Page 50 of Wandering Wild

Hawke, however,doesn’tagree. Instead, he shakes his head, his apologetic look returning. “You’re not understanding me. When I say we’re off course, what I mean is that we’re at the base of the mountain, but on thewrong sideof the mountain. No one knows where we are, and even if they did, you heard Scarlett last night—the support team has to wait for any flooding to clear before they can return. Not to mention, more rain is coming, which will only lengthen the delay.” He points up through the tree canopy to the approaching clouds. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they call off any attempt—but even if theydorisk it later today, they’re still not going to know where to find us.”

My throat turns dry. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we’re on our own.” Hawke glances down at his leg, before amending, “Or rather,you’reon your own.”

Zander squelches up beside me, his voice tight. “What do you mean by that?”

Hawke shares another loaded look with Bentley, then pulls his park map from his pocket and lays the waterlogged paper over his lap.

“We’re due at our extraction point tomorrow afternoon at five o’clock.” He points to a circle marked in black ink. “There’s a chopper arriving then, and you two”—he eyes Zander and me—“will need to be there in time so you can tell them where we are and have them send a rescue.”

I turn solid as the words repeat in my mind.

Zander, too, is frozen beside me, and he slowly says, “Ustwo?”

“I can’t walk,” Hawke states again, matter-of-factly. “And to reach the extraction point, there are obstacles on the path that you won’t be able to carry me over.”

I’m about to ask what kind of obstacles, though I’m guessing they’re similar to those we’ve already navigated—climbing and rappelling and God knows what other horrors, all of which would be impossible with a broken ankle. But Zander speaks before I can find out for sure.

“There has to be another way,” he says, his muddy brow furrowed. He wipes gunk from his watch and holds out his wrist. “What about the GPS trackers in these?”

It’s Bentley who shakes his head. “They only work when synced up to the nano drones.”

“Which Scarlett deactivated last night,” Hawke reminds us, unnecessarily. “So they’re only good for telling the time, and using as a compass or light.”

“All our trackable gear is back in the cave, including my cameras and our sat phone,” Bentley says. “So electronically speaking, there’s no way for anyone to find us.”

If there’s one upside to all this, it’s that we’re no longer being filmed, so we can be as candid as we want without having to worry about a global audience. But I would take all the cameras in the world if it meant we weren’t facing anactualsurvival situation.

“You both look scared,” Hawke observes.

An incredulous laugh leaves me. “What do you expect after you just told us we have to leave you here and—” I stop, my eyes flicking to Bentley, then back to Hawke. “Wait, why did you say only Zander and I need to head to the extraction point?”

“Someone has to stay with Rykon,” Bentley answers for him. I’m about to point out that perhaps it shouldn’t be the only other person who has any real survival experience, but he continues before I can, “And I’m not leaving my husband behind.”

My shoulders fall at the unyielding set of his features.

Zander must see it too, because he sighs from beside me and asks, “What do we need to do?”

Hawke motions for us to come closer, then presses his finger to the map. “At my guess, I think we’re about here. You’ll need to share this location with the rescue team, so take a good look.”

Peering down at the paper, I notice a dotted line marked from where I assume we started, leading directly to the circled extraction point. To my untrained eye, the place Hawke is now pointing to doesn’t seem as off course as he implied, only a slight distance away from the inked route.

When I mention this, he nods and says, “That’s my hope, since you’ll need to get back on track as quickly as possible if you’re to have any chance of reaching the extraction point in time.”

I wonder why he made such a fuss about us being “way off course” earlier, but then I recall that the support team won’t be returning if it’s too wet, so it ultimately doesn’t matter how close—or not—we are to where we should be. We’re still lost, Hawke still has a broken ankle, and even if we find our way back onto the prearranged route, there’s no guarantee anyone will come for us. The only guarantee we do have is the helicopter arriving at five o’clock tomorrow.

“What happens if we don’t make it there in time?” Zander asks.

“The chopper will leave, and when they can’t get in touch with us, they’ll send out a search party,” Hawke answers.

Relief hits me. “Why don’t we all just wait together, then? It’s only one more day. Better safety in numbers than us splitting up—isn’t that the first rule of survival?”

But again, Hawke shakes his head. “Do you remember when I told you how big the park is? The Greater Blue Mountains Area is over one million hectares. Even if they narrow that down based on the route we’re supposed to take, it could still take days for them to find us without any of our tracking gear. Weeks, maybe. Possibly months.”

“But you’re asurvivalist,” I say. “You can keep us alive out here.”

“Ignoring my current injured state, yes, you’re right,” Hawke says. His eyes are serious as he adds, “But if you have the choice of going home tomorrow, or staying out here living off whatever food and water we can find—bearing in mind that we no longer have access to our water bottles or sleeping bags or clothes or shelter oranything—then would you really choose not to be rescued at the first possible opportunity?”

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