The storm hit the compound later that night, sooner than any of them had anticipated. It scared Daniel to see the other boys in the dorm sitting up, huddled together, staring wide eyed out of the window at the rain hammering against the glass, at the lightning illuminating the sky. If they were unnerved by the storm, then Daniel felt he had reason enough to be scared, too.
Daniel and Will sat together, separate from everybody else, still excluded, still not part of the group. Something big, somewhere in the compound, flapped and banged in the wind. The boys’ low hum of conversation halted every time lightning ripped apart the darkness, setting the sky on fire. Then they waited in silence until the sky exploded in thunder, the rolling roar surrounding them, deafening them, cowing them.
Fo
