Take a seat.

That was what Nicholas focused on - taking a seat. When he sat, he sat awkwardly. As if moving was something foreign and new to him. In such a short time, he'd lost...[i]everything.[/i] But, he tried to remind himself, so had Mattie. And he shouldn't be sulking around like a wuss. They couldn't afford it. He felt obsessively protective over Mattie now, as if he [i]had[/i] to keep her alive to redeem himself. When she offered the hardtack to him, he took it and chewed mechanically.

"Thank you," he managed to say. The hardtack wasn't much different from the Saltines stored somewhere in one of the bags that he kept. He looked around and realized they were down to four bottles of clean water unless Mattie had some. Then he spotted the rifle and wondered how much ammo it had left. How many times had Alissa fired it? Once or twice? Or even three times? He couldn't remember.

"What do we do now?" he asked. It was early enough to try to head for the stores that they'd tried yesterday, but it would be best to take all of their equipment and create a new camp somewhere.