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“where” we’d crashed was vague, I knew it was north. Probably a long way north. The pilot’s goal, I suspected, had been someplace more remote.
    It wasn’t a stretch to think that the people responsible for this—and for setting the fire that got us out of town—were the scientists my birth mother had escaped sixteen years ago. Yes, Sam seemed to think they might be after her, but I was sure I was the target. That meant I had to rescue myself. Get to a phone, call my parents—my adoptive parents—and tell them everything. Yet my escape couldn’t jeopardize my friends. If it came down to it, I’d need to get away, separate them from the danger I posed.
    For now, they needed me to navigate the forests and find help. Heading south was easy so far—I could hear the crash of waves and smell the ocean to my left, meaning we were going the right way. We hadn’t walked very far, though, before Corey stopped as we were circling around an outcropping of rock.
    “Is anyone seeing lights anywhere?” Corey said. “Because all I see is bushes. We need to get higher.”
    He started scrambling up the rock pile. The stones were dark. Covered in lichen. Slippery lichen.
    “Stop!” I said.
    His foot slid and the leg he’d hurt in the crash buckled. We jumped to grab him, but his knee cracked against rock as he fell. He let out a yowl and a string of curses. His jeans had split and underneath, his knee was bleeding. When I tried to touch it, he grabbed my hand.
    “I need to check it out,” I said.
    The skin had been scraped from his kneecap. It felt whole underneath, but he gritted his teeth at my touch, meaning it was probably badly wrenched.
    “We’re going to need to wrap it,” I said. “Or you won’t be able to walk.”
    The only thing we could spare for wrapping was socks. Daniel gave his and I tied them together. When the socks were wrapped around Corey’s leg, he could stand, with effort and Daniel’s arm for support.
    “Figures,” Corey muttered. “Survive a forest fire, helicopter crash, and killer eels, only to slip on a rock.”
    “That’s what you get for trying to take charge,” Hayley said.
    “No kidding.”
    We made it to a grassy clearing, but Corey was in a lot of pain. Walking was only making it worse.
    “Getting to a higher spot to look around is a good idea,” I said after we sat him down. “We’ll find a tree while you rest—”
    “Whoa, wait.” Corey started struggling to his feet. “I’m okay. I’ll be slow, but I can move.”
    “He doesn’t want to be alone,” Hayley said. “You know how he is. Leave him alone and he discovers he’s not as much fun as he thinks he is.”
    Corey shot her the finger. She was right, though—Corey really wasn’t one for enjoying his own company. People seemed to feed his bottomless well of energy.
    “I’ll stay with him,” Nicole said.
    Daniel nodded. “Hayley and Sam, you guys should stay, too. Maya’s going to be the one scaling a tree. Kenjii and I will stand point, but everyone else should rest. We won’t go far. Plenty of trees nearby.”
    Hayley agreed to stay behind. Sam did not. Daniel seemed annoyed, but she didn’t get the hint. In the end, it was easiest to let her come.
    “There’s something I need to talk to you guys about,” Sam said once we were out of earshot of the others. “About what happened on the helicopter.”
    “You did an amazing job,” Daniel said. “If it wasn’t for you…”
    “None of us would be here,” I said.
    She went scarlet at that, and trudged along for a few minutes before she continued, “It’s not that. It’s about … when the pilot was knocked out. What you did, Daniel.”
    “Daniel didn’t get within three feet of him,” I said.
    “That’s what I mean. All he did was yell.”
    “I must have startled him,” Daniel said.
    Except that Daniel had done the same thing when we were escaping the fire. Whatever it was, he hadn’t just yelled loud enough to startle the men. Not