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Nesbitt

    My knife is already in my hand as I step toward the man, grabbing his jacket, using my momentum to push him to the ground and kneeling on his chest, the blade at his throat.
    “OK, mate, OK,” he says. He sounds more irritated than afraid.
    “Shut up!” I snap.
    The blade of my knife is pushing down on his neck but only the flat of it so it won’t cut. I scan around to see if he’s alone. I think he is but he could have a friend. I see nothing but the dark shapes of trees, the fire, and the coffeepot.
    “Who are you? What are you doing here?” I demand.
    “Don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I just like being in the great outdoors?”
    “Don’t suppose you’d mind me cutting your tongue out if you can’t tell the truth?”
    “Crikey, mate. Just having a little joke, a bit of banter.”
    I push the knife into his neck so blood dribbles out. “I can cut it out from here, I think.”
    “Nesbitt—the name’s Nesbitt. And you’re Nathan, aren’t you?”
    I can’t decide if confirming this would make any difference but I don’t think it’ll help so I say, “What are you doing here, Nesbitt?”
    “The boss sent me.”
    “Sent you to do what?”
    “Run an errand.”
    “And the errand is . . . ?”
    “A private matter.”
    “A private matter that you’re willing to fail to carry out because you’ll have your tongue cut out, your innards made outtards, your—”
    He flips his body, jerks my arm away, and grabs me. He’s bigger than me, much heavier, and strong too, but I break his hold and roll from him to my feet. He’s on his feet too now: he’s faster than he looks.
    He says, “You’re quick.”
    “You’d be quicker if you got into shape.”
    He frowns. “Not so bad for my age.” He slaps his belly. “And you’re not so bad for a dead kid.”
    I stand more upright, feigning relaxation. “Where did you hear I’d died?”
    He grins. “I didn’t hear you’d died. I
saw
you.”
    “You saw me? Dead? What? In a vision or something?”
    “Vision! Nah. You don’t remember, do you? Well, I guess you weren’t in a fit state. You did see me, though, but . . . you called me Rose, which I—”
    “What? You saw me when I was injured? You were in the forest too?”
    “Yeah, oh yeah. I followed you from the train station. Got lucky that day. I was on my way to— Well, never mind that.” He grins and winks. “But I spotted you and I spotted the Hunter. She hadn’t seen you but she would have, and quickly too, if I hadn’t distracted her and given you time to get away. Mind you, you left a trail a mile wide. A child could have followed that trail. I had my work cut out tidying up after you. But we lost the Hunter and I followed you through the forest.
    “I stayed close behind you but when I had a nap you wandered off. I found you in a village shop. You were trying to read the newspaper, trying to work out what day it was. It was painful to watch, mate. It was two days before your birthday. You really don’t remember any of that?”
    I shake my head.
    “Well, I got you back to the forest, still checking whether you were being followed, which I thought was a dead cert after the shop. To be honest, mate, I thought there wasn’t much hope for you—I guess you had a Hunter bullet in you?”
    I nod.
    “Yep, well, I went to tidy up your trail—
again—
and when I got back it looked like you’d had a go at a bit of surgery on yourself, blood and yellow gunk everywhere, and . . . you looked pretty dead to me. Your skin was gray—gray and cold, mate—and your eyes were half open too, just blank, dead-looking.”
    “Do you have my knife? The knife I cut myself with?”
    He looks around and up as if in thought. “No.”
    “But you took it from me.”
    “No, I took a knife from beside a body, which I thought was a dead body, on account of it looking very dead and with eyes half open and dead-looking.”
    “I want the knife back.”
    “I’m sure you