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“No.”

Davey shrugged.

The news worried Steph. She had liked Roger, what little she knew of him. Of course, ‘dunno’ was not a guarantee of a fatal ending, but in the current circumstances not being accounted for was not a good sign. She shook her head. Now was not the time for emotions.

Wanting to feel that her catching up with the others had at least some use, she went to support the other side of Calum.

Davey looked at her for a moment, hesitated and then said, “This way.”

Contrary to Davey’s fears, the gunshots brought them some space, or so it appeared. For half an hour they encountered nothing. Completely unmolested, they meandered through trees and eventually onto a track. Davey shone his torch – one that Steph noticed was considerably more powerful than her own – into the distance, illuminating the back of a cabin.

“There!” Davey hissed.

They limped on. Calum was whimpering quietly with every step, his right knee failing to bend as it should. Considering his size he was surprisingly light, his frame beneath his clothing clearly thinner than it appeared.

Steph put her head down and ground out the last few steps. It was only on reaching the porch of the cabin that Steph realised where she was.

“Isn’t this Roger’s cabin?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Davey replied, taking over from Martina who was moaning about her shoulders dislocating.

“But why are the lights on?”

Davey stopped trying to move Calum forward for a momentand looked at the cabin again. They had all seen the cabin in the distance, but nothing had clicked. The situation seemed to have robbed them of rationality.

“Maybe he left the lights on when he left?” Davey suggested, still not moving.

A figure suddenly passed by the window. Steph’s heart stopped. Calum tried to make a step backwards, cursed and then clung a little tighter to his supports. The door opened.

“Are you coming in or are you planning on continuing your nighttime stroll?”

It was Roger.

“Oh, so you did make it out then?” Davey said, helping Calum over the porch.

“So it would seem. Thanks for your deep concern. What happened to him? Are you all right, Calum?”

“Splendid!” Calum grimaced as he passed by. Roger raised his eyebrows.

Martina didn’t say anything to Roger. She didn’t even look at him. She did give him a one-handed, single pat on the chest as she walked past but that was about it.

“What happened?” Steph asked, approaching Roger.

“Oh, there will be time for all that in a moment. I think for now however, we should get inside, don’t you?”

Steph looked over her shoulder, bit her lip and walked in past Roger, who shut the door behind them both, locking it.

Roger handed out towels and made tea. Davey was quite at ease stripping off his wet clothes and putting them on radiators in the few rooms that made up Roger’s cabin. Steph supposed, from a practical standpoint, he had the right idea, although was surprised at how comfortable he was displaying his sodden Batman underwear. Martina, frowning at Davey, sat and shivered in her wet clothes under her towel. Steph was surprised to find that Thomas’s borrowed coat had actually done a goodjob keeping most of the wet out. Unfortunately, it had done an equally good job at keeping sweaty moisture in. She wrinkled her nose a little. She had been sure that water was dripping in; to find out that she was, in fact, just incredibly sweaty was an unwanted revelation. Pale-faced, Calum was lying on the sofa with his trouser leg cut open to reveal his knee was a swollen blackish-purple mess with a red graze running down the outside.

Despite the situation, Steph had just enough wits about her to contact Kelvin. He began by asking whether Michael had been in touch. Steph confirmed he had not. Before Steph could relay what information she actually did have, Martina took the radio from her and walked into Roger’s bedroom shutting the door. For a minute or two, everyone looked in the direction of the shut door, from where Martina’s fast-paced angry buzz could be heard. When it began to settle – Steph assumed she had either gotten off her chest what she wanted to or Kelvin had managed to placate her – everyone began to relay their own stories of what happened after the lion had ripped Thomas from the face of the earth.

“So Michael just went off to the house and Kelvin was fine with that?” Davey asked, leaning forward.

“Well, if he wasn’t, he didn’t say,” Steph shrugged.

Davey frowned and looked at the floor. Steph was not sure whether he was moving his lips, but he definitely seemed to be going through some sort of internal monologue. Deciding to leave him to it, Steph turned to Calum who seemed to have gained a little colour back in his face.

“What happened with you and Martina?”