I WAS WAY TOO TENSE TO THINK STRAIGHT AT THE clinic, but as soon as we march away from it and that lonely yellow light melts into the trees behind us, I find myself totally freaking out about the nurses they murdered.

“What the hell did you do to them, you animals?” I roar at the girl and Split-Lip while we walk. “What’s wrong with you?” Neither of them will look at me. I’m so mad, I even try to take a swing at Split-Lip with my arms, but the ropes tear at my wrists and take all the power out of it. Split-Lip laughs and catches my fists. He slaps me in the face. It stings like hell but I don’t care. Every time one of the LRA scum looks at me now, I see red. After what I witnessed back there, I’m also sure that the Empty Child is not just the youngest. She’s also the most dangerous.

Izzy is only able to walk slowly and Mwemba doesn’t do anything to speed her up. The LRA leader has even let Izzy walk with her hands untied. What Dr. Mayanja said seems to have had an effect, and I’m so grateful to him. I hope he’s going to be okay.

While I’m thinking, there’s a long, rumbling roar in the distance.

“Iz …” I whisper.

Her eyes are still glassy. There’s no way she should be walking anywhere. She wraps her arm around my waist and lets her head rest in the crook of my shoulder as we walk through the bush bathed in shadows and silver starlight. “Yes?”

“Did you hear that?”

She nods and waves the wrist with the St. Christopher on it in front of me. Her face lights up with a smile. “You were right. I should have had more faith.”

Ash is walking ahead of us with Jen. They’ve heard the roar, too. Charis and Marcus, to my right, don’t even lift their heads. I’ve grown used to it, but suddenly I see what a mess we all look. Our clothes are bloody and torn. I wonder what my hair must look like. It feels like a mat. Having Izzy back feels good, though. It felt lonely without her optimism.

“Someone’s definitely looking out for you,” I agree, with this weird, light-headed relief washing over me. I point to my left. “If you still want to say hello to your lion, I’d say we need to go in that direction.”

“Now you’re coming round to my way of thinking,” she jokes. “A lion’s not so scary when you’ve had a gun in your face now, is it?”

“True.”

We walk all through the night, and our path is lit by the brightest stars you can imagine. The silver crescent moon lying on its back is too lazy to compete with them, but it does light our way with a sliver of ghostly light. The sun has long gone in but its heat still oozes from the ground beneath my bare feet. We find ourselves crossing wide fields of maize and other crops that I have no name for. Short, fragrant mango and citrus trees are dotted along the thin, weatherworn paths that we take every now and again, as if they were planted by people walking this way many years before us. Mwemba allows only the Sangoma to gather fruit as we walk. The LRA leader is jumpy, and I know it’s because there are people nearby, but no lights puncture the darkness. My heart flips when I think I see the angular black outline of a thatched roof, but as we pass by and I turn to get a better look, it turns out to be a bush.

Just before daybreak the soldiers let us rest for a couple of hours, hidden in a thick patch of shrubs, while a much thicker mist than yesterday rises from the undergrowth. Monkeys scream and chatter in the denser patches of bush and overhead, and the place is alive with creaking, hissing noises. Through the leaves, the morning sky is blue and cloudless. I notice that the girl has gone, and I’ve almost given up looking for her when I catch glimpses of that strange gray shadow again, broken by leaves and branches. She seems to be jumping. This time I can even hear her soft voice punctuated by a thudding sound and a tiny gasp for breath as she lands. I wonder what she’s doing.

After the farmland we had to cross two tarmac roads in the night, and I’m thinking we may be near civilization now. With regular injections through the night, Iz is almost back to normal, except that the whites of her eyes look yellow to me and the beds of her nails are purple. She seems to be way more out of breath than she should be, too.

Our rest is far too short, even for the boy soldiers. Some of them get up muttering under their breath. Unconcerned, Mwemba gets us moving again, and now it is Jen who is beginning to slow us down. Her leg is badly swollen and she spends most of her time hopping. The dressing is peeling away from a huge oozing lump on her calf — infection is beginning to take its toll on her despite the pills that the doctor gave her. To top it all, she’s sweating badly, like she may be developing a fever.

Last night, Ash’s eyes were everywhere, searching for an escape opportunity, but the roads were deserted. Today, he is walking slightly ahead of us with his head bowed.

I want to lift his spirits but I don’t know how. All I can come up with is a lame, “Are you okay, Ash?”

“No, I’m not. Why would I be?” he snaps back. Then, when he sees my face, “It’s not you.”

He’s frustrated because there are never any decent chances to break away and, the longer we go on, the less likely it is that any of us would be able to get very far even if we tried. I know he’s desperately worried about Iz and Jen. None of us would even think of running without them. To make things worse, the LRA kids never seem to tire or drop their guard.

In the afternoon we cross another track and, after wading through a swathe of tall brown grass, we reach a group of rocks shaded by a few trees and low thorn bushes. While we’re sitting there in silence, the sound of an engine comes out of the distance. A cloud of dust rises in a thin column heading this way. Suddenly the soldiers shove us into a tighter group and make us sit on some boulders while they scan frantically for cover. Several of them raise their guns in the direction the vehicle is coming from. My heart leaps. A shiver of hope rises in me.

Mwemba barks angrily at his unruly kids and points to a patch of scrubby bushes and long grass behind us. The Sangoma and a couple of others rush to where we are sitting on the rocks and force us to the ground behind the cover of the bushes. After what happened at the medical center when Ash and Marcus cried out, the soldiers aren’t taking any chances. A filthy rag is shoved in my mouth and tied behind my neck, and Split-Lip kneels astride me with his gun pointing at the back of my head. The others are getting the same treatment, and as the roar of the engine gets closer, I can hear excited voices. Some weird insect tickles my calf and I choke on a scream. When whatever it is bites my leg, I squirm, panicked. Split-Lip pushes my shoulders into the ground. I freeze.

“Over there! By those rocks. I swear, honey, that bush moved!” An American voice — a woman.

The vehicle squeals to a halt, not far away. Nobody gets out. If it’s a safari, they’ll have to stay in the trucks.

It’s a chance for us, though, and Ash struggles violently, almost toppling the Sangoma off his chest before the guy gets him under control.

I love that he won’t give up.

“There! Did you see that? It moved again.”

There’s a murmur. It sounds like they’re not going anywhere for a while.

Somewhere by my head a gun rattles. I can’t move my head much but I can see enough. To my amazement, Mwemba slowly rises to his feet, smiling.

There is a scream.

Another voice asks, “Mommy, is that a poacher?”

From where the tourists are, he must look spine-chilling, like the devil in combat fatigues rising from a sea of waving grass. Cameras click, bleep, and then fall silent when they see his gun. Mwemba just laughs at them. He shakes his beaded braids out of his eyes, whooping and trilling, firing automatic rounds into the air as the safari truck turns tail in a cloud of dust and floors it. Hot, empty shells rain down and bounce painfully off my back and arms.

When the tourists have gone, Split-Lip pulls me to my feet and the others follow suit, but when the Empty Child tries to pull Izzy up, she’s a dead weight. She’s clutching her chest and groaning with short, hissing breaths. The toddler is pulling at the side of her open mouth, trying to wake her up.

Suddenly I’m hearing the doctor’s words in my head: cardiomyopathy … very serious. It’s her heart.

“Get off her!” I scream at them, and the little boy looks at me and bursts into tears. The girl flicks the safety catch on her gun and raises it.

Mwemba angrily shoves her gun aside and between them they try to pull Iz up. He kicks the toddler out of the way and they manage to get Izzy upright. He’s really rough with her, though — like she can help this. Sweat is pouring from her forehead and she’s gasping for breath, white as a sheet. Then, suddenly, the breathing stops. She just sits there, staring for a second, and slowly flops forward, her eyes as wide as saucers. The Empty Child stops her from falling sideways and hitting her head on a rock.

I can’t help myself, I’m screaming, “IZZY!” at the top of my voice, as if she’s going to hear and come back. Then at Mwemba, “Let go! She’s having a heart attack, for God’s sake!”

The others are yelling, too, straining against groups of armed kids, shoving them out of the way. The soldiers are dangerously agitated, shouting at me and waving their guns angrily — I’m trembling but I don’t care if they shoot me. Ash and I manage to shoulder our way past them and, when Mwemba stands aside and waves his pistol, they do nothing to stop us.

I shove the girl out of the way and feel Izzy’s cold wrist for a pulse. Nothing! I tell the girl, “Untie me!” When she does her usual zombie act I scream and wave my wrists right in her stupid face. “Freaking untie me!”

Without blinking or wiping my spit off her face she pulls out her machete. For a second I think I’ve had it. I try not to close my eyes. If she’s going to kill me, I want her to know I’m not going to run or hide. But instead she stoops and cuts my ropes. Then she stands up and steps away to watch, pulling the screaming toddler to her side by his arm.

Mwemba won’t let Ash get any closer, just me. Gently, I lift Izzy’s face and lay her on her back. For a while I try breathing for her, mouth-to-mouth, pumping her chest, and putting my wet cheeks next to her face, praying that God will let me feel the soft echo of her breath. For one fleeting second I swear she says the word love. That would be so Izzy. But, as her pupils widen to black, I realize it was just a last breath of air seeping from her lungs.

“Come back, Iz,” I plead into her ear, watching my tears splash onto her forehead. “We’re in a safari park. The lion king is waiting for you. Come back.”

There’s no answer. Not even when I sob, “I love you — thank you for being my friend,” again and again into her lifeless ear.

The bastards don’t give us any time to be with her, but before they drag me away from her body I manage to unclip her St. Christopher bracelet. After that they won’t let me touch her. They won’t let us bury her, either. All Mwemba will allow is a little time for Charis, Jen, and me to pile rocks around her to protect her body from wild dogs and vultures. The moment we’re done they tie us up again. I just stand there looking at that pathetic pile before we’re all shoved on our way. It’s like all the life has been sucked out of me and, as I stumble forward, the color drains out of the world.

When we leave I shout, “I’m not going to forget you, Iz!” and I keep my eyes on her grave over my shoulder for as long as I can, walking on tiptoe until all that is left is the reflection of the sun on the pale stones. When even that is hidden, I’m blinded with waves of tears that just won’t stop, and a terrible pain like nothing I’ve ever known squeezes my chest every time I try to gulp for air. Charis is next to me helping Jen to walk. Both of them are sobbing their hearts out, watched from behind heavy lids by the Empty Child. Ash’s face is wet and streaked with tears that he can’t wipe away. Marcus breaks my heart: He has no tear ducts, there’s no release for his pain. All he can do is let out these gut-wrenching moans and gasps, shaking his head in anguish while Charis tries to comfort him.

Right now I’m not afraid to die. It would be a relief.

As we trudge away, Jen throws up in the bushes a couple of times and I’m terrified to hear that she’s developing a rattling wheeze. It feels like Izzy’s God, if He ever existed, has deserted us. Either that or He doesn’t care. Maybe He never cared, letting us get kidnapped in the first place — and allowing the others to be blown up in war zones before that. For Izzy’s sake, I’m trying hard not to hate Him, but her St. Christopher medal feels like it’s burning the palm of my hand, as if she’s telling me not to give up on Him. I hate it and want it all at the same time. Eventually I have no choice but to turn my head back to the path and try to give a damn whether or not I take another breath.

I don’t know how any of us keep on walking. No one talks, not even the soldiers, and the girl watches us even more closely than usual. I’m close to losing it at her, but instead I just bite my lip, drop my head, and watch the tears roll down my nose, where they fall to darken the dirt at my feet.

A couple of hours later we trudge past another stand of trees, where, in the shade, three lionesses stretch out and yawn. My insides knot up with this raw ache the instant I see them. The feeling is so powerful it almost knocks me to the ground. I want to rant at God, but the pain of it has sucked all the breath from me. It’s as if we’re just being mocked now. If only she’d lived another couple of hours, Izzy could have seen them!

I need to stop. I need to fall to the ground and curl up, but two of the soldiers see me stumble and hook their arms under mine, dragging me along. We leave a wide berth when we pass by the lionesses, and one of them lifts its head to watch us. That’s when this amazing lion appears on the highest rock and stands there. He shakes his mane and roars angrily at the LRA soldiers and at the endless blue sky. I’m not scared of him. Not anymore. I look right into his sad, pale eyes for ages — until he stops roaring and turns his back on me.

By nightfall we’re standing on the top of a wooded hill, looking over a vast black expanse of water. If I didn’t know better, I would think we’ve reached the sea, but that’s impossible. A warm, damp breeze rises from it and slips through my dirty, tangled hair. It’s like meeting an old friend again. I want to get down there and splash water on my face. Maybe then I’ll wake up from this nightmare. In the darkness, though, the valley is a wide black mouth waiting to swallow us without a trace. I can’t see the end of it.

Everything feels hopeless to me now. Small clusters of lights flicker far away to our right: ordinary people in their ordinary houses living ordinary lives. Above our heads, the stars just wait there and watch us suffer like they have since history began. My eyes are so wrung out from crying that it’s almost painful to look up at them. I wonder whereabouts in the heavens Leo is. Hiding from me, that’s where.

I become aware that I’m still clutching Izzy’s bracelet like I’m holding on to her. I slip it around my left wrist and Jen, seeing me struggle with it, limps over and closes the clasp for me. The soft warmth of the metal reminds me that Izzy is cold now, and my chest contracts in a groan. I just can’t help it. I don’t know what to do with the pain.

“Tanganyika,” Mwemba growls under his breath at the Sangoma, scanning the endless water. “Ambapo ni wao?”11

I’m good at geography — all part of being a sailor — and I know that Tanganyika is a huge freshwater lake that separates Tanzania from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Over the restless black water is the poorest, most unstable country in Africa. The Sangoma is straining to see, too. He points to a rocky inlet about half a mile away. There’s a flickering orange light over there, a fire. Mwemba reacts angrily. He waves us on, and soon we are standing on a sandy beach hidden from the blaze by an outcrop of rock. The sand feels cool and soft under my throbbing feet. I don’t want to move another step.

Another eight child soldiers are waiting for us by their fire. They scatter in panic when Mwemba arrives raging at them and kicking it out, scattering red embers everywhere. Sparks fly up into the darkness, morphing into gray flakes that flutter away on the breeze. Four large fishing boats are moored a little way out and we are made to wade out to them. As we near the boats, I can’t help but wonder what happened to the fishermen who used to own them, because I’m pretty sure that they don’t belong to the soldiers. I close my mind to the thought. The water feels clean and cool. I want to slip beneath the surface and wash away my pain, but I know that can’t happen. The lake can draw the ache out of my legs, but right now it can’t begin to touch my heart.

We are all in a sorry state. Izzy’s death has sapped all the fight from us. Some of Marcus’s skin grafts have begun to weep along angry red stretch marks. Ash is in constant pain but he hides it well; the only way I can tell is by the way he shifts his weight on his blades. Jen can barely walk at all, and the cold water seems to give her some relief. She stands knee-deep in it, in a trance, until Charis tells her that it may not be safe and gently ushers her forward. Of all of us, Charis and I are holding up best.

I’m hauled into the middle of one of the boats with Ash and forced to lie on my back next to him on a lumpy pile of netting. It smells fishy. The boat rocks wildly because the LRA soldiers are trying to clamber aboard, fighting for places on the bench seats. Several times they almost capsize it, until Mwemba beats them into some kind of order. The last one into our boat is the Empty Child with her kid, and she sits where she can keep an eye on us.

It would have to be her, wouldn’t it? The heartless bitch. For a moment I wonder if she’s studying me.

She sits in the prow with her gun on one knee and the toddler on the other. Her black eyes glisten.

When everyone is on board the four boats, they start the motors and we’re off across the water, traveling slowly because they’re trying to follow one another out into the deep without lights. The soldiers are nervous on the water, but to me it feels good.

Ash’s arm feels warm against mine and I’m grateful for the touch, it’s the first contact I’ve had since Izzy … His breath touches my ear.

“You okay, Rio?”

I nod, even though I’m not all right. Unable to stop the tears from flowing again, I bury my face in the crook of his shoulder.

He rubs the top of my head with his chin and then rests his cheek in my hair. “Remember the whale shark?”

How could I forget? I try to laugh but end up sobbing harder. I don’t know why I’m alive, or even if I want to be. Desperate to be back there, in the ocean, where I felt safe, I close my eyes and remember.

“Ash, what were you going to ask me?”

He is silent long enough for me to know that I’m not going to get an answer to that one. Not until other things are sorted out. If they’re ever sorted out. And it doesn’t matter anyway, now that Izzy’s dead.

Eventually Ash says, “I don’t remember,” but I know he does.

We’re quiet for ages after that and then, for the first time in days, his husky voice — quiet and breaking with emotion — starts to sing Izzy’s favorite song, “If Everyone Cared,” into the night.

The Empty Child turns her head, but it’s too dark to see her face.

Before I can choke on another agonizing breath I’m back on the Spirit of Freedom after our swim. Nothing bad has happened, and I’m imagining lying in Ash’s arms watching the sun sink into an ocean set on fire with crimson, orange, and deep, deep yellows. Izzy is at the wheel. Ash is singing to me and his voice is strong and unafraid.

I try to join in, but can’t. He stumbles over the words, and I wet his neck with my tears and listen to his voice vibrating in his throat and chest, even more beautiful because it is wrung out and dried to dust by sorrow.

Holding up my wrists, Izzy’s St. Christopher catches the dancing reflections of the moon off the water, and I focus on it until all the other noises around us fade away to nothing, until I feel like I could reach back in time to the yacht and touch Izzy’s hand, until it’s just me and Ash out here under the stars, and we’re floating away from this crazy nightmare on a song.