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And now, an extra sense of vulnerability: the risk of danger out here, the fear of running out of food and water. Dozens of questions darted around her brain – the uncertainty of it all was too much to bear.

At least there was one thing she might be able to get a clear answer about. She fished the pregnancy test from her bag, along with some tissues, shoved the test in her back pocket and stood up.

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she said, waving the tissues at the group.

‘Shall I come with you?’ said Scott. ‘It might not be safe to go off alone, especially now that it’s dark.’ He seemed to catch himself suddenly. ‘I mean, I won’t look or anything... I’ll turn around the other way.’

Naya suppressed a smile. ‘Ah, thank you, but I won’t go far.

Just through the trees here, see? And I’ve got one of the torches you suggested we bring.

’ She dug it out, switched the torch on and held it up to show them, its yellow glare giving the dim silhouettes of the trees a jarring, artificial glow.

Naya sensed, rather than saw, Scott’s eyebrows draw closer together. ‘OK, just make sure you stay close enough that we can hear you if you get in any trouble, right?’

She nodded, reached an arm towards him, grazed his elbow lightly. ‘Of course.’

Then Naya edged forward, parted the foliage in front of her, her flashlight guiding her to a large enough space between the trees, ten feet or so from the others, for her to comfortably – or near enough – squat on the jungle floor.

She reached a hand behind her, retrieved the rectangular stick from her pocket, pulled off the cap, then put it back on again.

Would it even be accurate now, at this time of day? The tests picked up the hormone more easily in the morning. She could wait until then to try.

On the other hand, she was dehydrated so the concentration of her pee would be stronger than normal. And if she was as far along as she suspected, in all likelihood the test would work just as well, or not, at any time of the day.

Come on, Naya. It’s better to know. Thirty seconds, and you’ll know.

She inhaled, pulled down her shorts and held the stick between her legs.

It had been years since she’d had to do this; she’d forgotten the trick of getting her aim right, and it was being made trickier by her cramped position and the darkness around her – but within a few seconds, she could see the tip of the stick darkening. That must be enough.

She rested the test carefully on the ground next to her, wiped herself with a tissue and pulled up her shorts. Sitting down on the mulchy earth, she picked the test back up and turned her torch onto the strip in its centre.

One line for negative. Two lines for positive.

The light of the torch wobbling in her shaking hand, Naya held her breath as the first line showed up; the test had worked, then. A few more seconds and she’d know, either way.

The second line appeared almost immediately. Not a faint line; a strong, blazing stripe, just like it had been with Marcus and Elodie.

She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around her head; held back a sob.

How could I have done this? The latest in a catalogue of careless, thoughtless actions.

Making mistakes at work – arriving at the wrong time for her shift, twice in a row.

Forgetting appointments at her children’s school.

Miscalculating her cycle, not believing it was worth taking emergency contraception after her ill-judged one-night stand.

Organization had always been Naya’s strong suit, but it had been starting to feel like everything was slipping away from her these past months.

She did a quick calculation: she was probably about six weeks pregnant – maybe seven.

She racked her brains to try to remember when her last period had been, but they’d been so out of whack over the past year.

Her best friend Suzanne thought it was down to stress; Naya had convinced herself she was going into early perimenopause.

She wasn’t sure that theory was up to much now.

So here she was, lost in a remote jungle with a potential killer on the loose – and pregnant after a regrettable one-night stand that she didn’t bother using protection for, so convinced was she that she couldn’t get pregnant.

Already with two young kids at home, dependent on her for their every move.

How the hell would she cope with a baby?

I want to go home. She picked the test up again, stared at it.

Just to be sure. There was no mistaking it: she was pregnant.

What the hell was she going to do? Her life was spilling over the edges already without adding pregnancy sickness and sleepless nights into the mix, another child to worry about and care for.

And love .

Did she even have any love left to spare?

You have options. The thought flashed through her mind, unabashed. She didn’t have to go through with this, to have this baby, to go through all this alone, again. She could make another choice.

A branch snapped behind her.

‘Naya? Are you all right?’

She whipped her head around, held her torch up in the direction of the voice, tried to stuff the pregnancy test back in her pocket.

Mira was standing over her, torch turned towards the ground, a look of deep concern etched across her delicate features.

Merde . She’d been so absorbed by her thoughts, she’d not heard Mira approaching through the foliage. How had she not seen the glow from her torch?

‘I’m fine,’ said Naya, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes.

‘I was just taking a moment alone – after everything today, I just needed to...’ She tailed off, noticing Mira’s eyes flicking towards the pocket of her shorts where she’d just shoved the pregnancy test. She looked down, realizing that half of it was still hanging out of her pocket.

‘I’m sorry I disturbed you,’ said Mira. ‘You’d been gone for a while, and I was worried you’d hurt yourself or something was wrong, so I followed your track through here. Is that...’ Her voice turned soft. ‘Is that a pregnancy test?’

So, Mira had seen it. Was there any point in hiding what she’d been doing, then – and its outcome?

In normal circumstances, back home in her everyday life, Naya wouldn’t have wanted to mention anything so early on. She didn’t know how she felt about it yet, or what she was going to do; and what might Mira think of her, if she knew how it had happened, how irresponsible she’d been?

But here... here, with everything so terribly broken, so wrong .

Her usual ideas no longer seemed to apply.

And she felt she could trust Mira – she had shown such vulnerability with them all today, been so honest about her cancer and her recovery.

Of all the people who could have stumbled across her here, surely Mira was the one she’d want to talk about this with the most.

She pulled it back out of her pocket, held it up towards Mira, said simply: ‘Yes.’

Mira turned her torch in the direction of Naya’s outstretched hand, stared at it for a moment.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘And the two lines – does that mean positive? Sorry if that’s silly to ask, I’ve never taken one myself.’

Naya nodded. Fresh tears welled behind her eyes; she willed herself to just hold it together, please . She didn’t want to fall apart; especially not now she knew there was a life beginning to take shape inside of her.

She had to marvel at the irony: she’d come here partly as an escape from the toll motherhood was taking on her, an attempt to remember who she had been before she had her children and given herself over to them.

But even here, thousands of miles from home, motherhood had followed her.

‘Yes,’ she said, not meeting Mira’s eyes. ‘I’m pregnant.’

There was silence for a moment. Naya listened to the evening chorus of the rainforest, waited for Mira to say something. Finally, Mira moved towards her, put a hand on her shoulder, lowered herself down onto her knees next to her, and picked up her hand.

‘ Mazel tov ,’ she murmured, and then: ‘Though perhaps you don’t feel like celebrating?’

Naya laughed sadly. ‘I’m not sure I do. This wasn’t something I...’ She let her words hang.

‘I understand,’ said Mira. ‘It sounds like you have enough on your plate.’

Naya’s stomach growled. ‘My plate!’ she exclaimed. ‘I think my belly heard you.’

‘Poor choice of words,’ said Mira. The two women looked at each other for a moment, then dissolved into giggles. Within seconds, tears were pouring down their faces. It wasn’t even that funny, thought Naya, but a moment of hysteria was helping to release something.

Gradually their laughter died away.

‘I never wanted to have children,’ said Mira quietly. ‘I just knew motherhood wouldn’t suit me – I wouldn’t have had the energy or the patience for it. It’s one of the reasons I married Ezra – he was happy to devote himself to his work and studies as a rabbi, rather than have a family.’

Naya thought for a moment. ‘And do you ever regret it? Not having kids?’ The question came out more bluntly than she’d intended; clumsy.

It sounded like a judgement, and Naya was the last person to judge anyone else for their life choices, given the moments of regret she’d had about her own.

‘I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant, I—’

‘No, it’s fine,’ said Mira, touching Naya lightly on the arm.

‘I didn’t take offence. Trust me, my extended family have made much worse comments than that.

And to answer your question – yes, sometimes I do regret it, in a way.

I think about the road I didn’t travel, about what I’ve missed out on.

Especially when I see my brother and sister with their beautiful children, and how much joy they bring them.

But...’ Mira paused for a moment. ‘I still know it was the right decision for me.’

She squeezed Naya’s hand. ‘And what about you? Do you ever regret your decisions?’

Naya raised her eyebrows. Now, that was a question.

She’d had thoughts, in her hardest, loneliest moments – thoughts that she wasn’t proud of, and that she’d never shared with anyone. About how she wasn’t cut out to be a mother of autistic children; that she was failing them, that they’d be better off with someone else.

But they were temporary notions, fleeting ideas that came in the quiet hours of the night, that she secreted away in her heart.

And then they passed, and she came back to herself, and she knew with her entire being that her children were exactly who they were meant to be, and that she was exactly the mother that they were supposed to have.

She wouldn’t change the way her life had gone so far – well, except for one thing.

And that felt like a truth she could share with Mira.

She shook her head. ‘The only thing I regret is who I chose to be their father,’ she said sadly.

‘Ah, I see.’ Mira nodded. ‘We can’t always help who we fall in love with, I suppose.’

Naya sniffled, squeezed Mira’s hand in her own. There was a long silence; then finally, Mira sighed. ‘Oh God, how long have we been here? The others will be wondering what’s happened to us. Do you feel ready to go back?’ She gave Naya a knowing smile. ‘Scott will be getting worried about you.’

Scott .

Hearing his name, a warmth rose in Naya’s chest – followed almost instantly by a rush of something else: sadness; loss.

Her growing attraction towards him was problematic enough – they lived on the other side of the world from each other, for starters, and her status as a single mother of two autistic children was enough to put off men who lived even on the same street.

But now? Pregnant too? Surely this would be a death knell for any potential future romance.

It wasn’t just her nerves about seeing Scott, though; the idea of having to see any of the others felt exhausting.

There was sure to be more hushed, panicked discussion about Hannah, and their safety out here overnight.

She was fraught enough; she didn’t think she could stand it.

And yet she could hardly hide out here in a corner of a dark rainforest with nothing but a pregnancy test and her tiny, growing embryo for company.

‘You’re right,’ she said, trying to keep her voice from wavering. ‘Let’s head back to the group and try to get some rest.’

Using the tree behind her to help herself up, she stood and supported Mira to do the same, then the pair made their way back through the foliage towards the sound of the others’ voices.

When they emerged into the clearing, Scott jumped straight to his feet.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You’ve been gone for ages – and Mira, you should have told us you were going to find Naya.’

‘We’re fine,’ said Mira, a firm edge to her voice. ‘Naya was just helping me go to the toilet – I’m still pretty unsteady on my feet.’

Naya smiled at Mira gratefully. She didn’t know how safe she was out in this rainforest tonight, but at least her secret was – for now, anyway.