Lara shook her head at them, her expression shifting to one of vague amusement. She glanced toward Celeste and motioned to the door with a slight tilt of her head. “Go on, Celeste. Get out of here and stop worrying your brother. Check the snares, huh?”
“Right,” the girl said quietly, casting another quick glance toward the four men, still strangers to her, before she ducked out the door. Thom watched the door click closed behind her.
“How many children?” Cameron asked quietly, giving voice to the question that echoed in Thom’s head.
“Celeste is hardly a child.”
“Just barely not,” Seamus observed. “Will answering his question hurt?”
“I suppose not,” she said, finally seating herself. She sighed, shoulders slumping a little. “There’s Celeste, three other teenagers, and an eight year old boy. Most of us are in our twenties or thirties. It’s strange who survived and who didn’t. Maybe elsewhere it’s different. I don’t know. All I know is the way it is here.”
The lucky and the unlucky survivors, I guess. Thom closed his eyes and exhaled. “Our situation is similar, but it’s explained by where we are. Seems strange, the demographic here.”
She shrugged. “I’ve got no explanation for it. I wish I did.”
“Fate knows what it’s doing,” Seamus murmured, gulping down half his mug of tea in one go. He set his mug down, resting the piece of bread Celeste had handed him on top of it, then wandered to the window, staring out at the sunshine and the snow. “Even if we have no understanding of why it works the way it does, fate knows what it’s doing.”
“Seamus,” Thom began.
The older man waved him off. “Something started that day, Thomas,” he said. “Or continued, depending on how you look at it. She has a plan—the universe has a plan—and always has.”
“Some things are meant to be,” Cameron growled. “But not everything is written in stone.”
Seamus turned to him, a strange light in his eyes. He smiled a small, tight smile and nodded. “Yes,” he said softly. “That’s true. Part of this is ours to write. The greater part, I dearly hope.”
“That one’s strange,” Lara said, almost as an aside to Thom. He choked on a laugh.
“You have no idea, Thom told her. “Trust me, you’ve got no idea.”
