There’d be food, certainly. Lenny had mentioned that once: that on the day they got out, they could request any meal that they wanted. Early on, Bullfrog said his would be fish fry, but Mara wondered if he would change his tune now that they ate fish every day. She’d ask for lasagna, the dripping sauce and thick, chewy noodles, that rich and crumbling ricotta. And Kyle—

It was best not to dream.

How worthless they must have seemed to Lenny. Symbols to be plied with money and cheese.

Maybe it was the fact that Mara was avoiding the shelter. How much calmer she felt, away from it. Or maybe it was the thought of food, of safety. The thought that it should have been today. Even in a sick world where this was still a murderous show, it should and would have been today. But Mara moved with a purpose that she hadn’t felt in some time. To the crew camp, the supply tent, where she gathered more flares. She tucked them into the back of her bra and made her way to the big maple.

There had to be a way out. Maybe it was up.

Up close, the tree seemed a harder climb than it had from even a short distance. Countless boughs, but scale had dwarfed the space between them. Even the closest were four feet apart, and on opposite sides of the thick trunk. Kyle was a stronger climber than Mara realized. He had made it look easy. Or not easy, but doable.

If it was doable, she could do it, too. One limb at a time.

The first was at Mara’s chest level. With a running start, she heaved her upper body across it, landing hard on her gut. Caught her breath and pulled her legs up, scraping against the bark. The limb was wide, and she could stand on it comfortably, holding the trunk, though already she felt too high off the ground. She decided that height was just an illusion. Wherever she stood was the new ground. The ground would rise up the tree beneath her, ready to catch her if she fell.

The next limbs were closer together, with smaller branches for handholds and steps along the way. Almost like climbing a ladder, though Mara heard and felt cracks as she moved. She climbed quickly, without hesitating to think, until she reached another wide bough, and there she leaned against the trunk to give her heart rate a chance to slow. Her hands were shaking, and she felt the trunk itself swaying in the breeze. She hadn’t noticed a breeze from the ground.

No, she told herself. The ground was right beneath her feet. She needed to believe it rose with her, that if she fell she would not fall, that there was nothing to worry about, no reason to panic and freeze. She felt for the flares, and they were still tucked against her skin. She kept climbing.

When she was halfway up the tree, a stick broke off in her hand, and though she grabbed the trunk in time to catch herself, she heard the stick crash down, bouncing off limbs for a long time. The sound shrank as it fell away.