Nathan didn’t struggle, but Dr Kamiyo came over to help Hannah keep him restrained just in case he tried anything. They used her nylon belt to bind the boy’s wrists behind his back, and then they shoved him down onto his knees. A pair of teenagers stood close by, holding spears. Nathan sobbed.
Kamiyo moved Hannah aside and pointed to her rifle. “As a doctor, I hate to say such things, but I think you would have been doing the boy a kindness. I don’t think this was an accident.”
Hannah sighed. “I don’t either. You don’t accidentally discharge a combat rifle like this. It’s not an antique pistol. You need to get a firm hold to make it bark.”
Still in a whisper, Kamiyo went on. “I’ve had concerns about Nathan for a while. I’m not sure if his dissociation issues were caused by the trauma of the last few months, or if he’s always been this way, but he’s been sending up several warning flags—fascination with death and killing, playing with animal carcasses, lack of empathy. It’s all very theoretical, and I’m no psychiatrist—”
“What are you saying?” Hannah asked.
Dr Kamiyo folded his arms and looked over at Nathan. “I’m just saying I don’t think this was an accident, and there aren’t facilities anymore to care for someone like Nathan. I still plan on heading out tomorrow, but I’d feel better knowing someone is keeping a close eye on him.”
“You think he might try to hurt someone else?”
“I don’t know, but he worries me enough to say it’s a more than plausible risk.”
Hannah nodded, and when she glanced at Nathan, she saw the same things Kamiyo did. Nathan was disturbed. “I won’t let him out of my sight,” she said. “You get what we need, come back, and then we can decide what to do with Nathan.”
“I think we might already know,” he pointed to her rifle again. “Don’t hesitate if he tries to hurt anyone else, okay? When I get back, I will try to help him, but in the meantime just do what you need to do to keep everyone safe.”
Hannah agreed, then turned to check on Ted who was kneeling beside Jackie. He didn’t touch her, as though he dared not to. Instead, he peered down at her with his hands on his knees. Tears stained both his hairy cheeks, and she realised that the man was different now to how he’d been in the rest of the time she’d known him. He had shown compassion to Nathan instead of fury, and now he was showing grief. Whatever emotional barriers Ted had been holding onto were gone. That meant he was in pain.
Hannah knelt beside him, saddened by the sight of Jackie’s expressionless face, and by the broken expression of her friend.
Jackie’s hair was all bunched at the back of her head, and it made it look like she was lying on a dark pillow.
Everyone was silent, and the only thing Hannah could hear was Ted’s gentle breathing. “Are you okay, Ted?”
“Jackie taught me something today about not giving up on people. All the people who cared about us, all the people who are gone… they still matter. What we do still matters. Jackie is dead, but I’m not sure I know what that means anymore.”
Hannah placed a hand on his back and rubbed. For once, he didn’t flinch at the contact. “I know you two were close,” she said. “I’m sorry. She was a good chick.”
“We weren’t close,” said Ted, “but we might have been one day. What the hell happened here, Hannah?”
“I wish I knew, pet. This is partly my fault. Nathan used my rifle. I searched for it, but I assumed it was gone. Didn’t see much use in worrying about it. If I’d known…”
Ted reached out and squeezed her knee. “None of this fucked up world is our fault, Hannah. The only ones responsible are the demons that came through those gates to kill us all. I don’t know how long we can keep surviving, but I will kill every last demon I see until the day of my death.”
“And I’ll be right at your side, Ted. I promise.”
Ted looked at her and smiled. “I’m glad I met you, Hannah.”
Hannah wiped the tears on his cheeks and smiled back at him. “I’m glad too.”
35
TED
At sunrise, Ted was already down at the cabin to check on Nathan. For the time being, the group decided to keep the boy imprisoned in the cabin’s First Aid room away from the camp. It was a small space with no windows, but there was a bed. Ted had fashioned a thick wooden crossbar across the door, held in place by a pair of steel brackets scavenged from the workshop. It wasn’t an inescapable cell, but if Nathan managed to get out, he wouldn’t be able to enter the castle without being seen, anyway. The worst that could happen was that the kid could flee into the forest never to be seen again. That wouldn’t be the worst thing. It would beat having to execute Nathan somewhere down the line.
Every second spent with Nathan put the thought more in Ted’s head. The remorseless monster had killed Jackie, a woman devoted to the welfare of others—including Nathan himself. If she hadn’t cared enough about Nathan to go after him, she’d still be alive. Her empathy had been the death of her.
Ted opened the First Aid room and found Nathan sitting on the bed. He couldn’t look at the boy, so he left some dried pasta and a cup of water on the nearby table and went to exit again.
“It was an accident,” Nathan protested. He did the same thing each morning.
Ted stopped in the doorway but didn’t face the boy. “I’m not sure
