“Turn around,” Kenny barks.

Jacob says something I can’t hear, his voice low, words calming. He turns, and Kenny gives a start.

“Eric?” Kenny says to Jacob.

Jacob lowers his hood.

“Who the hell are—?” Kenny begins.

“Kenny!” Dalton thunders.

Kenny wheels, gun lowering, the perfect opportunity for Jacob to grab it, but he just stays with his hands on his head. Kenny realizes he’s lowered his weapon and corrects his stance, but Dalton sees that gun go up, trained on his brother, and he lets out a roar. When he snarls “Drop that fucking—” he doesn’t even need to finish. Kenny literally throws the gun aside.

The gun hits the ground hard enough that I half expect it to fire, but it only bounces into the undergrowth as Dalton knocks Kenny flying.

Kenny babbles something from the ground. I reach them, but I still can’t make out what he’s saying.

Then Dalton has his gun trained on Kenny, saying, “Get your ass in the air,” and when Kenny doesn’t obey within 1.5 seconds, “Get your fucking ass in the air!”

Jacob says, “Eric . . .”

“You think I’m being an asshole?” Dalton snarls and then turns to Jacob. “This is the head of my fucking militia. The man who let Brady get away and then came out here to join him.”

“W-what?” Kenny says. “No. I mean, yes, I let him get away. I didn’t do my job right. I screwed up. But I didn’t come out here to—”

“Get in position,” Dalton says. “Now.”

Getting in position means assuming the position that’s like a downward dog, feet and hands on the ground, butt in the air. The first time I saw Dalton make a guy do it, I thought Dalton was trying to shame the guy, make him look ridiculous. And while it does, that’s just a bonus. The beauty of the position is that the average person cannot leap out of it and attack. If he tries to rise, a foot on the ass will put him down again.

It is also, as I later discovered, a trick Dalton learned from Cypher.

Kenny gets into position, saying, “Just listen to me, Eric. I left a note. Didn’t you get—”

“Yeah, Casey found it. Covering your ass, in case we found you alone. You weren’t alone a couple of hours ago, were you.”

“What?”

“You were seen with Oliver Brady.”

Kenny starts sputtering denials, which only pisses Dalton off, and Jacob is trying to interject until finally I step in, arms waving for silence. Dalton gets the last word, of course, but then backs down, a jerk of his chin telling me to handle this.

“Kenny?” I say. “Just be quiet and listen, okay?” I turn to Jacob. “Is this the guy you saw with Brady?”

“I didn’t get a look at the guy’s face,” Jacob says. “This could be him. That’s all I can say.”

“It wasn’t—” Kenny begins.

“Wait,” I say.

“He’s the right size,” Jacob continues. “Jeans. Boots. Jacket. All the same or close enough to what I remember.”

“Which is town-issue clothing,” I say, and Kenny nods, relieved.

“Eric? Can you give me one of Kenny’s boots?”

I train my gun on Kenny while Dalton removes a boot and hands it to me. It’s the one I expect. Town-issue. Same tread as the prints I saw with Brady’s.

“Have you been tracking Brady?” I say.

“I’ve been trying,” Kenny says. “But I’m not Eric. I made a lot of noise, and I figured maybe Brady would see me and think I looked like easy pickings, and then I’d get the jump on him. It was a stupid plan. I haven’t even heard anyone until this morning, and that was you guys.” He glances at Jacob. “You’re . . . one of Eric’s contacts?”

The inflection tells me he knows full well Jacob is more. The resemblance is undeniable. But I only say, “Yes, Jacob is a local scout.”

“I thought he was Brady. He’s about the right size. And he’s got light hair. His hood was up or I’d have noticed his hair’s too long. Plus, uh, the beard.” Kenny exhales. “I’m sorry. I heard someone, and then I saw a guy the right size, and I jumped the gun.”

I compared Kenny’s boot to Dalton’s. Kenny’s is a couple of sizes smaller.

“Have you been on this path?” I say.

“I was on a bigger one over there.” He points left. “I might have been on this one earlier, but I don’t think so. I’ve been heading for that mountain.” He points to our right.

I look at Jacob. “The person you saw with Brady . . . He was definitely with him. Talking to him? Sitting with him?”

“I heard voices. They seemed to be talking. They sat together, and I saw the guy pass Brady food.”

“Eric? Can you empty Kenny’s pockets and backpack?”

He does. There’s a waterskin and basic tools. For food, he’s brought dried meat and a handful of protein bars.

“You took these from the supply cabinet?” I say, waving the bars.

Kenny nods. “I’ll repay them.”

“Not my biggest concern right now.” I go through the handful of bars. “You already ate the chocolate peanut butter ones?”

“I didn’t take any. I know those are your favorite, so I leave them for you. The cookie ones are good, though.”

“She’s not asking because she’s hungry,” Dalton says.

“Right. Sorry. I didn’t take any of the chocolate peanut butter.”

“What about old stock?”

“Old stock?”

“There was a box of chocolate peanut butter that went missing a while ago. Do you know anything about that?”

Dalton’s gaze cuts my way, but he says nothing. I’m bullshitting about the missing box. The truth is that we don’t monitor the bars that tightly, figuring if the militia want to sneak a few extras, that’s a perk for their help.

When I say that, though, Kenny looks uncomfortable.

“Kenny . . .” I prod.

“Someone took a bunch of old stock,” he says. “I don’t know what flavors. I just know that when I did inventory a while back, we had out-of-date bars and I put them aside to ask Will what to do with them, and they went missing. I decided not to say anything. They were old stock.”

“You have no idea who took them?”

That uncomfortable look again. “I . . . No. I don’t.”

He’s lying. I don’t know why, but I need this answer. I study Kenny—the set of his jaw, the look in his eye—and I see it’s not time to press the matter.

“Eric?” I lift Kenny’s boot, and he nods.

When I pass Storm’s lead to Jacob, Dalton’s ready to argue, but I say, “I’ll be quick,” and I get a reluctant nod.

I take off at a jog back to the footprints. They’re just around the corner, and when I reach them, I look back to see Dalton. He’s moved about ten steps from Kenny, his gun still on the suspect but staying within sight range of me.

I crouch with the boot in hand. First, I confirm, beyond a doubt, that the tread is correct. Eyeballing it, I’d also say the size is, but when I lower the boot below the prints, I see that the ones in the soft earth appear to be a size smaller.

I prod the edge of the print. While the ground is damp, it doesn’t seem wet enough for the print to have contracted a size. That’s possible, though. Soft ground shifts. If the boot is the right type and almost the right size . . .

Wait.

It’s not the same boot. Closer examination shows that the wear pattern doesn’t match. Kenny’s are worn, with an uneven tread, maybe the result of unsupportive boots and high arches. The prints look like new boots, the tread very distinct.

I check the tag inside Kenny’s. Then I look at the prints again.

New boots. Rockton-issue. Size-seven men’s. Small for a man’s shoe.

Not small for a woman’s. Not unreasonably large either. That works out to maybe a nine. While we have women’s boot sizes, many choose to wear the guys’, finding them sturdier.

I work through Jacob’s description of the person he spotted with Brady. Clean-shaven. Shorter than Brady. A bulky jacket, which would hide breasts.

There is a person with Brady. This person showed up at some point between day one and last night. This person is from Rockton, as evidenced by the clothing and the bars.

Someone has betrayed us. That person does not seem to be Kenny.

One name keeps coming to mind.

My other suspect for the poisoning, for Brady’s accomplice.

Jen.

I’m working through how much of it fits when Dalton calls, “Casey?”

I’ve been bent over and out of his sight too long, and it’s a testament to his self-control that he didn’t shout “Butler!” the second I disappeared.

I rise and see him farther down the path, anxiously straining to spot me, resisting the urge to run and check. When I wave, I swear I hear him exhale from thirty feet away.

I glance down at the prints one last time, but they aren’t telling me anything new. I’m turning from them when I see a flicker in the bush. I drop Kenny’s boot and raise my gun.

Dalton gives an alarmed “Casey?” and his boots thump as he runs toward me. In the bushes, I can see a form big enough to be dangerous, and I back against a tree, my gun raised.

A woman steps out. She’s filthy with snarled hair and ragged clothes, and I think of Nicole. A woman, lost in these woods or taken captive, escaping and hearing voices and making her way toward us.

Then I see the knife. A rusted one with a broken blade and a makeshift handle. When I see that, I realize I’m looking at a hostile.

I have not seen one since I arrived in Rockton. I have heard some stories from Dalton and read others in the archives, but I am still not prepared. This woman could have just crawled from a pit after a decade of captivity. Matted hair. Dirt-crusted skin and clothing. When she draws back her lips, I see chipped and yellowed teeth. But she has not crawled from a pit. She has not been held captive. She has chosen to do this to herself.

And yet . . .

And yet I am not certain she has chosen. Deep in my brain, tucked away into the morass of “things I will pursue later,” I have a theory. A wild theory that I used to joke sounded like I’d been spending too much time with Brent. I will never make that joke again, but the truth of it remains—that I have a theory about the hostiles that I am ashamed to admit to anyone but Dalton because it smacks of paranoia.

A theory for which I have zero proof, and that only makes it worse, makes me fear it is truly madness arising from hate and prejudice, a place no detective can afford to draw from.

My theory is that the hostiles are not Rockton residents who left and “went native” in the most extreme way. That such a thing is not possible, not on such a scale, because that is not what happens to humans when they voluntarily leave civilization. Jacob is not like this. The residents of the First Settlement are not like this. To become this, I believe you need additional circumstances. Mental illness. Drug addiction. Medical interference.

My theory is that the council is responsible for what I see here. I don’t know why they’d do that. I have hypotheses, but I won’t let them do more than flit through my brain or I may begin to believe I truly am losing my mind in this wild place.

I see this woman. I see what she has done to herself. And it’s not just dirt and lack of care. Those only disguise what Dalton’s stories have told me to look for. The dirt isn’t from lack of bathing. It has been plastered on like war paint. Under it, I see ritualized scar patterns. And the teeth that appear chipped have actually been filed.

I see a woman who should not exist outside of some futuristic novel, a world decimated by war, ravaged by loss, people “reverting” to primitive forms in a desperate attempt to survive, to frighten their enemies.

Which would make perfect sense . . . if people up here had enemies. If there was not enough open land and fresh water and wild game that the only force we need fight is the fickle and all-powerful god of this world: Mother Nature.

I stare at this woman . . . and she stares back.

I point my gun; she brandishes her knife.

Dalton is running toward us. Running and paying no attention to anything except me and this woman. Movement flashes in the trees, the bushes rippling.

“Eric!” I shout. “Stop!”

He sees something at the last second. He spins, gun rising, but his back is unprotected and there is another movement behind him. Then something white flying toward him. I yell “Eric!” and he dodges, and what looks like a sliver of white flies past his head.

It’s a dart. A bone dart.

He’s turning, and then there’s a figure, in flight, leaping from a tree.

Dalton lashes out with his gun. A thwack, and the man goes down, howling. Another figure lunges from the forest. Jacob races around the bend, and Storm barrels past. And I fire. I lift my gun over my head and fire.