As they started to head off, Kate came back to the edge and called, “Don’t walk after dark, even if you think we’re close. Better to build a fire and get to us in the morning.” He nodded, but she looked troubled even as she walked away to join Emma.

Shen came back and cupped his hands over his mouth as a megaphone. “Head upstream. It’s the opposite direction to us, and counterintuitive, but when I think of the landscape, I think you’ll have a better chance of finding a way across. And it’ll be safer.”

Tom didn’t want to think about what he might have meant by that final statement, so he said only, “I’ll do that. Thanks, Shen.”

George raised his hand in a wave and Tom responded likewise. Then only Alice was left as the group traipsed slowly into the trees behind her.

“I’ll be okay,” he called, before she could say anything else.

She shook her head, and remained silent for a few more seconds before saying, “Promise me.”

“I’ll be okay, I promise. Now go.” He couldn’t say any more, finding himself slightly overcome. And he needed her to go, but felt a pang of loss when she finally turned and followed after the others.

Within seconds they’d disappeared into the depths of green. Still, Tom stood for another few minutes as their voices came back to him in ripples, and then there was silence but for the jungle, and he was alone. It was more than that—he’d spent half of his life alone, had shunned the company of his classmates, but this was different—it wasn’t that he was alone, but that for the first time in his life, instantly, he felt lonely.

It was ironic, that a handful of those kids thought they needed him—to make decisions, to challenge Joel, to be a leader—but right now it felt like he needed them more. He wanted to be able to work on a plan with Shen or Barney, to have George and Alice to talk to, Jess to look out for.

He looked up at the thick orange sky clinging to the treetops, at the drop below him, at the jungle behind. For a moment, he felt overwhelmed, fearful without being sure what it was he feared, apart from that very same isolation he’d always reveled in. But it lasted only a moment, because he had no room for self-pity—he had made a promise, and he intended to keep it.

CHAPTER 29

Walking along the edge of the ravine was an impossibility. In places the vegetation grew right up to the lip and there was no way of knowing how stable the ground would be beneath it. So Tom had no choice but to turn back along the path they’d walked to get there.