On some level, he thought as he climbed the porch steps, he’d really believed Nadine’s plan would save them, that they’d swipe protein bars from the kitchen like Tom Sawyer packing his bindle and then traipse right out of camp and have a real adventure, that Jo’s grandfather would pick them up in a big gold Cadillac and take them all for hamburgers and milkshakes. He’d never thought it would wind up here, kids held at gunpoint by grown-ups, a toe on the last line of the unspoken pact between their worlds: If you obey me without question, I won’t kill you.
