Half Lost (5 page)

“It's better than nothing,” she replies, looking at my empty arms. “I'll take it back.”

I let her go and carry on searching. The rain starts again, heavier than ever, and I realize it's impossible. There's no dry wood.

I go back to the shelter of the big tree. Donna is bent over the rucksack, her arm inside it. Some of the contents are tipped out. There's a gun by Donna's side. I run at her, sending a flash of lightning to hit the ground close to her. She cowers down.

“What are you doing?” I shout.

“I was looking for food! I'm starving.”

I'm breathing hard. She looks up at me. “I'm just hungry. This is all dehydrated stuff. I thought there might be some energy bars or chocolate or something.”

I swear at her and grab her wrists, zip-tying them behind her back. “Don't ever go in my stuff again.”

I pack the rucksack back up, cleaning the mud off things as best I can. The ammo is all packed at the bottom. None of the guns are loaded. Was Donna going through looking for a loaded gun? Looking for ammo? Or was she really looking for food?

I get the least damp wood I can find and light the fire with flames from my mouth. Donna cowers further from me. The fire is poor. I make up the dehydrated meals with lukewarm water. They're disgusting but I eat one and feed Donna another.

She hardly speaks, just says sorry a few times. I don't speak to her, but tie her to a tree and head back to check for anyone following our trail. Nothing. I go back to the fire and keep watch all night. It rains on and off. When it starts to get light I make one more meal up, boiling the water as best I can. Beef stew for breakfast. I cut Donna's zip tie off and share the food with her.

“Thanks.” She steals a glance at me. “I won't do anything stupid again. Sorry.”

“Shut up.”

“Freddie, I really—”

“I said shut up.”

She's silent and I look over at her and see she's started crying again. So I kick the fire out, pack up, and drag her to her feet and off we go again. It's cold and damp and moving is the only thing to keep the chill out of our bones. But at least Donna keeps going at a reasonable pace and she's not talking.

It's late afternoon when we get back to Camp Three and a Half. There's no sign of Gabriel and it looks like he hasn't been here for a few days: the fire is cold and my fifty-two stones are scattered in the mud where Gabriel kicked them. He must be at Camp Three with Greatorex. He'll wait there and hope I go to him. That's his way of getting me to go and see Greatorex. Well, as it happens, that's what I'm going to do anyway.

Donna has sat down on the ground by the dead fire and I tell her, “Ten minutes and then we leave.”

“I thought we were stopping here for the night.”

“You thought wrong.”

“I'm tired.”

“Join the club.”

“Are we nearly there yet?” She smiles a little and glances up at me, I think realizing she sounds like a little kid.

“We'll be at the Alliance camp soon.”

“Really?” Donna perks up but then looks at me suspiciously. “An hour soon or a day soon?”

“At my pace, an hour. At yours, it could be three days.”

Her shoulders droop a little but she says, “Thanks,
Freddie. For bringing me, I mean. I know you could have left me.”

I drink some water and pass it to her, saying, “Shut up and drink.”

She sips the water and says, “Freddie, I—”

“Can you stop calling me fucking Freddie?”

She smiles briefly. “Sure. It really doesn't suit you. You're definitely not a Freddie.” She sips the water again, then adds quietly and cautiously, “But even if you chose a better name I think I'd know who you are. You really are famous, you know. I was being honest. I'm glad I've met you and I am really grateful . . . Nathan.”

“Yeah.”

She shakes her head. “You're famous for being the son of Marcus. Famous for being a Half Code. Famous for being bad . . . evil. Downright nasty.”

“Are you trying to piss me off?”

“I'm trying to talk to you.” And she adds a small smile.

“Well, I'm not into talking. But, yes, I'm mostly nasty. Sometimes I'm evil. And sometimes I do bad things. Your job is to make sure I don't want to do them to you. So I suggest you shut up and get moving.”

“You prefer being nasty, don't you? It's easier for you.”

“My father would have slit your throat back at the camp. The Hunters would take you back to the White Witches and torture and kill you.”

“So now you're saying you're the
good
guy?”

“And don't you forget it.”

“I won't. I agree; you rescued me and I'm grateful. But being nasty suits you.”

“I've still got the gag, don't forget. I think that suited you.”

She actually laughs at that and says, “See, that's just what I mean. You love being nasty.”

“Save your breath for your wheezing. Let's go.”

I pull her to her feet again and we're off.

Back at Camp

It's dark and raining when we approach Camp Three. There's a guard ahead and as I approach I shout, “It's me, Nathan. Password's ‘Orion's Belt.'”

A shot rings out and hits a tree close to my left.

I push Donna to the ground and roll to my right. I go invisible and run at the guard, knocking the gun upward and out of her hands, and then I push her to the ground. She starts to get up and I hit her in the face with the butt of the gun so that she falls back, blood pouring from her nose.

I'm panting hard and no longer invisible. The girl looks up at me. She's one of the trainees.

Greatorex runs up, gun pointing at me but shouting at her guards. “Report!”

Another trainee appears from my right, a third from my left. All with guns pointing at me. I keep my gun pointed at the girl on the ground who now, despite her broken nose, shouts, “Wrong password! Wrong password!”

Greatorex advances on me, gun still aimed at my head. She says, “What's the password?”

“I don't know. You've changed it and no one's told me.”

“So why attack my guard?”

“She shot at me!”

“Unless you can prove to me you're really Nathan, I'll have to shoot you.”

“You want me to go invisible, throw lightning, breathe flames, and kill the lot of you? Will that be
proof
enough?”

Gabriel runs up now, taking in the situation, and asks, “What's happening?”

Greatorex tells him. “This
person
says he's Nathan. But he might be an impostor.”

“Fuck off, Greatorex.” I can't believe she's serious but her gun is still on me.

Gabriel says, “He swears like Nathan, but any uneducated idiot can do that.”

I swear at him now, not sure if he's joking or not. “Just tell her it's me, Gabriel.”

He comes to me, puts a hand on my chest and looks into my eyes, saying, “But is it you?” Then he leans closer to me, his body against mine, and he moves his mouth to my ear and I feel his breath as he whispers, “You've been away a long time. Were you lost?”

I turn to him, my lips brushing his hair as I mumble, “I got fucking wounded, bloody lost, and climbed the shitting Eiger.”

“Close, but not exactly—”

“I'm sticking to the spirit of it rather than word for word.”

Gabriel turns to Greatorex, saying, “It's him. But still feel free to shoot him.”

“Tempting,” Greatorex replies, but she lowers her gun.

The girl at my feet tries to get up but I push her down with my boot. “You can keep still; you could have killed me.”

Greatorex steps up and says, “It's you who got the password wrong, Nathan. She was doing her job.”

I shove the gun into Greatorex's hands and say, “Well, tell her to point this at her over there.” I turn to indicate Donna, who is walking toward us with a nervous smile on her face, her hands tied behind her back. “She was in a Hunter camp. She was tied up and she says she wants to join the Alliance, but she could be an infiltrator or a spy. Anyway, you deal with her. I want some food and some sleep.”

“Wait! You've been in a Hunter camp? Where?”

“Two days away.”

“They'll track you.”

“They're all dead, but, yes, more will come.”

Greatorex doesn't swear, though I'm sure she wants to. She barks a few orders to her trainees to check my trail and then goes to talk to Donna while I walk with Gabriel into the camp.

I need to relax but as we enter the camp I tense up again. This camp is all organized rows of tents with trainees standing by them, guns in hand, staring at me. I slow and Gabriel moves close to me and says, “They heard gunfire. They're bound to be nervous.”

“I was the one being shot at. How do you think I feel?”

“Let's sit by the fire.” Gabriel virtually pulls me to the ground and sits with me, saying, “It's OK. You're just wound up.”

I sit and stare at the fire and Gabriel is close to me, our arms touching. I say to him quietly, “I thought it was Annalise in the Hunter camp. But it wasn't her. It was Donna.” I glance at the other trainees, who are in a huddle, a few of them still looking over at me.

“You're shaking, Nathan.”

“I'm hungry. Knackered.” And that's part of it for sure.

“Shall I find you some food?”

“In a bit.” And we stay staring at the fire for a while before Gabriel goes to look for some food. When he comes back it's more packet soup but it tastes OK and it's warm. I've stopped shaking.

Gabriel says, “Try to sleep. I'll stay here.” And I lie down and stare at the fire some more.

* * *

The camp is being broken up around me. Trainees bustle about and I'm sitting on the ground eating porridge, or at least I think that's what the almost-solid gray mass of lumps is that I've scraped out of a dented saucepan.

“We're moving out soon,” Gabriel says, joining me. It's barely past dawn but I know Greatorex will think we're dilly-dallying.

I hold the pan out to him and say, “Want some? It's disgusting.”

He shakes his head. “I had some earlier.”

“Where've you been?” I try to sound curious, not childish. But he said he'd stay with me, and yet when I woke he wasn't there, though Greatorex was.

“Greatorex asked me to talk to Donna.”

“And you asked Greatorex to do what in return?” I have a sick feeling he asked her to sit with me, to watch over me like a child.

He doesn't reply at first, only keeps eye contact. “I told her you have bad dreams and to kick you if you started screaming and crying.”

I swear at him but he leans closer to me and says, “I just asked her to get me if you woke up.”

I throw the saucepan into the fire—all very mature. I did have a dream, not a really bad wake-up-blubbering one, but he wasn't to know that.

“Are you going to tell me what happened when you left our camp, after you drew your knife on me?”

“I shouldn't have done that.”

“No.”

“I was . . . I'd found two Hunters a couple of days before. I killed them.” And I tell him everything about that and the trap and finding Donna. I don't tell him much about the fight, no details; he'll know it was bad.

Gabriel says, “Greatorex wanted me to see if I can work Donna out.”

“And?”

“She seems genuine enough. Do you think she's a spy?”

I shrug. “You were the one who told me they don't go around with big signs over their heads.”

“Yes, I did say that, didn't I? Very wise.”

“So what did Donna say, O wise one?”

“That she ran away from England a few weeks ago, when things got bad. Her mother was arrested. Her dad died years ago. She made her way to France and then here.”

“That's it?”

“That's the short version. She's quite chatty. Didn't hold back. She talked about you quite a bit too. She likes you.”

“I saved her life . . . rescued her from the clutches of evil.”

We sit in silence again and then Gabriel says, “She said there were eight of them. Some kind of elite Hunters, two with strong Gifts.”

“Not that strong, evidently.”

Gabriel sounds sad and worried when he says, “You could have been killed.”

“I could have been killed walking back into camp last night.”

But I know he's right. The one with the Gift for projecting pain was a problem. I think her Gift was weak or maybe she couldn't control it in the heat of battle but there'll be more like her to come. I think I got lucky and the other one with the Gift for making you blind must have been one of the guards I killed at the start.

Greatorex shouts, “We're leaving in two minutes. Get your packs ready.”

Gabriel starts to get up but I need to tell him something. “They were all women. Some of them were still sleeping when I killed them. One tried to flee and I slit her throat. Some I killed by ripping their guts open and two burned to death from the lightning I hit them with.”

Gabriel sits back closer to me, his hand on my leg. “We're in a war.”

“So I'm a war hero, not a psychopathic murderer?”

“You're not a psychopath and you're not a murderer. You're not bad. You're not remotely evil. You're someone caught up in a bloody war and it's eating you up—and that just proves how sane you are.”