In Between The Ends

Chapter Forty Eight

Standing motionless amid the flurry of moving caravans and the chatter of military personnel, Jamie Bowen was smiling.

This expression was not like one finding amusement in a joke their companion had told, or the enjoyment found at the bottom of a glass after a long day. It was the kind of smile that would cause a mother to pull her child in close if they so happened upon him, perhaps even garnering some fretful looks and worrisome whispers.

If you were to draw a comparison to that of a crazed animal, foaming at the mouth with its teeth bared towards its cornered prey, you may have found similarities between that and the look on Jamie's sallow face as he stared down at the metal disk clutched in his hands.

A manic giggle bubbled out from his cracked lips as he watched the small red light centered in the object blink slowly back at him. Had he been the man he was before the raid on Mitras, he might have been amazed by the possibility of something like this existing; marveling at how far the world had come outside the confines of the Walls, even if it was built by foreigners.

But as he was now, a man whose mind more closely resembled loose tatters that bent and snapped behind his bulging eyes, that sort of pondering held no interest to him. All he cared to understand was that this machine would offer him the justice that begged to be satisfied by every cell in his body; the kind of retribution that clawed holes in his damaged psyche until blood dripped onto the floor from his clenched fists.

Jamie could not even see the very ground he stood on through the tight lens of hate that throbbed behind his temples. Foreign and exotic trees rustling in the dry, acrid wind went unnoticed; the cry of strange birds floating on warm updrafts no more than a far-off whisper. When his eyes were not on the object in his hands, they were trained like a marksman's sights to the South, staring through flora, earth, and even stone, his mind flying over the land to the place where her guts would spill.

He could feel her out there; every breath she took was a crime against him, every beat of her heart mocking him. That she should still walk the earth while those she had killed lay scorched in pine boxes beneath her feet was an affront to the universe itself.

Yet it wouldn't been long now until that devil was cleansed from the world by his own hand; betrayed – as he had been – by someone she considered dear. This thought was Jamie's salvation, the truth behind his wicked smile. There was no future for him that didn't contain bathing in in a pool of Arya Halbrand's blood.

From Jamie's hand, the small metallic disk began to hum.

——-

Swatting away the mass of black flies that were swirling around his head, Jean called the company to a halt on the narrow footpath they were traversing, one that bordered the edge of a still and serene lake. The humidity was almost stifling as they watered the horses and themselves, stretching out their tired limbs and trying in vain to keep their buzzing pests away.

"This is pointless, Armin!" Connie said through labored breath, sliding down the trunk of a nearby tree and into a heap on the ground. "If we keep this up, we're just going to get more turned around than we already are. We've probably passed it already and are halfway to Hizuru by now!"

Slinking down to the edge of the cart, Armin assessed his companions fretfully.

Five days had passed since the first unsettling night they had spent on the river's end, though now each passing hour they rode in the unclaimed lands felt so similar to the last that it was becoming hard to tell the days apart. It didn't matter which path they travelled down; the scenery never seemed to change. Every tree and rock felt familiar, like they were stuck going in endless circles underneath the canopy of thick leaves and misty air.