Page 82 of Into the Dark, We Go

"It does," Nick agreed reluctantly, still studying the book.

I exhaled, "So?"

He looked up, and then down, his gaze drifting over my bare feet and legs before meeting my eyes again. "This can wait till tomorrow," he said, his voice low and soothing, as he grasped the hem of my T-shirt and gently pulled me into his room.

The night enveloped us, a shroud of quiet and still. Nick’s steady heartbeat pulsed like a metronome, grounding me and anchoring my thoughts as they scattered in every direction.What was I doing?

"I should go back to my room," I murmured.

Nick’s hand found mine in the darkness, stopping me from pulling away. "Stay," he whispered, his breath warm against my ear. "They won’t know."

I hesitated, then relented, leaning into his arms.

The morning creptin with a gray reluctance. I drifted in and out of slumber, unaccustomed to sharing a bed with someone. Nick lay beside me, deeply asleep, the gentle rush of air from his exhalations tickling my skin. I didn’t want it to end, and it scared me.

Sometime after six, I quietly slid from under his arm, took the abandoned book that brought me here—maybe just an excuse my brain, hungry for connection, had conjured—and left, closing the door behind me.

Mitch usually rose early, so it felt like the right time to slip away before any awkward explanations. Not that he would say anything. I doubted he’d dare consider it his business, but some things were best kept private. I didn’t want to disrupt the group dynamic, but hand on heart, the guilt was eating me alive. Because, despite everything, it felt like I was betraying the reason I came here in the first place—to search for Lucas.

The next three days were uneventful. I shared my theory about the story in the book. June matched my enthusiasm and read the text several times, while Mitch stayed firmly on Nick’s skeptical side.

After sleeping on it,literally, I began to doubt the connections I had made. But the more I reread the story, the more convinced I became that I was right. The Harvest Moon, the string of disappearances, and the symbol all fit the sinister pattern we were chasing. Yet everyone carefully avoided saying the word "sacrifice," even though the book spelled it out clearly.

The four of us trekked to the spot Nick and I had discovered off the hiking trail, where the symbol had marred the bark of a tree.

Dread coiled in my stomach with every step. I didn’t want to go back, not to the engraved eye, not to the deer’s hollowed-out corpse, not to the twisting paths that had almost devoured us last time. My earlier resolve, so firm when we were planning this, dissolved the moment we stepped into the forest. The fear of getting lost again gnawed at me, the thought of wandering in circles, never finding our way out, tightening around my throat like a noose.

But Mitchell’s skepticism steadied my nerves. His doubt, his rational explanations, his insistence that there had to be another answer. It kept the fear from fully taking hold. I clung to it, even as unease prickled at the back of my neck.

"Here, we turned here," Nick said, sounding sure, as he veered off the trail into the dense woods. Time ticked by. Minutes, then half an hour.

Nick halted suddenly. "This isn’t right."

Mitch glanced at the compass on his watch. "What?"

"We should’ve found it by now."

"Maybe we got off track?" June suggested.

Nick rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe."

We retraced our steps to the trail and tried again.

And again.

Nothing.

We couldn’t find the tree at all. It felt like déjà vu—the same confusion Nick and I had faced last time—but this time it wasn’t surreal. Instead of circling endlessly, we were simply failing to find what we were looking for.

"Are you sure it was there?" Mitch asked.

"Yeah," Nick replied. "I’m certain. I remember this." He gestured toward the scenery, then let his arm drop, his eyes scanning the trees as if willing the symbol to appear.

Mitch turned to me for confirmation. I shrugged. I’d never been good at finding my way in the woods. All trees look the same to me.

After a couple more attempts, we were wet, sweaty, irritated, hangry, and eaten alive by mosquitoes, with no choice but to turn back.

When we finally trudged back to the cabin, drained and defeated, Mitch had another task lined up for Nick and me. He wanted us to dig deeper, find more references to the legend I’d uncovered and look for any potential ties to religious groups or secret societies—anything that felt hinky, as he put it. Mitchell himself opted out of the research, claiming he was more of an ‘action man,’ leaving Nick and me to sift through the details. June, to her disappointment, was told to stay put until further orders. She wandered the cabin like a restless ghost, snapping at everyone.