There was another pause, and Tom sensed Joel was waiting for him to respond, so in the end he said, “I don’t care either way. But we should go.”

They started walking again, a different silence now, a sense that the five of them were once again divided into factions. Given what had happened, or what Tom thought had happened back there in the camp, he was just puzzled that it hadn’t dented Joel’s apparent air of control or his desire to be seen as the person making all the key decisions.

It didn’t matter though, none of that mattered, not in the grand scheme of things, and if the events of this evening hadn’t revealed that particular truth to Joel, then nothing would.

CHAPTER 41

The dog reached the camp before them, rushing ahead, producing a brief scream from one of the girls, then excitement from all of them.

Mila said, “It’s Joel and the others!”

That produced more excitement and by the time they descended back down the slope onto the beach they were all standing, the fire behind them. The reunion was chaotic and loud. Lara grabbed hold of Alice, a couple more crowded around Joel and Nick and Chris. Kate came up and hugged Tom before stepping back and laughing a little to herself.

As she went back to the fire, Shen and Barney and George came over to him and George said, “I knew you’d come back.”

Tom nodded, but looked at Barney and said, “I lost your spear.”

“But gained a machete. And a dog.”

“Yeah,” said Tom, laughing. The dog was looping manically around their camp area as if following a trail. It reached Chloe’s net-covered bed, and Tom said, “How’s Chloe?”

“Better,” said Shen. “She won’t be ready to move tomorrow, but she’s a lot better, definitely over the worst.”

“Good.”

Then he smiled as Joel’s earlier suggestion to keep quiet got cast aside, Chris saying to Oscar and Sandeep, “Just insane. Seriously, me and Joel got tied up. I mean, I don’t even wanna know what they were gonna do to us. But then Tom came in like Vin Diesel and killed them all. Seriously. Just blew this guy away with a flare gun right in front of us. It was…” The other voices fell away until everyone was listening to Chris and then he realized and stopped. He looked at Joel and said, “Sorry.”

Joel shook his head, as if to say it didn’t matter, but everyone else was looking at Tom now.

Oscar said, “You killed people?”