Chapter 12: The Tag in the Ravine

"Get dressed," Thora said.

Ansel was already pulling his shirt over his head.

The horn blew again, closer, three long blasts that rolled across the valley.

"They'll climb the ridge," he said. "Joren will track my boots. He's good at it."

"Then we don't give him boots to track."

She buttoned her jacket, kicked dirt over the coals and snatched up her bag.

They went down the back of the ridge, away from the river, where the slope dropped steeply into a dry gully full of broken stone.

Ansel went first and held up a hand to steady her over each rock.

She let him.

At the bottom, the gully narrowed into a ravine with black walls and a thin trickle of water down the middle.

The air smelled of rot.

The drone that had followed her since the launch pad hovered at the lip above, afraid of the narrow walls, and went no further.

"Wait," Thora said.

She stopped.

There was something white among the stones at the bend.

It was a rib, long and curved, picked clean.

Next to it lay a skull, and a collarbone, and the scraps of a jacket that had once been dark green.

Ansel stood very still behind her.

"That's a Primal Hearts jacket," he said. "The contestant jacket. The stitching is the same."

"I know."

"It could be anyone."

"It could."

She crouched.

Under the ribs, half buried in the mud, something small and metal caught the light.

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