The padlock clicked open. Dash opened the door. Sara held up her hand to shield the bright light. The sun was just over the peak. She had judged the time wrong, which meant that it had taken less than three hours of isolation to make her go insane.

Dash raised his eyebrows at her sheet dress, but he kept his opinion to himself. “Dr. Earnshaw. I wondered if you’d like to join us for afternoon prayers.” He winked at her. “Participation is optional.”

Sara would’ve bellowed “Ave Maria” at the top of her lungs if it got her out of this cramped room. She stepped down onto the log. The sentry gave her a curious look. His eyelids were droopy. Air whistled through his clogged nostrils. He was definitely coming down with something. Sara didn’t ask him if he was vaccinated. She wanted him to worry.

“Doctor.” Dash indicated a second path that she hadn’t seen before. “We study by the river.”

Sara picked her way down the path. His word choice was strangely formal, as if he’d learned to speak by listening to phonographs of Franklin Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats. In different circumstances, she would wonder if English was his first language.

Sara felt a tug at the hem of her dress. She’d managed to snag herself in a thicket of catbrier.

“Allow me.” Dash reached down to help.

Sara tore the material away from the thorny weed. She casually turned her head to the left, trying to locate the greenhouse. The sun was at a different angle. There would be no telltale flare off the glass.

She asked Dash, “What’s his name? The guy outside of my door.”

“Lance.”

“Lance?” Sara laughed. Lance was the name of a guy who tied balloon animals in the park, not a militiaman with an AR-15.

Dash said, “I’m assuming that’s not your only question?”

He seemed to want her to talk, so she talked. “Did they find more bodies?”

Dash didn’t answer.

“At Emory.” Sara turned to look at him. “The last I saw on the news, there were eighteen dead, fifty wounded.”

“Deaths were up to twenty-one as of a few minutes ago. I’ll have to get back to you on the unfortunate survivors.” He didn’t seem bothered by the numbers. Nor did he seem bothered that he’d given Sara proof that he was in contact with the outside world.

There had to be a phone or tablet in the Camp with internet access.

Dash said, “My apologies, miss. I almost forgot. I brought you something.”

Sara turned around again. He was pulling an apple out of his sling. Sara didn’t take it. She was starving, but she was suspicious.

“I’m not the snake, though you could certainly make a case for being Eve in that attire.” He took a small bite near the stem to prove it wasn’t tainted. “By my estimation, you haven’t eaten a meal in twenty hours.”

More time had passed than that. Sara took the apple. Instead of continuing down the path, she stood in place, taking as big a bite as she could. Taste flooded her mouth. This was not the irradiated produce from her local grocery store. Sara had forgotten what a real apple was supposed to taste like.

Dash said, “We can get you some cheese if you like. I assume you aren’t eating our meals because you’re a vegetarian.”

Sara had no idea why he’d made this assumption, but she said, “Cheese would be good. Beans, lentils, peas. Anything you can muster.”

“I’ll tell Gwen to pass it on to the kitchen. Your requested medical supplies should arrive soon.” Dash was watching her carefully. “I sent one of my men to pick them up. He should be back in a few hours.”

Sara nodded, wondering if that meant they were a few hours away from Atlanta or a few hours away from the motel. She told Dash, “I meant what I said before. Those children need a hospital.”

“It won’t be your concern for much longer.” He indicated the path ahead. “Please.”

Sara finished the apple as she walked. She considered his words. Was Dash referring to his false promise of letting her leave, or was there a clock ticking down on what he had planned next? Sara furiously scanned the woods around her for the greenhouse. The next was connected in some way to what they were hiding underneath the tent. There was another path parallel to the one she was on. If Sara managed to sneak out of her cabin, she could go to the greenhouse. Lance would probably fall asleep at some point. Sara looked for markers she could follow in the dark. She was so intent on strategizing that she didn’t notice what was twenty feet in front of her.

Michelle Spivey was walking up the path. Instead of continuing straight toward Sara, she took a fork to Sara’s left.

Toward the general direction of the greenhouse.

Sara slowed her pace. Her eyes followed Michelle. The woman must have known that Sara was there, but she didn’t look up from the ground. She was limping. Her skin was pale, almost ghost-like. She was wearing the same homespun dress as the rest of the women. Her hand was pressed to her lower abdomen. She was clearly in a lot of pain. There was a sentry behind her, a young man with a rifle. He was floating his hand along the tops of an elderberry bush. He was barely giving Michelle any of his attention. There was no need to. Even from ten yards away, Sara could tell that Michelle was very sick.

She told Dash, “She should be resting. She’s septic. The bacteria in her blood is going to kill her.”

“She’ll rest when she’s finished.”

Sara didn’t ask what Michelle was expected to finish. What she knew was that the infectious disease specialist had not been abducted and dragged into the mountains to stop a measles outbreak. Michelle was here to do whatever they were doing in the greenhouse. Her contribution was so invaluable that Dash had risked taking her to the hospital to save her life.

Which meant that Michelle was close to completing whatever project she had started. Otherwise, they would’ve kept her in bed and given her time to recover.

It won’t be your concern for much longer.

“Daddy?” The fifteen-year-old with the wary eye was standing with her hands on her hips. “Mama says hurry.”

Dash chuckled. “She’s old enough to start nagging me.”

Sara hurled the apple core into the forest. She tried to adjust the knot in her dress. The tree canopy had cleared at the river. The sun was brutal overhead. The problem with auburn hair was that it came with skin that lent itself to self-immolation. She could already feel her bare shoulder starting to burn.

She added sunscreen to the list of things she missed.

The temperature dropped slightly as she reached the riverbank. All of Dash’s children but Adriel were sitting in a circle. Gwen was on a wooden stool in the center. She was reading aloud from the Bible in her lap.

“‘From there, Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking up the path, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, chanting—’”

Gwen looked up, frowning at Sara.

Sara frowned back. She wasn’t sure why this woman would choose this particular moment to tell her daughters a story about bad little children being mauled to death by bears. They had already lost two of their friends. Their sister lay seriously ill in the bunkhouse.

Dash said, “I don’t think we’ve all been properly introduced. Girls, this is Dr. Earnshaw. Dr. Earnshaw, meet”—he pointed as he went around the circle—“Esther, Charity, Edna, Grace, Hannah and Joy.”

Joy was the oldest, her wary-eyed stare a stark contrast to her name.

“Hello.” Sara had to wad up the back of the sheet so she could sit on the ground. She smiled, reminding herself that she couldn’t punish these children for having awful parents. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

Grace, who was around nine or ten years old, said, “Mama told us you were married.”

“I was.” Sara looked at Gwen, but her head was down as she silently studied her Bible.

Another child asked, “Did you have a big wedding?”

Sara had married Jeffrey in the backyard of her parents’ house. Her mother had stood in stony silence, furious that they weren’t in a church. “We went downtown to the courthouse. A judge married us.”

Even Joy seemed disappointed. Sara didn’t know if this was because they had been taught that marriage was the only thing that gave them validation as women or because they were girls and weddings were romantic, dreamy affairs.

“I’ll tell you another story.” Sara shifted, trying to get a lump of material out from under her ass. “There’s something called a White Coat Ceremony in medical school. That’s the first time you wear your lab coat. You take an oath promising to always help people.” Sara chose not to dwell on that fact. “It’s a very big deal. My entire family was there. We had a party afterward at my aunt’s house. My mother made a toast, then my father, then my aunt. I was tipsy by the end. It was the first time I drank real champagne.”

Grace asked, “Was your husband there?”

Sara smiled. “I hadn’t met him yet. But your mother did this, too. Right, Gwen? Nurses have their ceremony at the start of their clinical work?”

Gwen inhaled deeply. She closed the Bible. She stood up. “I have work to do.”