Frowning, she went outside. The truck was nowhere to be seen. The gate was still shut and locked. It was past midnight now. He was long overdue. A flat? A problem with the truck?

She went inside and tried his phone. It went straight to messages. She checked her own messages. Nothing.

It was probably something simple. A breakdown. A drained phone battery. A reception dead spot.

But Sam sensed trouble.

She pulled on boots and pants, threw water and food in a daypack, and left a terse note for Khun Mae and then a gentler, truth-evading one for Sarai. She slung the pack over her shoulders and headed out the door. Then, as an afterthought, she went back and grabbed one of the machetes they used to hack back the jungle, and slung that over her shoulder too.

She took the road from the hilltop house to Mae Dong at a jog, her posthuman eyes scanning right and left, picking out rocks and holes in the road in the darkness. She found him nine miles down the road, three miles from the village.

He was on foot, limping, a cut on his brow. His clothes were torn and one eye was black.

“Sunee!” His mind lit up with joy. Beneath it was shame, resignation.

“Jake!” She was on him and then she was kissing his face and holding him close. “What happened?”

He shook his head. “I was dumb. I forgot to fuel up earlier, so I stopped in Mae Dong. They were drunk. Four of ’em. And they recognized me.”

He stopped and leaned against a tree. “They took the truck… all the supplies… Beat the shit out of me.”

“Motherfuckers!” Sam exploded.

“Can you help me home?”

And some part of her wanted to wade into that village, and find those men, and hurt them. But the rest of her knew: that way was the past. She took Jake’s arm over her shoulder. Took as much of his weight as he would give her, and they started the long walk home.

“We’re done,” Jake told her on the walk home.

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“The money’s gone. Apsara, the woman who started this place and left it to Khun Mae. She left money behind to run the home when she died. But it’s gone.”

“But we sell the meds from the greenhouse…”

Jake shook his head. “Not enough. There’s food to buy. Repairs for the truck and the house. The doctor’s bills for Aroon last year, for Kit the year before. The bribes…”

“Bribes?”

Jake snorted. “We run an unlicensed orphanage. Our brains are loaded full of a drug that’s still technically illegal. Yeah. Bribes.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t want to know.” Jake snapped at her. His thoughts were rough, angry. Sam felt herself pull away. Then he gentled. “Sorry. I’m beat. I just… I never thought you were interested in that side.”