Free Listed: Volume IV by Noelle Adams

pull his smartphone out.
    “No
reception,” Emily said, frowning down at her phone. “We had reception earlier.”
    “Maybe
we’re just in a dead spot.” Paul checked his and found the same thing.
    “Well,
people used to do this all the time without the help of gadgets. I’m sure we
can manage to muddle our way out of the woods without technology.”
    Paul
felt frustrated and annoyed by the failure of his navigator and by the fact
that he’d led Emily around in circles unwittingly. He looked up at the sky.
“It’s too cloudy to see where the sun is or at least we could tell what
direction we were going.”
    Paul
glared down at the expensive piece of junk he was holding and muttered out
valedictions on its head, as well as on the heads of everyone who made it and
sold it to him.
    Emily
chuckled. “Don’t be grumpy. It’s not the end of the world.”
    “We’re
lost in the middle of the woods with no GPS,” Paul said, arching his eyebrows
at her coolly, vaguely annoyed that she wasn't as annoyed as he was.
    “We’ll
figure it out. You’re just annoyed because you have major control issues.” She
slanted him an almost teasing look. “Has anyone ever told you that before?”
    He
couldn’t quite keep his lip from twitching, despite the exasperating situation.
“Not in so many words.”
    “Well,
someone should have told you that a long time ago. Things get messed up. That’s
the nature of the world.”
    Paul
preferred for that not to be the nature of his world, but in this case
there was nothing he could do about it. His navigator was broken, and their
cell phones had no reception.
    Since
they were off the trail, there was no one around. He assumed if they just kept
walking in one direction, they would eventually get somewhere they could
locate. He didn’t want Emily to have to walk for miles, however, only to
discover they had miles left to walk.
    He
reached into his backpack and pulled out something else.
    “What’s
that?” Emily asked.
    “It’s
a panic button,” he explained. “Connected to my security detail.”
    “What?”
she demanded, her eyes widening in what looked like outrage. “I thought you
said we didn’t need to have security on this trip!”
    “We
don’t. At least, not following us everywhere. But I’d rather be careful—my dad
still has connections in prison, you know—so a couple of my bodyguards are
staying not far from our campground. If I press this, they’ll come find us.”
    Emily
rolled her eyes. “It’s not an emergency situation yet. Can we at least try to
figure it out on our own before you call in the cavalry?”
    Paul
exhaled in frustration. He didn’t want to upset her, but there was absolutely
no reason for them to be lost when there was something simple he could do about
it. “I don’t want you to have to wander around aimlessly. We’re in the middle
of the woods with no obvious landmarks and no way to tell direction. What do
you suggest we do?”
    “Well,
give me a minute to think.” She frowned at him, obviously unhappy with his
alacrity in calling for help. “I’m not Daniel Boone.”
    “I
assure you, neither am I.”
    “We
want to go north. Wherever we are, we’ll hit the coastline that way. Do you
think that moss trick really works?” she asked, after thinking for a minute.
“Does moss really grow thickest on the north side?”
    Paul
made a face, trying to be patient and not just hit the panic button whether she
wanted him to or not. “I doubt it, but we could look. Do you see any moss?”
    They
looked around for a minute and found a rock covered with moss. Unfortunately,
it was covered completely with moss, and they couldn’t tell one side that
looked thicker than the other.
    Emily
was obviously disappointed by this discovery.
    “Oh,”
she said, perking up. “Somewhere I heard this trick for telling north. If you
have a watch, you hold it out and then you put a stick over it and then there’s
something about the shadow…and north is