Tom waits for Malorie to fall asleep. Even in the dark, it’s not hard for him to determine. Malorie and Olympia don’t always snore, but both breathe differently when they go under. Tom believes he can hear it when they dream. Often, back in Camp Yadin, this idea comforted him and eased him into his own deep slumber.

They’re in a barn. Olympia found it a mile and a half after Malorie asked that they abandon the road and walk “in tandem” until they found a place for the night. Tandem, for these three, means Malorie sticks to the road, Tom walks some forty feet into the grass, Olympia forty feet beyond him. The teens can hear how close each are to one another, and the sound of Malorie’s shoes makes it so they don’t go too far to get back. When Olympia called out what she’d found, a dirt drive first, then the barn itself, Tom began planning.

It’s all driving him a bit mad.

He understands Malorie grew up in a world where it was normal to look outside, to see the barn, and therefore to detect any sign of danger. But he doesn’t think she really understands that he and Olympia can do the same thing with their ears. She’s praised them for it through the years, but her bottomless precautions reveal what she really thinks: they’re vulnerable children without her. Tom’s out in the world, for the first time since he was six years old, and the last thing he wants more of is Malorie. He can hear if something is near a barn. It’s more than sound. It’s instinct. One Tom and Olympia trust like Malorie once trusted her eyes.

Now, he hears the deep, elongated breathing of his mom and sister. Both are exhausted, as well both should be. They’ve come twenty-four miles over varied terrain, the sun beating down upon their long sleeves, hoods, blindfolds, and gloves. They’ve eaten what rations Malorie collected from camp and drank filtered water from ravines, rivers, and cricks. And while all three were active around Yadin, none of them have walked this much in a decade.

Tom, who has been lying on a floor of harsh, wilted hay, gets up. He moves quiet as he can, aware that, while Malorie won’t wake to the noise, Olympia easily could. Despite planning to do the very thing Olympia loves doing, he doesn’t want his sister to know what he has in mind.

Reading.

He takes crouched steps, one at a time, his arms extended, his fingers searching in the darkness for Malorie’s bag. He knows where it is. He’s kept his ear on the spot, the exact spot, since she set it there twenty-five minutes ago.