He blamed me, but for what exactly? For leaving those people to die, though they wanted to. For the lost food and supplies—though he was the one who had fallen asleep; he was the one who had not wanted to wake me for watch. Was his anger really blaming himself? Or was he mad at me for bringing Jamey and Starla, but no others. For abandoning Ohio.

“California will have power,” I said.

“The coldest night of winter,” Jamey said. “That’s when it happens.” She, too, had lived with an angry man. She knew to soothe him, distract. “That’s when the house burns down, every time.”

Grayson was driving by the burned farm. Some of the trees around the house had survived, older trees with wide trunks and sheltering branches. I saw an old brick barn and a chicken coop. It was a quiet place, protected by the trees.

“Let stop here for the night,” I said. “There’s nobody around. We can rest. Scope out what’s left of the farm, see if there’s anything we can use.”

“So we steal now?” Dance said.

“I guess we do,” I said to the window.

But the barn was empty, even of hay. The people who had lived on the farm must have burned the hay to try to stay warm; maybe that had caused the fire. What they had left behind was junk, broken tools. Everything smelled of mice and pigeons, and that which was not iced over was coated in a thick layer of gray. Dust and ash. I could taste it on the back of my throat.

I worked in the barn alone, examining the metal parts and trying to think how they might be useful. The others set up camp and started dinner. Soon a shadow fell over me from the open door. Dance stood in the wide barn doorway, switching a flashlight on and off to get my attention. He held the flashlight high like the sheriff. Then he handed it to me.

“Thanks.” I turned away from him, but he didn’t move. “Are you staying?”

“No. I mean, I’ll stay to help you clean out the barn if you want. I’ll stay tonight.”

I turned back, throwing the flashlight into his eyes. “Sorry.” I lowered it. Dance came into focus, thin and purple. “You’ll stay tonight?” I said. “What does that mean?”

“I’m not moving on with the group, I decided. I think I should go.”

I thought of our long silences, our run up the hill with the duffel bag. Why had I saved a grow light, risked our lives for it? Risked his life?

“When did you decide that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t I think belong here right now.”

“Is this about those people in white?”

“No, it’s not about...Snowflake Charles Manson.”

“You think we should have tried to save them?”