A full moon guides their steps away from the road to the woods, where they walk through some brush, then stop. Trot tells her, “He’s an acquaintance, just making conversation. Everyone you meet ain’t like your family. Pistol’s a good dude. First person I met when I moved here.”

“Might be nice to you, but he ain’t wanting to get with you. How old is he? Twenty?”

“Ain’t my type. He’s twenty-one.”

“That explains it all: twenty-one and hanging out with two seventeen-year-olds. He should be into the bar scene, not the teenage scene.”

Stepping out of the brush, Trot pointed to the other side of the darkness, where the railroad tracks gleamed in the moonlight. “There’s the tracks.”

“Great. Now what?”

“We wait. You can take the first hour nap. I’ll take the second.”

Sitting on the hard ground, crunch of dry leaves, legs stretched out, head resting on her pack, Anne looks around at the shadows of trees and what she hopes are dead limbs and not snakes forming dark curves on the ground. Thinking of Mitch. The sound of that pan cracking against his skull. She could still hear it, feel it in her bones. The loud thud that rattled his eyes. Eyes rolled up to stare at the back of his brain. Dropping to the floor, blood spilled. What if she really has killed him?

Trying to think whether he had ever been nice to her, she digs deeper, trying to remember a time when anyone in her family had ever been nice to one another. When her mother didn’t drink and her father hadn’t threatened her. When her siblings had ever known affection for one another or their parents. There were no more celebrations for birthdays or holidays. Those had faded long ago. Everything is wrapped around booze, soaked in it. Threats. Screaming and hurting. She often wonders what her mother and father were like before they had her and her sibs. Had they been abusive to each other? What was their affection like back when it was just the two of them? Was her mother always an alcoholic? And before Anne knows it, her body is free-falling, traveling downward on a plunge, riding a roller coaster. She is dropping hard until Trot wakes her. It seemed like only a split second, and night began to dissipate and fade. The evaporation of darkness, replaced by daybreak. Everything is lifeless and gray. No sunshine, just overcast and gloom. Her face heavy with dew.

“Wake up,” Trot tells her, “We gotta get moving.”