Free Half Bad by Sally Green

it is getting late, getting dark, when we finally manage to part.
    As we say good-bye she takes my hand and kisses the side of my index finger, her lips and tongue and teeth on my skin.
    * * *
    We have arranged to meet in a week’s time. The next day seems to take forever to pass. The day after that is worse. I don’t know what to do with myself; all I can do is wait. I am physically aching to see her. My guts are in turmoil.
    Finally, the day of our meeting crawls into the light and then takes a year to drag itself to the afternoon.
    I wait on the sandstone slab, lying on my back, looking at the sky and listening for Annalise’s footsteps. I am straining at each sound, and when I hear her scrambling up the slope I roll on to my side and sit up. Her blonde head appears over the curve of the hill and I spring down from the outcrop, landing in a crouch with bent legs, the fingertips of my left hand on the ground and my right hand out to the side, showing off a little. I straighten up and step forward.
    But something is badly wrong.
    Annalise’s face is distorted . . . terrified.
    I hesitate. Do I go to her? Do I run? What?
    I look around.
    It has to be her brothers, but I can’t see them or hear them. It can’t be the Council . . . can it?
    I step forward. And then the figure of a man appears, standing next to Annalise. He has been there all the time, his hand on Annalise’s shoulder, steering her up the slope and holding her still. But he had been invisible.
    Kieran.
    Annalise’s eldest brother is tall like the rest of the family, but he has huge shoulders, and rather than white hair his is red-blond, thinner and cut close to his scalp. His eyes don’t leave me as he bends forward slightly and says something I can’t hear in Annalise’s ear.
    Annalise’s body is rigid. She nods her head jerkily in response to Kieran. Her eyes are staring ahead, not looking at me, looking at nothing. Kieran takes his hand off her shoulder and she runs off, stumbling down the slope.

BW

    Kieran has the lower routes of escape covered. And now, approaching high to my left, is Connor; to the right is Niall. I could get up some good speed running down the slope but Annalise has told me that Kieran is fast. I could swerve down to the left or right but he is quite a bit below me and if he is fast he’ll . . .
    Kieran grins and beckons me forward.
    No, forward doesn’t feel like a good option.
    I turn and run up the sandstone escarpment. I have made the climb numerous times before and know each handhold and each ledge. I can do it blindfolded. There is no way that Kieran can catch me from his position farther down the slope. But the few seconds’ delay have given Niall and Connor the advantage, and by the time I clear the top Connor is running toward me, not stopping until he stretches out his arms and plants his hands on my chest to shove me back over the edge.
    I fall backward, turning in the air to land in a crouch on the bare ground below, back in the position I had been in a minute earlier. It’s a good landing, and now my only option is to barrel down the hill. I have only lifted my hand, though, when a boot wallops into me from the side and my stomach lifts into the air and then I am flat on the ground, winded, face-down.
    I start to crawl. Another kick thumps into the side of my ribs. And another. The boots scuff around, kicking up dust and sand into my eyes, and one stomps on the back of my head, pushing my face into the ground.
    “Sit on his legs,” Kieran instructs Connor. “Get his arms, Niall.”
    Niall gets my arms and holds them down with his hands and feet while sitting on my head. I’m struggling to breathe underneath his sweaty trousers. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t see a thing except gray wool but I can hear Niall panting and Connor’s gasping, nervous giggle. I can’t move.
    Kieran says, “You know what this is, Connor?”
    Connor has to think about it, but eventually says, “A hunting