Nada's Escape: Fighters' lies

24.1 Heartbeat

I dive into daily errands as I re-enter the town. About to pick up the groceries at the marketplace I am waylaid by Beth, who tells me that Lily hasn't eaten in a week. Fear rushes through me at the thought of Lily fading into nothing. Only stopping long enough to pass the shopping list over to Beth, I rush to the hospice. I try to bully Lily into actually eating, but she flops across the bed to avoid me, obstinate and cheeky in refusal.

At this point Josie jumps into the poster covered room, having heard through the grapevine that I was here, and reveals that she's been bringing food to Lily twice a day. "She's become vegetarian you see. She can't eat any of the food Nancy makes."

Awash with a heady mix of relief and frustration, I try to convince this Old Nancy to alter her cooking arrangements.

"Screw that. I ain't gonna cook up anything special for the fussy lass." She barks at me whilst slapping slabs of bacon onto a grimy hotplate. Nancy's leathery skin looks stiff enough that she'd more likely snap than change.

So I let it go, leaving the negotiations to Macie's capabilities. I help Amy by watching the hall outside Percival's study whilst she reads through his latest journal entry, looking for secrets he hasn't been too careful to hide. Then we've got to get through the chaos of getting everyone fed on rissole sandwiches and make the nightly check on escape bags. Not sure when Finley will arrive, I let the girls stay longer than usual, utilising my larger living area to chatter on. I whisper to Amy underneath it all, arguing about when to leave and how long to stay with the Huntsmen.

Finley appears later than I'd like, but with the smell of a shower on him. The girls have already left for bed. He brings a gift; a map painted in watercolours of the Huntsmen's bluff and the surrounding plain. He points out an alternate exit road that the Huntsmen never use. We'll have to stop somewhere along the way. It shouldn't be at a settlement, just to be as inconspicuous as possible. These concerns seem small after the great efforts we've made in the past to get even ten metres from Seven.

He doesn't ask the question from earlier, maybe because he can sense my internal pleas. I'm near constantly thinking please don't ask. Please leave things as they are. We're both being careful, keeping our attention on the paper and gingerly reaching round each other to point out landmarks.

It's hard to conduct an intelligent conversation with someone without ever looking at them. Looking morphs from a social nicety to a niggling urge the longer the conversation goes on, every pause becoming a beacon. Soon it's distracting my central thought processes so much that even this, the only important conversation, stalls into an awkward silence. I have to remove myself from the table.

I lean my head against the kitchen window, looking out into the night and remember that usually I'd be training with Darcell at this hour. Releasing the mental tensions of the day instead of reiterating them.

Finley speaks wearily, "So first we can't look at each other, then we can't touch and now we can't even sit at a table together?"

Yes. "That's how it is."

It's too difficult to conduct a lengthy conversation and its only been- I check my watch- half an hour. Maybe I should have insisted Amy stayed back, but then that would have been suspicious.

Finley continues, apologetically, "Maybe this is not a bad thing? Maybe it's just a thing?"

Real eloquent, I think. "And maybe the Huntsmen have never killed anyone."

"Fair enough." His words are a bare whisper, as I hear the tapping of fingers against the table. I try to come up with something constructive.

"How can something that steals so much time be good?" I think back to the moment I'd untied the council wrist band, how the hour had sped by untracked. And about all the other times an important conversation had been entirely derailed by a stray glance.