My one hundred and ten days of terror are over.
I.
Am.
Free.
I can’t fill my body fast enough with all this beauty. The starry sky stretching over us, and a gibbous moon sitting bright in the treetops. The scents of grass, earth, and pine sap. The sounds of insects. A lazy breeze that’s shifting balmy air. It is summer and I am free.
Katvar grabs my hand and tugs me along to keep me from falling back too far. I’m exhausted and ridiculously out of shape. Sweat plasters my shirt to my spine, and my sides are aching.
We enter a forest. Thick moss muffles footfalls. Our troops are splitting up into small factions. I can barely see the shape of the men in this darkness, and then they are gone. It’s only Katvar and me now, and the silent trees that flit past us.
Mosquitoes are colliding with my face. I keep my mouth shut and my legs pumping. I can’t help thinking back to what Ice Face said about that mysterious BSA guy the Sequencer’s Espionage Unit was trying to recruit. If that man was Erik, then my father knew I was on Taiwan before we even found the BSA camp’s location. That would allow only one conclusion: Cacho, the old Sequencer who visited my village when I was a kid, must have been Erik’s all along. It was Cacho who somehow managed to get Runner to consider me for an apprentice. Runner, who’d never before had an apprentice and hadn’t ever planned to have one. How did Cacho manage to convince Runner? And where is Cacho now, if he’s still alive?
No, wait. Erik had control over the Sequencer’s satellites even then, and could have eavesdropped on any of their conversations. He could have heard that Mickaela Capra was on her way. But that would be too much of a coincidence. Picking my name out of the hundreds of daily Sequencer communications? Not likely.
My mind keeps interfering with my running, and Katvar has to keep tugging on my arm so I don’t come to a complete standstill.
Did Runner suspect corruption within the Sequencer Council and Espionage Unit? Was that part of the reason he decided to stay on Taiwan and spread that “Bringer of Good Tidings” tale? I need to know. If we still have the solar plane, maybe we can—
Grunting, I bump into Katvar. ‘Oompf. Sorry. Didn’t realise we were stopping.’ Bending over, I press my fists into my aching sides. A cloud of mosquitoes gathers around me. Again Katvar tugs on my hand. He pulls me into some kind of miniature shack, or tries to, because my feet just won’t move.
‘I’m not going into another box!’ My voice comes out squeaky. My nerves are raw and every fibre of me is so fucking done with being cooped up and chased around.
‘Mosqu—,’ he croaks, but his voice is giving up halfway. He scrambles into the shack and returns with a small oil lamp that stinks so sharply my eyes water when the smoke hits my face. The mosquitoes hate it enough to stay away, though.
He waves me toward a fallen tree, to sit on the mossy side, then places the oil lamp next to me and disappears into the hut once more. The ramshackle thing is more a hole in the ground than an actual building. It’s well camouflaged. I bet I’d run past it even in bright daylight.
Katvar clambers back out with a loud huff, enters the small circle of light by my feet, and places food on the forest floor. Bread, smoked meat and fish, even a piece of cheese. I’m hungry, but my stomach is in knots. Now that he and I are finally alone together and silence envelops us, I find I can’t face what he has to say. I can’t face goodbyes between us.
For a heartbeat, he catches my gaze, then drops his head and sucks in a stuttering breath.
He is in pieces and so am I. The hope that he was alive and that we would see each other again was all that kept me going. And that’s all I’m going to get now: him alive and this last meeting between us.
Emptiness yawns inside me. The world is losing all colour. I hear myself whisper, ‘Just say it,’ because I’ve always run at my problems head-on, whether I’ve wanted to or not.
Katvar sinks to his haunches and presses a hand over his mouth. His eyes are blazing in pain with all the things he can’t seem to bring himself to say.
‘It’s okay.’ Tears are choking me. ‘I understand.’
He shakes his head and lifts his hands. His signs —which usually translate themselves fluidly into sentences in my head — make no sense to me at all. ‘Now I fail you. Before I fail you. Next I fail you.’ He crashes a fist against his chest. ‘I fail you. Again, again, again.’
He thinks that to leave me is to fail me?
‘I don’t hold you to your promises.’ Where do I even get the strength to say these words? Love. From my love for him. I can’t bind him to me when he can’t even look at me without regret and shame. ‘You are not failing me. If anything, I’ve failed you. You don’t have to love what’s become of me.’
‘What?’ he croaks, and lifts his gaze.
‘I’m not good for you, Katvar.’ Why can’t my fucking tear ducts shut up and let me say my thing? My voice is warbling and I’m suffocating on pain. ‘It’s okay. I understand. You saw what I did. What I am. And I… I keep taking from you. Keep making you do things that—’
He cuts me off with a gentle hand to my lips, then signs, ‘I don’t know what you mean. You want me to leave?’
I can’t hold it in any longer. My face screws up as sobs burst from my mouth. ‘No, no, I don’t want you to leave. But I understand that you don’t want me anymore.’
I tip forward, and he grabs my shoulders, lets me cry my grief against his chest.
‘I am not enough,’ he rasps.
‘You are everything.’
His arms contract around me. He’s crushing me to him, but to me, it feels like he’s letting go, not holding on to me. To us.
Bracing himself, he gently pushes me away, and signs, ‘Micka, I nearly got us both killed on Bear Island. You had to drag me out of there and find a doctor. And that got you arrested, and…tortured. For one hundred and ten days I knew where you were. Runner would have got you out immediately. All I did was wait. If I can’t protect you, how will I ever be able to protect our family?’
Before he can continue, I snatch his hands in mine. ‘Aren’t you disgusted by what you saw me do? What I’m capable of? Don’t you want to…to run away from me?’
He shakes his head and squeezes the living daylights out of my fingers.
‘You are not shocked that I tortured a man? I executed that guy!’
He pulls my knuckles to his lips, then lets go of my hand to sign, ‘No. What I saw in that cell… The blood. Your blood. I wanted him to suffer. To suffer more. I watched you take your revenge and press information from him, and I wished it was me, me who put that bullet in his head.’
I know it’s the wrong moment to whoop with joy, but I could totally… Oops! Did already. ‘And you…you think you’ve failed me because a bunch of assholes locked me up?’
He nods, jaw clenched.
I want to throw my arms around him and laugh, shake him and tell him none of this was his fault. But that won’t be enough. I’ve blamed myself for Runner’s death so many times. And just because I don’t want Katvar to suffer the same way, doesn’t mean I can wipe away his feelings of guilt with a laugh and a clap to his shoulder.
‘Did you or anyone from Alta’s civil defence suspect the Sequencers would torture me?’ I know the answer, but I want him to say it.
He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head no.
‘What was the aim of the mission today? To get in and out with minimum losses? Or was it to blow everyone to pieces?’
His fingers slash at the air. ’That’s not the point!’
‘It is the whole point! How do you think I’d feel if you’d blasted your way in, got dozens of your own troops killed, and ended up dead before you even reached me? I’m just one person. No one should risk the lives of many for the life of one!’
He keeps shaking his head. I touch his cheek, and whisper, ‘I don’t need you to kill people for me. I don’t want you to kill people for me. Just love me. That’s all
I need.’
Thirty-One
There’s so much doubt and pain in Katvar’s eyes, it breaks my heart all over again. I need him to be all right. And I need to dull our pain and just feel him. Nothing else. Just him.
I lean into him and slant my mouth over his. It’s not gentle. It’s ravenous, greedy, ruthless. He opens for me, claws my back, my head, my thighs and tries to wrap all of me around all of him. His moans feather across my neck as his hands slip under my shirt to burn skin that’s been cold with loneliness for one hundred and ten days. He trails kisses along my jaw, and…jerks back.
‘Are you okay?’ I whisper as he snatches the stinky lamp and holds it up to my face.
‘Wound,’ he croaks, and scans my neck with the rough pads of his fingertips. Frowning, he pulls the collar of my shirt down to my shoulder and runs his thumb over my skin.
With a huff he sits back and signs, ‘Not yours.’
‘Not mine what?’ My hand flies up to my neck and finds a crust of blood. Can only be Ice Face’s. Maybe even brain matter. ‘Ew!’
Shuddering, I rub my palm over the moss.
He nods. ‘Let’s go for a swim. There’s a lake that isn’t far, and we shouldn’t stay here much longer anyway. And…I have something for you.’ Katvar disappears into the small, half-buried hut.
I collect our food and the stinky lamp, and follow him. Lifting the hatch, I peek inside, but all I can see is the searching beam of a squeeze light and Katvar’s outline in the cramped space.
‘What’s this thing? Did you build it?’ I ask.
I forget my question when I see what he’s carrying as he pushes back out through the door: There’s a ruck on his back, and bow and quiver poking over his shoulder. In one hand he holds a second ruck, and in the other…
‘My rifle? You went back to Bear Island?’ Hastily, I place our food back on the forest floor.
He hands me my weapon, and I can’t help but wrap my fingers around the cold metal and press it to my chest. As long as I have this, I can protect us.
‘The SatPad?’ I ask.
He pats the side of his ruck. ‘It’s here. Let’s go.’
Goosebumps skitter down my spine. ‘Yes. Let’s go.’ I stuff the food into my ruck, shoulder my pack, check my rifle, and turn to go.
But he grasps my elbow and turns me back to face him. He just looks at me, scans my face as if to memorise each freckle. ‘I missed you,’ he signs. With a smile, he leans in, kisses my forehead, and whispers hoarsely, ‘Love.’
As he leads the way, I scan our surroundings with my scope’s night-eye. Doc or someone else must have radioed for help by now. Which reminds me: ‘How did you guys manage to attack without the Sequencers calling for reinforcements? Or…did they?’
He puts the squeeze light between his teeth to sign, ‘Alta did something to the radio signals before we attacked. Jamming is what they called it. Neutralising the Sequencers’ defence and communication was step one of our attack. Jamming was easy, but taking out the troops was difficult. We had to make sure only the armed guys went down, and that you, the staff, and patients were safe. We thought…it was a hospital where they were keeping you.’ His hands grow heavy with guilt as he signs the last sentence.
‘That you and Alta managed all that in three months is a feat. You know that, don’t you? Did you have help from the inside?’
He waggles his head. ‘Sort of. A family of charburners lives nearby. That hut…’ He motions at the darkness we came from. ‘… is one of theirs. They deliver wood and charcoal to the Sequencers. That’s how we got the poison in.’
‘What? With wood?’
Katvar’s teeth flash white in the darkness. ‘Twice a week their troops have some major combat training session, and after that, they all sweat in a sauna, then jump into an artificial pool. One of us sneaked in with a charcoal delivery and put poison in the pool water. It made them drowsy and easier to kill.’
It’s strange to hear Katvar talk almost casually about killing people. I nod and keep walking, one eye on the scope. The small hairs on my neck are prickling as though someone is hot on our heels. But there are no heat signatures other than Katvar’s and mine, and those of small, nocturnal animals. Silently, we head through the woods until a silvery smooth surface peeks through the black trees. The moon’s reflection on the lake looks like a giant, off-kilter egg.
We find a mossy place to sit, but I’m on edge. Something’s going to happen. Someone’s going to find us and drag us back, lock us up, dish out pain.
To distract my taut nerves I ask, ‘How did you know they kept me in the lab wing?’
Katvar finishes placing our food on the forest floor, and signs, ‘We didn’t know which wing or level, just the building. The pilot I came with saw you being dragged into it. We watched the place around the clock, and never saw you exit.’
‘Is the radio signal still jammed?’
He shakes his head no. ‘The group responsible for making sure the troops were down, and the weapons and ammo located and taken, also took care of radios and other gadgets that can be used for communication. I hope they found SatPads. We have to make copies of our library.’
‘What do you mean “took care of radios”? Did they destroy them?’
‘The plan was to take what we could carry, and destroy the rest. It’s a three-day hike to the next settlement with a radio station.’ He touches my knee, motions to me and him, and signs a single word: ‘Safe.’
Snorting, I stand, lift the scope of my rifle to my eye and scan our surroundings for heat signatures again. Nothing but small reddish splotches: owls and martens hunting mice.
‘Nowhere is safe, Katvar.’ I glance back at him.
He holds his hand out to me. Such a simple gesture. But even that doesn’t make me feel better. It used to, but not anymore.
‘I’ll walk the perimeter while you eat,’ he signs.
Reflexively, I tighten the grip on my rifle. The reaction startles me. I have to force my fingers to uncurl and my arms to offer the weapon to him. He sees the effort it takes for me to let go, but says nothing.
‘Hope for the best and prepare for the worst,’ I tell him.
He motions at the food. ‘Eat. Rest. I’ll keep us safe.’ And then he leaves.
I eat the way I’ve been eating the past one hundred and ten days: hurried and unable to taste what’s on my tongue. When Katvar silently returns from recon, he finds me crouched in the underbrush, pistol and knife at the ready. We take a swim in the lake, but I’m wound up tight and don’t enjoy a single second of it.
I’m trapped in a shell of fear.
Katvar’s brought blankets and a change of clothes for us, and now offers to take first watch so that I might sleep for a few hours. But I can’t shut my eyes. I fire question after question at him, digging for details on Alta’s strategy. How precisely did they plan the attack? What went according to plan and what didn’t? Where did the others go, and how are they going to get back home? Where are we going? What’s our next step, and the ones after that?
He answers patiently until I run out of questions to ask.
‘Trust me?’ he signs.
‘I do.’
‘Why don’t you try to sleep, Micka?’
I dig my nails into palms. ‘I’m afraid to be unprepared, vulnerable. I’m afraid this is a dream and I’m going to wake up in my cell.’
‘Tell me?’ The movements of his fingers are soft and flowing.
I open my mouth and pause. Fear of reliving everything makes me hesitate. But not talking about it isn’t going to protect me from nightmares either.
And so I tell him about the injections, the shackles, the concrete box, the nail clipping, the spoonfuls of mush thrown on the floor to feed me. The cold showers with a hose. I talk until my throat is raw and my mind is empty.
The rising sun finds me with my head on his lap, and his hand in my hair. Turns out I did sleep after all.
Thirty-Two
My panic has come back wi
th full force. I’m scared of everything.
I’m scared the vibrations of our solar plane mean we’re going to crash. We’re high up and there are no clouds blocking my view of the abyss below. I’m scared that the many boxes of medications, test kits, disposable gloves, medical tools, bandages, and whatnot will shift and crush us, although it’s not possible to be crushed by what weighs so little. I’m scared of the pistol strapped to the co-pilot’s hip, and of Katvar flying the plane. There are many ways to die, and I am familiar with them all.
Breathing is an effort. My body has known fear for so long that it knows little else. I have to force air in and out of my lungs in long, deep breaths so as not to hyperventilate. My heart is bruising my ribs. My fingers hurt from holding my rifle in a death grip.
As we land in Alta, I’m close to vomiting with terror. The swarm of people rushing at us for the supplies we’ve brought only makes it worse. Katvar manoeuvres me across the airfield and away from everyone. He finds a place where no one can see us, gently pulls my fingers one by one from my weapon, and wraps his arms around my jittering frame.
I fist his shirt and bite the inside of my cheeks until the metallic taste of blood spreads in my mouth. Blood. Yes. That’s what’s going to fix me.
I drop to the ground, pull off a boot and unwrap the bandage from around my injured ankle. Without looking up at Katvar, I explain in short gasps, ‘Gonna cut myself. Need to stop the panic. My chest is going to burst if I don’t.’
Maybe he’ll hate me for it, be disgusted by me, run away from me. But I can’t not cut my skin now. The breathless split second before death is hitting me — that’s precisely how I feel right now. The cold, logical part of my mind knows I’m safe, but the rest of it and all of my body firmly believe I’m going to die. Now. But as there is no danger to run from and no enemy to attack, my system is thrown into chaos and blind terror.
Calmly, Katvar sits down and wraps my bare foot in his warm hands. Without flinching he lets me do what I need to do. One, two, three. Four incisions. The sharp pain stitches me back together. I watch as thin ribbons of blood trickle onto the earth and are swallowed by it. My chest relaxes. My throat is finally able to let air through. Sighing, I sink down onto my back and breathe. A flotilla of clouds rides on winds high up in the sky. Cries of an eagle sound from afar.
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