Chapter 28

When my eyelids flutter open, light slices through my eyeballs like a blade.

I try to sit up, but pain tears my head in half.

"Help!" shrieks a voice much too close to my ear. The world spins. "Help!" it yells again. There's an arm behind my back now, cradling me. Helping me to sit upright. I bring a hand gingerly up to my head and wince. My fingertips come away painted red.

"Savannah, oh my god, I thought…" I turn to the person helping me, blinking until Alexandra's face comes into focus. "What happened?"

I don't know what happened. But I don't get the chance to tell her this before more voices punch through the trees, followed by footsteps pounding the earth. Every step, every shout feels like it's ripping my already-cracked skull apart.

"What's wrong?" Jacey's voice. I look up to find the others stumbling into camp behind her.

"I found her sprawled out in the dirt," Alexandra says, out of breath from the screaming. "She's bleeding."

Jacey crouches down beside us, and I squint against the blaring sun. The others press closer, and I'm suffocating. My head is pounding. My stomach swirls; I might vomit. Jacey swats a hand behind her. "Stay back," she commands with sudden authority. "I mean it."

Leaning in, she whispers, "Who did this to you?"

"I-I don't know," I stutter. "Someone came up behind me. I thought it was Alexandra, coming to warn me." I swallow, tasting the dirt on my tongue. The dirt I tasted moments ago. Before someone…

I bristle, my eyes snapping to Alexandra. I wrench myself away from her, immediately overcome with another bout of nausea.

"You were supposed to be watching," Jacey hisses at Alexandra. "How did you not see anything?"

"I was looking the other way." Her hands press together. "At the woods, the way you guys headed. Whoever did this came from the opposite direction."

Jacey huffs. "Savannah, did you hear a voice? Try to remember."

I can't. My head hurts too much. I was looking for something. No—I found something. Those texts between Sam and Abby.

My gaze darts to Sam, to the pocket of his jeans, which was flat when he headed into the woods.

But it isn't now.

I was hit in the head. When I was digging through Sam's phone. I got too close, and I was caught.

Sam was supposed to be with Jacey, though. Searching for the elusive lynx. I look at him, examining his face for a trace of guilt. "Did you have your eyes on Sam?" I whisper to her.

Her features freeze. "We all scattered to search for that cat," she finally says. "One second, his bright red flannel shirt was in front of me. And the next…" She casts a glance over her shoulder. "He could've gone around the back of the camp."

"Savannah!" Grant barrels through the others, brushing past Jacey and kneeling to take me in his arms. "What happened?"

I look up at him, unable to speak. This is the boy I love. The one who was there for me after Piper's accident. The one who wants to spend his future with me. But snippets of another Grant—the one I saw earlier today—trickle in. When he lifts me, I don't resist, but my insides squirm as he walks me over to a fallen log on the outskirts of camp.

Mr. Davis, the last of the group to make it back, pushes through the small crowd that has shifted to continue gawking at me. "What's going on?" he asks, huffing.

"She hit her head on a branch," Jacey says before I can answer. "When she was looking for the lynx." Nice—no need to let things get any further out of control. If the person who did this knows we're onto him, he may try to finish me off. Or he could beat us down the mountain and start wiping any evidence that's left.

"Not my finest moment," I say, trying for a smile that's probably more of a grimace.

Mr. Davis, too exasperated to move, simply stares at the ground. A moment later, he snaps out of his daze, blinking and rushing off to dig an instant ice pack from his bag.

Grant takes it, pressing it delicately to my head. I let him fuss over me, and I ignore Tyler, who keeps slinging me inquisitive looks. I have to think.

"How's the pain?" Grant asks, hovering over me.

"Not too bad," I lie.

"My girl is too brave for her own good." He shakes his head, the pride in his eyes sending a pang through my chest.

"More like too uncoordinated."

He smiles gently. "I'll find you some painkillers. Be right back." He guides my hand to replace his over the ice pack before trudging over to the others. I adjust my position and concentrate on breathing, the fresh pine aroma all but blotted out by the coppery scent of my own blood.

Noah moves closer to me. "Are you okay?" He bends down to examine me, face rough with worry.

"I'm fine. You know, other than the whole getting-knocked-in-the-head-by-whoever-tried-to-kill-Piper thing."

His eyes widen, and he crouches lower. "Wait a minute. You didn't hit your head on a branch?"

"Of course not," I say, adjusting the ice pack, so cold it burns my scalp. "Hey, you had eyes on Sam the whole time, right?"

Noah reddens. "We sort of got separated, not too long after he lectured me for scaring off the cat."

The ice slides in my grip, grating against my wound. "You had one job, Noah."

He looks momentarily hurt, and I feel a pinch of guilt. I didn't mean to snap at him. I approved this disaster plan. But he recovers, turning to scan the camp. "You really think Sam would do all this?"

I shrug. "His phone is conveniently back in his pocket, the same phone I had in my hands before I was knocked out. And Grant can place Piper a few yards away from Sam and Abby that afternoon, right before she fell."

"Abby?" Noah asks, brow furrowing.

Oh. There's that. The other possibility.

Maybe Sam didn't do this…but his girlfriend did.

I glance at Abby, who's out of breath, her pale, freckled complexion pink. Hood pulled over her head, red curls falling loose to frame her face.

Did anyone have eyes on her the whole time? If the mountain cult couple suspected something was up, maybe Abby headed around the back way and took care of things. To keep her boyfriend's secrets safe.

To keep her own secrets safe.

All I know is that we have to get down the mountain. Those texts on Sam's phone—and whatever else he's hiding—are about to be destroyed before the cops ever get the chance to see them.

"All right," Mr. Davis says, taking a seat on a large, shady rock. "We'll rest for a few minutes, until Savannah's in good enough shape to walk. If it's really bad, I have my radio."

"I'm fine," I say. "Can we just go already?"

"Savannah," Mr. Davis says, tugging his floppy hat down, "you could have a concussion."

"I'm a soccer player. I know what a concussion feels like. Trust me, I'll be fine."

I've never actually had a concussion from soccer, but the hard line of Mr. Davis's mouth softens. Like he's considering what I've said.

"All right, but if you need to stop, let me know. I'll use the radio, and we'll have the med team meet us."

"Deal," I say, even though I'm in more pain than the time I broke my wrist trying to make a two-story blanket fort out of folding chairs with Piper and Jacey.

When he turns to gather his gear, Jacey sidles up next to the log, shaking a travel-size bottle in front of me. "Grant said you were looking for painkillers. Do you remember anything else yet?" she whispers, dropping a couple of pills into my palm and sitting down beside me.

"My back was to whoever hit me." I throw the pills back, washing them down with a swig of water. "But I found a text. A very bad text. One of them—Sam or Abby—hurt Piper that day. And they're onto us." We glance back at the others, and a tingle runs from my toes all the way up to the back of my neck.

"So, then," she says, gnawing on her dirty fingernails, "what are we going to do?"

***

When everyone's standing, backpacks strapped on, we begin our descent. Jacey walks on my left, Grant on my right, both making sure I don't keel over. The pills are starting to dull the pain, but it's still there. Blurring my vision, my hearing, my thoughts.

We keep Sam and Abby ahead of us, where we can see them. Mr. Davis's khaki hat leads the way like before, but he moves more slowly after this morning's fiasco at the river.

I don't know if the cops will listen to us. Not without Sam's phone. But I have to try. If Piper wakes up, I want her to know that I tried. That I did everything I could to find the person who did this to her. Maybe it'll mean something.

A shadow falls over me, and I flinch. But it's only the rock formations bordering the trail.

I try to focus on our footsteps thudding against the ground like a drum, to let Grant's tall and steady figure at my side ease my fears like it always has. But it doesn't work. I can't relax or feel anything but this knot in my stomach that won't unravel until I get to the police station. I'm impatient. Sam already tried to hurt me once; he could try again.

We reach the fork in the trail, and my thoughts start to climb up the narrow, winding path on the right. I tug my focus back down to the path we're on, locking my neck so that I can't even glimpse that trail. I never want to see the Point again.

Let it find me in my nightmares.

I stop, shrugging my backpack off. "You guys keep going. I'll try my phone. We might have reception here."

"Good idea," Jacey says, but she drags her feet. Grant hesitates, lips twisted as he turns to watch me. But I wave him on. With one last long look, he concedes.

I find my phone, which has been off a record number of hours, and hold the power button until the screen lights up.

A spike of adrenaline runs through me. The phone still has some juice. Just enough.

I catch an unwanted glimpse of my reflection in the screen and cringe. I haven't seen a mirror in days—another record. My lips aren't glossed in Roses Are Pink. My face is more than just tired; it's feral. Leaves and twigs are trapped in my hair, Friday's mascara dried and crusted on the skin beneath my eyes.

The sun casts a glare onto the screen, blotting out my reflection. When I unlock the phone, my stomach pushes up into my throat. There are text messages—tons of them.

The space between me and the others has grown, so I heft my backpack on again and force myself to move forward. But my nerves are frayed, open and raw. Jacey slows her pace to fall in step with me. I catch her glancing at me in my periphery, but my gaze is on the phone, on the text messages.

"Savannah?" Jacey asks. "Are you okay? Is it your head?"

It's not my head. The thrashing pain is the least of my worries now.

I'm focused on my phone. Or maybe not really even on my phone anymore, but rather something just above it. Or maybe nothing, because I'm shaking so much I can barely see at all. My eyes don't even feel like they belong to me.

"Savannah, you're really pale," Jacey says. In front of us, Tyler turns around to look at me.

I try to speak, but my mouth is parched, cottony. I shove my phone at Jacey.

Hesitantly, she takes it, but she doesn't react, only squints at it. She presses the home button, then hands it back to me. "I think your battery died, Savannah. Just tell me what's going on."

"It's Piper." My voice is nothing but an echo. Like my eyes, it's detached. Not my own.

"What is it?" Jacey breathes.

I can't hear my own steps as I walk, trance-like, along the path. I don't hear the others ahead of us or the birds. Only a low, steady hum playing in my head, drowning out everything around me.

Then my voice—the one I no longer recognize—punctures the buzzing, as two words slip out and freeze time.

"She's awake."