His gaze hung on me for a moment. “If you belong somewhere else, don’t give that up. I won’t forget what you did for me. For us. Thank you.” Asher pried up a floorboard and took out a large black bag. He reached inside and pulled out a handgun. Then he stood and grabbed something off the top of a shelf and handed it to me. I took it. A key. “Do you know how to ride a dirt bike?”

I remembered the bikes that Asher and Leon had used to take Layne and me up the hill that first day. How was I going to get one of those past the guards though? “It’s been a while,” I said.

“Come on.” Asher pulled in a breath and then unlocked the window at the back of the room. This window was older than the one I’d escaped from and didn’t swing open. Instead, he raised it slightly, pausing when it let out a creak. I cringed and looked over my shoulder as though I could see the guards through the wall. But when I heard one of them laugh loudly at something the other said, my shoulders lowered in relief. Asher raised the window higher, pausing and then pushing it up enough that we could squeeze through.

He stepped aside and I crawled out a window for the second time that night, grateful that this one didn’t involve a descent. Asher was right behind me and we both stood, listening again before he whispered, “I have my own bike that’s parked outside the gate, behind some trees on the left.” Oh. Outside the gate. It was where I was willingly heading, but the phrase itself inspired a ricochet of fear. “Wait for the two shots and then come down to the gate. I’ll open it for you.”

I opened my mouth to ask about the two shots but then realized what he meant. He was going to ambush the guards and kill them. Which was necessary. They’d betrayed the entire community. Instead, I said, “A bike is valuable. What if you need it.” It was probably what they used to go out and obtain all the weapons and ammunition they’d been able to score while others searched for food. It was why they had a fighting chance now. Each vehicle was a matter of life and death.

He glanced behind him and then back to me. “Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘burn the boats’?”

Burn the boats? What? “No.”

His mouth gave a small quirk. “Look it up someday.”

“I’ll google it as soon as I can.”