Free Half Wild by Sally Green Page A

the Hunters’ hands.”
    “Why? What does it do?”
    “It doesn’t do anything. It’s only half an amulet. But amulets, whole amulets, heal and protect. She’s gone to a lot of trouble to get this and I think she intends to get the other half, and maybe together they’ll work again.”
    “And you really know nothing else about it?”
    “No. It was just one of those things my mother had. I value the letters more.” We’re sitting together on the bed and now he shuffles back and leans against the wall. “Van can keep it. I’m not interested in any of that.”
    “Any of that?”
    “Things. Stuff. Amulets, knives, whatever.”
    “I never thought you were.”
    He leans his head back, keeping his gaze on me. “It’s good to see you, Nathan. I’m glad you’re alive. Very glad.” He looks tired: his skin is gray and there are dark circles beneath his eyes. He says, “Who’d have thought we’d be here? Alive. Sitting in a beautiful house. Drunk on champagne.”
    But his comment about “things” and “stuff” is making me wonder if it was wrong for me to want the Fairborn. I thought that if I had it I could show my father that I won’t kill him. Maybe I don’t need the Fairborn to do that.
    “What are you thinking?”
    “About
stuff
. The Fairborn. My father.”
    “What’s he like?”
    “My father? I don’t know. I really don’t know him. He’s a lot smarter than I expected; cleaner, I mean. He wore a suit. By looking at him you couldn’t tell that he’s killed hundreds of people.”
    “I asked what he was like, not what he wore.”
    “So what do you want me to say? He’s amazing? Powerful? Well, he is. Only more than I thought was possible. He did this thing that sort of stopped time—snowflakes were hanging in the air, waiting to fall, but we carried on talking as if it was all normal. I still had the Hunter bullet in me. He cut it out. Then he gave me three gifts: a ring, the bullet from my body, and my life.” I hold the ring out to show Gabriel. “Then he cut his palm and I drank his blood. I think all along, all my life, he was planning to give me three gifts. He was waiting for me to return to Mercury’s; he knew I’d head back there. And he did all that, stopped time for me, saved my life by giving me three gifts, and then . . . then he left! He left me again! Left me to Mercury and a valley full of Hunters.”
    Gabriel doesn’t say anything.
    “I always thought that if we met I’d explain to him,
show
him, that I would never kill him. And I tried to do that but it was as if he wasn’t listening. He could have killed me but he saved my life. It was the most amazing and wonderful thing and then . . . it wasn’t.”
    “He’s your father but he also believes the vision—that you will kill him.”
    “He said, ‘I’m not a great believer in visions. But I’m a cautious man,’ or some crap like that. Basically he doesn’t trust me. He didn’t believe that I’d lost the Fairborn. So it seems stuff
does
matter, Gabriel, because I couldn’t give it to him and so he left me again. The stupid thing is that I hate him for that. Not for killing people, not for eating their hearts, but because he left me when I was a child and then he left me again.”
    “You don’t hate him. You’re angry at him.” Gabriel laughs a little. “Which at least means you’re not giving him special preference as you’re angry at most people most of the time.”
    I swear at him and then say, “I’m glad you’re alive, Gabriel. Someone else for me to be angry at.” My head’s swimming still and I slump down. “I need to sleep. So do you.”
    * * *
    I don’t actually sleep but I stay with him for as long as I can, which isn’t long as it’s almost dark and I can’t stand being indoors at night. I have to go outside.
    I check out the grounds. They’re large, wooded, sloping down to the lake, enclosed on all sides by that high wall and razor wire. But the lake cannot be walled