A few minutes later, Antoine calls out for Eva to pull over. Here, on the stretch of road that fronts the rural hospice, where the stench of burning flesh is at its worst, Eva drives onto the shoulder and, as Dany watches, Antoine lowers the back gate and eases himself down. “Here,” he tells them. “I’ll leave the monitor here, where the bodies are, they’ll assume I’m …” But his sentence falls away, and he flicks a self-conscious glance at Dany’s arms.
“Burned to a crisp,” Dany finishes.
The old man digs into his tool box, looking for a pair of wire cutters.
The kid is looking up at her sister with big questioning eyes. “I’m okay,” she tells Mac, though she’s still shivering. “I’m just cold.”
Dany closes her eyes and then she feels it. A sudden snuggling warmth. The kid is cozying i
