Free Three (Article 5) by Kristen Simmons Page B

crackled. I stared at it, wishing it would stave off the chill inside me.
    “Was it awful?” she whispered after a while. “Being the one to find him?”
    I glanced her way, noting how she purposefully avoided my gaze. Another kind of cold wormed its way deep in my stomach.
    “It was terrible,” I said. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
    Her small mouth twisted into a frown.
    “At least it’s over,” she said quietly.
    “For me?” I asked. “Or for him?” I pictured her again, hobbling down the walkway over the murky swamp. If she had fallen in we may not have been able to reach her in time. I had a bad feeling she’d known that when she’d started.
    She acted as though she hadn’t heard me, but I knew she had. She picked at the grass, one blade at a time, tearing it into little pieces, and I stared at her, fighting the image of her small body lying motionless in the water as Rat’s had been. Of her hair, silver in the moonlight, fanning around her head.
    I wanted to ask why ? And how could you ? And to tell her never, ever to do anything like that again. But I couldn’t, because I knew why she had, and that scared me just as much.
    “At dawn we’re going back to the mini-mart,” Jack announced, breaking my train of thought. I turned back to where he’d paused, his face shadowed and dangerous in the red glow of the embers. “We told them we’d be back in five days; tomorrow our time’s up.”
    There was no way we’d make it back in one day. Two maybe, if we didn’t break for sleep, but probably three.
    “ You go back then,” said the old man who’d cooked the boar. His silver hair feathered out below his ears and he patted it down anxiously. “I’m not going back there. Not ever.”
    “What about my brother?” asked one of the people from Jesse’s group, a lanky girl who believed her brother was laid up in the mini-mart.
    “Well we can’t stay here.” Sean came to stand beside Chase. “What’re we going to do? Build tree houses? Live off the land?” Rebecca shifted.
    “We’ve been doing all right that way,” objected another man from the safe house. His clothes were covered in grime; he must have been in the party that attacked us. He looked to Chase’s uncle, as if expecting backup, but received none.
    It struck me that Jesse’s seniority hadn’t been determined by age; several people here were older than him. He was younger than Chase’s mother, maybe only thirty-five. Based on the way he was kicked back against a felled log like this was nothing more than a camping trip, I wasn’t sure how he’d been made their leader. He didn’t look like the type who wanted to be in charge of the big decisions.
    “Looks like you’ve been doing just great,” said Jack. “Least Rat cut out before hearing his folks were part of the ash stuck to the bottom of his boots.”
    Several people voiced their disapproval.
    “He made his choice,” said Jesse. The others quieted. “Don’t put that on us.”
    “Maybe I was just putting it on you,” Jack said, pointing across the flames.
    Jesse took a slow breath. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone did.”
    I rose to my feet. Jack snorted in disbelief, staring coldly at Chase’s uncle.
    “What is your plan?” Curious eyes turned my way.
    Jesse stoked the fire, casual as ever. “You’re looking at it.” He didn’t even glance up.
    “We can’t keep running—eventually we’ll run out of land. I learned at least that much in school,” Sean said.
    “There are lots of empty towns around here. We’ll just start over. Build a new safe house,” said a woman.
    Billy snorted. “You don’t have any protection. You tried to take us out with a couple guns and a few kitchen knives. The soldiers have bombs, in case you forgot.”
    “Forgot?” Sarah asked, pushing herself off the ground. “How could we forget?” She stalked away from him and he watched her go, scratching his head.
    “We’ll make them pay for it,” Billy added.