“I just don’t want it to blow down,” Ace told her. “The teens did really well.” He glanced at them, now engrossed in something Rad was telling them. “I think we need to tell them that, as they’ve had a tough day.”
Willa nodded. “Come on then and stop fiddling with our door.”
Willa and Ace sat around the fire, and the conversation stopped as all eyes fell on them.
“I’m going to say something, and I need everyone to hear it before we get some sleep,” Willa said. She kept her voice leveland unhurried. “You all did well today. Every single one of you in this cave. I need you to know that.”
Nobody spoke. They were listening.
“What happened out there wasn’t something anyone could’ve predicted or prevented,” Ace continued. “The storm moved faster than the models said it would, and we made the right calls with the information we had. You all managed to get to the shelter after grabbing items we needed from the original camp.”
“Then you set up the cave while you waited for us,” Willa took over again. “You lit a fire. Found a way to close off the cave, and stayed calm until we got here.” She paused. “Well done, all of you.”
“I think we need to give ourselves a round of applause,” Margo added, and the cave erupted.
“Okay, now settle down and try to get some sleep,” Willa ordered. “I’ll wake you as soon as I hear anything.”
The fire crackled, and the storm pressed at the edges of the cave while sleeping bags were unrolled and spread across the flattest sections of rock. Emergency blankets went over the top for extra insulation. Rad organized the space efficiently and without fuss, moving quietly between the teenagers with the calm, steady authority of someone who made it easy to trust him. Margo had found a small section of the cave wall that curved outward enough to break the draft, and she directed the youngest and most obviously tired of the group toward it and helped them settle.
Willa moved to where Grace and Andy were arranging their sleeping bags side by side.
She crouched between them.
“How are you both really?” Willa asked, low enough that it was just for them.
Grace looked at her steadily. “Better than I was an hour ago.”
“And before that?”
“Terrified,” Grace said, without flinching from it. “Completely terrified. But I knew what to do, and that helped.”
“It helped me, too,” Willa told her. “Knowing you were doing it. It helped me in the water.”
Grace’s composure bent slightly at that, just at the edges, and she reached out and gripped Willa’s hand for a second before releasing it. It lasted no longer than a breath, but it was real, and it was enough.
She turned to Andy.
He was lying on his side already, his head on his rolled jacket, his eyes on her. “I’m okay,” he said, before she could ask.
“I know you are,” Willa said. She reached out and smoothed his hair back from his forehead, the way she had since he was small, and would probably do until she was very old and he was too polite to tell her to stop. “But I will still always ask, especially after what you and your sister went through today.”
She stayed crouched between them until his breathing deepened and Grace’s eyes closed, and then she rose slowly and looked across the cave.
Across the dying wakefulness of the group, Rad was settled near the cave wall beside Tyler. They weren’t speaking. Rad’s hand rested on Tyler’s shoulder in a quiet, steady contact thatrequired nothing of either of them, and Tyler’s eyes were already closing. Rad looked up, found her watching, and gave her a very small, tired smile.
Margo was sitting with her back against the wall near the fire, a sleeping bag pulled over her legs, her head tipped slightly toward Rad’s shoulder, as if she were somewhere between awake and asleep, not fighting the drift.
The cave settled into the sound of slow breathing, fire, and storm.
Willa crossed to where Ace sat on the flat rock near the entrance, close enough to the tarpaulin to monitor it, far enough from the sleepers to talk quietly without disturbing anyone. She sat down beside him.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The fire had burned down to a steady, amber-gold pulse. In its light, Ace’s face was all warmth and shadow, the familiar lines of him softened by exhaustion and relief.
“Are you doing all right?” Ace asked.
“Better than I was,” Willa said. “You?”
