Mitch walked over, and they shook hands. He had an odd spring to his step but kept his mouth closed for now, which was probably better. I wasn’t sure how I was going to hold myself together, much less police his demeanor.

“Just you and your friend there, JP?” I motioned toward the woman with the knife.

“Oh, Therese?” He looked over to her. “Put that thing down, Therese. These are brothers. Yeah, Therese and me are traveling together for now. And a kid, Sunny. She’s around here somewheres. Hard to keep track of a kid. They’re so teensy.”

I didn’t want to know their names. Names meant they were real. Names meant you knew someone, even if just by a phonetic label. I thought of all the names from the napkins—all those real people trapped in a very real prison. A tight slash of lightening illuminated the sky, a kind of warning.

The woman put the knife down, but she stashed it behind her back, hooking it into her belt. She was clearly not as easy as JP. Maybe Therese had a chance out here. That meant she might have a chance once she was taken inside. I pushed that from my mind.

Concentrate, French. Remember the long game.

“No chance she took off on you?” It was more than a question—it was a wish. I mean, what could we do if the target group had split before the mission?

“Nah, she’s always around somewhere. She don’t talk much, though.” JP was grinning ear to ear now, clearly delighted to have company. “Come on in, I was just about to start this fire and cook up some birds Therese grabbed.”

“Grabbed?” Mitch was too interested to stay quiet.

“Yessir. She pulls ’em right out of the sky with this slingshot she made out of rope and rocks. Damndest thing.”

Just then a massive crack of thunder shook the ground.

“Run!” JP yelled in the pause before the sky was blown wide open by the stuttered cut of lightening. Storms could be deadly, especially when it rained electricity.

Therese put her fingers in her mouth and let loose a high-pitched whistle before the next belch of thunder. Quick as a finch, a little girl ran out of the trees and slid directly into the lean-to, Therese disappearing behind her.

“You can set up real quick or join me in my shelter, but we gotta go now!” JP yelled around the last grumbles before another sheet of lightning settled over the horizon like a piece of tinfoil.

There was no time. At any point, hail the size of your fist could beat your ass from thousands of feet, or the sheets of lightning could tear into bolts, or the rain could come down so hard it would knock your baby teeth out. We ran behind JP as the wind picked up into torrents and ripped the breath from my lungs.

JP’s place was impressive for a temporary shelter. It was a lean-to, but he had used pegs to hammer in the pieces. It was tall and narrow, hidden in a half circle of pine that made the enclosure smell like old-timey Christmas and kept the wind from tearing it to rubble. In between the slats, he had shoved moss. Some of that was blowing around the clearing outside, but enough stuck to make it a bit more weatherproof. It even had a door. He opened it just enough to slip inside, and Mitch and I followed him.