“I don’t see how it’s any different than what you’ve been doing,” he says. “Everyone knows you’ve been hooking up with Sadie.”
“You can’t be serious,” I shoot back. It takes effort to not go for his bait—to not get sidetracked by him bringing Sadie into this. “It’s different ineveryway. I left you in charge back there, but you ditched the group and put them in a dangerous spot. Trey didn’t sign up to colead this trip,youdid. It’s a good thing he was there—Emma got stuck and he had to handle it on his own.”
“How long does it take to bandage up a hand?” Matteo retorts. “You were off with Sadie for a while, so I could say the same about you.”
Do not. Take. The bait.
“So you thought you’d sneak off with my fiancée to, what—prove some sort of point?” Joshua cuts in. “Or are you just a clueless jackass?”
“Ex-fiancée,” Zoe corrects. “Or did you think I wasn’t serious last night when I told you I wanted to call it off? Excuse me for finally having somefunout here.”
Joshua bristles. “How was I supposed to know you were serious this time, Zo? You always say you want to break up when things don’t go your way, but you never really mean it. I figured you were just in one of your moods, like you have been for theentire trip.”
“You never should have brought me out here!” she says, her passion melting into fury. “You should have known the wilderness isn’t my thing, and that springing this sort of trip on me would only make me miserable. You thought our summer trips could fix us, Joshua, buthonestly? All yours does is prove how wrong we are for each other. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”
“How wrong we are—” he sputters. “You can’t be serious—you didn’t even return the ring!”
“Oh, I’m very serious,” Zoe says. “We’redone. Really, really done. And I didn’t injure my hand like I told you.” She rips her bandages off her left hand and holds it up for him to see. “I lost my ring in the lake.Daysago.”
Joshua’s eyebrows shoot as far up as they’ll go. “What do you mean, youlostit?”
Matteo seems more than happy to let the focus stay off of himself, but I see him all too clearly: he could have been kissing anyone out here in the cave. Anyone at all, so long as they take his mind off Blair.
“Third day of the trip,” Zoe says. “Good luck finding it again.”
When her words finish bouncing from the walls, the cave falls into a silent stillness that reminds me of disaster movies: the instant before a bomb goes off—one wrong move, then everything explodes.
Joshua, frozen in fight-or-flight, studies Zoe—
And then he takes off, a man on a mission.
“Shit,” I mutter, then follow him out.
Sadie and the others are waiting just outside the cave—they probably overheard every single word.
I try to catch up to Joshua, but he’s too fast, too determined. He’s sprinting down to the place where the creek is shallow enough to cross without getting too wet.
I’m fast, but he’s faster.
Finally, I catch up to him at his tent, where he’s furiously stuffing his belongings into his pack.
“You’re not seriously thinking about going to try to find the ring?” I ask, my breath ragged from the effort.
“I’m notthinkingabout it,” he replies shortly. “I’m doing it.”
“You have no idea where you’re going,” I protest. “You shouldn’t go off on your own, man. It’s too dangerous, and there’s a very good chance you’d never find it again anyway.” I swallow, searching for just the right words to talk him out of it. “It’s completely understandable that you wouldn’t want to be around the group after what just happened. Let me call my boss, arrange for her to pick you up—”
“I’m not interested in anyone picking me up,” he cuts me off. “I wantmy ring.”
I take a deep breath. “Okay,” I say, scrambling for something, anything. “One of us can take you back to the lake after the trek ends, if you want. We’ll get a metal detector—we can help you look.”
But it’s no use. Joshua isn’t thinking rationally, probably isn’t thinking about anything other than Zoe’s multifaceted bomb.
“I’ve got GPS on my phone,” he says as he slings his pack over his shoulders, tightens the straps, and turns his back to me. “I’ll figure it out.”
In all my years as a hiking guide, I’ve never had anyone desert the group before a trek is over. It’s a first I would rather not experience, but it appears he’s hell-bent on getting out of here and not interested in being convinced otherwise.
“Please reconsider?” I call out. “It’s not worth it—it’s not safe to go out by yourself. You’re not even taking your tent?”
