Half Wild (28 page)

I haven’t seen my brother for over two years but I recognize him easily. He’s tall and handsome and everything you’d expect of a White Witch. He walks into camp with a group of Whites and Half Bloods. They all look tired but relieved to have arrived at their destination. Arran doesn’t seem relieved. It’s a few days since I found out about Deborah. I was told that Arran knows.

I’m standing in the trees, watching, and now I move half a step to the left so that he’ll spot me. I’ve so wanted to see him, to be with him again, but this is not how I wanted it. He’ll be feeling Deborah’s loss more than me.

It’s another minute before he glances my way and then he freezes. I see he says my name and he smiles and I think I smile as he comes toward me. We embrace. He’s thinner than I expected and not as tall, though still taller than me.

He says lots of things about missing me and maybe I say things, I’m not sure. He tells me Deborah was doing what she believed in and he cries a lot and I do too. And I’m thinking of when all three of us were together, tussling for room to brush our teeth in the bathroom, and her brushing her hair in the mornings on the landing and listening to me and Arran talking, and then I remember us all having breakfast together with Gran. It was only three years ago. I feel like I’m so old and yet Deborah was so young and none of it is fair and none of it makes sense.

* * *

The next few days are different. Arran is working with Van in the medical unit but he spends all his spare time with me. It’s over two years since I was taken from our house and he wants to know everything that’s happened to me while we’ve been apart. I can only do a bit of it. I don’t like to tell him the bad stuff. Ellen has told him everything she knows but that isn’t much and he wants to know more. He glances at the tattoo on my neck and at my hands and he reaches out to touch the scarred skin of my wrist. I tell him to ask Gabriel if he wants any details.

Then he asks me about Gabriel and I say the same thing. “Ask Gabriel if you want any details.”

“I will,” he says.

“You have to promise to tell me what he says.” I smile. I am actually curious at the thought of what it might be.

Arran says, “It’s good to see you smile.”

“And you.”

Then I remember I wanted to tell him something. “Remember that time when I climbed the tree and you came up after me and I went further up and out and you wanted me to come back? And I did and we sat there for ages together, our legs dangling down either side of that branch, and you were against the trunk and I was leaning back against you?”

He nods.

“I think about that a lot. When I need something good to focus on.”

And Arran’s eyes fill with tears and he hugs me and I hug him back.

Celia and I are having another talk.

“Before she was arrested Deborah sent out one last piece of information,” Celia tells me. “It’s probably what led to her being caught but she thought it was so important that she was willing to risk her life for it.

“Wallend has been experimenting on Black Witches, those ones that were first caught outside Paris a few weeks ago. He’s developing some kind of tattoo. Tattooing them over their hearts. The experiments are on Black Witches but we think that the aim is to develop the tattoo to be used on Hunters.”

“Why?” I ask. “What does it do?”

“Deborah couldn’t find that out. Have you seen any Hunters with strange tattoos on their chests?”

“I haven’t been looking.”

“From now on we need to.” She hesitates, her eyes locked on mine. “As long as you’re ready for another mission.”

“Why wouldn’t I be ready?”

“I just want to check that you’re in control. Losing your sister is difficult. I know that.”

“I didn’t lose her. They took me from her years ago and now she’s been executed.”

Celia sticks her fat lip out.

I sigh and say, “OK. Leave me off the mission. But I’d suggest you leave Marcus off too in that case. Cos he’s more likely to go off on one than me.”

Celia nods. “I haven’t thanked you for that yet. But you did well with Blondine and controlling Marcus that day.”

“What’s happened to Blondine?”

“I sent her back. I saw her name on the last list of executions that we got from Deborah. Executed for desertion, it said.”

“You knew they’d do that.”

“I wasn’t certain. But she was a deserter. She should have stood her ground and fought.”

“If Marcus had killed her, everyone here would have called him an animal. You send her back and no one bats an eyelid.”

Celia doesn’t reply.

I say, “Blondine would have suffered less if I’d let Marcus kill her.”

* * *

The next raid is a small one. Among the final material Deborah provided is a list of locations of Hunter bases in northern France, along with details of how many Hunters are at each point. Without this the raids could never take place and never work. We all owe her so much. Celia is busy in meetings with new arrivals. She’s spending more time in administration now, hasn’t been to a training session for days.

So Greatorex is to lead the attack, which is fine: she’s a good leader. She’s serious and professional, like Celia, like all the Hunters, but she seems to have a more human side and to understand her fighters as individuals, each with a different personality, and to each of us she speaks a little differently. With me she jokes a lot, laughs at me. With Nesbitt she’s tough but never critical. With Gabriel she’s business-like. With Sameen she’s encouraging. I respect her and the others do too.

Nesbitt has a constant battle with her about her name. Greatorex is her surname; no one knows her first name. I guess she’s embarrassed by it. She won’t say and she certainly won’t tell Nesbitt. I ask him, “Anyway, Nesbitt, what’s your first name? You ashamed of yours too?” He swears at me. And I start trying different names for him. “Gerald? Arthur? Not . . . Gabrielle?” He doesn’t mention Greatorex’s name too often after that.

Greatorex goes over the plan for the attack. There’ll be eight Hunters. We go in at dawn. We work in pairs, except for Marcus, who uses his invisibility and does most of the initial dangerous work. I’m fast so I go after runners. If any of the Hunters try to make a break for it my job is to chase them down. Nesbitt is good at tracking so he’s my reserve but so far no one has got away from me. Runners are my specialty.

The attack sounds like it’s going to be routine.

Only it’s never really routine. There’s always something worse or bad or shit about killing people. I hate Hunters. I have no sympathy for them. I’m not sure what I feel about Blondine but it’s not sympathy. I’m angry, I guess. Like Gabriel says, I’m angry at just about everything. I’m angry at Blondine for being stupid enough to join the Hunters. At Wallend for experimenting on people. At Soul for killing my sister. At the world for being shit. Oh yes, and Annalise for not getting it, cos she’s hardly talking to me and since I told her about Kieran we’ve slept together once but it wasn’t the same and I somehow felt she was doing it because of Deborah, and I can’t believe that I told her I loved her again. Again. And this time she didn’t say it back.

* * *

The raid goes to plan. There are eight Hunters. Marcus goes in and kills most of them. There’s one runner. A boy, not even that fast. I chase after him. Catch him easily. I slit his throat. I always make sure I kill them. I don’t want another prisoner. I go back to the Hunter camp, my hands dripping in blood.

When I reach the others they’re all standing slightly back from Gabriel, who is kneeling by a Hunter. She’s wounded, shot in the stomach. She’s dying and there’s nothing anyone can do to save her. She won’t be a prisoner but it’ll probably be an hour before she loses all her strength.

My hands are wet with blood and I wipe them and my knife’s on the clothes of a Hunter whose body is at my feet.

Gabriel is talking to the dying Hunter, asking her if she has a tattoo. The Hunter swears at Gabriel. Gabriel says he’s going to see if she has a tattoo. I’m surprised that Gabriel does check; he cuts into her jacket and T-shirt but there is no tattoo.

I look at the body at my feet and cut her jacket open. Her T-shirt. Exposing her chest. There’s nothing. I can’t believe I’m having to do this.

Gabriel asks again, “What are the tattoos for? Do the tattoos help you heal? Make you stronger? Give you a new Gift?”

Nesbitt says, “Make bullets bounce off you. Make your farts smell like rose blossom.”

I realize I’ve forgotten to look if the boy I killed, the runner, had a tattoo. I turn to go back to check him. Annalise is right behind me. She’s been watching us, listening to us. I don’t know how much she’s heard but somehow I know it’s a lot. Her face is pale.

She says, “Can we get a healer to help her?” She’s not talking to me, or to anyone really, just thinking aloud.

I say, “She’s been shot in the gut. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

She looks at me and says, “Except laugh, maybe.”

I hadn’t realized I’d laughed at Nesbitt’s joke but maybe I had. The whole thing is a sick joke.

At that moment Greatorex steps up and tells everyone to get on with their jobs. “Including you, Gabriel. Leave her.”

The Hunter curses and says we’re all going to die and we deserve it and we’re all scum. Her voice is surprisingly loud. And Marcus walks up to her, kneels beside her, and slides the blade of the Fairborn into her throat. The blood oozes and bubbles out and she shakes once, quickly, and dies quietly. Marcus cleans the knife on the Hunter’s clothes and walks away, saying, “Someone should have done that ten minutes ago.”

I look round to Annalise. Her eyes are wide, staring at the Hunter. Sarah is beside her now. I know I’m not wanted.

I go back to camp with Marcus and wash in the stream that runs through the forest. I stay there with Marcus for the rest of the day.

* * *

I see Annalise at breakfast the next morning. She’s sitting with Sarah as she does all the time now. I ask if I can sit with them. Annalise nods. I sit opposite her rather than next to her.

“Do you blame me for what happened to the Hunter yesterday?” I ask.

“No,” she replies. But then she looks me in the eye and says, “But you laughed, Nathan. She was dying and you and Nesbitt were joking.”

“Do you know how many people I’ve killed, Annalise? Twenty-three as of yesterday. Do you know how funny it is?”

“Not very.”

“Exactly. It’s shit. It’s all shit. Most of the Hunters we’re up against are like that lot yesterday. Trainees. Kids. Useless. But they could still kill us all. So we kill them first. But maybe tomorrow they’ll get lucky. I don’t know. Next time one of us may not come back. So don’t judge me or any of us. We get through it. That’s what we do.”

I get up and leave. As I walk away I hope she’ll run after me and we’ll make up. When I reach the trees I turn back and look and Sarah is with her again, her arm round her, walking into one of the many tents that crowd the clearing round the bar.

* * *

The next day I tell Arran what’s happened between me and Annalise. I tell him about my Gift and about Kieran.

He says, “You’re not evil, Nathan. You’re not wild either. And you’re not your father. Talk to Annalise; be honest with her. That’s all you can do.”

“Do you approve of me being with Annalise now?”

“I didn’t disapprove before because it was too dangerous. Now, though . . . well, at least that isn’t the problem.”

I go to find Annalise, determined to talk to her without getting angry, though I’m not sure what I’m going to say. I go in the store tent looking for her, but no one’s there. Sarah walks in. I half expect Annalise to be with her as they seem to be joined at the hip most of the time.

“She’s not here,” Sarah says.

I walk to the door and Sarah moves out of the way. As I pass her she says, “She doesn’t want to see you.”

I stop.

I know I shouldn’t get angry. I take a breath and say, “Well, I’d like to see her, so—”

“You shouldn’t see her. She doesn’t need you.”

“So who does she need? You?”

“She needs nice people.”

“You mean nice White Witch people, I suppose?”

“You said it, not me.”

“Well, I’m not interested in what you think. And anyway you’re wrong.” I move closer to Sarah and spit out, “Let me tell you something. All the nice White Witches were quite happy to lock Annalise in a room and would have been quite happy to let her die a prisoner of Mercury. Not one of the nice White Witches was willing to risk their life to help her. So the less-nice, non–White Witches had to do it.”

“She told me what you did. All very brave I’m sure. But let’s face it—you enjoy it.”

“What?”

“You can’t fool me with all that pretense that the killing is awful. No one’s taken in by that; everyone knows you love it.”

“And how would ‘everyone’ know what I love?”

“It’s well known that in the raids you don’t use a gun. You cut the Hunters up, slit their throats, and slice their stomachs open. Everyone says it’s only a matter of time before you start eating them.”

I shake my head in amazement.

“That’s what your father does—turns animal and eats people. That’s what you’ll do, if you’ve not done it already.”

I lean closer to her. “I would spit on you but you’re not even worth that.”

She steps back, looking scared, but says, “I’m right, aren’t I?”

I turn from her and walk away.

She calls after me, “You shouldn’t be with her. If you cared about her you’d leave her alone.”