WHY WOULD THE EMPTY CHILD LEAN OVER AND tell me her name? After what she’s just done to Jen? Like she thinks I really want to know? I examine her round, young face when she pulls away but even though she’s shared something with me, her wide brown eyes are still unreadable. I don’t understand.

“I … I am … Gabriella,” she says again, as if she thinks I didn’t hear the first time. There is a distant, sad light in her eyes.

I’m still trying to get my head straight, it’s all woozy from the iboga. My whole body burns with pain and I have a splitting headache. I don’t care about her. All I want right now is to see Jen. She might be bleeding to death. She might already be dead.

My lip is swollen and I can taste blood. Behind me, Gabriella picks away at the remaining ropes that bind me to the chair, and as soon as I feel them loosen I yank myself free and stagger to my feet, grabbing for my T-shirt.

“Look. I don’t care what your freaking name is. Take me back to Jen!” I demand, pulling the T-shirt back over my head and throwing the rope at her. She doesn’t catch it. It just hits her chest and falls to the floor.

The toddler runs over and starts playing with the end of the rope, while she just stands there like a moron. Something weird is happening to her, though, because she strokes the boy’s rough, round head. Seeing her finally care for the kid makes something snap in me. Why couldn’t she care for anything else? How can the same person do that and chop someone’s hand off without blinking? My heart twists, black with hatred, and when Izzy slips into my head telling me, She was a girl once, I block her voice out. Right now I wish “Gabriella” was dead. I’m even thinking how to do it.

“So you just going to stand there watching me or what?”

She looks away, hoisting the toddler onto her hip.

“Then take me back, you heartless bitch.”

I can smell Jen’s leg from outside. There are LRA kids guarding every side of the hut now, the few who remain. I can see one posted at the back, sitting cross-legged by the hole we made. Jen is lying against the wall where I left her, her eyes closed. A blood-drenched old rag has been twisted over the end of her right arm.

I have this flashback to the marina, thinking how perfect she looked back then. How perfect she was. All those things feel like a lifetime ago. Izzy was alive then.

“Get out of my way.” I push the Empty Child hard and she hits her head on the doorframe. I’m not sorry. Right now I’d love to really hurt her more, but I don’t waste my time.

Jen’s eyes open.

I’m so relieved that black spots gather on the edges of my vision. My eyes fill with tears and I almost faint. I don’t know how I stay upright. She’s still really weak from her ordeal and the infection in her leg. I can hardly speak when recognition lights up her face. It’s my fault they did this to her. Why did I wait? I should have just told Mwemba what he wanted.

Suddenly she’s trying to sit up and her face is creased with worry. “Rio, what did they do to you?”

“To me?”

Jen lifts her bloody stump and smiles weakly. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Don’t worry. This isn’t real.”

“What? What are you talking about?” I look over my shoulder, but the Empty Child has gone.

“That girl came in here with her machete. I was scared to death at first, but the girl’s got a voice! She just told me to scream. She told me Mwemba wanted her to chop my hand off, so I screamed all right. I screamed like hell.”

My mind is spinning. I drop down beside her and look at the doorway. “I know you did.” My eyes fill up. Nothing is making sense! I hated the girl so badly just now I could have killed her if I had any kind of weapon. Why would she suddenly change like this?

Jen waves her fake stump. “The girl …”

“Gabriella. She said her name was Gabriella.” I’m still trying to take this in.

“I know. She came back with this blood-soaked rag and told me I have to bind my clenched hand with it and wear it all the time from now on if I want to stay alive.”

“She did?” I’m still twisted up inside like a knot. “Well, she’s right. If Mwemba finds out about this, we’re all dead.”

“Rio, why do you think she’s helping us?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Outside, the sky is beginning to glow in the east. I wonder how far the others have got. I can only hope I’ve won them enough time to get clear of the jungle and then some, but I’m scared that they’ll be found and brought back, and nothing will have changed.

I’m left alone, sitting beside Jen, to worry while the sun rises and the heat goes from stifling to unbearable. Outside I can hear Gabriella’s feet slapping against the hard mud floor as she does whatever it is she does in the mornings. Jen slips in and out of consciousness; her body is fighting the infection and losing. I look at her and find myself thinking — selfishly — that if this carries on much longer she’s going to die and I’ll be left here, all alone.

One of the LRA soldiers brings some water for us and I attempt to swill and spit the bitter taste of the iboga from my mouth before I allow myself to give in to the desperate desire to drink any. It takes an iron will, but I just allow myself a few gulps. Then I lift Jen’s head to help her drink. She swallows it without even waking. Afterward I do my best to give her a bath with what remains, cleaning that putrid burn while she can’t feel the pain and trying to cool her fever. She groans a bit as I work, but the wound looks better when I finish, and doesn’t smell quite so bad. There’s a terrible problem with flies, though. They’re swarming over the bloody rag, and I constantly have to wave them away. I want to sleep so badly, but I daren’t. I have to stay alert, for both of us. There’s been no sign of the girl — of Gabriella — since dawn.

Just before midday there’s a commotion outside and I recognize one of the voices. It’s not Mwemba. It’s the Sangoma. In a way, I think I’m almost relieved because it means Mwemba is still looking for the others and there will be no bad news. Despite what Ash said, the military might have dropped something, too, the ransom. Could it all end?

The toddler appears by the door of the hut and runs away chuckling when I make encouraging noises at him. For a second I have this image of myself holding him hostage, threatening to throttle him unless they let us go. But I can’t do it. When he comes back, he’s hiding behind a handful of Gabriella’s pants with an injured expression on his face, like he read my mind or something.

She throws a package of berries and fruits wrapped in a leaf at me. My hands shake as I tear it open and shove handfuls onto Jen’s lap and into my mouth. I’m so famished that I almost miss the brown paper bag that dropped with it. To my surprise, it is a blister pack of pills.

Antibiotics.

The Foreign Office must have heard Ash’s request and dropped something. The Sangoma has brought it back. I pop one pill out of the pack and slip it between Jen’s lips, forcing her to wash it down with a last mouthful of water. She almost chokes on it, but finally swallows. While she does I have this daydream: Ash is safe. He’s telling the American lieutenant to come for us and refusing to be left behind, running back to get me on his amazing blades. I imagine him sweeping me up into his powerful arms and carrying me away from all of this.

When the girl turns to leave, I say, “Gabriella …” and she stops in her tracks at the sound of her name. My voice is breaking with the effort, but I manage to say, “Thank you — for looking after Jen.”

To my surprise she spins on her heel. “I did not do anything for you — or your friend! I did this for ME.” There is anger in her voice.

The gratitude withers inside me and turns to pure acid. “Fine!” I spit back. “I don’t know why I felt the need to thank a murdering, self-centered little psychopath like you anyway!”

“Do not judge me!”

“I wouldn’t waste my time! You disgust me.”

Gabriella looks at me, blinking. Then she wails bitterly, “I disgust myself!”

A tear rolls down her cheek.

I’m floored.

Her words hang in the air. We just stand there looking at one another for ages until the fire in her eyes dies and she tells me quietly, “You should have run away while you had the chance. Mwemba does not want money. He wants people to know who he is, not to hide in fear like Kony does. He will do something very bad before they catch him.”

“Why don’t you run away from him? You don’t have to do this.”

Gabriella doesn’t want to listen but she’s torn. She stands there like before, just waiting and thinking, like she’s never going to speak again. Suddenly I’m aware that what I said was completely stupid. Of course she has to do this. These people will kill her if she ever tries to run, if they ever find out about Jen.

My voice is softer when I ask her, “Where did you get the hand anyway?”

Nothing.

After a long time just standing there examining the ground, she tells me sullenly, “There were many bodies. It was not hard to find one.”

I can’t help it, I shudder at the thought. A kid her age should never have to …

Gabriella leaves me with a parting shot. For the first time, I hear the child in her voice, distant and filled with a desperate sadness. “I am lost. I can never be like you.”

Yet for some reason she’s helping us. I’m so confused about her. I want to cry but I know that if I let myself, I may never stop. And Izzy’s voice won’t stop bugging me. Love … I hear it as clear as if she were in the hut with us, too.

“Gabriella, come back!” I call after the Empty Child, softly, but she doesn’t answer me. As soon as she sets foot outside there are more excited voices in the clearing. It sounds like the search party is back. They are chattering triumphantly. One of them is definitely Mwemba, and he’s heading this way.

Next thing I know, Ash is thrown through the door.