Where the Lost Things Go

Back at the Camp

Pippa stumbled over the uneven  ground, Frances walking beside her. The younger girl had been tustling with another kid who was twice her size, and she had a black eye and a loose tooth. When Judah had quietly told her what had happened, she had turned white under her rapidly darkening bruises and hadn't said a single word. At the moment, she still wasn't speaking.
  The Master's clan had reacted with confusion and dismay when they had seen Morgan's corpse, and had retreated back up the Junk Tower. The Falcons and Tigers headed back to the Tiger camp to regroup.
  Pippa felt stupid and sluggish, the sharp edges of her grief temporalily blunted by the exaustion she was feeling. Tears were still slowly dripping down her face, the salty water stinging the cut Morgan had made. 
   After what seemed like an eternity, the children reached the camp. Pippa didn't look at anyone, didn't pay attention to the lifeguard Carrie trying to get her to put something on her face before it got infected. She went straight to the shelter and flung herself on the mattress.
  "Pippa?" She realized that Daisy was sitting next to her. "You're okay!" She flung her arms around Pippa. "Where's Naomi?"
  Pippa stared at her, with nothing to say. "She's gone."
  "Where'd she go?" Daisy asked.
  "She's dead." Frances stood in the doorway, her blunt words hanging in the air like cigar smoke. "She untied Pippa, and Morgan cut her throat like she was a bloody pig."
Daisy clung to Pippa's arm, while Frances came in closer, her face set and pale, but angry. She looked oddly terrifying, but Pippa made herself look into her eyes, dark and terrible.
  "She died because you were bloody fricking stupid and let yourself get caught, PHILLIPPA," she whispered, her voice full of venom, "And she now she's dead. And what's more, Judah told me she was going to have a baby. You let that psycho kill a sweet wonderful girl and her BABY?" Frances was shouting now. Pippa was sobbing again, her horrible, tearing grief awakened and painful. Daisy was crying too.
  "I'm sorry, I couldn't stop her," Pippa wept, gazing at Frances' implacable face. "Don't you think I tried? She nearly killed me too, and I know, it would be better if I were dead instead!"
Frances stared at her, then she began to cry, slowly at first, then in great wrenching sobs as she threw herself on the mattress next to Pippa. On her other side, Daisy was crying for the girl who had been her mother.
  Knowing she was all they had now, Pippa held them both tight.