In a clearing by the farmhouse, meat sizzled on homemade spits: a hot dog skewer and a curtain rod. There was deer meat, and something greasy, maybe groundhog. I wondered if Grayson had prepared it. The men sat around the fire in stained canvas chairs or reclined on the dirt. The naked man had wrapped a sleeping bag around himself and put on shoes. The men were drinking—and it was only the men afforded this luxury. The women—because there were women at the campfire, Jamey and a few other girls who looked like Jamey—served, tending to the meat, replacing the men’s beers. I wanted to ask Jamey: where had the other women come from, why were they there? The men threw the empties into the woods.

Grayson and Dance sat among the men—but uneasily, on the edge of their circle. They were not drinking, either on purpose or because they had not been offered anything. Grayson had grease on his face; he had been working. He also had a fresh bruise on his forehead, and when he saw me looking at it, he tightened his mouth and shook his head.

Say nothing.

Their hands were not bound, I was relieved to see. Almost nothing would surprise me anymore, not zip ties or chains. Not a blizzard. Not a landslide of dust to sweep all of us, every living thing, away. Grayson fiddled with something. Keys.

I hoped they were the truck keys. He turned them over and over to keep his hands from trembling. Dance just sat there, cross-legged on the ground. He looked stunned and exhausted. What had they made him do?

“Stop staring.” Jamey thrust a bowl into my arms.

I looked down at the contents: shriveled brown potatoes. “I’m not staring.”

“Yeah, you are. Your boyfriend is fine.”

“They’re not my boyfriend. Either one of them.”

“If Jake thinks you like them, he’ll do something about it.”

I looked up from the bowl. “What does that mean?”

“He’ll send them away. They’ll disappear. Or worse.”

What was worse than disappearing? I tried not to look at the men after that, but I couldn’t help it. Men were everywhere, drinking, lighting bits of trash on fire. One man pulled a woman down onto his lap. She laughed, pushed his hands away, eventually stopped laughing.

Jake sat in the center of the circle, the place of honor, in a faded, old recliner, larger than the other chairs. Stuffing vomited out the sides. He looked like the king of shit. His feet were up in those flip-flops. A ratty fleece blanket, printed with a wolf’s face, was thrown over his lap, and he was laughing. He turned his head to me, his eyes pale as a dog’s. Was this the moment he saw what I could do? Was this the moment he made me work for him?

“Stop looking,” Jamey hissed.