Nathan’s eyelids flew open. He had a habit of only half-sleeping any time he was around other people—something he caught from his father. However, this scream would’ve most likely woken him up even if he were sleeping normally. He knew it must’ve been Roy, as he had seen him walk out of the tent and he hadn’t returned yet.

Another of Nathan’s useful habits was his tendency to sleep fully clothed whenever he wasn’t at home. He liked being able to dart into action at a moment’s notice, just as he was doing now.

Nathan could still hear Roy shouting, but the shouts were muffled. This was bad. Before the trip, Nathan would’ve attributed Roy’s screams to the sight of a spider. But after the ascent, he’d realized that Roy wasn’t the type to complain or cry over such petty stuff.

Nathan used Shadowstep to travel in Roy’s direction. He could get there in no time, but that would leave him completely exhausted. If there truly were an enemy to fight, it wouldn’t be the wisest choice.

Just as Nathan was deciding whether or not he could afford to use another Shadowstep, he felt a sudden sense of danger above him—danger he had never felt before. Goosebumps enveloped his body as he looked up.

He had just enough time to identify the silhouette of a robust man before a glistening object obstructed his view. Nathan stopped immediately, but the blade still nicked his forehead. Whoever his opponent was, he knew what he was doing. If Nathan hadn’t stopped in time, his skull would have been filled with metal.

Using Shadowstep, he ducked behind a tree and assessed the damage. His wound was shallow, but it bled profusely. Thinking quickly, he ripped the sleeve of his T-shirt and wrapped it around his forehead to keep the blood from dripping into his eyes.

What now? He had no idea who he was facing, but it was clear this person wanted to kill him. Nathan closed his eyes for a second, trying to listen to his surroundings. He could still hear Roy. It didn’t seem that the sound was diminishing. Roy was near and stationary. Did the perpetrator tie him down somewhere to go after a new target?

A rustle of leaves above him prompted him to look up. There was the robust silhouette again, falling directly onto him. With a quick roll, he was out of harm’s way. He used the momentary advantage of his enemy’s fall to Shadowstep away.

The maneuverer wasn’t aimless. Nathan reappeared at the exact spot where he had previously dodged the flying knife. It was still there. He grabbed it and looked behind him.

The man was nowhere to be seen. Nathan stared at the treetops, expecting another attack from above. He had a hunch that the man would use the same tactic twice.

Standing in the open wasn’t helping, so he decided to try and vanish from the man’s view. Nathan Shadowstepped into the nearby bush and waited. Hopefully, the enemy hadn’t noticed.

***

Roy was gagged with a piece of dirty cloth. His arms and legs were zip-tied, making him look like a pig ready for slaughter. An anorexic pig.

His captor stood next to him, leaning against a tree. Roy screamed for help, but it only came out as a muffled mess.

“Oi, shut the fuck up, you twig, or I’ll snap you in half.” He threw a dagger at Roy. It landed in the ground, narrowly missing the boy’s head.

“Why the fuck do we even need to bother?” came the voice of the robust man. “That fucking moron said you’d earn some good merit. Like hell, you would. The Anti-assassin movement here is fucked either way, so why even bother?”

The leaves to Roy’s right scuffled and he immediately turned his head towards them, hoping that Nathan had come to save him. But only the massive man returned.

“Lost him,” he growled.

“What the fuck you mean? How could you have lost him? It was just a kid.”

“Yeah, a kid that could fucking Quickstep, you bastard.”

“Wait… is he an assassin? How’s that possible?” The man reached down to ungag Roy. “Did you buy a bodyguard? Answer yes or no, or I’ll fucking rip out your throat and choke you with it.”

“No.”

“Then who the fuck is that bloody kid and how’s he an assassin?”

“I don’t know.”

“Like hell, you don’t. Watch me beat it out of you.”

Roy squinted and braced for a blow that never came. When he opened his eyes, the robust man was holding his companion by the wrist.

“You lay a hand on him and he’ll be considered damaged goods. If I lose my merit because of you not thinking straight, I’ll fucking rip your balls off and feed them to you,” he snarled.

The smaller man gulped. “So, what now?”

“Let’s ignore that kid. If he isn’t this maggot’s bodyguard, he most likely fled already. Let’s head west for now, and hopefully, we’ll arrive at our destination before sunrise. After that, we’ll cross the—”

The man never finished. Something flew at his head, so the man ducked. Then there was a whistle and a stabbing pain in his back.

“Argh, that bastard.” The man reached for the knife. Judging from the pain and knife’s position, it must’ve pierced his kidney.

The younger man’s head snapped around. There were rustling leaves in the direction the knife had come from.

“YOU THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH THIS?!” he shouted. With a well-executed Quickstep, the man now stood in front of the leaves. To his surprise, there was nobody there, only a small stone like the one that had narrowly missed his colleague.

“Of course,” a voice hissed in his ear only a moment before he got hit in the side. He flew through the forest, slamming into a tree.

The massive man witnessed the whole thing and knew that the odds had changed. With a presumably punctured kidney and his ally out cold, there wasn’t much they could do. He had underestimated this kid, and now he was paying the price.

The golden-haired kid walked towards him. He seemed calm, almost as if he were enjoying himself. There was something unsettling about his presence. The man bit through the pain and Quickstepped towards his colleague before the kid reached him. Luckily, he wasn’t too interested in either him or his colleague, who was slowly waking up.

“Who are you?” the kid demanded, his voice composed.

The man ignored him and tried to help his colleague up. But… what was that pressure? There was suffocating, boiling anger. Was it…?

“I asked you a fucking QUESTION!” the kid shouted. His blue eyes were like ice.

The man took a quick breath and composed himself. It must be his injury getting the better of him. There was no way this kid could intimidate him. “That’s none of your business. You may have an advantage, but if we fought head-on, you’d still lose a leg or two. I think it would be better if we both went our separate—”

“I hate it when people mess with my plans. And you did just that. But you’re right. If we fought, I might lose a limb. So I’ll let you go. I’m not sure who you are, but I suggest you get that kidney treated… if you want to live, of course.”

A single smirk was enough to make the man gulp. This kid clearly wasn’t normal. Even an assassin was still a human. But this kid wasn’t an assassin. He was a hunter. He’d deliberately hit his kidney, yet he didn’t go for the kill. He was enjoying himself. They had to get out of there.

“I’ll take you up on that offer,” the man said.

“One more thing, please. Leave a knife on the ground. Any knife will do. Ideally, a similar one to the one you have sticking from your back.”

“To cut the ropes?”

“That’s none of your business.”

The smaller man exchanged glances with his colleague and removed the knife from its sheath on his thigh. He stuck it into the ground and they both Quickstepped into the darkness.

***

As soon as the two men were out of sight, Nathan collapsed to the ground, panting heavily. He took a minute to recuperate, but he couldn’t afford any longer. They were coming, and he had to make the most out of this situation.

“Nathan?”

“Yes, Roy?” Nathan said, slowly moving towards the knife that the two assassins left behind.

“Are you all right? You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think.” Nathan bent down for the knife.

“Are you gonna use that to untie me?”

“I can do that without a knife. This is for something else. We need to hurry.”

Nathan Shadowstepped in front of Roy, who flinched but remained silent. “Let me do the talking. I don’t have time to explain everything, so just try to play along. You’ll get what I’m trying to do. Hopefully…”

Nathan cut the zip-ties around Roy’s limbs. Roy stood up and stretched his body. He looked behind him and saw lights flickering in the darkness.

“Nathan, I think some—what THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” Roy turned around to see Nathan cutting his forehead with the knife.

“Argh, just… be quiet,” Nathan said, his face bloodied. He quickly stood up and threw the knife into the darkness. It hit a tree with a faint thud.

“HELLO?!” Curtis shouted from the direction of the flickering flashlights.

“WE’RE HERE!” Nathan shouted back, sinking to the ground. He’d acted tough, but he knew he’d been completely outclassed in that fight. Luckily, both assassins had underestimated him.

“HERE!” he shouted again.

After a few minutes, Curtis, Joy, and Ellis entered the small clearing where Nathan and Roy were.

“What ha—” Curtis froze as soon as he saw Nathan’s bloodied face.

“A wolf,” Nathan said.

“A wolf?” Joy immediately bent down to inspect Nathan’s wounds. Tears started pouring down her cheeks. “A—are you all right?”

Roy kept quiet. He had no idea what Nathan was plotting, but he had no intention to screw up his plans. He recalled what Nathen had said to the assassins. At that moment, Nathan looked like a feral beast. Like he wasn’t acting. He seemed genuinely furious. Roy didn’t want to see that Nathan again.

“Yes, I’m all right. Thanks to Roy.” Nathan looked at Roy, whose eyeballs almost jumped out of their sockets. “Right, Roy?”

“Ah… yes. Yes.”

“What did you do, Roy?”

“I…I—”

“He had a knife with him. He said that he should always be ready, so he had a knife with him. I didn’t believe him at first, but as you can see, he knew what he was doing… He jumped at the wolf while it was trying to gobble me up and stabbed him in the side. The wolf ran away.”

“That… is amazing, Roy,” Joy breathed, wrapping him in a hug.

Then she turned to Nathan to inspect his wound. “It looks fine,” she said, ripping a piece from her shirt for a bandage. “It isn’t a deep cut. It most likely won’t even leave a scar.”

“You seem pretty sure.”

“My mother is a doctor. She taught me a couple of tricks.”

“Thank you, Joy, but we should head back now.” Nathan would rather have had Joy take a look at Roy, but he didn’t want to risk her noticing the marks left by the zip ties.

***

It was still dark when they returned to their camp. Joy was reluctant to leave him, but eventually, after plenty of washing up, Nathan convinced her that he could tend his own wound.

After twenty minutes or so, Roy joined Nathan in the tent. He immediately noticed Nathan lying on his back, eyes closed and wound freshly bandaged.

“Are you asleep?” he whispered.

“No,” Nathan replied immediately, his voice alert. “What happened outside while I was in here?”

“Joy talked to me a lot. Everyone else went to sleep, so we were alone for a while. I feel like she was worried about me.”

“Did she notice your wrists?”

“My wrists?”

“The marks left by the zip ties?”

“Ah, that. No. They were mostly gone by the time we returned, so she didn’t notice anything.”

“Good.”

Roy hesitated for a moment but decided to ask the question. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Why did you cut your face?”

“I don’t want my identity to be revealed,” Nathan whispered. “And the cut on my forehead seemed like a knife cut. Even though they are stupid, a single clean cut would be hard to explain. So I added an extra cut and made the original cut a little wider and more jagged. It was risky, but it worked.”

“Are you an idiot? You cut your face voluntarily? You like that kinky shit, or what?”

Nathan laughed feebly. “Fuck off,” was the last thing he said before he dozed off.