear and anger don’t wear off. It’s brighter outside than it was in the cabin; the moon and stars give the world a dark blue hue.
Maddy leads us to the path because she knows the way best, and she has a memory for these things. She’d found a box of matches in the kitchen, and lights them occasionally to illuminate our path. It’s not much, but it’s more than nothing.
Still, we’re miles away from civilization, and I can’t help but feel we are well and truly adventurers now, in ways I’d never wanted to know. In games, I can narrate tension and loneliness, but I don’t want to feel it. I can recreate grief, but I don’t want to feel it weigh me down. Now it does. With every step away, I’m motivated by fear and pulled back by loyalty. Elle is waiting for me, and I need to get to her. But I don’t want to leave Carter and Liva behind. That doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel real.
I might as well be in an alternate place, an alternate universe, an alternate story.
Maddy leads the way. We’re circling around the cabin to reorient ourselves, because the pine grove is thick and there is no identifiable path here, when Maddy hisses.
“Stop.”
She takes a step back and simultaneously lights a match. A thin wire peeks out from the undergrowth, at ankle height. “Want me to trip it?” she mutters.
“Please.”
We all take a step back, and Maddy hooks her bread knife under the trip wire and brings it up. The wire breaks with an audible snap.
There’s a beat.
A branch swings across the path like a morning star.
None of us quite know what to say. “I’m glad you saw that, Mad,” I offer.
She shrugs. “Let’s keep moving.”
So we do, our eyes on the ground and our arms around one another.
There are no perception checks here, only luck and skill.
“I’ve think I’ve found the path,” Finn whispers. He crouches down and rakes his fingers through the dirt and gravel. The trees seem to bend over him and watch while he tries to orient himself. There are so many shadows between the leaves and branches, there could very well be a dozen eyes watching us.
Maddy steps forward, matches in her hand, and starts walking in the direction Finn indicated. She moves slowly, checking for any more trip wires. When the path doesn’t stop after another few steps, she gives us a thumbs-up. This will lead us to the parking spot we could no longer use, and from there, to the road.
I look over my shoulder every three steps, and so does everyone else. All three of us pretend not to notice how on edge we are. But Maddy’s question keeps haunting me, bouncing around in the back of my mind.
Do I think going down the mountain will be enough to end it?
Frankly, if whoever targeted them in the cabin didn’t get us there, we haven’t seen the end of it yet. I don’t plan on voicing that thought to the other two just yet, of course. I’m not that cruel; we all need a moment to pretend we’re safe.
But Liva and Carter are both gone.
I was supposed to remain stuck in that cabin—to disappear too.
Maddy and Finn are left.
We’re not done yet.
Still, we pass the imaginary boundary between Gonfalon and the real world, the cabin ground and the rest of the mountain, and something about that feels important. Like there is a world out there that still matters and is still waiting for us, even if it’s a lifetime away.
We’ll
