Hesitation consumes the cave. Eyes dart left and right as a smattering of unsteady hands try to rise against an onslaught of fear. I don’t blame anyone. These children have been traumatized by abusers for months, and now the abusers have begun killing. Leaving while we’re ahead is the sane choice. In the end, only Anke, Christina, Molly, and tiny Owen raise their hands fully. With grim inevitability, Lacrishia asks who is in favor of saving Darcy from the bunker first. She raises her own hand, followed quickly by myself and Jack, a hesitant raise from Alan and Vance, and to my joy—Marcos, lost in thought apart from the group as he stares through the drape of falling water.

Lacrishia kisses Owen’s straw-colored hair as he begins to weep again. She shushes him before addressing the crowd: “As much as I’d love to see certain folks in jail, we’re only grabbing Darcy. No investigating, no trying to capture anybody, and only use the spears for protection.”

“About those spears,” I say. “Whose idea were those?”

“Moi,” says Molly, raising her hand. “Lacrishia had a Swiss Army knife hidden away that she snuck from one of the lunch ladies. So I cut these bad boys out of the driest branches I could find. I made them pretty rushed, but they’ll get the job done.”

“The job? Have you used them on anyone?”

“Not yet.”

The air hardens into paste as the entire cave realizes Molly is prepared to shank someone if it comes to it. But my initial shock dissolves. Molly might be the only one giving our situation the appropriate weight: Nightlight has already killed one camper, and they’ve fired very real bullets at three others. A bloody spear is not only reasonable, it’s been a long time coming.

“We’ll find the bunker along the lakeshore,” Lacrishia says soberly, a welcome counterweight to the rising climate of savagery in the cave. “It’s a ten-minute walk past the boys’ cabin on the north side of the island. If we leave now, we can make it before dark.”

“Marcos, we need your keys,” Molly says, less of a request and more of an accusation (Are you with us or not?).

“He wants to help,” I say on his behalf, but Marcos has retreated further into himself along the cavern wall, giving only a solitary nod for confirmation that he heard us. The rest of my sentence was going to be, He wants to help because we’re supposed to go on a date when we get home. But all that could just be silly wishing. I don’t understand what his big deal is: yeah, it was awkward everyone found us half-naked together, but if he’s this angry and embarrassed over campers knowing about us…how’s it going to be when we get home?

IF you get home, Major. First things first.