AROUND TWENTY FEET above ground, I sat astride a limb twice my width. The minute he’d broken me free, Josh had hoisted me up, insisting the trees grew less dangerous the higher he climbed, as well as being safer from whatever trolled the forest. I’d argued, of course, trying to make him understand that we needed to get going, yet somehow we’d still ended up on the branch.
“How did you find me?” He scraped away at a dip in the bark where branch met trunk. “How’d you know where to look?” He glanced back over his shoulder. “b****y got no clue where the hell I am, myself, so s**t knows how you found me. Why are you alone again?”
How the hell could I respond without freaking him out? I watched his digging instead. “The rest of them couldn’t come,” I eventually said.
He reached back with one
