caligo and has a trail of white lights hovering around her head.”
“Why? What are the white lights?” Casey asks.
I hesitate for a moment. “They’re her memories. Once she loses them all, there’s nothing we can do. She will die.”
A silence falls over everyone.
“I know where it is,” Casey says softly. “I can lead you there.”
“No. It’s too dangerous,” Charlie bellows.
“Charlie, she might be the only one who can find it. She’s young enough that she can see more than we can. See things we block out.”
He angrily looks at me and sighs. “I can’t let her go alone. I need volunteers to come along and lead her back to camp.”
He looks around the room at the twenty-four sets of eyes that are all avoiding eye contact with him. “Jones. You’ll go.”
Jones curses under his breath.
“Devon?”
“I can't leave Meg,” a quivering male voice responds in a British accent.
I look to where the voice came from. An older man with long gray hair sits on the floor. A woman lies in front of him, her head resting on his lap. She is covered with dirty pieces of clothing being used as makeshift blankets. Her eyes are closed and she is mumbling unintelligible words and moaning. I swallow hard at the sight of her. Meg must be one of the people Charlie was talking about.
“Right, of course not. Jade?”
The woman sitting next to the fire nods her head. “I’ll go.”
“One more. Baxter?”
An athletic young man positioned toward the back of the room steps forward and into the light. “I’m in.”
“One more thing everybody,” Charlie starts. “I’m going with them.”
Almost everyone immediately objects. “Charlie, you can’t leave us. You’re the only one keeping us all together,” one of the older women in the group proclaims.
Charlie holds his hands up and waves them slightly, indicating he needs silence to speak again. “You’ll be fine without me. Someone will have to step up and take lead. I think it should be Jade.”
Jade, the woman seated by the fire, rises to her feet and walks up to Charlie. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she quietly asks him.
“I have no choice. You know that,” he replies.
She nods her head and gives a small, disappointed smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, before turning away from him.
Charlie walks over to Devon and Meg and kneels down in front of them. “How is she?” he quietly asks Devon.
“Worse than before. It’s progressing faster. I don’t imagine it will be much longer.”
He carefully rubs his hand over Meg’s thick, gray hair. “Find peace, Meg,” he whispers. He turns to Devon. “If she can hold on until we return, we might be able to get her home. Do whatever you can.”
Devon nods and Charlie stands up and comes back over to me. “Ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Alright, everyone. Let’s go.”
26. GOOD-BYES
Charlie leads the way out of the cave and back into the forest. Our small group follows close behind. “Okay, Casey. Which way do we go?”
“Follow me,” she says starting off into the trees.
Baxter walks alongside Casey, carrying a large knife and keeping a lookout for anything suspicious. Zoë and I follow them, Charlie, next to me. Jones and Jade walk right behind us.
“Make sure nobody goes out alone,” Charlie says to Jade. “Group rules are in effect. Minimum of three people at a time, four is better. Things are going to be changing now that Emma and Zoë are here, getting more intense. Those creatures that kept their distance will be coming closer. Everyone’s best bet for safety is to just stay in the cave.”
“I know what to do, Charlie. We’ll be fine.”
“They’re going to get a little stir crazy, especially the younger ones. They’ll try to wander off. They’ve done it before. You can’t let anyone do that now.”
“Hey, I got this. If you knew what my life in the real world was like, you wouldn’t be worried.”
Silence falls over the group. “How much time do you think Meg has?” Charlie asks.
“She doesn’t look good,” Jones responds. “I doubt she’ll still be here when you get back.”
“What about Caia?”
“She's not as bad as Meg, but things can change in the blink of an eye. We saw how fast Max disappeared after he went downhill,” Jade offers.
“Did you say he disappeared?” I ask.
Jade looks toward me and nods. “When their bodies die, their existence here just sort of goes away. It’s like they just fade out and vanish into thin air.”