The other men carried the backpacks into the bunkhouse and the camp once again fell into stillness and silence. They weren’t dead. It was something to hold on to, but they were locked up, and that made the decision about what to do next even harder.

Tom checked his watch, then gestured to Alice that they should move back to a safer distance. He didn’t bother to tell Nick, figuring that he’d be smart enough to follow.

And once they were away from the camp, Alice said, “I knew it. What do we do now?”

Tom shook his head, because although he’d been equally sure of this ending badly, he hadn’t given any thought to what they’d do when it did. It wasn’t as if they could rescue them, but they couldn’t just leave them, either.

Alice said, “They won’t escape.” Her anger flared up, and she looked furious with Joel and Chris and even herself. “This was so stupid! What a stupid, stupid thing to do!”

“Joel said they weren’t heavily armed, but they looked it to me.” It was Nick, and they both turned to him now. His lip was trembling slightly. “We have to leave.” He caught their expressions and added defensively, “You said yourself, it’ll be dark soon. We have to think of the others. If we get out of here, we can get help, but it’s not like we can do anything ourselves.”

Tom said, “You think we should leave?” Nick nodded, his face full of nerves and fear. “These are your friends.”

“That’s not fair. It’s not about that.”

Alice said, “I’m not leaving Chris. I just can’t.”

Tom looked at her, understanding her entirely, seeing the way she was resisting her own helplessness, determined to find a way, determined not to have to face his family and explain why she’d had to leave him behind.

He’d thought earlier about not wanting anything to happen to Alice, but he realized now that this was happening to her too, that losing Chris would be traumatic for her, no less than being seriously wounded herself. It only doubled Tom’s resolve.

He looked at his watch, then said, “It’ll be dark in less than an hour, so we can’t walk back in the light anyway. We’ll move back to our vantage point, and just see what happens, see if they’re left unguarded at all.” Nick’s lip was trembling violently now and he was shaking his head, so Tom added, “We don’t do anything to endanger the three of us, that’s without question. I’m just saying we wait and see. Agreed?”

After what felt like a long time, Nick nodded. Tom turned to Alice and she agreed too, gratefully, because she hadn’t yet been forced to accept something she could never accept.