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Flashing blue-and-red lights greet us as we approach the tree line.

The relief of returning to Prior’s End is now dimmed by the worry about what waits for us at home.

Exhausted, we straggle toward the sounds of civilization, eager to see our families, take a hot shower, and fall asleep in our own beds.

“Wait.”

Tayla says it the way she did the first time. We all realize it and come to a standstill.

“I…” She presses her lips together like she’s trying not to cry. Her nostrils flare with the effort it takes for her to speak. “I can’t…” Her gulp is a wretched thing. “I can’t go home.”

“What are you talking about?” Radhika frowns, impatient. She points to the flashing lights. “We’re already here.”

“You don’t understand.” Tayla’s endlessly blue eyes glisten.

Her hand finds its way to her neck, and she grasps it, making a soft whine of distress.

“I think this is as far as I can go. What happened…it’s started coming back to me.

In fragments. I knew that when we returned, I’d have to tell you.

I knew what I’d have to do, but…I’m afraid of doing it. ”

“You’re scaring me,” Kiara whispers.

“Tayla.” I move past the others to stand directly in front of her. “What’s going on?”

She swallows and doesn’t respond.

And in my heart, I begin to understand.

Why the food never met with her satisfaction. Why she’s let everyone else take the lead on the journey home, as though she wouldn’t be able to find her way out without me.

Why she returned from filling our water bottles on that first night with leaves in her hair, stray crimson strands coming loose from her ponytail. Why she lingered at the stream with that faraway look in her eye, like she was remembering something she’d forgotten.

Why she grasps her throat with that wild look in her eyes like she doesn’t want it to be true. Why every time she touched her neck, I assumed she was nervously fiddling with her necklace.

“No,” I whisper.

“Nova, what is it?” Keiffer looms over me, blocking the moonlight and casting Tayla in darkness. All I can see are her pale cheeks with two solitary tear tracks. How they dangle at her jawline then drop somewhere on the earth below.

“If we’d come across that stream a few hours earlier when the sun was still up, you would have seen the body,” says Tayla. She releases her hold on her throat, lets her hand fall limp at her side.

“Body?” Kiara says it like the word has a secret meaning she doesn’t understand.

“I broke my neck in the fall,” says Tayla. “Days ago.”

We all stare at her neck, but it’s the same column of smooth, unblemished white skin as it’s always been.

“What?” Keiffer asks, voice hoarse.

Radhika makes a sound like a choked gasp. My own heart stutters erratically, a feeling like a knife’s edge scraping at my chest. Evan’s eyes are wide and unblinking; they’re robbed of the ability to say anything. They can only stare at Tayla with dawning horror, tears spilling over.

“I thought I got up again,” says Tayla. “I remembered falling, the soreness in my neck and body afterward. But I didn’t remember dyi—” She swallows. “Didn’t remember anything else.”

“No,” Kiara says forcefully, like that alone can deny what Tayla’s saying. “No.”

“I’m so sorry,” says Tayla. “I didn’t think it would end this way.”

Kiara grabs Tayla’s face in her hands. “No, your journey does not end here.”

“It’s okay, babe.” Tayla’s smile is watery. “It was worth it.”

“No,” Kiara repeats, shoving Tayla toward the tree line. “You are walking out of here with us.”

But it’s as though an invisible wall sprang up to block their path.

Kiara can progress beyond it, but Tayla physically can’t, not even when Keiffer bodily lifts her and tries to carry her across.

Radhika and Evan each take one arm and pull.

Seeing their desperation makes grief rise in my throat.

If her revelation affects me, who barely knows her, I can’t imagine what it’s doing to Kiara, who was so afraid of being the reason one of her friends got hurt.

Kiara keeps pulling at Tayla’s limbs. She refuses to let go, not even when Tayla yelps and rubs at her shoulders. “Stop!” Tayla finally cries. “You’re going to dislocate my arm.”

“So what?” Kiara throws back, her protest ending on a sob. “Better your arm than leaving you behind.”

“Babe, it’s okay.” Tayla wipes away Kiara’s tears with both thumbs. “Remember what you wished for? That everyone would go where they needed to be? I guess the wishing well let me come back this far. I know you’ll be okay now.”

“Stop it!” says Radhika, shrill. “We’re all getting out of here right the fuck now.” She makes as if to haul her again, but the redhead evades her.

“ Enough ,” says Tayla, a hint of her attitude returning in the way she says that one word.

“Let me try a fireman carry,” says Keiffer. “If she’s pressed up against my back, then maybe it won’t recognize that she’s a separate person.”

That doesn’t work either.

Something tells me nothing will.

Tayla meets my sorrowful eyes over Kiara’s shoulder. “I wish I could have gone with you right until the very end. Seen how it all worked out.”

“You did,” I say, uselessly adding, “You will.”

“Go,” says Tayla, nodding to the lights.

“What’s going to happen to you?” asks Evan.

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll fade away. It’s probably what happened to the others.”

“No,” Kiara whispers again, but this time there’s resignation to it.

“My body—” Tayla starts to say, but I stop her.

“We’ll bring you back,” I promise. The thought of her broken body lying there makes my throat tighten, but I don’t let myself cry. I don’t have that right. The rest of the Fellowship does.

They all take turns hugging her, even me. Her friends brokenly whisper things that make Tayla smile, then cry, then smile some more. Is she putting on a brave face for the sake of her friends? Or has she truly made her peace with it? No, how can she? She’s only seventeen after all.

I squeeze her hard, which comes as a surprise to both of us, I think, but she hugs me back.

I wait for a threat to manifest, some warning of how hard she’s going to haunt my ass if I fuck things up with Kiara, but it never comes.

In the end, we just nod at each other. Stoic.

We spent too long disliking each other for sweet words now.

It would only cheapen the solemnity of the moment.

Leaving her behind is hard. Maybe the hardest thing any of them have had to do.

This time it’s my turn to take Kiara by the hand and lead her forward.

The Fellowship of the Fling is ended.