So far, we had come across at least two different groups. One that had dressed in black and the other that had taken Cal. Aaron was most likely a part of the last group, and we guessed there were about five of them total. The other group we weren’t sure of. One of them had fallen off a cliff when he’d attacked me and the other we had left passed out after I’d given her one of Gina’s injections. She was probably alive and out there somewhere.

"If there are teams of about five people, we need to assume there could be at least one more team here somewhere that we haven’t met yet," Grant said as we walked down a dirt path.

"I’d think we’d have seen them by now, wouldn’t you?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Better safe than sorry. But, yeah, I’d think so, too. Let’s just keep our eyes peeled, just in case."

We had gone through everything in our backpack, rearranging it all and keeping count of what we had left. I had my knife in my pocket, but everything else was in the backpack that Grant wore.

I pulled my hair up and wiped the back of my neck. I grabbed the corner of my shirt and knotted it. I caught Grant glancing at me and I blushed. Under normal circumstances, I wondered what Grant and I would be like together. I let my mind wander, imagining meeting him somewhere back home. Watching him as he led me along, I tried to picture him in regular clothes, doing regular things like hanging out at the mall or going to the lake. What were his friends like?

"What do you do for fun?" I blurted.

"Lead pretty girls into the woods," he replied quickly and then laughed. "That sounded super creepy, didn’t it?"

I giggled. "Kinda, yeah."

He thinks I’m pretty.

"Actually, I used to like being outdoors. Swimming, riding dirt bikes, skateboarding...anything, really, " he said.

"Why’d you say you used to like that stuff?" I asked as we started up a short incline. "You don’t like that stuff anymore?"

"I still like all those things," Grant said. "I just think that once I’m home? I’ll want to stay indoors for awhile. Maybe spend time with my family, you know? My mom’s always saying how she rarely sees me because I’m always out. But now...I don’t know, I just wish I would’ve spent more time with her, that’s all."

He looked conflicted as he talked.

"Don’t blame yourself for having a life," I told him. "Would you rather have stayed home all the time? You’d be missing out on all the fun things you like to do. Spend time with your family, but don’t go home afraid to ever leave again. If you do that...then we’re doing this for nothing because you’ll lose regardless."

I was watching my feet as I spoke, looking out for rocks or whatever else I could potentially trip over. Grant glanced over his shoulder at me.

"How do you do that?" he asked me softly.

"I guess you just manage your time better-"

"No," he said. "How do you do that? The thing you just did. I can be feeling so down or sad, and then you say something to make me see it in a totally different way, a better way. How do you know what to say to me?"

"Because you do the same for me," I confessed.

His face softened and he stopped walking. Facing me, he looked down at his feet, kicked a small rock, and then met my eyes.

"Ry, remember I said I had something to tell you, but would tell you later?"

I nodded.

He gazed off behind me, over my shoulder, and took a deep breath. He furrowed his brow and his eyes narrowed.

"Run!" he yelled in my face.

"Well, that’s not what I expected you-" I started to complain before Grant grabbed my arm and pulled me.

"No, Ryleigh! Run!" he yelled again.

As he turned and began to run, I was able to take a quick look behind me. A small group had found us and were headed our way fast. I chased after him, barely giving my body enough time to catch up with my brain.

Go! Hurry! Faster!

We hadn’t planned for this. We had only figured out which direction to go and where we wanted to go. The thought was that we would be able to stay under the radar awhile before needing to prepare to fight off anyone else.

Grant looked over his shoulder and whispered, "We’re outnumbered. We need to find somewhere to hide."

I followed close behind as he dodged in and out. We were close to another rocky edge of a hill and as I strained to peer down, I knew there was no way we could climb down. It was too steep and much too dangerous. If we kept going in the direction we were headed, I was scared we would hit a dead end.

Grant took a sharp turn and hid behind a tree. I slid up beside him and we listened for the sounds of them getting closer.

"We can’t just stand here," I whispered. "They’ll find us."

"I know," Grant replied. "But we can’t keep running either. There’s nowhere to go...but down."

We both glanced over to the edge of the cliff. Suddenly my eyes shot back at him and I grabbed the hem of my shirt, pulling it up over my head.

"What are you doing?!" Grant hissed.

Without answering him, I wadded up my tank top in my hand. I ran to a neighboring tree quickly, hiding behind it. I was merely feet from the edge as I peeked out to see where everyone was. At least three people were still looking for us. They were close enough that I could hear their voices, but not too close that I could actually see them.

“Trust me”, I mouthed to Grant.

I spotted a large crooked branch coming up from the side of the dirt next to the cliff. I took a deep breath and aimed for it, flinging my shirt into the air. It caught on the branch, the rest of it dangling down into the air. Satisfied with how it landed, I smiled to myself before letting out a loud, blood curdling scream.

Grant stared at me as though I had lost my mind. I ran back over to him and grabbed him by the hand, pulling him along to hide behind a large boulder. As we ducked down, I checked my bikini top’s strings to make sure they were still securely tied around my neck.

"I don’t get it-" Grant whispered.

I peered out and then nudged him.

"Look," I said.

He did as I instructed and poked his head up. We watched as three guys made their way to the cliff’s edge. One of them had spotted my shirt.

"Oh, man!" the one guy yelled out to the two others. "Looks like she went over the edge! What a way to go."

They struggled to see over the cliff before giving up and backing away.

"What about the guy?"

The second guy shrugged. "Maybe he went off with her?"

They all laughed and my stomach turned.

"Whatever. Let’s get back. We still need to find Aaron anyway."

Grant and I exchanged looks. Hearing these guys laugh at the thought of Grant and I falling off of the cliff made me want to scream. And when they mentioned Aaron’s name, I had to bite my tongue not to pop up and tell them that he was the one who went off the edge, not us. I was fuming.

Ducking back down, we waited as they walked away. Once it seemed safe enough, we relaxed and stood up. I fought the urge to do a little victory dance. My body ached and was covered in bruises, but I still felt pretty proud of my idea and wanted to jump for joy. My thigh muscles twitched at the thought, however.

"Admit it," I told Grant. "You’re super impressed, aren’t you?"

The look of shock on his face was enough to satisfy me.

"I have to admit that was pretty good, Ry," he said. "You saved our butts!"

I laughed. "We make a good team, huh?"

He smiled and said, "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing."

Before continuing on our way, we decided to wait, just to be sure they were far gone. I took out the black t-shirt from the backpack and put it on.

"This is going to be harder than I thought," Grant said. "We have to get all the way to the dungeon basement cabin, then to Dean and Gina’s cabin, and still find our way over to the first cabin. It’s inevitable that we’ll run across a group again at some point."

"Probably," I agreed. "But, so far we’ve done pretty good."

I was still feeling smug about outsmarting the last group. Grant, on the other hand, didn’t look as sure as I did.

"We’ve done great," he said. "But, what if our luck runs out? I think we need to be better prepared next time."

"Better prepared?" I scoffed. "I don’t think we’ve ever actually been prepared at all."

I could see him thinking things over silently.

"You’re right," he said quietly. "That’s it!"

I stared at him and waited, knowing an explanation was coming.

"What’s the one thing the other groups seem to have had that we don’t?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Matching shirts?"

"No," he said sarcastically and laughed. "They all seem to know what they’re doing here and they’re always prepared."

I rolled my eyes. "I knew you were a Boy Scout! Admit it."

"I wasn’t!" He elbowed me playfully. "And neither were any of those groups, I’d bet. Yet they’re always prepared."

I thought it over. Every person we had come across, regardless of the circumstance, had seemed much more prepared than any of us were.

"Well, we know there are cameras here and there," I told him. "Maybe Dean or Gina manage to get that information to those groups?"

Grant shook his head. "Even if they did, then what? They wouldn’t have a lot of time to prepare for whatever was coming their way. There’s more to it."

"So, what’s the plan?"

"The plan," Grant replied, "is for us to be prepared, too. We need to get one step ahead of them."

With that, he hopped up and reached his hand out for me. He swiftly pulled me to my feet and then grabbed the backpack.

"We made a map of where we want to go, right?" he asked, rummaging through our belongings. "Now, we need to add to it."

He fished out a piece of crumbled up paper and a pencil.

"Add to it how?" I asked.

"Look at this map." He held it up for me. "If we were after someone and they were going to be walking this path that we’ve drawn out here, where would we attack?"

I studied the hand drawn map for a moment.

"I guess anywhere that’s a good hiding spot."

"Yes!" he said excitedly. "We need to lure them in the right direction...right into a trap."

"Agreed," I said. "But, I don’t know how we’re going to do that."

"I think I do." Grant smiled.

I eyed him for a moment. His face wore that expression I’d come to know meant he had a clever idea, but one that would most likely push me out of my comfort zone. Way out.

"Don’t look at me like that," he said. "You have that ’Grant-has-another-crazy-idea’ look on your face."

I smirked. "That’s because you have that ’I-have-another-crazy-idea-to-convince-Ryleigh-of’ look on your face."

"It’s not that crazy!" he said, trying not to laugh at my expression.

"Fine,” I said. “Let’s hear it."

Next Chapter: Forty One