I stepped into my jeans and pulled a clean sweatshirt over my head. Mud caked my hair.

“I need to get this muck out and check on Ezra.”

“Sure,” Muncie said.

“Will you come with me?” I asked.

Muncie looked at me, a slow grin unfolding across her face.

“Thanks for the invitation, but I’d better get home. You know how my parents worry.”

“Muncie?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Muncie grinned. I hadn’t seen her face in a long time. She pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose and rocked on her short legs down the stairs.

As I climbed down behind her, every muscle in my body clenched with pain.

“You better put your mask back on,” I said at the kitchen door.

“It’s full of mud,” Muncie answered.

“Do you want me to walk you home?” I tried listening for sounds from Ezra’s room, but I couldn’t hear anything.

“No thanks,” Muncie said.

As soon as she’d gone, I felt fear creeping up the steps of my spine. The house was too quiet.

I rushed to the back bedroom—no one was there! In the bathroom only towels drenched in blood.

I tore outside.

Gran’s pickup was gone.

They’d left. They’d left me.

How could Gran leave me like that? How could she take Ezra away? Without even telling me.

I paced back and forth, from one end of the house to the other. Picking up all the bloodied towels, I dumped them in the tub and soaked them in cold water. Dragging myself out the door, I went through the motions of evening chores.

And when everything else was done, I tried chopping wood. To keep busy, to keep from thinking. But I had no strength left.

I put the axe down and sat on the broad stump, staring at the empty house.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Eight

I’d been out in the cold for hours. A deep chill radiated from the pit of my stomach. They’ll be back any minute, any minute. But no headlights turned up the road, no truck clattered over the bridge and slogged up the hill through the mud.

A dog howled. That would be Tyrus. No. Not Tyrus. Tyrus was dead.

Caleb sat beside me. Bayley had run out, and somewhere in the dark he crept silently toward his dinner. Would he eat something radioactive the way Tyrus had? Would Bayley die too?

I heard footsteps coming from a long way, coming across the frozen mud. I didn’t move off the stump. Just touched the handle of the axe. I wouldn’t let Ripley near me again, never again.

Then I recognized the rhythm of the footsteps. Not Ripley. My hand relaxed.

Not Ripley.

Muncie.

“I’m over here,” I called.

Muncie jumped.

“What are you doing outside?”

I told her that Ezra and Gran and Mrs. Trent were gone.