The first question I pull from my delirious brain is a terrible one, but it’s all I can think of. ‘How long have you been here?’ I could have figured this out for myself, but the answer was too ludicrous for me to believe it came from my own brain. I needed her to say it.

Booker moves beside me. ‘Don’t worry about that now.’

Roxy smiles.

‘How did you – how are we all here?’ I ask him.

‘You took my phone. Didn’t think you would but thank God you did. Tracked you to not even that far from here.’

‘But you –’ I meet Booker’s eyes, searching. ‘You knew about this place.’

He presses his lips together, casts his gaze downwards. ‘I didn’t. Not really.’

‘Is this why you said to go north?’

He locks tired eyes with mine. ‘Mary told me, kid.’

‘What? Told you what?’

‘About the place. Her.’

‘When?’

‘When she found out that Ellis was missing. Figured he’d end up here, gave me the coordinates. Couldn’t believe it. Still can’t believe it.’

Ellis sits down beside me, and it’s a comfort, but not enough. I want to plead for any sort of answer or explanation. A bolt of fear ripples through me.

Booker fiddles with the wall of radios opposite us, turning the dials, the radios hissing and screaming in reply. ‘Hello?’ he says into a microphone. ‘Anyone copy?’

Then I look at Roxy, propped on the couch, scrutinizing us in a way that seems detached and cold. She doesn’t seem real. I get a closer look at her clothes – she’s in a full survivalist outfit, thick and shapeless and army green. Despite this, she has a stoic, quiet sort of grace, straight-postured and poised.

But I so badly want to hear her say something. I want to scream, Say something. Anything.

‘How do you feel?’ Roxy says finally. She asks, but it’s not really with concern; more the sort of observational question asked to a test subject. And I realize I’ve never heard her speak, but it’s that voice. As young as the day she disappeared. Maybe with a new edge. Smirking slightly.

‘Not dead.’ My stomach flutters with nerves.

She nods to my arm. ‘Bet that hurts like a bitch!’ I notice now that her knee is rapidly bobbing up and down, enough strength in it that the floor is creaking loudly beneath her with each cycle.

I swallow the little moisture in my dry mouth. ‘Not that much, weirdly.’

‘I gave you something,’ she says. ‘For the pain.’

‘Thank you.’ I glance at Booker to try and understand if what she’s just said ought to concern me, but he’s busy with the radios. Beside me, Ellis is stiff as death.