“No,” he said, still standing expectant.
Belatedly, I went back to Stalker’s original question. “No. There’s nothing you can do. She has to live with it and so do you. Some things can’t be made right … but it’s good that you want to.”
“I might be a better person now,” he said with a sigh, “but I’m not happier.”
If his feelings hadn’t lain between us like a spike-filled trap, I would’ve hugged him. But things could never be so simple between us. Now that I understood what he wanted of me and I knew I’d never offer it, I couldn’t cuddle him like he was a brat in need of solace. He’d take it as encouragement and the cycle would start all over again. Maybe someday, like he’d said, we could be friends without all the complications. I’d hated the savage I met in the ruins but Stalker wasn’t that boy anymore, just as I wasn’t a pure Huntress. The world was a big place, full of wonders, and it had taught us both so many things. For his sake, I wished so many lessons hadn’t been hard, sad ones.
“I am. Mostly.” I was also panicked and exhilarated by turns.
“One thing I’ve wondered…”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Why does it have to be you?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant … and I said so.
“You’re out here when you could be safe in Soldier’s Pond or Gaspard, even, if you hadn’t nearly started a riot. At any point, you could lay your weapons down. Nobody’s ordering you to fight anymore. So why? You seem so committed to making things better. And I don’t understand it.”
The answer seemed obvious. “People go about their lives, trying to be small, hoping the Freaks will kill someone else, attack another town. How long does avoidance work until the whole world is drowning in blood? Somebody has to draw the line. And if not me, who?”
It was a compulsion, I supposed. The idea of sitting idle while everything burned? I just couldn’t do it. It would end me to do nothing when I could fight. Maybe I wasn’t meant for a peaceful life, and I could accept that. My only regret would be if I didn’t manage to improve the world a little before I went.
Stalker studied me with a mixture of emotions I couldn’t interpret. “We would’ve owned the ruins, you and me.”
I didn’t dispute his assessment. In another life, I might’ve been queen of the gangs, as he’d envisioned, but never in one where I knew Fade. That, too, was an immutable truth.
It was my turn to ask, “Why do you think there were no Freaks in your part of Gotham?”
“I wondered that. You said they were down below with you, as long as you can remember. Maybe they started there. People died of sickness Topside in our territory, but we never ran across any Muties, not like we saw in other ruins on the way north.”
“So you think the mutations happened belowground, and they were too dumb and weak to find their way out, at first?”
He nodded. “Maybe. As they got smarter, they located the exits.”
A sudden, chilling thought occurred to me. “Then that means the Freaks now swarming Gotham came from the enclaves, however long ago.”
Stalker looked thoughtful. “You told us Wilson said the monsters were born of weapons they created in the old world. It was a disease first, and the … vaccine made it worse?”
I nodded.
“Well, we don’t know how sickness spreads. So maybe people went underground to hide, not knowing they already had it.”
“It makes sense,” I admitted.
That was scary and awful. I hated the idea that diseases could hide in your body and you’d seem perfectly healthy while giving the illness to friends and family. I preferred enemies you could fight. At least the old world, with its hidden perils, was long lost.
And these days, the monsters came with claws and fangs, not in tins and bottles.
Triumph
Eventually the Freaks grew more cunning about their attacks. They came while we slept and in great numbers, but our traps maimed a good third of them, and we decimated the rest, first with death from the trees, and then in a hard-fought ground battles. Between skirmishes, we worked on improving the camp. And after the last fight, we went days without seeing a single monster. I took that as a good sign.
“It’s working,” Fade said. “Word’s getting out and they’re starting to avoid these woods.”
I hoped he was right.
As time wore on, the air took on a familiar chill, and the sky overhead went pale on those odd moments when I glimpsed it through a tangle of tree limbs. Morrow trained Tegan daily, and she grew proficient with the staff. As I watched her drill, I thought she’d do well. Life had taught her to be brave and strong—that as long as she didn’t give up, there was no such thing as defeat. Which made her a fighter as well as a healer, and I envied her that. Sometimes I wondered what—and who—I would be without my blades.
On days without combat, the rest of us sparred and scouted, tended the fire, enhanced the aerial defenses, set more traps, hunted, and cooked. The work wasn’t exciting, but it helped to have a routine, occasionally punctuated with violence. It had been two days since they’d attacked last, and I was starting to get restless when Stalker burst into the clearing.
He was out of breath, which usually meant inbound monsters. But this time he wore another expression. “There’s someone on the way to camp. I’ve been watching for a while, and he’s negotiated all of our defenses. What should we do?”
“He’s human?” Fade asked.
“Definitely.”
I made the decision swiftly. “Let him come. It’ll be a nice change to have company.”
The scouts dogged the stranger’s steps until he found the clearing. The older man wore an amazed expression as he took in what we’d built: the platforms and pulleys, the nets and makeshift roof built across the top. We’d created a tiny town in the treetops, and I was proud of it. Tully didn’t smile when she spotted him; she occupied her usual perch and, if he made trouble, she would shoot him without a qualm.
I recognized the fellow but couldn’t place where I’d seen him. He wore the raw skins and furs of one who made a living traveling the wilderness. All towns were glad to receive hides suitable for tanning. Along with other traders, trappers also played the role of messengers, carrying news from town to town.
“You didn’t find us by chance,” I said.
Fade stepped up beside me, then Stalker and Morrow flanked my other side. Part of me approved of this show of solidarity, but the other half was annoyed by the implication that I needed help dispatching one weathered old man, who killed animals for a living. I made mine battling something much more dangerous.
“I did not,” the trapper admitted. “I’ve survived the wilderness for years and I didn’t manage by being careless. When I noticed the Muties veering away from here, I was curious … and concerned. Then there was that giant plume of smoke…”
“You wondered what could be enough to frighten them away?” Morrow guessed.
“Exactly so, young sir.” He assessed the camp in a glance. “And I also wonder what you hope to gain by claiming this stretch of wood.”
That was a complicated question. He didn’t know about my big dreams or my larger failures. So I just leveled a hard look on him. “I reckon that’s our business. You’re welcome to our hospitality, provided you mean no harm, but our food and protection isn’t free.”