My heart aches for him. To have spent all those years alone, thinking he was the only one left. It’s a thought too horrible to bear.

I lower my gun.

“I’m Brooke,” I say, holding my hand out to shake his.

He looks at me, guarded, unsure whether he can trust the girl who moments earlier was pointing a gun in his face. In the end he takes my hand.

“Emmanuel,” he says.

He peers over at the others, their guns still trained on him. The rest of the gang take my lead and lower their weapons.

“You got any food in there?” he asks, eyeing my bag.

“If you’ve got a fire we can dry ourselves by,” I reply.

He nods. “This way.”

We follow him down the corridor and into a large hall that resembles a ballroom. The mold smell is even worse in here. There’s a large marble fireplace in one of the walls with a small fire burning in the middle. We all rush over and begin to warm ourselves.

I notice that Emmanuel is eyeing my satchel.

“Help yourself,” I say, knowing there are enough rations in the boat to last us for weeks.

He opens up the bag and pulls out some dried meat strips, then starts to eat them ravenously. The sight of him gorging reminds me of the hunger that was a constant fixture in my life in the mountains. Thanks to being regularly fed in Fort Noix, I’d let myself forget what it felt like to starve. I feel a sudden pang of empathy for the boy.

“How did you get here, Emmanuel?” I ask him.

His mouth is stuffed with dried meat, but he speaks anyway.

“I’m from Toronto,” he replies. “When the rebels came and took it over, my family and I had to flee the city. There were loads of other people with us, maybe a thousand. Maybe even two.” He pauses, swallows, then takes another huge mouthful of meat. “We had to go on foot. It was a long journey. We were following the river because we didn’t have a map or compass or anything. We’d got as far as the Thousand Islands when the bombs fell. They were killed.”

“Your family?” I ask gently.

“Everyone,” he replies. “I was the only one who didn’t die.”

I gasp, trying to imagine a group of two thousand people obliterated in one bomb strike, leaving just one boy alive.

“I don’t know what made me jump in the water,” he adds. “I guess it was some kind of instinct to just get away from it all, from all that death.” He shudders as he relives the moment. “I just jumped in the water and started swimming. Then I ended up here.”

“And you’ve been here ever since,” I reply.