She found the stone wall around Cibao just as she was at the limit of her strength. The dust was beginning to settle on the land, and she could taste grit in her mouth. She came upon a jagged rock off to one side, and rested behind it, waiting for her breath to quieten. She remembered her fight with the porc. Stop thinking, she told herself.

She circled the base of the wall as quietly as she could, glad for the muffling effect of the dust, looking for where the nearest guards were. She thought she saw one in the distance but couldn’t decide whether his back was turned or not. Just do it, she whispered to herself. Behave like you belong here. She pulled the camouflage shirt close and straightened up. She decided to make for the rectangular building nearest to patches of plantings. That, she hoped, would be where the women slept. She kept the satellite images in her mind and clambered over the crumbling wall.

The other side was deep in the shadow and she hunkered down for a moment. There, to her right, was the half-buried building. Farther away, she could just make out the square structure she’d thought might hold their weapons and ammunition with the path beside it. She marched through the middle of the camp in what she hoped was the direction of the rectangular buildings.

She approached one building, but it was too small. The windows and doors were all closed. She traced her hand along the wall and walked around it, gravel crunching underfoot, the sound mostly muffled by the dust. Another building loomed up; was this the right one? The dust was disorienting her.

She explored the exterior with her fingers. The walls were made of planks of wood and there were windows at regular intervals with closed shutters. The doors at each end of the building were shut. There was a low wall at one end of it, half hidden by a prickly bush. She sat on the wall in the deeper shadow of the building, trying to decide what to do. Then she smelled ripe fruit. Her stomach clenched, and saliva flooded her mouth. She peered at the branches, wishing she had a source of light, and saw clumps of tiny berries. She pulled them off the bush in handfuls, stuffing them into her mouth. She felt the pain of their sweetness in her temples and remembered her first taste of coconut water.

A nearby door banged open and she shrank into the bush. She could just see the shape of a woman stepping out onto the grass, rubbing her face. The figure stumbled to a small building at the limit of Sorrel’s vision and went inside.

She stood and waited for the woman to return.

She heard her returning footsteps before she saw her. She was almost at the door. Sorrel whispered, “Wait!”