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What on earth is going on?

Ben had just turned and hot-footed it away from all of them, right when they were trying to make a plan that would give them some clarity on whether everyone was being honest. It made no sense. Why would he do that?

Unless...

‘Ben, don’t you dare run off,’ Naya was yelling after him, turning on her heel, about to start chasing in the direction of the gap in the trees he’d disappeared into – before, abruptly, she stopped herself.

‘Don’t you want to go after him?’ said Scott.

‘I was going to, but I’ve changed my mind,’ said Naya, her voice still hushed. ‘I think we should let him go. He’s clearly got an awful lot to hide. He could even be the one who killed Hannah.’

Mira stared at her. Was she serious? Ben – a murderer?

‘There’s been something off about him since the start – first the pills, and now he’s run off when we were discussing evidence on our phones, and he didn’t tell us about the photo he found on Hannah,’ Naya explained. ‘And remember that conversation when we first arrived, between him and Paola?’

Mira frowned. ‘What was that?’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear a conversation – and I didn’t know about any pills...’

‘It was when we got here,’ said Scott quietly. ‘I thought it was strange – Paola asked to see our passports, but only mine and Ben’s. When she was looking at his, they had kind of an argument, I guess? He was saying something like, it wasn’t his fault she didn’t have the right information.’

Mira’s eyes widened.

‘And when you were recovering, after the mudslide,’ said Naya, ‘Ben was looking for some painkillers for you, and he pulled out something else. A kind of amphetamine, but one you can get prescribed. Those drugs are highly addictive, and they can alter your mood. He’s probably been taking them on and off since we’ve been here. ’

‘But, so what if he’s taking some prescription meds?

That still doesn’t make him a—’ Mira shook her head.

‘I just can’t imagine him turning up here uninvited, let alone being the person who killed Hannah,’ she said.

‘And think about it – how would anyone who wasn’t invited know how to get here?

Hannah was pretty cagey about where this place is on her socials, wasn’t she?

’ She paused. ‘I always thought that was a bit strange, to be honest, that she didn’t want people to know where her retreat was. ’

Naya nodded. ‘Yeah, I noticed that too. She never said exactly where this place is, not until we got those last emails. But if... if someone knew her already – someone she was close to, maybe – she might have told them the location, and...’ She sighed. ‘And there’s something else, but—’

‘What is it?’ said Carly. ‘Now’s not the time to be keeping thoughts to ourselves – whatever it is, just say it.’

‘Fine. You might all think I’m crazy, but do you remember when Hannah talked in that video a couple of months ago about her ex, who she broke up with because he lied to her?’

Mira frowned. She had a vague memory of Hannah saying something about a break-up, but the details were foggy.

‘I remember that,’ said Scott, so softly Mira had to strain her ears to hear him. ‘She said... she said he worked in some hotshot tech job, didn’t she? And that she’d had to break up with him because he kept—’

‘He kept choosing his addiction over her,’ interrupted Naya firmly.

‘Oh my God,’ said Carly. ‘It sounds exactly like Ben – it has to be him.’

‘It certainly sounds like him,’ said Naya. ‘And what if, while they were together, she told him where this place was – he could even have visited her here, while she was building it, couldn’t he?’

Scott’s face darkened. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

Mira shook her head sadly. She didn’t like the thought of Ben – of any of them – running off alone and scared in the jungle. But perhaps Naya was right. Maybe it was better this way? If he had hurt Hannah, wasn’t it safer to let him go – let him get lost out there?

‘Well, if you ask me, the fact that he ran off just as we were talking about checking everyone’s phones when we got back – that settles it,’ Carly said. ‘He has something to hide, there’s no doubt about it, and we’re probably better off now he’s gone.’

Mira rubbed at her eyes; ran her parched tongue over dry, cracked lips.

Just the movement of her arms and fingers caused ripples of pain to spread through her.

Everything in her body hurt. The thought nudged at the edge of her awareness: I won’t last much longer out here.

And the others will be able to see it too.

They had to keep walking. ‘We need to find our way back, as quick as we can – without Ben,’ Naya was saying.

‘I agree,’ said Carly. ‘Getting out of the rainforest... calling the authorities to come and find Hannah, taking Mira to a hospital – even just getting ourselves water and something to eat – all of that is much more important than going after Ben.’ She paused for breath.

‘The police can find him and figure out what to do with him, right?’

Naya nodded; she looked relieved they were all in agreement. ‘Who knows if we were even safe out here with him around? Maybe Hannah wasn’t...’ Her voice caught in her throat; she wiped at the side of her eye. ‘Come on – let’s go.’

Mira felt a new resolve; a new energy. She pushed Scott’s arm away as he reached out to support her, and gave her head a firm shake. She could do this; she wouldn’t exhaust him more than he already was.

They began to walk, following Scott’s lead this time – thank God he’d taken the knife back from Ben – but they could only have been walking for a few minutes when she felt a new rush of dizziness, a sweeping light-headedness, and she stumbled.

Carly, behind her, reached out an arm to catch her before she fell bottom-first onto the damp vines and leaves beneath their feet.

‘Mira, hold on there, love,’ Carly said, trying her best to prop her upwards, to stop her from crashing to the ground; but she seemed to have lost some of her usual strength, and Mira could feel herself slipping from her grasp.

‘Scott, Naya – help me, I can’t hold her!

’ Scott hurried next to her, helped to prop Mira up.

‘We need to find her somewhere to sit down.’ Carly’s voice was faint in her ears. ‘She has to rest for a bit.’

‘I’m not sure we can afford to stop and let her rest,’ came Naya’s urgent whisper. ‘If we don’t get out of here in the next few hours, we’re all going to dehydrate. We’ll start getting lethargic, our brains will stop functioning at their usual speed...’

Mira looked around to see Carly sigh, rub at the spot between her eyebrows. ‘I know,’ she muttered back. ‘But there’s no way she can walk like this. Let’s at least give her a minute, then maybe together we can try and help her walk again – Scott, could you try and carry Mira again for a while?’

Scott nodded, and he and Carly helped to ease Mira into a sitting position on the ground as gently as they could, while Naya laid down her jacket beneath her. Carly found her water bottle, unscrewed its lid and lifted it to Mira’s lips, let the last couple of sad drops fall onto her tongue.

Mira looked up at the three of them; saw Naya’s face screwed up in concentration.

‘What is it?’ Mira asked.

Naya shrugged. ‘I was just thinking... we need some other way of making contact with rescuers... if only that satellite phone was working, or we could make a smoke signal with fire – anything,’ she said.

‘The satellite phone... hang on a minute,’ said Scott. The last dregs of colour seemed to have drained from his face. ‘Who was the last person to use it?’

Slivers of ice travelled from the top of Mira’s neck down to the base of her spine.

‘It was me – wasn’t it?’ Carly said. ‘We just tried it again this morning...’ But her words hung in the air. ‘Oh my God,’ she said softly. ‘I gave it to Ben. He shoved it in his bag, didn’t he?’

‘Yeah, I thought so,’ said Scott.

Carly’s expression was flat. ‘I shouldn’t have let him do that.’

‘Guys, does it even matter?’ said Naya. ‘He can’t use it anyway, can he? The phone is dead. Who cares if he’s taken it with him? And at least we have the knife now – he didn’t run off with that as well.’

‘Yeah, I know – but sorry, that’s not the point,’ said Scott. He paused, looked at the others, one by one. ‘Carly, the fact that he asked you to give the phone to him earlier – did we even need to try it again today? He knew it wasn’t working – why did he even do that?’

‘Are you saying... you think he planned it?’ said Mira, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice.

‘He must have done,’ said Carly, her mouth set in a tight line.

‘And I think it can only mean one thing, to be honest. Ben must have been planning something like this all along.’ She swallowed, gathered her strength with a deep breath before she spoke again.

‘Naya, I think you’re right. He might have killed Hannah. ’

Mira waited for the others to speak; but in the pause, there was a sound – a new one, unfamiliar, so different to the calls and cries of the rainforest, the beats of nature, that her ears couldn’t quite fathom it.

Chug chug chug .

Chug chug chug.

This noise was rhythmic, mechanical.

And it was coming from above them – above the trees, even. It was coming from the sky.

Chug chug chug.

Chug chug chug.

It was getting louder; the sound was coming closer.

‘Do you hear that?’ said Naya, pointing wildly towards the sky through a gap in the trees. ‘I think it’s... oh my God, look! They’re here to rescue us!’

Mira’s gaze followed the direction of Naya’s finger.

And then, as she watched in mute shock, Naya, Scott and Carly all began screaming and waving, up towards the light, the break in the thick canopy, where a red and white helicopter had appeared, hovering above them, directly within their line of sight.