Hannah winced. “Shit, Ted. That’s cold.”
Ted used his hammer to push back a branch as he stepped through some brambles. Hannah followed him, as always, yet somehow she managed to do so without making a sound, while he sounded like a bowling ball rolling through cornflakes. “Morbid jokes are the only jokes I have left,” he told her. “You don’t have to laugh.”
“I know what you’re saying,” she said. “Being alone has a way of making you numb. Most days, my head is full of empty static.”
“Really? Because it seems like you never go on bloody standby.”
“It’s my anxiety. I get pretty jittery and talking gets out my nervous energy. My sergeant used to say it was a wonder I could shoot straight with my shaky hands.”
Ted climbed up and over a fallen log, landing on a rock that sent a jolt up his heel. The pain quickly subsided, and he oddly missed it once it was gone. “Seems to me,” he muttered, “that you have steady enough hands when the shit hits the fan.”
“Thanks. I can’t believe you took on a group of demons with nothing but a hammer and a nail gun. That was pretty badass.”
“Pretty stupid, you mean?”
“Yeah, actually. That is what I meant. Were you trying to get yourself killed?”
Ted didn’t answer that. It would reveal too much of himself. He didn’t want to be friends. He didn’t want company.
“I tried to kill myself once,” Hannah said bluntly, as if she were sharing something no more intimate than her favourite colour. Ted glanced back at her, surprised by the candour, but she gave him a shrug and carried on speaking. “It wasn’t recently,” she said. “Not since, you know, all of this. It was when I was a teenager. Suppose that was when I first got my anxiety. Normal teenage problems, mostly—boys, booze, bitch fights. My grandfather was a Nazi.”
Ted stumbled and had to use his hammer as a crutch to keep from falling. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He tried again. “H-Huh?”
Hannah chuckled. “Yeah, Grandpa Weber was a fully carded Nazi. Had an iron cross and everything. He was as brave as he was racist.”
“And you’re what? Proud?”
“Fuck no! It was finding out that made me suicidal, or at least pushed me over the edge. Dad was ashamed of where we came from, but he still loved Grandpa—kept all his old things in a box in the garage. I was rooting around one day and found it all. Dad got angry at me for snooping around and refused to tell me anything about it. He got so furious, like he’d caught me with a needle in my arm or something. I was so confused. Didn’t know who I was, like, or who my family was. I took an overdose a few weeks later. Dad hadn’t spoken to me once in that time. I just…” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I just felt alone.”
Ted realised then how young Hannah was. Not in years, for she was mid-twenties at least, but in spirit. She wore her heart on her sleeve like a child did, and as annoying as it was, it was hard to hate someone so honest. “I’m sorry,” he said, having to force the words out. “That must have been tough.”
“To a mixed-up girl coming to terms with being a lesbian, yeah, it was a shit time in my life. Dad found me in my bed, barely alive. The neighbours heard his screams. After I recovered in hospital, he broke down and told me the truth about Grandpa. The old Nazi killed himself a day after Germany surrendered. My dad had just turned sixteen, and he left the country in shame. Moved to England as a kind of penance, met my mum and tried to put the past behind him. He told me the best way to make up for the past was to protect the future. That’s why I joined the forces, not to fight Islamist extremists or topple foreign regimes. No, I wanted to show that I stood for what this country is about. I wanted to do what my grandpa did, but for the right side. Huh, maybe it was a way of reorienting my family’s identity.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Ted decided that over-sharing was as awkward now as it had ever been.
“Because I’m hoping that if you get to know me, you won’t ditch me first chance you get. Besides, who you gunna tell?”
Ted stopped walking and turned to her. “Do you have daddy issues or something, luv? You’ve been like a stray mutt since the moment I met you, licking at my elbows and begging for scraps.”
“I think I explained that, yeah, I have major daddy issues, but that’s just one item on a long list, pet. Truthfully, I don’t want to be alone again. I’ve been alone since the battle in Derby—like, really fucking alone. For all I know, you might be the last other person alive. Means I’m a little reluctant to let you go wandering off on your own.”
Ted took his hammer from over his shoulder and thumped it against the ground and leant on it. Somehow, in their retreat, they’d lost sight of the narrow access road, and had entered the energy-sapping undergrowth. “Being alone is better, trust me.”
Hannah had stopped too. “Being alone is scary. The type of scary that tears at your soul. I know I’m being clingy, but I don’t think I can go back to that. Please, Ted, just… give me a chance to grow on you, okay?”
“The only thing that grows on me, luv, is athlete’s foot. I don’t want a
