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EIGHT

RYDER

Emily Edwards is merciful. I could tell that she was about three seconds away from blasting me in the face with bear spray, and frankly, I would have deserved every drop. But instead, she’s standing in front of me with her hands at her sides, wearing a somber expression.

“A secret?” I ask, confused. “What secret?”

“I don’t have a vibrator in my backpack,” she says, biting her bottom lip. “I lied.”

“Okaaay,” I say slowly. “I mean, I forgive you for lying, because who the hell am I to judge, but that’s kind of a strange thing to bring up—”

“No,” she interrupts, tapping her foot impatiently. “That’s not the secret. I lied about having a vibrator in the bottom of my pack because I didn’t want to tell you what’s actually in there.”

“Alright, well,” I ask, “what’s actually in there?”

She takes a deep, shaky breath, and I wonder what she could possibly have in her pack that necessitates such secrecy. She’s acting like she has something really damning in there—illicit drugs, a severed head, a bloodstained murder weapon—but those all seem like pretty unlikely possibilities for a woman who packed three different kinds of hand sanitizer.

“It’s an urn,” she says, her words rushed and quiet. “A travel urn.”

“A travel urn?”

“Yes. It’s like a regular urn, except it’s nonmetallic and TSA approved—anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I have an urn in my backpack, and inside that urn is my dad. My dad’s ashes, I mean.”

My heart sinks for her. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” She nods, and she blinks the way Lulu does when she’s trying not to tear up at the part in the Hallmark Channel Christmas movie when the big-city architect with a bloodlust for profit and the small-town carpenter with a heart of gold realize they’re perfect for each other.

“I, um, well,” Emily says, touching a hand to her neck. “He had a heart attack last year. Eleven months ago. In a bookstore. It happened next to a giant cutout of Clifford the Big Red Dog, which is kind of funny in a dark way, if you really think about it, because you don’t think of Clifford as being deeply tragic, or anything—anyway. Before he died, he was planning this whole bucket list retirement thing where he was going to visit every national park. I was supposed to come to Isle Royale with him, but it didn’t work out. Obviously. Since, you know, he died.”

“I gathered that,” I say gently.

“Right. Well, after he passed, I promised myself—and him—that I would finish his bucket list. That I would sprinkle a little bit of his ashes in the parks he was most excited to visit, starting here. At Isle Royale.” She wrinkles her nose. “?‘Sprinkle’ is a terrible word choice, but you know what I mean.”

I nod. “I do.”

“So,” she says, “as much as I would love nothing more than to go home and forget this trip ever happened, I can’t. I won’t. I mustn’t.”

I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard someone say mustn’t before, outside of an old black-and-white movie, but I’m just relieved that she isn’t chucking mini Jenga blocks at my head.

“My dad was the best dad who ever existed,” Emily adds, “and I can’t let him down again.”

I wonder what she means by letting him down again , because it’s hard to imagine her ever letting anybody down in the first place. But it’s not my place to ask, and besides, I sure as hell know how painful it is to walk around carrying that kind of regret. I don’t want to make it worse for her by asking too many personal questions.

“He sounds like an incredible guy,” I say instead.

“Yeah. He was.” She sniffles and clears her throat. “Anyway, I’d like to keep going. If you’re still up for it, that is.”

I don’t even have to think about my answer. Without a doubt, I’d rather be out here, deep in the woods with no phone or beer or Totino’s Pizza Rolls than at home in my bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to keep the dark thoughts at bay.

I’d rather be with Emily—with whom, it seems, I have a lot more in common than our initial meeting on the boat would have me believe.

“Of course I’m up for it,” I tell her.

She nods. “Good. Then the job is still yours, on one condition: we’re honest with each other at all times. You don’t know which trail we should be on? You tell me. You aren’t sure about something? You tell me, and we’ll figure it out together. Or at least, we’ll try to. Deal?”

She extends her hand, and I look at her for a long moment before I reach out to shake it. I’ve spent most of the last two years completely alone, and figuring something out together sounds like a damn good change of pace.

“Deal,” I say, gripping her hand in mine.

“Okay,” she says, giving me a small smile as we shake on it. “Well then, adventure awa—”

But she doesn’t finish her sentence. Instead, a look of pure horror crossing her features, she points at something behind me and lets out a terrified, hair-raising scream.

—

“Ryder!” Emily hisses in a frantic whisper. “Stop screaming.”

I close my mouth, realizing that her sudden terror frightened me so much that I let out a shriek of my own.

“I screamed because you screamed,” I whisper back, my heart pounding in my chest. “Why did you scream?”

“Turn around,” she says, still staring in alarm at something behind me. “Slowly. Don’t make any sudden movements.”

But the best way to get me to make a sudden movement is to tell me not to, and I whip around to see what the hell she’s pointing at.

“Jesus Christ,” Emily mutters, but my heart is beating so loudly that I barely hear her. Because there, not twenty feet in front of me, is a giant fucking moose. And it does not look happy.

“Okay,” I whisper, motioning for Emily to stay back. “Step one: everybody stay calm.”

“What’s step two?” she asks, huddling so close to me that her warm breath tickles the back of my neck and sends a tingle down my spine. You’d think it was physically impossible for me to get turned on with a car-sized animal staring me down, but apparently, it is not.

“Step two,” I repeat, racking my brain for solutions. “Step two…shit, I don’t know. Let me think.”

The moose, who seems highly uninterested in letting me think, opens its mouth and lets out a bellowing moan so loud it makes my hair stand on end.

“Do you know anything about moose?” Emily asks, grabbing my hand and gripping it so hard that I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from crying out in pain.

“Just what I’ve seen on Rocky and Bullwinkle , and I really don’t think that applies to this particular situation.”

“Fuck,” she whispers, her voice frantic. “Fuckety-fuck-fuck.”

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I have a plan. On the count of three, we’re gonna stop, drop, and roll.”

“That’s what you do in a fire, Ryder, not when you’re cornered by a wild animal!”

“Well, the idea was that we roll away ,” I grumble.

Emily whimpers as the moose raises its front leg and slams it down hard, snapping a log in half like it’s a tiny twig.

“Okay, plan B,” I tell her. “We get something red and toss it in the other direction. Do you have a red T-shirt in your pack? A handkerchief, maybe?”

“It’s a moose , not a fucking cartoon bull,” she seethes. “And no, I don’t. I look awful in red.”

I very much doubt that, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because the moose lets out an earth-shattering grunt and takes a step toward us, its massive body so close I could almost reach out and pet it. I close my eyes, trembling as the animal lets out a moan so loud I swear it rattles the trees.

“Oh my God,” Emily whispers, “we’re going to die here. I’m going to get stomped to death by a moose, and whoever cleans out my apartment is gonna find my entire vibrator collection, and—”

“You have really gotta stop talking about vibrators,” I say, forcing myself to open my eyes. “I’m not going to let you die, okay? So on the count of three, you run. Run as far and fast as you can, and don’t look back no matter what.”

“What about you?” she asks, grabbing a fistful of my T-shirt.

I curl my hands into fists and raise them toward the moose like I’m ready for a schoolyard fight. “I’ll stay here and fend him off.”

“He’ll squash you like a bug!”

“I’ll take my chances,” I say, adrenaline coursing through me as the moose rears its head back. We wouldn’t be face-to-face with a pissed-off animal right now if it weren’t for my inability to read a map, and I’m not about to let Emily pay for my mistakes.

“One,” I whisper, circling my fists. “Two…”

“Ryder!”

“Three!” I yell. “Run!”

But Emily does not run. Instead, she grabs hold of my pack and yanks, dragging me backward. Caught off balance, I slip on the wet leaves and we go tumbling down, down, down, my elbows and knees and chin colliding with the earth and sending shock waves of pain through my body. I’m barrel-rolling down a hill, my skin scraping against jagged rocks, and the world is a blur of pain and motion until I land on wet grass with a dramatic thump .

“Ow,” Emily moans, and it takes my rattled brain a second to realize that her voice sounds muffled because her face is pressed into my neck. She somehow landed on top of me, her chest against my chest and the top of her head butting up against my chin, and the sensation of her warm body pressed against mine is a welcome distraction from the throbbing, stinging pain racking my limbs.

“I hate the outdoors,” she says, her lips moving against my skin, and I know I should force myself to sit up, but the feeling of her on top of me is the best thing I’ve felt in a long time, and so I can’t. I won’t. I mustn’t.

“You were supposed to run,” I grumble, wincing as she jams an elbow into my rib.

“I did run. I just brought you with me.” She pulls a clump of soggy leaves out of her hair and tosses it aside in disgust. “You can’t seriously be annoyed at me for saving your life.”

“Excuse me, I was saving your life,” I protest, wiggling my fingers and toes to make sure I’m not paralyzed. “I had everything under control.”

She snorts. “Seriously, why are men like this? You all think you can fight off a moose and land a plane with no training and that you would have thrived during the Roman empire. Guess what? You’re wrong!”

“Okay, I never claimed that I would thrive during the Roman empire,” I correct her. “I have eczema and can’t see without my contact lenses.”

“But do you think you could land a plane with no training?” she says, using her elbows to push herself up so that she’s basically straddling me.

“That depends. Do I have my contacts in? Is there turbulence? Do I have a functional line of communication with air traffic control?”

“Oh my God, you’re ridiculous,” she says, flinching as she brushes grass and gravel off her arm.

“What’s ridiculous is presenting a life-or-death scenario with absolutely no context,” I argue. “You can’t just—”

But I shut up quick, because a sound even more terrifying than the moose’s deafening bellow echoes through the forest. It’s a prolonged, guttural howl coming from the cluster of mountain ash trees in front of us, and Emily and I both scramble to our feet.

“What was that?” she whispers, her voice tinged with fear. “Was that a wolf?”

“Doesn’t sound like a wolf,” I say, remembering the haunting howls Caleb and I heard the time he dragged me on a nighttime hike through Yellowstone. The sound we just heard was too mournful, too pained to be a wolf.

“Well, what does it sound like?” she asks, gripping the back of my shirt.

Another tormented cry sounds from the forest, piercing the quiet night with its eerie woe.

“The Blair Witch,” I say plainly, whipping off my pack to grab my flashlight.

“Oh my God, what is wrong with you? Don’t talk about the Blair Witch when we’re lost in the middle of the woods!” Emily hisses.

“I said it sounded like the Blair Witch, not that it was,” I remind her. “It’s probably just the wind.”

The sound rings through the forest again, but this time it’s more of a harrowing screech than a howl.

“That is not the fucking wind,” she whispers, grabbing hold of my arm.

“No,” I realize, feeling her fingers tremble against my skin. “It sounds…human. Like somebody’s hurt, badly.”

Emily’s humanitarian instinct seems to override her fear, and she grabs my hand and tugs me toward the woods.

“Hurry!” she says, twigs snapping under our boots as I rush to get in front of her. “I might be able to help.”

“Wait!” I say when we reach a small stream, a slow trickle of water separating us from the woods on the other side. “Stop. Look.”

I point toward a clearing in the distance, a steep bluff just past the trees where a rocky ledge juts out over Lake Superior below. Two men are fighting on the bluff, peppering each other with jabs and kicks and elbows to the stomach as they get closer and closer to the ledge with each swift attack. They’re both limping, one gaining the upper hand for a moment and relinquishing it the next, and I strain to make out details, but it’s too dark to see much besides a blur of flying fists and tangled limbs.

“What do we do?” Emily asks as one of the men, clearly injured, lets out a cry of pain and wrestles away from the other.

But we don’t have a chance to do much of anything. Because the men grapple toward the edge of the cliff, shouting and grunting as each tries to best the other, and we watch in horror as one lets out an animalistic cry and shoves the other with all his might. His victim delivers a chilling, desperate scream and flails his arms for something to cling onto, but it’s too late. He sails backward, flying off the edge of the cliff and disappearing into the dark night.

“Ohhhhhmigod,” Emily cries, and I reach behind me to cover her mouth with my hand.

“Shhhh!”

“Sorry,” she whispers, wrenching my hand away. “But holy shit, did we just witness a murder ?”

My heart pounds as the remaining figure whips his head toward us, and I freeze, not even breathing until he limps away into the forest.

“Wait here,” I tell Emily. “Don’t move!”

I sprint toward the cliff, my heart pounding and my arms and legs pumping. When I reach the edge, I glance down toward Lake Superior and my head swims. I’ve never been good with heights, and I close my eyes for an instant before I force myself to open them and peer down at the waves lapping against the shoreline. All I can see are rocks and gritty sand and—wait. There! A flash of yellow and a bobbing head, someone gasping for air and fighting to keep his head above water. I scan my surroundings for a way down to the lake that doesn’t involve jumping off a steep cliff, and I spot a path farther down the bluff with a more gradual incline. I scurry down it on my ass, crab-walking downhill as fast as I can with a sixty-pound pack strapped to my back. Every second matters, and I barely feel the sharp rocks scraping my palms as I hustle toward even ground.

When I reach the shore, rolling my ankle as I take the last few meters too quickly, I sprint across the sand and wade into the lake, gasping as the cold water shocks my system. I reach the struggling man in a few quick strides and groan as I haul him out of the lake, my limbs burning with exertion.

“Here!” Emily cries, ushering us onto the sand, and I scowl at her as I lower the man onto the ground.

“I told you not to move!”

She shrugs. “I didn’t listen.”

She helps me flip the guy from his stomach to his back, and we gasp when Emily shines my flashlight onto his face. Because the shivering man in front of us is none other than Dr.Killian Sinclair.