FLEEING THE CAMPThe soup was thin, mostly water and a few wilted greens, but the warmth of the bowl against my bandaged palms was the best thing I’d felt in days. Around me, the small group of travelers—people who had no place else to go—huddled close to the dying embers of the fire.

"You look like you've seen the end of the world, girl," an old woman named Martha said, her voice soft. She had been the one to wrap my hands in clean linen earlier that evening.

"I think I might have," I ...