Philip nodded. “Or sooner.”
34
HANNAH
It had been twenty-minutes since Kamiyo announced he intended to leave in the morning. Hannah needed to get some air after hearing it. She felt guilty. If she hadn’t made such a shambles of getting supplies, Kamiyo wouldn’t need to risk leaving the forest. The doctor had plenty of survival experience, but she still felt like it was her responsibility to go out. It had been taken away from her because she’d got wounded—because she failed. Some nights, she heard dogs barking in the forest as if to mock her. Was it the same ones that attacked her?
Tonight, she didn’t hear dogs barking. She heard a gunshot. Others heard it too because they came spilling out of the castle. Ted shuffled through the crowd until he was right next to Hannah. He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Was that a gunshot?”
“I don’t know.” Although she did know. She knew what a gunshot sounded like. “It came from down by the lake.
Ted turned a circle, craning his neck to see through the crowd. “Where’s Jackie?”
“I haven’t seen her since she left to find Nathan.”
Ted panicked, and he suddenly seemed much older and frail. “Damn it. I have to find her, Hannah.”
Hannah grabbed his meaty wrist and squeezed it. “We’ll both go.”
They started towards the sally port, Hannah hobbling on her bad ankle and trying to keep up. Others followed too, in a loose tangle. Everyone was worried, but also solidified in their intent. Whatever was happening, they would face it together.
“Maybe it was a flair or a firework.” Hannah looked up at the sky, hoping to see such a thing. “Maybe there are survivors out there somewhere signalling for help.”
Ted didn’t reply. He marched through the sally port like a man possessed, and when he started down the hill, she worried several times that he might stumble. She worried about doing the same herself. Her ankle nagged at her.
They soon reached the bottom of the hill, but nothing except silence and shadow met them. A glimmer of movement came from the lake, but all else was lifeless. There had been no more gunshots since the first.
Hannah realised they had acted poorly as a group. At least a dozen of them had clambered down the hill to investigate, but there was no reason for them to all be out in the open like this. The only saving grace was that everyone had armed themselves, some with bows, several with spears.
The cabin was no longer lit with candles by night as Kamiyo’s infirmary was empty. The building stood empty and unlit. Kamiyo walked with them and seemed deeply concerned like he might know something no one else did. Hannah would have stopped to ask him about it if she wasn’t so concerned with Ted.
The man was several paces ahead now, and without his hammer. If an attack came from the forest, he would be defenceless. It made little sense, but she felt protective over him more than anyone else in the camp. They’d arrived here together, shoved together by circumstance. It felt like they were supposed to have each other’s backs.
A single shape shifted in the shadows ahead, and Ted picked up speed, moving even farther ahead of the group. Hannah gritted her teeth to endure the pain in her ankle and hurried after him. “Ted, slow down. Stay with the group.”
Ted stopped short and froze stiff. Hannah quickly closed twelve-feet and reached his side. The shadowy shape turned out to be Nathan, standing alone in the darkness. He held something in his arms. Hannah’s rifle.
“Where did you find that?” she demanded, marching to retrieve it, but Ted threw out an arm and stopped her. She skidded to a halt, just in time to avoid tripping over a mound at her feet. At first, she couldn’t tell what it was, but then she realised.
It was Jackie. Blood covered her chest, silvery in the moonlight.
Ted remained frozen stiff, but he managed to move his mouth enough to speak. “Nathan? What did you do?”
Nathan pointed the rifle at the ground and was emotionless as he spoke. “It was an accident. I was going to run away, but I found the gun at the edge of the forest. It was just lying there. I was going to bring it back and—”
“You’re lying!” Ted snarled, a fury coming over him all of a sudden like a match being lit.
“I’m not!” A flash of defiance lit Nathan’s face. “I swear, I was bringing the gun back and Jackie just… she startled me. I don’t know why she was out here.”
“She came to make sure you were okay!” Ted shocked them all by leaping forwards and punching the child in the face. It was a brutal blow, and it knocked Nathan to the ground. Kamiyo and two older teenagers hurried to grab Ted and hold him back.
Nathan rolled on the ground, clutching his bleeding nose and sobbing. He wasn’t so defiant anymore.
Hannah ran and retrieved her rifle and immediately pointed it at the injured child. Her actions horrified her—Nathan was just a child—but in the edge of her vision, Jackie’s blood-covered body urged her to move her finger over the trigger.
No one spoke in Nathan’s defence. Ted broke free and loomed over the child, looking ready to pummell him into a wet patch. Were they all really about to do this? Was this what they had become?
Jackie is dead.
Hannah put a hand on Ted’s shoulder. If he killed Nathan, she feared what it might do to him. “I’ll do it, Ted. Let me.”
Ted looked at her, unbridled fury ready to unleash in cannon-fire. But he didn’t unleash it. Instead of beating Nathan to death, he shook his head and sighed. “I promised Jackie I would protect these children. Which includes this piece of shit. Get him up.”
Hannah shook with a mixture of pain and relief as she pulled the lad to his feet instead of pulling her trigger. The emotion of
