Allissa

Hollis arrived at the same time we did.

“You walk behind me,” she’d said at the south gate, before the light was even up. “You do not walk beside me. If I stop, you stop.” That was the whole of the arrangement. She had not agreed to guide us. She had agreed to go south, and to let us be behind her while she did it.

Which was fine by me. As long as she was leading us there, I didn’t care what the terms were.

The green around us gave out fast. By midmorning, the grass had ...