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Would Radhika’s understanding extend to me if she knew?

Or would this fragile truce between us snap like spider silk?

This is the most we’ve ever talked. And that isn’t hyperbole.

This is all Aurora’s fault. If I wasn’t so pissed at her for getting in Mom’s head about Dad, a man she’s never even met and has no right to erase, I would never have been in her tent in the first place.

“I kinda don’t want to douse the last of the flames,” says Radhika, the toe of her boot ready to kick some dirt over it.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. I didn’t say I wouldn’t.

I just feel like it’s at least some protection, you know?

Like if anything happens, we’d see it coming.

” Her expression darkens. “But light also gives us away.”

“Those guys are probably stumbling around drunk and getting themselves lost. You said it yourself. They’re nowhere near here.”

“Nova, I didn’t even tell you guys the worst part.”

My stomach clenches into a fist as I wait for her to continue.

“I didn’t want to scare anyone,” she whispers. “I told Keiffer we should keep it to ourselves.”

“Okay, now you’re actually scaring me a little,” I say with a nervous laugh.

“When we told those guys we couldn’t drink with them, they wouldn’t take no for an answer.

They kept badgering us, telling us not to be pussies.

” She frowns at the word. It sounds wrong and coarse coming from her.

“Finally, to get them to back off, we said we couldn’t because we had our group waiting for us. ”

That makes sense. I nod at her to continue.

“I think Keiffer thought they’d drop it if they knew we weren’t alone.

Like, as far as they knew, there could be a whole football team of high school jocks out here who’d come looking.

Basically, it was like a warning not to keep messing with us.

They didn’t get close enough to touch or anything, but it was there.

The threat that something could happen.”

She doesn’t need to convince me. One girl surrounded by all those men with only Keiffer for protection. I mean, they’d put up a fight, but it’s still only two of them against however many others.

“Sure,” I say, trying to put her mind at rest about any perceived danger she thought they dumped us in.

“It was a scary situation, and they were drunk. They were more than old enough to know that harassing you two was peak scumbag behavior. I’m sure all of us would have done the exact same thing as Keiffer. ”

She keeps going like she hasn’t heard me. “But the thing is, Nova, it didn’t put them off at all. If anything, they got even more curious about us. They asked if they could come chill with us at our camp.”

“What the fuck?”

Radhika swallows. “By the time we got away, we were already late, but it took us even longer to make our way back because Keiffer took all these twists and turns trying to lose them. Just in case they were following. I don’t think he really knew what he was doing.

He said he learned from watching a lot of spy thrillers.

I was looking over my shoulder the entire time.

” She rubs her neck like it aches, and it probably does.

“And he’s scared of the dark, too. Didn’t turn on his flashlight once.

Was too afraid of us leading them back to you all. ”

Keiffer’s heading back to the tent he’s sharing with Radhika. A light glows inside. His blurry shadow moves around, rolling out the bedding. I watch him work, my fingers seeking the comfort of my bracelet.

“Jeez, Rads.” My tongue is woolly and thick, dry and sticking. I attempt a laugh, but it comes out as a hacking cough. “And here I thought we weren’t going to do the cliché campfire ghost story.”

“We’ll be fine.” She uses her front teeth to drag her lower lip into her mouth. “Also, I don’t like nicknames. It’s a full-time job preventing Rads from sticking, believe me.”

“I’m sorry. My dad gave me so many nicknames that sometimes I forget not everyone is a fan.”

“I love my full name,” Radhika says. “My dad’s side is a whole lot of things—Jewish and Polish and Danish—but my mom’s Indian, and she named me after a Hindu goddess. I don’t care for it to be shortened to something ugly.”

I didn’t know that, but now I do. “Won’t do it again,” I promise. “It’s a beautiful name.”

“Thanks.” She smiles, and for a second, it’s like we both forget every other worry. “How about you? What’s the story behind yours?”

“Nova? My dad picked it. My mom wanted something else, but I was a grumpy little thing and didn’t smile once at any the names they tried on me until I heard Nova.”

Sharing isn’t as bittersweet as I thought it would be. Maybe because I’m here in the forest where my dad disappeared. Seven years later and closer to him now than I’ve been in all these years.

“It’s pretty and punchy,” Radhika offers. “Nova. It suits you.”

A supernova is brilliant only once in its life.

When it’s at its most destructive.

Just like that, the worries come rushing back.

“I hope not,” I mutter. Before she can ask me why, I kick the rest of the dirt over the glowing embers.

The darkness swallows her soft gasp, and the air around me shifts as her body jerks, dragging the blanket off my shoulders entirely. “Night, Radhika.”

Her voice is tremulous as she whispers back, “Night, Nova.”

Neither of us, I suspect, is going to get much sleep tonight.