“With the extra mileage, we won’t make it to Oren for ten, twelve days. Maybe two weeks. That’s a long time to be out in the snow,” Chris said.

“So you’re roughing it.” Weller shrugged like this was no big deal. “Won’t be pleasant, and you’ll get cold—”

“And probably hungry.”

“So you hunt, same as if you were going on a supply run. You know how to do that. It’s not like you don’t have some good gear here. Of course, I wasn’t expecting to hustle three of you out of the village, so you only got two sleeping bags. That should make things a little”—he cocked his head toward Lena—“interesting.”

“God, you’re disgusting,” Lena said.

Weller brushed past her comment. “But by the time we follow, the trail’ll be cold.”

“Oh, ha-ha. Cold. I get it.” Lena’s voice dripped derision. “Irony.”

“Lena.” She was giving Chris a headache. He turned his attention back to Weller. “You think you have this all figured out? You guys are crazy.”

“Okay, we’re crazy.” Weller was matter-of-fact. “Guess you won’t mind us dropping you off at the torture house then.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Peter hadn’t allowed him into the torture house, an order Chris never questioned. But he wasn’t brain-dead. He’d marched his share of prisoners there. Most were men, but there were more than a few women, too. Not that you could tell the difference, necessarily, because once things got to a certain point behind those walls . . . well, all the screams sounded alike. Once, he’d caught a glimpse of a wagon rolling away, and from the lumps and hummocks beneath a swath of blood-soaked canvas heaped on the wagon’s backboard, he knew, exactly, how most prisoners left. “What kind of choice is no choice?”

“One you just don’t happen to like,” Weller said.

“You got a point?” The doctor had stayed silent, but now Kincaid’s voice shook with rage. “Do you and Nathan and the others even understand what you’ve done here, what you’re asking of this boy? What the hell kind of game are you men playing?”

“No game.” Weller’s expression was obscured by snow and shadow, but his tone took on an angry edge. “I’m sorry we didn’t keep you in the loop, Doc—”

“In the loop? In the goddamned loop?” Kincaid shouted. “We’re talking a girl’s life!”

“Wait a minute, what do you mean, in the loop?” Chris was incredulous. “Doc, you were part of this?”

“Told you,” Lena muttered. She backhanded snow from her face. “They’re all in it together.”

“No, not all of it and not all the way,” Kincaid said darkly. “If I’d have known what they were planning for Alex, I would’ve stopped them.”

Yeah, Chris thought, but only what they had planned for Alex? It wasn’t a comforting thought, because that meant Kincaid agreed with this crazy scheme, at least in part. Worse, the old doctor had actually known that, eventually, these men would ask him to . . . what? Save them? Save Rule?

“Alex might still be okay,” Nathan said, only the words came out wet and mushy because of the lip: Alesh and shill. “She’s a smart kid.” Sheeshashmarkid.

“Oh, you think her chances are pretty good, do you?” Kincaid said.

“Doc,” Nathan said doggedly, “you got to believe me. I’m sick about what happened with Alex. That was not the way it was supposed to go down.”

“Well, how the hell else could it have—”

“Doc.” Putting a restraining hand on the doctor’s arm, Chris debated for a split second. Easy enough to let these men fight amongst themselves, but like it or not, they were his ticket out of Rule, and he knew it. “Tell me what was supposed to go down, Nathan. I’m not promising anything—”

Weller cut in. “You’re not exactly in what you’d call a strong position to—”

“Yeah, but as I get it, you need me. So shut up, Weller.” Ignoring Weller’s spluttering, Chris drilled Nathan with a hard stare. “Tell me what happened, exactly.”

“Well . . .” Nathan cut his eyes away. “What Lena said . . . about your horse . . . she was right.” Horsh.

“Yeah.” Lena snorted. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“It wasn’t Night?” Chris’s hand crept to the wound on his scalp, and the bristle of stitches there. “You hit me?”

“No.” Nathan shook his head and kept talking to his hands. “That was Jess.”

“Je—”

“She had to, Chris.”

“She had to? That’s no reason!”

“Well, me and some of the men, we hauled you off, but you just wouldn’t quit.”

“Because Alex was out there!” Chris shouted. “What the hell did you expect me to do? Let her go?”

“Chris, you got to understand that what Jess did was the only way to stop you going after Alex,” Nathan slurred. “You got back early. There was nothing else we could do.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Chris seethed. “Of course there was. You could let me get her. You could let me save her! Even if she’d crossed out of the Zone, you could have just shut up about it and let me bring her back!”

“That’s not what Jess wanted,” Nathan said, wetly. Like that was some sort of explanation. “She said you had to know what you were walking into. You’re the only one left who can make things right, Chris. You were always the only one. If you just took off, without thinking of all the consequences, sorting the whole thing through, that would be your heart talking.”

“How else should I feel?” Chris managed. Rage balled in his throat. “All I ever wanted was to keep Alex safe.”

“Jess said you needed to want more. She was willing to die to make that happen, too. You know Jess wanted me to kill her?”

God, I wish you had. Better her than Alex. “I’ll bet she did. Just something else to put on Alex.” When Nathan hesitated, Chris knew he’d guessed right. “So why didn’t you?”

“I . . . I couldn’t do it.”

“But Alex, you let go. Alex, you can let walk into—”

“I’m not proud of what happened. I just need you to understand why I did what I did, that’s all.” Nathan finally raised his eyes to find Kincaid. “I’m sorry we cut you out of it, Doc. Trust me, though: the less you knew, the better.”

“Well, I don’t trust you and you can never make this right, Nathan,” Kincaid said. His voice was low and hollow, his fury an echo of Chris’s own. “That girl is gone. You shut Jess up all right, and now she might die, too. Tell yourself anything you want, but you’ll never be clean again.”

“And you’re not just as bad?” Lena demanded. “You knew they were planning something, but you never warned Chris or Alex or—”

“Let it go, Lena,” Chris interrupted. “It’s done and let’s just deal, okay?” He turned to Nathan again. “This Hunter guy, why is he important?”

“Jess said he’s got history,” Nathan said. “Isaac will carry weight with the Council.”

“Yeah, but how?” When Nathan didn’t reply, Chris threw a look at Weller. “My God, you don’t know. Neither of you do.”

Weller’s face was a stolid mask. “We took Jess at her word. She’s been in Rule longer than any of us, from a time long before Yeager took over. She knows how the Council works and where the secrets are buried, which closets got skeletons.”

“But you don’t know which ones,” Lena said.

“Even if you did . . . that was enough for you?” Chris cried. “Don’t you see how crazy that is?”

“She has history,” Nathan persisted.

Chris opened his mouth to protest again but decided it wasn’t worth the breath. They were all insane. Jess had come up with some crazy-ass plan that was no plan and these old men had gone along.

“Bet you still think we’re nuts,” Weller said.

“That makes two of us,” Lena chimed.

Weller paid her no mind. “But let me ask you something, Chris. You ever have trouble with any order Peter gave?”

A tiny warning ping went off in his brain. “How do you mean?” Chris asked.

“I thought it was pretty clear. You ever disagree with Peter?”

“Sometimes.”

“You ever go around him?”

“Weller,” Kincaid warned. “This is not his fault.”

“It’s okay, Doc.” Chris studied Weller for a long moment. “I tried never to question Peter in front of the other men, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Why not?”

Because I trusted him. Peter was the older brother I never had. “I didn’t always agree,” Chris said. “Sometimes we could talk about it. Other times he wouldn’t budge.”

“And then you followed orders.” Weller mouthed the words as though they had a very bad taste.

“I had to. The Council decided, and Peter gave the orders. I was just doing what I was supposed to, that’s all.” He knew that sounded weak and pushed on. “I don’t see you guys doing anything different.”

“No?” Weller spread his arms. “Then what the hell do you call this?”

“Crazy,” Lena said, flatly. “If you guys don’t like what the Council’s doing, you fix it.”

“We can’t,” Nathan said. “That’s not how Rule works. We’d never convince enough people. It’s ‘go along to get along.’ Anyway, a challenge to the Council—”

“Can only come from within the Council,” Chris finished, impatiently. “Or from a blood relation of someone already in the Council. Yeah, yeah, I know; I got that. But what makes you think that anyone will listen to me?”