“Listen, I don’t like the guy, but you can’t blame him. I could’ve called people back, but I didn’t. And if he’d called people back right away she might still have been taken. If the pilot hadn’t crashed, none of us would’ve been here. If Naomi had any close friends she wouldn’t have been looking for wood on her own.” Kate bowed her head in response to that, and he remembered her saying she’d played tennis with Naomi years ago—perhaps they’d been friends once but had drifted apart. “It’s nobody’s fault. I’m not saying I believe in fate—I don’t know whether I do—but look at all these random chances, one step to the left or right decides if you live or die. George quits football, Chris annoys Olivia, some kid survives an air crash but falls onto a snake—it’s just all so random, and that’s why it doesn’t make any sense to blame Joel or anyone else.”

Kate sighed heavily, then shooed away some flying insect that Tom couldn’t even see, before she said, “Okay, maybe you’re right. But our decisions matter, and that’s why it matters who’s making those decisions.”

“It’s true, Tom, it should be you.”

“You’re crazy. None of you knows me.”

“I do,” said Kate.

And before he could challenge her, that a year’s worth of half-baked discussions about books hardly counted as knowing him, George added, “And I know enough.”

Suddenly, Chris’s voice boomed through the night from behind them, “Tom!”

He couldn’t see Kate’s face clearly, but her voice betrayed a smile as she said, “See, even that moron thinks you’re the leader.”

“They can pick leaders all day long. When we leave, we leave as a group, simple as that.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” said George with a laugh, and started back along the path.

Tom laughed a little too, and said, “After you,” and Kate followed in George’s shadow.

Tom brought up the rear, conscious of the deep black of the jungle on his back. One jaguar had done its hunting for the night, but there would be other creatures out there, all looking for food, this entire nocturnal landscape bristling with danger. And sensing that jungle around them, he could think of one more reason he wouldn’t want to swap places with Joel, because no matter what decisions they made, he doubted Naomi would be the last to die out here.

CHAPTER 17

Chris shouted for them once more as they headed back, but none of them felt inclined to reply to his call. When they emerged from the trees, they found him standing in the shadows on the near side of the circle, his silhouette making him look even bigger than usual.