Читать книгу The Capture - Tom Isbell, Tom Isbell - Страница 10

I SLOGGED BACK TO camp and released the branches from my arms. They clattered on the pile with all the rest. If Hope wouldn’t tell me what was really going on with her, maybe her friends would.

Of the seven other Sisters, Hope was close to three. Diana was tall and willowy, terrific with a crossbow, and never afraid to speak her mind. Then there was Scylla, who had never uttered a single word in all the weeks I’d known her. I wondered if she was even capable of talking. She was short and compact and basically all muscle—not someone you wanted to meet in a dark alley late at night.

The third friend was Helen, who was frail and shy and seemed always on the verge of being blown away by a gust of wind. Small in stature with strawberry-blond hair, she looked at Hope with adoring eyes.

It was Helen I decided to approach.

She was sitting on a log, fletching arrows. Next to her was a pile of goose feathers.

“I can’t believe you’re able to attach those tiny feathers with just animal guts,” I said.

She smiled shyly. “Sinew. Once it dries, it’s there forever.” She expertly split a quill in half, then wrapped a short thread of dried animal gut around the base of the quill and the arrow’s shaft.

I sat on a nearby rock. “Helen, can I ask you something?” She flinched slightly but said nothing. “Are you okay with heading back into the territory?”

“If it’s the right thing to do, then we should do it.”

“And your friends? They feel the same?”

“I think so.”

Her voice had a sudden wariness to it. Like Argos detecting an unfamiliar scent. I realized I was in dangerous territory here.

“Everyone’s on board?” I asked. “Everything’s normal?”

“Yes …”

“And Hope? She’s fine with all this?”

Helen’s body shrank in on itself, and I suddenly realized I’d crossed the line. I was asking about the very people she was closest to. Helen nodded quickly, her fingers deftly wrapping the animal gut around the top of the fletching. She placed the finished arrow in a pile.

“You’re close to Hope, aren’t you?” I asked.

“She saved my life.”

“Then you and I have something in common.”

I pushed myself up and walked away. Although I needed to know what was going on with Hope, it felt somehow traitorous to ask about her behind her back.

But I was still convinced that she was up to something—I just didn’t know what.