You can’t leave this place, she thought. You can’t let those boys drive you out of here. You’ll never survive somewhere else.

The time for that decision had come and gone already anyway. She was into it now, and she’d brought Burke along with her. One way or the other, they’d be seeing this through.

She was contemplating this notion when the road widened out and the forest grew lighter by a degree or two. Up ahead, lodged in between the tall trees, she saw signs of humanity: a collection of trailers, a vehicle. A mountain of junk she couldn’t begin to identify. The whole spread looked deserted, abandoned. It looked like a mess, and Jess knew better than to be surprised.

“Yep, this was Ty’s space,” she said, stopping the truck. “Let’s go poke around, and maybe we get lucky.”

*  *  *

Mason and Jess split up. Not on purpose, just kind of wandered off in different directions. Jess took Lucy along the left side of the little clearing, toward a couple of moldy, mossed-out trailers on the fringes of the forest. Mason bore right, toward the rusted-to-shit carcass of a Jeep Wagoneer and a couple of burst-open bags of trash, mostly fast-food wrappers and pizza boxes. There was a trailer back there too, looked in slightly better condition than the two by Jess. A couple more cars scattered around.

The whole place stank of cat piss and something chemical. It overpowered the smell of the rain forest such that Mason could taste it whenever he breathed. The ground was mud and pine needles, and there were tracks in the mud, boots and tires.

Mason didn’t see anything that looked worth killing over. He figured if Ty Winslow had brought the spoils up here, whatever they were, he would have had to hide them somewhere dry, protect them from the elements. Hell, it was already raining again, that irritating drizzle that wormed under your jacket if you let the hood down but wasn’t cold enough to not make things claustrophobic with the hood up. Mason left the hood down—he couldn’t hear with it up—but he didn’t like the idea. He was running out of dry things to wear.

He was halfway to the third trailer, the one in the far back, when the kid stepped out from behind the junked Lincoln Continental, holding the pistol. “That’s about far enough,” he said. “Don’t you come any closer.”

He was young, early twenties maybe. A shock of blond hair underneath a dirty ball cap. Rail thin, acne scarred, his eyes wide, his movements electric. High on something, Mason surmised, and that didn’t bode well.

“Now hold on,” he said, keeping his hands where the kid could see them. “I don’t mean any trouble.”