Half Lost (The Half Bad Trilogy #3) - Sally Green Page 0,25

camps small and less visible, but the cuts themselves may be a problem. There’s at least one Hunter who can sense where they are.”

I nod. “My father thought it might be best to fill the world with cuts. Overload the Hunters with information.”

“Nice idea, but at the moment we’ll keep hiding and moving frequently.”

A few of the trainees are sent out close to the camp for the daily check, and I go further out with Nesbitt and Gabriel, looking for any signs of Hunter activity.

It’s good to get out of the camp for a few days. Me, Nesbitt, and Gabriel agree on an area to cover each day, splitting up in the morning and meeting again in the evening. We take three days to make a wide circuit of Camp Three and find nothing alarming; on the contrary, it looks like a good place.

And every day I practice my Gifts. Invisibility, flames, and lightning are all getting stronger and more controllable and I even think at one point that I’m on the verge of stopping time. Only I’m not stopping time. That isn’t what my father did. He stopped the world, or slowed it down so much that it seemed to stop. And I do what I saw my father do, rub my palms together in a circle, and as I do that I think of the world turning and then I put the palms of my hands on my head, and as I do that I think of the world stopping but me carrying on moving. And I look up and see all is still around me. I turn to Gabriel and he’s still, watching me. And then it starts again. Gabriel blinks.

“Did you notice anything?” I ask him.

“Something funny happened with your head,” he replies. “One second you were looking away, then you were looking right at me.”

I grin at him. “I think I’ve done my first ever stopping of time.”

“Do it again?”

And I try and it doesn’t work, but I know that I just need to keep practicing.

The final night before we head back to camp we’re lying by the fire. Nesbitt’s snoring is quiet, but I can’t sleep with it so I sit up and poke at the embers.

Gabriel hasn’t said much all evening; he lights a cigarette, which he must have got from Van, drags on it, and passes it to me. He says, “Your control over your Gifts has improved. Still not as strong as your father, but definitely better.”

I puff a smoke ring and then blow a narrow flame through the middle of it.

Gabriel says, “Nice trick.”

I breathe out another smoke ring and try an even more delicate stream of flame through its middle.

“I’m not so sure you need any help from Ledger to improve your Gifts. I mean, she may be able to give you a few pointers, but really all you need is time and practice.”

“Uh-huh.” I huff out a large ring of flame. “I can do that and still go after the amulet.”

“And the amulet might work, but on the other hand it might not.”

“Are you trying to say I shouldn’t go?”

“I’m trying to say that maybe we should think of other options.”

“Such as?”

He stubs the cigarette out on the ground and then turns to look at me. “Leaving completely. Leaving the war. Leaving it all.”

“Like the other Black Witches have done? You tired of it too?”

“Of course I’m tired of it! I’m tired of the cold. Tired of being hungry. Tired of being afraid. Being out here these last few days has reminded me of what we used to be like. It used to be fun. You, in your own individual way, used to be fun.”

“It’s war, that’s what you said.”

“Yes, it’s war and I’m tired of it. And . . . I’m getting tired of you, Nathan. I never thought I’d say that, but it’s true. I’m tired of your revenge, your anger, your hate. The war is killing you. Not your body but your mind, your soul. You’ve changed. I feel I’m losing you. Or you’re losing yourself. You don’t need Ledger or the amulet. You don’t need to kill Annalise. You don’t need any of it. What you need is to get away from it. Get back into nature like we have done these last few days, before the war turns you into something else . . . something bad.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in all the good versus evil stuff. I thought you said there