‘It really has been much, much too long, Zakaria,’ he said, his voice shelled of its former jaggedness. ‘Far too long. Come, let us walk and talk. We have so much catching up to do.’
‘Yes, yes. We have much of which to talk.’
The pair of them sauntered over to William, who poured a few shots of whiskey into their coffee mugs with a cheeky grin. Both men then walked away, talking and chuckling with the familiar ease and bubbly joy of old, close friends. Ranomi and Kimiko also took a shot each, and they too wandered off to chat.
‘Thanks for sticking up for be back there,’ Chloe said when only her and William remained. ‘Especially, um, after all that mean stuff I said to you before about being a junkie and a bad influence and stuff.
‘Think nothing of it, lass,’ William said as he poured a shot of whiskey into his own coffee. ‘I deserved most of what you said anyway. Shall I make yours an Irish coffee too?’
Chloe shook her head.
‘I’ve been in too many foster homes with alcoholic assholes to ever want to touch that shit,’ she said, staring with undisguised revulsion in her eyes at the whiskey.
‘Fair enough.’
‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Go right ahead.’
‘One of my foster dads got into heroin for a while, and when he came off it, he literally took weeks, no, more like months to recover. His withdrawal process was like, one of the most terrifying things I ever saw when I was a kid. He went through hell, and more. And he kept having cravings for years afterwards. I got moved to another foster home, but I heard that he got developed a habit again, but that it ended up killing him.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that … and I understand, after hearing that, why you were so antagonistic towards me initially.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t feel like that anymore. I just, uh, I just wanted to ask if you’re … if you’re okay now. And if you go off alone into the jungle so often, and come back looking all, well, messed-up … is that from the withdrawal? Or is it something else? I … I might just be a teenager, William, but we’re friends, right? If you’re, you know, if you’re like sad and you need someone to talk to, you don’t have to literally keep it all bottled up inside. You can talk to me if you need a sympathetic ear.’
William beamed a sad smile at her, the crinkles at the corners of his mouth and the crow’s feet around his eyes radiating warm gratitude.
‘My body is over the withdrawal,’ he answered, speaking softly, ‘my beastwalker blood has seen to that. But my mind … the memories … there’s a lot of old sadness, a lot of … deep pain. That’s where the addiction comes from, at its core. And that’s a harder battle to fight than the physiological one, lass. But I’m doing my best. And I really appreciate you saying that, I truly do.’
Chloe beamed a glowing, broad smile at him – the kind of grin of genuine delight that rarely brightened her face in these trying times.
‘That’s what friends are for, right?’
William chuckled, even though an aged sadness swirled its glossy sheen around his eyes.
‘Aye Chloe … that’s what friends are for.’
Her smile inched its breadth slightly wider and higher across her face.
‘Can I ask you another question?’
‘Sure.’
‘Why um … why did you stick up for me?’
William imbibed a long, slow swig of his Irish coffee before answering, staring past Chloe into the knotted mess of greenery beyond as he spoke.
‘The truth is, lass, you remind me of a younger, better, more innocent me. Someone I once was. An idealist, a dreamer, before everything went to shit, and before I … grew up. You represent all that’s good in the world, all the best potential of youth, to change the world, to uproot society and turn it on its head. You’ve got that rare fire in you, Chloe, you’ve got rebellion in your blood and the potential for revolution in your bones … and if that’s not worth sticking up for, what the hell is? It might be too late for me, given everything that’s happened, but by God, if there’s a chance for someone else, I’ll fight for it with everything I’ve got. Everything I’ve bloody well got left lass … and you’d better believe that.’
Chloe stared at William in silence for a few moments, and then she suddenly lunged forward and wrapped her arms around him in a bear hug. William, surprised, froze for a moment, but then he returned the embrace with gentle affection.
‘Thank you,’ Chloe murmured as she stepped back, tears welling in her eyes. ‘Thank you, William.’ Before he could respond, though, she turned and ran off into the jungle. William sensed that she did not want to be followed, so he let her go, a tornado of emotion raging in silent chaos within him. He sat and drank his Irish coffee on his own, thinking deeply on many things. After around half an hour, Chloe, Kimiko and Ranomi returned to the clearing.
‘I still can’t stand that idiot Sharaf,’ Ranomi muttered. ‘It’s a pity we’re so desperate for numbers that we had to involve the likes of him.’
‘I know,’ Kimiko muttered.
‘What animal form does he shift into?’ Chloe asked.
‘A hyena,’ William laughed. ‘It shows, doesn’t it?’
‘Why on earth is Zakaria so fond of him?’ Chloe asked. ‘Those two seem like oil and water, but they literally act like two long-lost brothers.’
‘Oh, they go back a long way,’ William answered. ‘A very long way.’
‘How long?’
‘Nine hundred years or so.’
Chloe raised her eyebrows with surprise.
‘Nine hundred years! Holy
