I woke up to the sound of coffee brewing in the small kitchen of Jordan’s apartment. I immediately missed the warmth of his body next to mine and regretted the fact that the sun coming through the windows also meant that our night together was over.

After our kiss, we had climbed into bed and held each other. He told me about the Great Creator, the source of all life. He told me what it was like to be a Spiritwalker and how someday, I would find my own spirit animal and shift the way he could shift into a wolf.

We’d barely slept at all, but just to be near him was enough. I hadn’t wanted it to end.

“Good morning,” he said when I stepped into the small kitchen. “Did you at least manage to get a little bit of rest?”

“A little bit,” I said. “You?”

“I never sleep much.” He looked at me and smiled. “But it was a damn nice night.”

I tried to hide the huge smile that spread across my lips, but I couldn’t hold it in. “Yes, it was,” I said.

He leaned down and kissed me again, and I wished with all my heart that we could stay here for the rest of our lives. I really didn’t want to face reality right now.

“So, I’ve been looking over the maps and thinking about our strategy,” he said. “Since we’ll only have about four hours to look around, I think we should take some time before we leave to choose the three trails Hailey most likely would have been running.”

The maps I’d bought were spread across the coffee table in the living room, and I kneeled on the carpet to get a better look. There were just so many of them. How were we going to narrow this down?

If I’d been able to find her red journal, this would have been so much easier. She used to track all her runs in her journal.

I gasped, quickly jumping up to find my phone. I’d plugged it in near the bed last night, and I crawled across the top of the sheets to reach it.

“What?” Jordan asked, looking concerned.

“I just remembered something huge,” I said, opening my Instagram app and searching for Hailey’s username. I prayed no one had taken it down after she died.

Haileybug501’s account was still active, her pictures all still there.

I held back tears as I scrolled through our last photos together. Us sticking out our tongues and holding ice cream cones. The two of us at the pool last summer, jumping off the high board.

But about six photos down, there it was. The GPS route of Hailey’s last run in the mountains.

“What is that?” Jordan asked.

“Hailey had this app on her phone that tracked her runs,” I said. “She always posted them to Instagram afterward. I had totally forgotten about it until now, but look. There are seven different runs posted from the two weeks before she died. If we start at the last one and go backward from there, we should be able to find the cave.”

“Genius,” Jordan said. “That’s a hell of a lot easier than poring over paper maps. How soon can you get ready to go?”

“I’d really love to jump in the shower real quick, if you don’t mind,” I said. It was awkward to think about being naked with him in the next room, but yesterday had been a very long day. I needed a shower.

“Of course not,” he said. “Give me your phone, and I’ll mark Hailey’s routes on our maps to make it easier. See you in a few.”

He left the room and shut the door. I had packed a few essentials in my backpack the day before, so I took my bag into the bathroom, quickly showered, changed, and brushed my teeth. I arranged my hair in one long, wet braid down my back. I was ready to go in ten minutes.

“Wow, that was fast,” he said, looking up from the maps as I stepped out of the bedroom.

“I’m anxious to get going,” I said. “We have a long day of hiking ahead of us.”

I called my mom on the way toward the mountains to let her know things were going okay. I told her the project was taking more time than we thought, so I might be out pretty late, but that I’d call if it was going to be after midnight. I wanted more time with Jordan tonight after I got done at Nicole’s, just in case we didn’t find the idol this morning.

Mom took the news better than I thought and agreed to let me stay out. Her conversation with Dr. Millner yesterday must have helped, because it was the first time since I’d gotten released that she agreed to let me stay out so late.

It only took us about fifteen minutes to get to the trailhead of Hailey’s last hike, but we followed her route exactly and didn’t stumble upon any caves. It was the same with the second run location.

The sun was growing hotter as the hour pressed closer to noon. We were running out of time, and I had really hoped to find this today. Jordan said that if we found the pieces of the idol this afternoon, he would drive them up to the Maria’s village while I was at Nicole’s house.

“Even if we don’t find it by the time you have to leave, I can keep searching,” Jordan said. “If I shift and run, I can cover a lot more ground, anyway. We’re going to find it, Marayah. I promise.”

It was close to one by the time we finally got to the location of Hailey’s next run, and I knew something was different about this one from the moment we stepped onto the trail. The woods were darker here, and the trail itself was hard to find. It looked as though no one had been here in years, and I stopped to double-check that we were in the right place before we moved on.

“This is it,” Jordan said. “I feel it. Don’t you?”

He was right. The forest was so thick and dark that the sun’s warmth never reached the ground. It was at least ten degrees cooler here than anywhere else we’d been today. I grabbed his hand and hurried up the mountain trail, anxious to find the cave.

The deeper we walked into the forest, the darker it became. A strange feeling spread across my chest. It scared me. I wanted to turn back, but Jordan pulled me along. An eerie breeze crossed our path, despite the thick woods surrounding us. It felt unnatural, and the terror that gripped my heart made me want to turn and run.

Don’t take another step.

I froze, wrenching my hand free of Jordan’s grip. He stopped, confused.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “We’re so close now. I can sense it.”

Run, Marayah. Leave this place now.

I put my hands over my ears and shook my head. I didn’t want to hear its voice in my mind. I didn’t want to listen.

“Hey, what is it?” Jordan asked. He put his hand on my arm, but I pulled away, terrified that I was losing control.

I couldn’t seem to force my feet forward, so instead I stumbled backward, away from Jordan.

“Don’t touch me,” I shouted, the words not coming from me at all. It was my mouth that had said them, but it wasn’t me who was in control.

I doubled-over, fear pulsing in my brain.

Listen to me, Marayah. This would all be easy if you would just surrender. Now, turn around.

I straightened and turned, my body blindly following the directions given by the evil spirit inside of me. I could feel its terror mixing with my own. It didn’t want me to get to that cave.

I closed my eyes and focused on the way it had felt to have Jordan’s lips on mine. The warmth of his body next to me all night. I let the joy of those memories blossom from a single thought, the joy growing larger so that it blocked out the darkness and the fear.

I will own you.

The voice was now a mere whisper in my brain, its power dwindling against the force of the light. But I wasn’t sure how long I could fight against it.

When I turned back to face Jordan, he was staring at me with wide eyes.

“You can hear it, can’t you?” he asked. “I could see the dark energy coming off of you in waves, but it’s gone now. Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “It doesn’t want us to find the cave. I think it's scared of something. We need to get up there, Jordan. Now.”

He grabbed my hand again, and together we ran the rest of the way up the trail until Jordan stopped and pointed deeper into the woods, just a few feet off the trail.

“This way,” he said.

He pushed limbs out of the way to help me pass more quickly, and about fifteen feet back, we found the mouth of the cave. Fear rolled in my stomach like a storm on the sea, but I held tightly to his hand and kept my focus on the light. I refused to let this spirit own me or control me. I had to be stronger than that.

Jordan pulled a flashlight from his pack and switched it on, illuminating the inside of the large cave. He handed it to me.

“Can you do this?” he asked. “I can go in there alone if I need to.”

“No way,” I said. “I need you to stay with me.”

Together, we walked into the cave. It was tall enough for us both to stand straight up, but it was narrow with only just enough room for us to walk next to each other. About ten feet in, we saw the black, oily substance that coated the floor and we knew for sure that we had found the right place.

A single footprint was stamped into the black mud, and I recognized the signature tread of Hailey’s favorite brand of running shoes.

Jordan stopped as I shone the light around the area, searching for the broken pieces of the idol, but it was something else that caught my eye.

Something that stopped my heart and brought everything into focus.

“Look,” I said, my voice trembling.

I pointed the light toward the floor of the cave several feet in front of us.

There, in the black mud, was a second set of footprints.