The boy screamed, twisting, his body and arm alight. Tobruk hit him again, the jet of flame engulfing the boy’s body, and he hit the ground, flailing desperately, trying to put out the fire. The girl’s eyes went wide in horror and she ran forward. “Matt!”

Tobruk closed his fingers into a fist and the fire that was licking at the boy’s body flared up, turning an ugly dark-red. It intensified, burning hotter and fiercer, clinging to him and eating into his flesh. The boy’s shrieks became ear-piercing, horrible, an animal sound. The girl had been trying to beat out the flames but they scorched her, driving her back as the shape within the fire writhed and blackened.

The shrieks cut off abruptly. The flames crackled a moment longer, then Tobruk relaxed his hand and they guttered and died. Where the boy had been was a charred, shapeless mass, glowing with heat. The smell was hideous, thick and putrid and sweet. Smoke rose into the air.

“Matt!” the girl screamed. She fell to her knees by the smoking corpse, shaking her head, tears starting to leak from her eyes. “Matt, oh God, no. No, no, no—”

Shireen and Rachel were staring at the corpse and so was my younger self, all three of them frozen. Tobruk walked forward and grabbed the girl by the hair, dragging her away. She screamed and wept and fought, trying to get back to the body, as Tobruk shoved her to the ground. “Little help?” Tobruk called.

No one else moved. Tobruk got an arm around the girl’s neck and began choking her. She fought desperately, trying to break free.

“Tobruk?” Shireen said. She’d recovered first and stared between him and the body. “What the hell?”

“You going to give me a hand?” Tobruk said.

“You—” Shireen drew in a breath. “You fucking psycho! What the hell?”

“This really the time?” Tobruk said. The girl’s face was going red, her eyes bulging as Tobruk squeezed tighter.

“You’re killing her!” Rachel said.

The girl gave a final spasm and went limp, slumping. “Chill,” Tobruk said. He flipped her over onto her front and pulled a length of cord from his pocket, tying her hands.

“You didn’t have to kill him!” Shireen shouted. “We didn’t have to do this!”

“You all going to say that?”

“We just wanted the girl! We didn’t have to—”

Tobruk looked up at Shireen and she flinched, stepping back. “No loose ends,” Tobruk said. “Remember?”

Shireen hesitated. “That’s not what—”

“How’d you think this was going to go?” Tobruk said. He finished binding the girl and stood, getting a grip and lifting her in a fireman’s carry, then started walking back towards the canyon. “I’m done here,” he said without looking back. “You want to stick around, you can walk.”