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Surely there was only one person, out of the five of them, who’d been acting strangely; who’d been behaving as though they had something to hide; who didn’t quite seem to fit in here; whose reasons for being here seemed less plausible.

The hairs on her arms prickled and stood upright despite the clammy heat. She had the overwhelming urge to turn and bolt from the rest of them, to fend for herself out here alone. Her expression must have given her away.

‘What is it?’ said Scott. ‘What’s wrong?’

Naya’s eyes darted from Scott’s face to glance at the others in front of her: Carly helping Mira to keep walking, and Ben still in the lead.

Then she found her resolve, trusting that feeling inside her that told her she could rely on Scott, and she said, quietly enough that the others couldn’t hear: ‘I don’t know – it’s just a thought.

It probably doesn’t even make sense, but now I can’t shake it out of my head. ’

‘OK,’ said Scott. ‘Do you want to share it with me?’

She chewed on the side of her lip. ‘It’s going to sound crazy, I think,’ she said.

He gave her a wide smile. ‘I promise I won’t think you’re crazy. Try me.’

Naya blew the air out of her cheeks. ‘What if one of us – one of the five of us, I mean – knew Hannah before ?’ she said softly.

She stopped herself from revealing the rest of her thought: that the most likely suspect, in her mind at least, was Ben.

As soon as she’d said it, though, she realized how ridicu-lous her words sounded.

She covered her hand with her mouth and shook her head. ‘I know it doesn’t make sense.’

Scott frowned. ‘Knew Hannah before? Why would you think that?’

Before she could tell him her reasoning, they saw Mira ahead of them, holding Carly’s arm, stumble and almost fall to the ground, before she caught her, steadied her. Holding on to her tightly, she turned to face the others.

‘Guys, we need to stop for a minute. Mira needs a breather.’

Merde . They’d only been walking for ten minutes, if that.

Hopefully, they’d make it quick. She nodded, helped Mira to get comfortable on her rucksack and spent a moment wafting a huge leaf back and forth in front of her face in an attempt to cool her down.

She looked terrible: pale and clammy. Naya did a quick check of her pulse; it was rapid, well over one hundred beats per minute even after a few moments at rest. Too fast.

Naya stood up, gestured to Ben, Scott and Carly. ‘We should try and keep going. Do you think we might be able to take it in turns carrying Mira, just for short stints? Perhaps Ben, Scott, you could hoist her onto your backs for a few moments each? I’m worried about her body giving out altogether.’

Scott frowned. ‘I guess we could try – Ben, what do you think? We can keep swapping.’

Ben nodded. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I can take first shift, if you like. Here, you take the knife.’ Scott took it from his outstretched hand, and Ben walked to Mira’s side, spoke gently into her ear.

‘Before we go, I need to talk to you both.’ Carly had appeared next to Naya and Scott, and her whisper was urgent, loaded.

‘What is it?’ asked Naya.

Before she’d even asked, though, she thought she could guess what Carly wanted to say.

Her pupils were large and black; they darted behind Naya and Scott, then back to their faces again.

‘I know you said to walk in this direction, and I don’t want to take over again – I know that didn’t exactly work out last time.

..’ She paused, took a deep breath in and out, swallowed.

‘But I’m worried we’re still lost – I’m not sure we’re going the right way. ’

Naya inhaled deeply; felt the rainforest – the world – around her shift and tilt from side to side. ‘Scott?’ she whispered.

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘I... I don’t know,’ he muttered.

No, please, no . A new stab of despair lodged deep in her belly.

Because wasn’t Carly most likely right? That even though they’d been using the sun to help guide them, and following the map as best they could, they still didn’t seem to be making progress.

They’d not even come across any of the trees Scott had marked yesterday, as impossible as that seemed.

Perhaps they were simply walking around in circles.

Everything looked exactly the same in the jungle; it was impossible to tell whether they were simply treading the same ground.

What if it took them the whole day, another night even, to get out of here? That was possible, unless they were lucky in their choice of direction.

And luck didn’t seem to be something they’d had much of on this trip.

‘What are our chances of making it back there today?’ Naya asked.

‘I think we can manage it,’ said Scott, determination now in his voice. ‘What if we—’

But Carly interrupted him: ‘I’ve been thinking.

’ She raked her fingers through the ends of her hair; Naya saw it had got tangled and knotty.

She hadn’t noticed before – she’d not been close enough, perhaps – but purplish-grey circles had formed underneath eyes that were bloodshot.

She looked like a different person to the one Naya had met less than two days ago: a shell, an empty casing of herself.

Naya imagined she must look exactly the same.

‘What if we separate now?’ Carly suggested. ‘It might make more sense, you know – we could cover more ground that way?’

Naya frowned. ‘But... aren’t we safer all being together?’

‘Well, maybe, but the most dangerous thing now is for us not to find our way back, isn’t it? I could go with Ben and Mira, and you two could...’

Carly gestured towards them, but as she moved, she swayed on the spot, righted herself, then clasped a hand to her forehead.

Scott held an arm out, propped her up. ‘Carly, are you OK? What happened?’

She leaned against him. Her eyes darted around the trees behind him for a moment, then landed back on his face.

‘I don’t know,’ she said weakly. ‘I got so dizzy, all of a sudden. I don’t feel too good, to be honest.’ She pushed forward slightly, sending Scott stumbling backwards towards a lush-leaved tree with bright purple flowers.

‘You need something to drink,’ he said. ‘And some food too – you didn’t eat anything when we got up today, did you? Let me find something for you – I’ve still got a few things left.’

Scott opened his rucksack; Naya watched as he started to root around inside it for something to offer Carly. But he mustn’t have been able to find what he was looking for; he crouched down on the ground, started pulling everything out of his bag, carefully at first and then frantically.

Naya reached a hand out to help calm him; but she wasn’t thinking, she wasn’t careful enough with her touch, because he startled – and as he did, his foot slid across the rainforest floor towards a small, dark hole at the foot of the tree.

‘Scott – be careful – move your foot!’ Naya yelled.

But he was distracted; he hadn’t seen the brown, yellow and black snake he’d woken from its slumber at the edge of its lair – camouflaged so perfectly amongst the leaves and bark.

And Naya could only scream in terror as it uncoiled its body, hissed, drew back its head and lunged towards him with open jaws.