Half Lost (The Half Bad Trilogy #3) - Sally Green Page 0,41

be impatient.”

I close my eyes for a bit. I’ve never felt like this before. Even when I was shot in Geneva and had to walk back to Mercury’s cottage it wasn’t as bad as this. That was a magic bullet too. A Hunter bullet. But this is stronger magic.

“Do you want me to talk to you?” Gabriel asks. “Or do you want silence?”

“Talk.”

“OK. What shall I talk about? Do you want me to tell you what happened?”

I nod.

“Was that a nod or a shake of the head?”

“Nod.”

“OK. Well, Donna shot you. She was an infiltrator after all. Celia thinks the whole thing was a set-up—like the Trojan Horse. You were always meant to find that Hunter camp. If the Hunters didn’t kill or capture you, they knew you’d take Donna back to the Alliance. She was supposed to join up, gain our trust, and wait for the chance to kill you, but she never got the opportunity until we were at Camp One. After Kirsty was killed, she took her knife and gun. Cut out the special bullet that had been sealed in plastic and sewn into the skin of her thigh.”

Gabriel holds up a small round reddish-brown ball: the bullet. “New magic. And seriously bad. The bullet seems to know where to go once it’s inside you. It was heading for your heart, spreading poison as it moved. Eating away at your insides. It took Celia three attempts to cut it out.”

“Urgh.”

“Exactly. Everyone’s very interested in the bullet. A particularly strong magic. A bit like the magic of the Fairborn, Celia thinks. The bullet wants to kill.”

I close my eyes.

“You OK?” Gabriel asks.

“Tired.” And it sounds more like “Tyrrr . . .”

“You want me to talk more or do you want to rest?”

Talk more, I mouth.

He smiles. “I like this Nathan who is quiet and enjoys listening to me talk.”

I want to tell Gabriel things, how I like listening to him and like him being here. I can’t think what to say in one simple word but I manage to mouth, Good.

“And who doesn’t swear at me or walk away. This is a situation that has advantages.”

I try to smile, but have to close my eyes I’m so tired. I feel Gabriel stroke my forehead.

“OK. Where was I up to? The bullet. Concealed in her thigh. So Donna cut the bullet out, loaded the gun, and waited for you. She shot you in the stomach. Got the edge of your left lung. She was aiming for a body shot. She knew the bullet would do the rest.”

Gabriel is silent for a few seconds.

“Then it went mad. She’d taken another gun too, with the usual Hunter bullets in it. Nesbitt got hit. Not seriously, just in the arm. But I’m sure he’ll let you know that he took a bullet for you. Adele used her Gift, made her skin like metal and protected Nesbitt and shot Donna. Donna’s dead. I didn’t see it. I didn’t see much of the fight I mean. I . . . the way you flew through the air, the way you landed and then . . . you screamed. You screamed a lot.”

I thought I’d held it back.

“Hurt,” I tell him.

He pauses then asks, “Does it still hurt?”

I think about it. Think about my body. The bad pain has gone. I ache all over but nothing bad. I force myself to sound stronger and say, “Just tired.”

“So. Let me finish the story. You were shot. Nesbitt was shot. Adele was the heroine of the day. Celia cut into you three times and eventually got the bullet out. You were a mess. A bloody mess. Adele cut the bullet out of Nesbitt’s arm, only it seems that she’s less good at first aid and she took a big chunk out of Nesbitt too. Stop smiling! He has a really ugly scar.”

I wonder what new scars I’ve got from all this.

“Anyway, Celia made this stretcher out of wood and our jackets in about ten seconds and we carried you back to the cut. Do you remember that?”

I think about it and then shake my head.

“Well, you were out of it by then. Anyway, we came through the cut and made camp where we came out. And here we still are, exactly where we landed ten days ago.”

“Ten?”

“Ten.”

“Urgh.”

“Celia sent Adele to get Arran and he started work on a cure for the poison. The magic is in making the bullet move to your heart. The poison is straight