“I’m trying. It won’t let go. I’m going to need to—”

“Kill it!”

“I’m not killing it,” he says, unbuckling his pack and shrugging it off his shoulders with a grunt. “I can get it off. Just hang on. I need something.”

He quickly unstraps the bear canister from the top of his pack and opens it, dumping out some of the contents until he spots a tiny plastic bottle of blue liquid. It isn’t until he’s got the cap unscrewed that I recognize the bottle’s contents. Mouthwash.

Angling the bottle against my leg, Lennon pours a small amount in the side of the snake’s mouth. The sharp scent of mint and alcohol fills the air. Nothing happens. Is he trying to freshen its breath? What the hell is going on?

He pours another few drops out. And suddenly, I feel the snake’s mouth release me. Its black-and-white stripes shift, and it stiffly uncoils from around my ankle as Lennon holds it behind its head and forcibly helps to unwind it.

I gasp and start breathing faster. A lot faster. It sounds like I’m about to give birth, but I don’t even care. I’m just so relieved. The second Lennon lifts it away from me, a terrible animal-like sound comes out of my mouth.

“It’s okay,” he tells me. “I’ve got it.”

I smell blood. I see blood. It’s dripping down my ankle onto my sock and staining it bright red.

I’m going to pass out.

“You’re not,” Lennon says.

Did I say that aloud?

“You’re just hyperventilating,” he says. “Sit down and slow your breathing. I need to take this somewhere and put it down, or I can’t help you.”

Take it far, far away. Better yet, take me and leave the snake.

“Breathe slower,” he says again.

I close my eyes for a moment and try to calm down. I hold my breath until my lungs feel like they’re about to burst. Then, after a few unsteady inhalations, I get myself under control.

“Okay?” he says.

I nod.

“What happened to your headlamp?” he asks.

“I don’t know. It went out.”

“Try to turn it off and back on again,” he says.

My fingers fumble for the switch. “It doesn’t work,” I tell him.

“It’s fine. You have a backup.”

“It’s in my pack,” I say. But I really don’t care about that. I just want the snake he’s holding to stop moving.

“Okay. I’ll get it for you as soon as I get back.” He adjusts his arm as the snake’s tail tries to wind around it. “I’ll be gone just a second. Right where that first tunnel veers off to the left. See it?”

I do. But as much as I want that snake out of my sight, I really don’t want Lennon to leave again. A fresh wave of panic rushes over me as darkness envelops my section of the tunnel. I can’t think about it. Or wonder if that snake was a mama and there’s a possibility that other tiny baby snakes are going to swarm in the dark. So I just slowly slide down the wall until my butt hits the cold, rocky floor. And I lean against my pack, watching the moving white light of his headlamp. When he ducks down the branching tunnel, the light disappears.

Total darkness.

Thoughts stutter inside my head, and I’m suddenly remembering being a kid, waking up in a dark house and not knowing where I was. For several seconds, I was panicked, trying to figure out where the door was and how I’d gotten there. But what was worse was the moment I did remember. My birth mother had died two days before, and my father had shipped me off to his parents—people I barely knew. Strangers. And I didn’t know when my father was coming back to get me, or if he ever would, and in that moment, I’d never felt more alone.

It’s okay. You’re okay, I tell myself. You’re in a cave, and he’s coming back.

When Lennon turns around and jogs back to me, the light is like the sun, and I couldn’t be any more grateful.

“Don’t leave me again,” I say.

“I’m not going to leave.”

“That’s what you do, you leave! Without any explanation, you abandon people.” I’m crying, and possibly a little delirious. I feel stupid for being such a coward, and mad at him for dragging me into this stupid cave.

“I’m here,” he says, holding on to both of my arms. “It’s okay. You’re just panicking. That’s normal, but you’re going to be okay. I promise.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. Can I look at the bite? Does it hurt?”

“Yes,” I say, angry. “I think.”

His hand is warm on my leg. How are his fingers not cold like mine are in this icebox of a cave? Why are boys always so warm? My dad always tries to freeze me and Mom out of the apartment, cranking down the air-conditioning to subzero temperatures.

He’s pulling up the edge of my sock to wipe away the blood. “Does this hurt?”

A lot less than I would have expected after being mauled by that devil serpent. “It’s a little sting-y,” I tell him.

“He got you pretty good.”

“Am I going to need antivenin?”

Lennon chuckles. “California kingsnakes aren’t venomous.”

Right. I know this. I think. “Are you sure?”

“It’s one of the most popular snakes we sell at Reptile Isle. I’ve handled a couple hundred of these. Been bitten by several too.”

“You have?”

“And much worse. I know exactly what you’re feeling now, and I promise it will go away. We need to get it disinfected, but you aren’t going to die. I have a first aid kit in my pack.” He glances down the tunnel as if he’s wary of something. And that’s when I remember the shadow troll Lennon thought he spotted in the cavern.

Lennon is clearly thinking the same thing.

“Get me out of here,” I say in a shaky voice.

His headlamp shifts back to my face. His stoic features are chiseled and stark under the light shining down from his forehead. “Can you stand?”

I can. And after testing out my foot, I find that I can walk, too. I guess he was right: I’m not dying. But I’m in an intensive state of anxiety, forced to rely on Lennon’s light to see. My muscles are so rigid, I’m in physical pain. And I can’t see directly in front of my feet, which slows me down.

“I found the way out,” he says. “It’s just down this tunnel.”

“You saw the ropes?” Our landmark near the northern exit.

“No, but there’s sunlight. See it?”

I do. Even better than some stupid ropes. A literal light at the end of the tunnel. It quickens my awkward steps. I can do this. We’re getting out of this hellhole, with its attacking snakes and lurking, nonexistent shadow trolls.

The exit is a lot smaller than the entrance we used to get in here. Only one person can fit through at a time, and Lennon has to clear away an old spiderweb before we can pass. But when we emerge into late-afternoon sunlight—so warm, so golden—I’m so happy, I could kiss the ground.

However, there isn’t a lot to kiss.

“Oh, wow,” I say, squinting.

We are standing on a narrow cliff bathed in afternoon light. Only a few meters of land stretch between the wall of mountain we just exited and a fall that would kill any living creature. We are far, far above a sprawling, tree-lined valley. Mountains rise all around us. Some of them are granite; some are green and covered in trees.