Jane looks at her brother and knows that he hates her. It is not something she has to guess at; rather, she feels it imprinted deeply against her bones and knows it is mingled in with the blood they share, as though it has claimed its very own sequence of DNA.

She understands his hatred for her. She feels it too, if not more strongly.

Between them, the music that plays from the car’s speakers keeps pausing as her phone struggles to stay connected to Bluetooth. They are deep into the North Georgia mountains now, surrounded by white oaks and tall, looming pines that hold the ribbon-thin road in place. All around them the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest stretches outward, beautiful and threatening in its enormity.

Countless hikers will have taken off on the Appalachian Trail today, hoping to either find or lose themselves amidst the isolation. It turns Jane’s gut cold, the thought of disappearing into the mountains for weeks or months on end, watching the trees all blur together into one sentient ­cage—of sleeping in the woods all alone at night, telling yourself that the footsteps crunching through the leaves outside your tent only belong to a harmless animal.

Though at this point, she might actually prefer that to this car ride.

When the music gives up completely, discomfort spills into the empty silence. The car’s navigation system shows their arrival time at their family’s cabin rental on Blood Mountain as thirty-six minutes away.

We’ll never make it, she thinks, then throws another glance toward the passenger seat. Thomas looks even more inclined to fling himself out of the moving car, if that’s possible.