The Kept question

You are supposed to wonder what happens...

It's open ended. Kid survives somehow, perhaps. Perhaps not. We all gotta die.

I assume Caleb gets killed. He's trapped and has no functioning gun. He has just killed the brother of the violent men outside. Anyone who is anyone in this story gets shot to death.

I'd like to believe Caleb kills the other two brothers and there will be a sequel about his next journey although without Elspeth it won't be as interesting.

I know...right. Talk about frustrating. I thought the book was so good, well written, a great build-up, then whammy - I felt like I needed a cold shower of sorts. I too assume that Caleb is killed. But to some degree I expect that White character that owns the brothel to come looking for him with his band of gun totting burly men. Who knows, I can only hope that another book is in the works that will explain this all so I can put it to rest! Ugh.

I felt the same way about the ending. I thought maybe I had missed something. I thought about it a lot and assume Caleb gets killed but is ok with it because he will be with his brothers and sisters again.

The ending is not ok because Caleb is the only one with a highly developed conscience. He's living with a woman who hardly has a conscience yet he prefers not to kill animals and tells White that the man who hit him didn't have to die. The author leaves him trapped on the 2nd floor with killers downstairs with no way out so its not really open-ended. I really admire this book and the writing style of the author but the ending is painful. This is like killing off Huck Finn.

I thought that he gets killed, but is okay with it because he gets to be with his siblings again. Plus, he has no one else in the world anyway. It might be a bit of a stretch, but I also thought that once he saw the beds, the growth chart, and the brothers horsing around, he realized that they were a family, too, and were siblings just like his own. This realization might have even made him not want to kill them at that point.