Alice said, “I think so. I haven’t spent that much time around cocaine producers.”

A few of them laughed, but Emma said, “It just all seems a little weird.”

No one laughed at that, and a short while later thunder rumbled in the distance and the mood became more somber still. Those things, the strangely lit sky, the threat of distant storms, seemed to sum up that they were still traveling through an unknown, with no idea how far they were from safety or even if it was out there at all.

Within an hour, they started to settle and sleep where they could. Joel made a point of saying he’d keep first watch, so Tom slept too, the exertions of the previous day and night still catching up with him. The thunder continued to rumble in the distance as he fell away, never coming much closer, like the sound of a distant battle.

CHAPTER 43

Tom woke and immediately held his watch to face the fire—it was just after four in the morning, another couple of hours from daylight. At first he thought no one else was awake but then he noticed Shen nearby, sitting on his backpack, staring quizzically at the sky.

He understood why when the night suddenly lit up, bringing the surrounding jungle close before sending it rushing back into the dark. Tom waited for the thunder, but it didn’t come.

He sat up and looked at Shen, who smiled and said, “It’s been like that for an hour. I can’t hear any thunder at all, but the sky looks stormy, and the river’s louder.”

Now that he’d said it, Tom also noticed that the river seemed to be running faster behind them.

“Just louder, or higher too?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” He reached for his flashlight and got up, walking to the water’s edge. Tom followed him, looking down at the light where it fell on the swiftly rippling surface. Shen seemed troubled. “There must be a lot of rain falling high in the hills.”

He walked along the bank to the end of the little beach closest to the gorge entrance, keeping the light on the water, and again, Tom went with him. The water was already lapping up over the far edge in little waves. Tom thought of the way the beach had been carved out, the ravine they’d crossed, the forces with which they’d been shaped.

Almost to himself, Shen said, “I knew this was a mistake.”

He was talking about the decision to camp here, although if they’d left that day it wouldn’t have seemed like a mistake at all and they’d have remembered it only as a great place to recover and catch fish.

Tom said, “We have to get off this beach. Start waking them.”