Cameron

Had she blacked out? Why else would Cam be at the bottom of the mountain, alone, with no recollection of the descent?

She'd promised the others she'd be right back. Siena had to be freaking out.

Her pack... Cam patted her shoulders and spun around.

It was gone.

She took a lot of precautions to never freak out in the woods; certifications up the ass—everything from Wilderness First Responder to Bushcraft 101 to a Navigation Intensive. She was even certified to be an instructor, not that she ever wanted to go that route. In grad school, she'd realized she lacked the patience to teach.

Cam couldn't take the time to worry about where the last twelve hours had gone. Water was more important, and she was thirsty. The only safe water was back at the cabin, at least a thousand feet above her.

The sun was setting at her back, which meant she stood on the western slope of the mountain—not the south—on a trail between the summit and Triplet Lakes. At least she didn't have to scramble up.

Dusk had fallen by the time Cam ascended, her mouth so dry she couldn't even swallow. She tugged a flashlight from her pocket and clicked it on.

Before her, the trail thinned to nothing, but water babbled a couple dozen yards ahead. Helio Creek was the major artery of snowmelt from the glacier to the lakes below. She'd collected water from it only yesterday, which meant she just needed to follow it upstream to reach the cabin.

Cam stumbled through the brush to the creek, the air dense with moisture. She muttered curses at herself for not having a Nalgene and a damn filter on her. But it wouldn't matter, not for much longer. The cabin was just ahead. Then she'd be able to figure this whole mess out, and whether the others had left the mountain without her. Siena wouldn't dare. Emmett on the other hand...

Her light caught on a pile of junk near a tree to the right. It looked like someone had made an impromptu camp and then left all their stuff. Weird—she, Emmett, and Isaac had scoured the area yesterday. No one had mentioned anything about finding an abandoned site.

Cam stopped, kicking the end of a degrading sleeping bag half-buried by needles and brush. Stepping over tufts of down and ripped nylon, she stooped near the abandoned backpack and shone her light on the faded pink fabric, and the Mount Whitney patch sewn to its belly.

A soft "oh" escaped Cam's mouth. She pressed her fingers to her lips.

Time had plucked away half the stitches of the patch, stitches Avery had meticulously sewn by hand as she sat sprawled out on the floor of her dorm.

"Dad took me up a couple weeks ago. Right before term started. He doesn't know how to spend time with me, you know? Thought I'd like the summit, but I was miserable the whole hike. I was sure my heart was gonna stop and my ass was gonna fall off, and I kinda hated him for it. And then we got to the top, and it was like, oh my god. The pain was worth the pure rush. You can see everything. I swear, you can see the curvature of the earth."

Back then, the pack was a shade of plum wine so deep you could get drunk off the color alone. Avery's father had given it to her after Whitney, hoping she'd caught a bug for the great outdoors.

Cam sank to her knees in front of the bag. It was the first time in a while that she wanted to cry, if only for the surprise of it all. The possibility of what it meant.

She held her breath and tilted her light upward, expecting Avery in the boughs above her, eyes filled with blood. But Avery wasn't there, and she exhaled, the relief too familiar.

Seven years ago she'd scoured these woods for Avery in a search that lasted weeks. No one in SAR ever enjoyed a mission's transition from rescue to recovery.

But Cam... She'd flat out denied it. She'd begun requesting more paperwork, more supply-run shifts. Finding Avery dead was worse than never finding her at all.

The ranger she'd shadowed had caught on. He'd given her more paperwork. More supply-run shifts. She'd never even told him she knew Avery. It was one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for her.

But no ranger had her back now, and Cam returned her attention to the bag, grabbing its top and popping the end of the flashlight into her mouth. She pulled the flap back and looked inside, but there was only darkness. Even her light illuminated nothing more than a pit inside a moldering sack.

Cam reached inside.

A strange sensation flowed through the tips of her fingers, up her arm, and into her heart, where it weighed like guilt. Guilt paired with these mountains perfectly in her memory, days spent searching the woods, empty-handed nights with her team around a fire, staring at the texts on her phone until it finally died.

Avery:Janet told me you're volunteering in deadswitch this summer. im taking a group next week. Camping at would ridge

Avery: would*

Avery: wolf* fuck

Avery: could I see you at the ranger station?

Avery: maybe?

Avery: i miss you

Avery: a lot

Avery: shit its late. Just got done with a con and got to the hotel. drunk. lonely. just ignore me.

Avery: sorry for blowing up your phone. and making you mad at some point bc i must have. I dont know what I did Cameron. But im real sorry.

Avery had done nothing. Cam was just an idiot. A jealous, sensitive idiot who never responded to those texts.

And even worse—the person who'd put it all into perspective for her was John Fucking Lawson.

Cam's fingers wrapped around something soft, and she tugged it free. Her eyes burned as she held the hat up to the light, a worn mauve beanie.

She'd brought it with her.

Full circle. The color looked terrible on Cam, but it had made the browns in Avery's eyes pop in a way that warmed the pit of Cam's stomach.

Cam pressed the hat to her nose and inhaled, but the smell was stale. She tucked it into her pocket before searching the rest of the bag, almost missing the only other item: a map hidden away in the water bladder pouch. Cam owned the same edition. It was filthy, the paper worn to almost nothing at the creases. She could tear it in half if she sneezed wrong, but Cam unfolded it anyway, laying the map flat on the dirt near the deflated Osprey.

She stared at the topography, and frowned.

Avery had taken a Sharpie to the whole thing. Inky trails connected chevron peaks, ridges scribbled out and new bodies of water scribbled in. It was like a child had gotten hold of it and changed around the landmarks a bit.

A hundred or so miles north of Agnes, within the inaccessible northern stretch of Deadswitch, Avery had drawn an upside-down V and circled it. Beneath, a hastily scrawled message read:

Find the butcher's daughter.