Hideout by Jack Heath (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

‘Of what?’

‘Pain,’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘Other people’s. The Guards invited me to join them at HQ because my submissions were popular. You’ve seen them, right?’

I nod, hoping she doesn’t ask what I think.

She flashes a wicked smile. ‘Did you like what I did to the Arsonist?’

‘Genius,’ I say.

She waves off the compliment. ‘Well, I had fun. What about you? Do you enjoy submitting?’

‘Sure.’ I pretend to ignore the double meaning. ‘So after that, you were in?’

‘Not quite. I had to prove that the videos were original.’

‘Your methods, or …’

‘Oh, my methods were original. But some people try to submit videos they’ve stolen from other sites.’ Zara picks up another trap and peers in at the yeast. The glass distorts her face, shrinking her nose and enlarging her eyes. ‘The Guards asked me to make one of my subjects scream my name.’

‘Jesus.’ The word slips out.

She smiles. ‘I’ve made people scream that, too.’

I want this conversation to be over. I ask straight out: ‘Hey, were you upstairs earlier?’

I’m trying to catch her off guard, but she ignores me, staring at a log. ‘Want to see something cool?’

I really don’t. I’m alone in the deep dark woods with a woman who gets off on hurting people.

‘Sure,’ I say.

Zara picks up a stick about the length of her arm and presses the tip against the side of the log. ‘Don’t move, okay?’

‘Okay,’ I say, trying not to sound wary.

Zara pushes the log hard enough to roll it over. Underneath is a snake, which slowly uncoils as she exposes it.

I step back.

‘I said don’t move,’ Zara says mildly.

The snake stops unravelling, watching us with dull eyes. Its scales are banded in black, red and yellow. There’s a lump just behind its head, like it swallowed something big.

‘Is it dangerous?’ I ask.

‘It wasn’t,’ Zara says. ‘But then the company that made the antivenin went bust. So now it is.’

I can’t tell if she’s kidding. ‘How did you know it was there?’

‘I saw the tip of its tail.’ Zara holds out the stick in front of the snake’s face. The snake bares its dripping fangs. ‘Look at that. If it bit you, in minutes you’d be slurring your words and seeing double. Pretty soon you wouldn’t even be able to explain to anyone what had happened. So even if there was an antivenin, it wouldn’t help.’

Is she threatening me? Her face reveals nothing.

‘I wouldn’t worry, though,’ she says. ‘This one’s dying.’

‘It is?’

‘Yeah. See that lump in its throat?’ Zara points with the stick. ‘Snakes can’t move when it gets cold, so they have to eat a lot before winter starts. This one left it too late.’

‘It looks like it caught something.’

‘Yeah, but it didn’t leave time to digest it. Digestion takes energy. So the food will just slowly rot inside the oesophagus, while the snake starves to death. Isn’t that interesting?’ She rolls the log back into place.

I look around at the still, quiet forest. The cold is making it hard for me to move, too.

‘I need to finish burying Samson,’ I say.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘Burying him.’

CHAPTER 21

After a fun start, I lead to tears. What am I?

‘When I first met Samson,’ Fred begins, ‘he was kind of a loser.’

Not a great start to the eulogy. Donnie looks up sharply, and Fred holds up a hand. Calm down, I’m going somewhere with this.

We’re all standing around the vegetable patch. The harsh winter sun has melted the snow, leaving the dirt sodden under my shoes. Zara has collected some wildflowers from the forest and laid them on the dirt. There are tears on everyone’s cheeks, except for Kyle’s and mine. I’ve never been able to fake-cry. I like to think it’s proof that I’m not a psychopath. I’ve met plenty of them, and they could all tear up when they needed to.

Maybe Kyle is the same. Or maybe he sees no reason to fake it. He looks kind of bored, staring at the grave, his right hand twitching like he’s resisting the urge to pull out his phone.

‘He was poor, and lonely,’ Fred continues. ‘He’d dedicated his life to helping people, and the world just … spat on him. But he kept trying.’

This is a more flattering story than Samson himself told me, which in turn was probably more flattering than the truth. The funeral paradox—suddenly the person can no longer take offence, yet no one dares speak ill of them.

‘But he found another calling.’ Fred’s voice wobbles. ‘He chose to help us build a better world by punishing those who make it worse. It will be hard for us to continue this work in his absence, but he would tell us not to give up.’

He lets this hang in the air for a moment.

‘Samson wasn’t religious. He wouldn’t want any prayers said over him. But Zara has chosen a song that we think he would have liked.’

Zara steps forwards, clears her throat, and sings:

‘The water is wide

I can’t cross over

But neither have I wings to fly

Give me a boat

That can carry two

And both shall row, my love and I.’

Zara’s voice is plain and free of ornamentation. It’s as if she’s talking rather than singing, except that the words are in tune and in time. I wonder if she knows the rest of the song: Love be handsome and love be kind, gay as a jewel when first it’s new. But love grows old and waxes cold, and fades away like morning dew.

Donnie’s face has crumpled. Tears stream down his face unchecked. Snot bubbles in his nose. I feel a pang in my chest, although I didn’t even like Samson. Donnie’s grief is contagious—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fake.

Zara blows a