“But aren't they still fighting?” Harry asks. I can feel the frustration rolling from his shoulders.

His hands clench as if searching for the ax to wield.

Jed just drops his head to his chest, brushes a soft kiss on his wife's forehead as tears drip down her face.

I feel the breath leave my body; my stomach burns with the knowledge that this is truly it. That our village is no more. It's as if everyone has had large weights dropped onto them. Their shoulders sag. Their legs buckle.

A hundred faces flicker across my mind: teachers, friends, Sisters, Guardians, neighbors. They are all Unconsecrated. Beth, Harry and Travis's parents: gone. Cass will never be hugged by her mother again. Jacob will never play with his sister.

I think about how it felt to lose first my father and then my mother. Of the crushing pain. And I can tell from the faces around me that such reality is beginning to settle in, become comprehensible to the others.

Jacob doesn't seem to understand, his expression puzzled as he glances from face to face.

Around us the Unconsecrated continue to moan, continue to paw at the fences. Harry clears his throat, grasps Jed by the arm. “Are you sure?”

“It's gone” is all that Jed says. “There is no going back.” I can see how Harry's jaw tightens and I remember that look so well from our childhood when he used to watch the older boys tussle and play at being Guardians. I know he wonders if his presence in the village would have made a difference—if he is a coward for escaping through the gate.

“The path is our only option, then,” Travis says. He glances at all of us, and I can't help but think that his gaze lingers on mine more than the others.

The rest of us are silent and then Harry speaks. “We have some food that Mary and I brought from the village. And two bladders of water. We took them when we heard the sirens yesterday morning.”

“But will it be enough?” Cass asks. She has pressed Jacob's head against her chest and covered his ears so that he doesn't hear our conversation.

“There are food and weapons on the path,” Jed says. His voice is calm and even.

Harry is the first to respond. “How? Why would … ? I don't understand,” he finally says.

Jed takes a deep breath. “The Sisterhood. Since the beginning, since after the Return, they have instructed the Guardians to shore up the path. To keep supplies out here in the event of a breach. It wasn't unforeseen that this could happen. That we would be forced from the village.

The Guardians prepared for such an event.”

“But I'm a Guardian and I knew nothing about this.”

“You're an apprentice to the Guardians,” Jed says.