“I’m just saying it’s on the table,” Paxton says.

I feel my gut lurch. I expected the talk of banishment. I even accepted Kenneth’s ridiculous notion of chopping off my hand, but killing me? Has our world changed so much that people would kill someone for stealing such a simple thing as a gun? It’s not like I took the gun and killed someone with it. Arguably, I even saved Paxton’s life with the gun. He should be thanking me, not suggesting that I die for my crimes.

“You people are absurd,” Gavin says, echoing my thoughts. “How can you be thinking of killing her?”

“Robert just explained it to us,” Lillian says. I wonder how she would be in a fight. I would love to see.

“So, what, you want to drag her out to the street and shoot her in front of everybody?” Avery asks. “You don’t want to do that, Paxton. These people have been through enough already. We don’t need death.”

“Then we need something as good as a death sentence,” Lillian says, “but not gruesome.”

“What do you suggest?” Paxton asks.

“Send her on her way,” Lillian says. “No weapons. No food. Just the clothes on her back. And make a spectacle of it, too. Let the whole town show how you deal out judgement to her. Let everyone know that if you are caught stealing, you must suffer the consequences - death by banishment.”

It would be better just to shoot me, I think to myself. The pit in my stomach is growing. I had truly thought they might think of something a bit more simple…hard labor for a few months…locked up for a year…something else. Something different than banishment, because Lillian is exactly right. To be banished from these walls is to declare the death penalty.

“Have any of you considered imprisonment?” Gavin asks, echoing my thoughts. “What about giving her a job that no one wants - like cleaning septic tanks or something like that?” Sniff.

“We don’t have the manpower for imprisonment,” Paxton says. “Once people start to see that they can get away with petty crimes, they’ll start testing the limits. They will not be afraid of being guarded. Soon we’ll have more prisoners than guards.”

“You lack faith in your own people,” Gavin says. I suddenly feel guilty for thinking less of the man. He seems to be the only one on my side.