By the time they stumbled back into the clearing, the daylight had dulled to a bruised dusk. Camp Grit looked smaller somehow, flattened by the heavy sky and the hush of trees pressing in from all sides. Smoke drifted from the fire pit, thin and reluctant. A handful of kids huddled around the warmth, shoulders touching like a wall against the cold.
The first to see them was a boy about seven, who stood up so fast his blanket fell off. His eyes darted to the torn jacket clutched under Rafi's arm, then to the empty trail behind them. He didn't say anything — he didn't have to. The silent question hovered above every head in the clearing.
Rafi forced his tired feet closer to the fire pit. The other older kids followed, keeping tight behind him like a shield. They were all soaked again — mud streaked up to their knees, scratches on their hands where brambles had tried to tear the truth out of them.
No one asked where the counselor was.
They just waited.
Rafi crouched by the fire, set the jacket on the ground beside the broken radio. He laid them out as gently as if they were a sleeping person, and not just scraps of plastic and fabric that smelled of cold sweat and wet leaves.
The heat from the fire clawed at his face, but he didn't move back. He needed it. Needed it to remind him he was still here, still warm, still breathing.
Behind him, the other kids started whispering — little voices, like leaves rustling before rain. He caught bits and pieces: He didn't come back. They didn't find him. What happens now?
The tall girl with the braid took over for a moment, nudging the smallest ones closer to the fire, handing out the last of the dry trail mix in careful handfuls. She didn't look at Rafi, but he knew she trusted him to step up again when his brain caught up with his body.
He forced himself to stand. The world dipped for a moment — exhaustion trying to drag him back down — but he found his balance.
They deserved the truth. Or as much of it as he had.
He told them they had found signs. That the missing counselor had probably moved on foot, maybe looking for help, maybe hurt. That there was no body. No blood. Just a trail they hadn't finished yet.
He didn't tell them how the footprints pointed to the old boundary fence, to a stretch of woods thick enough to swallow whole towns if you gave it enough time. He didn't tell them how bad it would be if the counselor was lost overnight without shelter.
He promised instead that tomorrow he'd lead another search. Better organized. With more food, more light, more people to watch the younger kids while the older ones helped sweep the woods properly.
He told them they would not split up, not lose anyone else, not leave the camp unguarded.
It was half-plan, half-prayer. But for now, it was enough.
The whispers quieted. Someone threw a handful of pine needles into the fire, and they crackled and spat tiny sparks up toward the darkening sky. Night pressed in, heavy and cold. But the circle around the flames stayed unbroken.
The older kids began setting up blankets as windbreaks. A couple of them sorted damp clothes, draping them on branches near the fire's edge. One boy took the broken radio apart with a stick, poking at the wires as if he might will it back to life.
Rafi felt the hum of exhaustion slip through his veins like syrup. He sat on a log, resting elbows on knees, staring into the flames until the colors blurred.
He didn't want to sleep. Couldn't. Every rustle in the trees sounded like footsteps. Every crack of a branch made his stomach lurch.
Part of him still hoped the counselor would stumble back into camp, half-frozen but alive. Maybe carrying news that help was coming. That this was all just a bad memory waiting to be undone.
But the rest of him — the piece forged in the silent spaces after his parents were gone — knew better.
No one was coming tonight. This camp was his to hold together until dawn.
And tomorrow, he would walk back into those woods, further than before. Even if the forest didn't want him there. Even if it took more than he could afford to lose.
He pressed his palms to the heat of the fire and promised himself: they would not be the ones who disappeared.
Not if he had anything left to fight with.