Something had gone terribly wrong. For a moment David sat in stunned silence, listening to the absolute nothing that surrounded him in the pitch darkness. Then he heard a chair scraping against the floor. John Seymore. The man was up, and Alex was sleeping on a cot just feet away. Seymore could be going after her. Fear—maybe irrational, maybe not—seized him. He couldn’t seem to control his urge to protect Alex, no matter what. He sprang up, hearing the scrape of his own chair against the floor. He heard movement, tried to judge the sound, then made a wild tackle, going after the man. He connected with his target right by the row of cots. His arms around his opponent’s midsection, together they crashed downward, onto the cot where Alex had been sleeping. Dimly, as Seymore twisted, sending a fist flying, David became aware that the cot was empty. Alex had fled. She might still be in the storm-shelter room somewhere, or she could have found the door and escaped. Seymore’s fist connected with his right shoulder.
