“I had to do it. They hurt me before—” Red stopped short and glanced at the hatted man nervously. Glancing back to Jack, he said, “Just tell ’em what you know, and they’ll let you be.”

The man tossed the folded knife to another, who caught it. This one wore a bandana tied over his nose and mouth like a mask. He looked young, maybe Jack’s age, with a vivid gaze peering out from under a mop of black hair that curled in all directions. Their eyes connected and held for a second. Maybe less. The boy slipped a canvas army pack from his shoulder and put the knife inside.

The knife was gone. Jack accepted this loss with a pang. He felt a swishing gurgle in his belly and turned aside to be sick again, but then wasn’t. Everything moved in slow circles. The best thing he could do was ignore this leaden feeling in his heart and form a plan. If he just had time to think—

The hatted man squatted, grabbed Jack’s chin, and tipped his head up, inspecting the blood and the puffy eye. He sniffed in a deep, grim breath and stood.

Red shook his head earnestly. “Why didn’t you listen, Jack? Why?”

Jack spoke with his head down, the words wounded in shape but raked sharp with feeling. “I got a little brother. A brother … with nothin’ to eat and no roof over his head. We left the house—left everything. Whatever happened with Dad … I don’t need to know it. But I got a brother … and I mean to take care of him.”

There was a long, electric silence.

“You visited your father,” said the hatted man, “in prison.”

“I thought he might tell”—Jack swallowed blood—“where it is…”

“And did he?”

“No … he didn’t—”

Red: “I told you, he don’t know.”

“He’s a liar, like his father.”

“He ain’t! I’ll stand for ’im—”

The man with the axe came at Jack and kicked a boot into Jack’s stomach and then his ribs. Jack’s bowels coiled, went hot, and then he was curling up on the snow, moaning, and Red was shouting.

“This is over now! He’s learned!”

“Kill him,” said the hatted man.

The axe man lifted the axe into the air, and Jack flinched, prepared to duck under that silver blade—

Red made a rush and got between Jack and the other man, his right hand jammed into his parka. The man with the gold teeth stopped abruptly. He lowered the axe. Red turned on the hatted man.

“You’re gonna do him?”

No one made a sound. Red watched the hatted man to see what he would do.

The hatted man strode within an arm’s length of Red with no hesitation and looked directly into his eyes. “Explain yourself.”