Charlotte clutched a tree branch that looked moments away from snapping with the weight of her grasp. “How wil we be able to cal an ambulance? What if she’s having a seizure?”
“The doctor said her medicine would prevent that, right?”
Laurel said, sounding completely unconvinced.
“What if she forgot to take it today?” Madeline asked, her voice shaking.
Charlotte crept careful y down the path, avoiding a spearshaped rock that jutted from a patch of dirt. Again Emma tried an outgoing cal on her cel phone. The other girls did, too, but no one could get a signal. Crack. Emma stopped short and looked around. “Gabby?”
she cal ed hopeful y. No answer.
The girls kept going. After another ten minutes of stumble-walking down the steep slope, they final y arrived at the bottom of the ravine. It looked like a dried-out riverbed, the sides wal ed in by craggy black rock, the bottom smooth and sandy. The air was so calm that it felt like they were beneath a dome. Stars twinkled dimly in the sky. Muddy moonlight leached through gray clouds. They were absolutely hidden here. They could die and never be found.
Just like I had. In fact, this seemed like a perfect place to hide my body. I waited to feel a tingle of recognition, a cosmic message that it was here. . . .
“Gabs?” Madeline screamed. “Where are you?”
“She’s not here, guys.” Charlotte slumped to a rock on the other side of the riverbed. “We must be in the wrong spot.”
Emma blinked into the bluish darkness. As far as she could tel , there was nothing on the ground. Certainly not a body. A cold, clammy feeling overcame her, and she sank to her knees. Al at once, she couldn’t breathe. Madeline stood over her. “Are you okay?”
Emma nodded, then shook her head. “I . . .” But she couldn’t get the rest of the words out.
“She might be in shock,” Laurel said.
“Jesus,” Charlotte whispered, as if this was al they needed.
“We should split up to look for Gabby,” Laurel suggested. She gestured to her right. “I’l go that way.”
“I’l go left,” Charlotte said.
“I’m going back to the car,” Madeline said. “Or as far as I need to go to get cel service to cal nine-one-one. Sutton, don’t move, al right? Just sit stil . We’l come back for you.”
Everyone headed off in opposite directions. Emma watched until their dim shapes disappeared in the distance. The air whipped quietly around her. Pebbles rained down the side of the mountain. Slowly, the crushing feeling on her chest began to abate. She gulped in air and rubbed her hands together. She couldn’t just sit here. She had to look for Gabby. “Hel o?” she cal ed out. Her voice echoed slightly.
Suddenly, Emma heard a thin, smal sound to her right. She stood up straighter, alert. “Gabby?”
Next came a choppy inhalation of breath. And then, there it was again: a tiny moan.
“Gabby!” Emma’s body fil ed with hope. She spun around, trying to locate the direction of the noise. Another moan. Emma walked toward a wal of rocks on the side of the ravine. “Gabby?” she cal ed. “Is that you?”
“Help,” a hoarse, weak voice cried.
It was Gabby. Emma scanned the empty ground, shining Sutton’s phone on the rocks until she found a narrow opening a few feet up that she otherwise would’ve mistaken for an animal burrow. She peered inside the dim, black space and listened hard. Her heart simultaneously lifted and broke when she heard another faint, desperate cry from deep inside. “Help!”
Emma had found Gabby, al right. She was trapped.
Chapter 29
The Darkest Place in the World
Emma peered into the tiny opening. “Gabby!”
The rocks must have shifted when she fel , wal ing her inside. She stepped back and blinked into the darkness.
“Laurel? Charlotte?” No one answered.
Another weak cough emerged from inside the cave. Emma tried 911, but her phone refused to dial out. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees since Emma had descended into the gulch, but sweat ran down her face and back. She assessed the opening again. There was a space in the rocks just wide enough for a body to slip through. She could do it. She had to. She was the one who’d shoved Gabby off the cliff. Even though Gabby had kil ed Sutton, Emma wasn’t a kil er, too. She had to make this right.
“I’m coming, Gabby,” she cal ed.
She dropped her backpack to the ground and rol ed up her sleeves. Taking a deep breath, she hoisted herself up to the smal hole and wriggled through. The inside of the space smel ed musky, like an animal. The rocks felt slick and cold on her skin. Her shoulders bent inward, her arms out in front, feeling the way. Her hip bones ground against the sides of the tiny tunnel as she moved forward a few feet.
“Gabby?” she cal ed. Her voice sounded so loud inside the cave. “Gabby?” she tried again. But Gabby didn’t answer. Had she passed out? Had she had another seizure? Was she dead?
Tiny pebbles fel on her head with even the slightest provocation as she squirmed forward. Dust clogged her lungs. At one point, she glanced over her shoulder and could barely see the tiny crack she’d slithered through. I crawled along with her, the smal , confined space feeling like a coffin with the lid closed.
“Gabby?” Emma cried again. Her knees banged on a rock. Her shoulders squeezed through two tightly compacted boulders, and she emerged into a wider pocket inside the cave where she could almost stand. “Gabs?” Stil no response. Where had she gone? Had Emma’s ears played tricks on her?