This gate wasn’t like the one at the farm, a metal gate Lobo had bought at the tractor store. This one was homemade, welded from pipes and twisted from branches, lashed to a fence of wire. I was certain—if this place had power—electricity coursed through that fence. It ran as far as I could see. I had been seeing it as we drove and not even noticing. On both sides of the road, the fence bisected the landscape into nearly invisible squares, razor-thin and biting.

“Pirates,” Grayson said. “They aren’t on the highway. They’re here. It was a trap.”

Two men stood at the gate.

They wore hunting caps, vests, and boots. They carried guns, big and black. Rifles. They held them casually, like daughters; they were used to holding them or didn’t care how they did it. The men had seen us. They had been waiting for us. Likely, they had heard us coming a mile away on the road, ice crunching under our tires, the rumble on the snow. One of men held up his gloved hand—stop.

“Where are we?” Grayson whispered.

“It’s a compound,” I said. “Lots of structures, a fence. This is their land.”

“What do they want? Why do they have their guns out?”

The man who had made us stop approached the truck.

“Fuck,” Dance said, and rolled the window down.

The man wore aviator sunglasses. “Can we help you, gentlemen?” he said. He leaned into the open window and saw me. I swore his eyes widened behind the shades. “Lady.”

I looked away, at the fence. There was a dead deer hung on it, twisting in the wind.

Dance said, “We’re passing through, on our way to find family. We saw your skaters.”

It was the truth—but it felt like a lie. They had made us come down this road. They had given us no choice, with the blockade of cars. They had crashed them on purpose. It was these men who had blocked the highway, I was sure of it. Beyond the gate, I could see the skaters again, gliding in the white sky, jumping and spinning. It looked like freedom.

But it seemed off, everything seemed off. The fence was too long, the gate too elaborate. There were bits of broken bottles and jagged glass stuck at the top of the gate. What could I see past it? A sagging farmhouse. Some kind of concrete band shell near where the skaters were dipping up and disappearing down from view. Who would have built that?

And who would skate now, in winter? In the midst of this winter?

The man tilted his head to let me know he was checking out the inside of the truck: our food wrappers, blankets, and maps. I knew he was checking me out. I felt his gaze. I was as padded as a bear. I wore jeans lined with flannel, my coveralls, my coat.