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steady as normal, that he wants me to like it. I want to like it, for him.
    The package is long and flat. From the weight of it, it could be a book but I know it isn’t—that would be too hard for me to like. It’s wrapped in the bag from the shop, pale green with some writing on it, folded over at the top and crumpled from being in his rucksack. The paper of the bag is thick and waxy.
    I squat down and gently open one end. Inside is tissue paper: white, thickly folded, new, not wrinkled. I carefully pull the package out and let the bag go. It seems to float to the ground. Everything seems special. The gift has a certain weight on my palm, a balance and a thickness.
    “When was the last time you were given a present?” he asks, joking, nervous.
    I don’t know. A long time ago.
    I place the package before me on the needle-thick ground, bright white on green and brown.
    I unfold the tissue paper carefully.
    As slow as I can.
    As gentle as I can.
    Still one fold to go.
    “You’d better like it after all this.”
    I like it already. And I wait, enjoying the tissue on the ground, the almost-unwrapped present.
    I lift back the tissue with my fingertips. The knife lies there, black on the white paper. The handle is covered in fine black leather. The blade is protected by a thick leather sheath. There’s a clasp to attach it to my belt. The knife handle fits my hand well, not too big or too small. Not too heavy or too light. The blade slides out of its protective cover smoothly. It’s a bowie knife, the blade dramatically curved. The poor light from the sky catches on the metal and reflects into the forest.
    I look up at Gabriel. He’s trying to smile.
    “I like it.”
    I never apologized about his eye.
    * * *
    I’ve finished the carving of the knife. I would love Gabriel to see it but I know that will never happen. I stand and look back toward the cottage and I want to scream with frustration at the unfairness of it all. No one can ever be a friend to me like Gabriel was, and he’s been taken from me, like they take everything, and I want to kill Kieran and all of them. But I know if I kill Kieran now the Hunters will be after me again and they might catch me, and then there’d be no one to help Annalise. For her sake, I have to be cautious.
    I make my way back to the cave.
    It’s dark and I’m almost there, approaching it from along the hillside, when I see a flickering flame. A small campfire.
    Could it be . . . ?
    I stop. Then move ahead. Slowly. Silently. Staying hidden in the trees.
    The fire is in the cave mouth. There’s a small ring of stones with burning branches inside and a coffeepot standing on one of the stones.
    But who made the fire? It can’t be Gabriel, can it? Maybe hikers? Not Hunters, surely? They wouldn’t have a fire or a coffeepot. There’s no buzzing, no mobile phones. Not fains. Probably not Hunters either.
    Could it be Gabriel?
    He loves coffee.
    A movement in the cave. A man’s dark shape.
    Gabriel?
    But this silhouette looks shorter, stockier.
    It can’t be a Hunter, can it? There’s no buzzing and there’d be two of them—or twenty . . .
    Shit! Who is it?
    The man comes out past the fire. He looks toward me. It’s dark. I’m standing well back in the trees. I know he can’t see me.
    “Bloody hell, mate,” he says. His accent is Australian.
    I wonder if there are two of them and he’s talking to a friend who’s still in the cave.
    But he walks slowly toward me . . . Hesitantly, but straight toward me.
    I’m frozen, not breathing.
    He comes a step closer. Then another. And stares at me. He’s four or five meters away, a silhouette against the glow from the fire. I can’t see his face but I can tell that he isn’t Gabriel.
    “Bloody hell,” he says again. “I thought you were dead.”
    He’s definitely talking to me. He must be able to see in the dark. I don’t move, just stare back.
    Then, sounding more nervous, he asks, “You’re not dead, are