MY HEART MISSES A BEAT — EVERYTHING HAPPENS so fast. We all jump to our feet and the first thing I see is the top of a rust-brown head and the flash of a broad silver flank. It’s a silverback gorilla. His impossibly long arms and rubbery black hands are tearing the undergrowth to shreds and he looks like he wants to rip the Sangoma limb from limb. I find myself wishing it would.
When the gorilla sees the rest of us, though, he stops in his tracks, stands up, and beats his chest. His beautiful watery brown eyes flick up and meet mine, and I know he’s just trying to make us go away. He’s as scared as we are. He wants us to see what he’s capable of if we are hostile. Suddenly I’m thinking, If only Iz was here. She’d love this. Then, as I watch, I’m amazed to see that the gorilla is wearing a leather collar.
A couple of the nearest LRA soldiers decide it’s a good idea to fire their guns in the air, and the gorilla drops to his knuckles, turns around, and runs.
“KUACHA!”15 Mwemba, yelling at the shooters to stop. “KUACHA!” He waves his arm at them. “Unifuate.”16 They run to him and disappear into the forest after the silverback.
I find myself yelling, “Don’t hurt him! Don’t you dare hurt him!” and Ash has to calm me down. When I snatch my arm out of his grasp I notice that Gabriella is next to me. I plead with her, “Don’t let them hurt him,” but she turns her back on me. In the end Jen pulls at my other arm and we fall to our haunches and wait, watching the shuddering trees fall silent.
We don’t have to wait long. There is the rattle of automatic gunfire and more jarring impacts in the trees. Leaves fall like snow, and a raw, animal barking and grunting shatters the peace, followed by primates screaming. I cover my ears but I can still hear more gunfire. In the stillness that follows, there is a gut-wrenching howl and another, single shot. Jen and I are both crying by now. They had no need to do that.
It must be another fifteen minutes before Mwemba emerges, grinning all over his sick, twisted face. Between the four of them it’s taken this long to drag the dead gorilla back. They are sweating like pigs, each of them hauling on one of the silverback’s limbs. The poor thing is covered with dark crimson blood, and its watery, wild eyes are closed forever. Mwemba guts and skins it where it lies, ignoring the clouds of flies that swarm over his arms. Soon the ground around him is slick with blood and crawling insects. When he’s finished he slices huge slabs of meat off its flank, which he and some of his guys eat raw. I’m surprised to see that Split-Lip won’t touch it. Then Mwemba chops the head off, making this big thing of showing it like some warped trophy to his soldiers. There’s a scattering of nervous laughter. Gabriella has taken the toddler as far away from the scene as she can get, and she’s playing with him behind a tree so he can’t see what’s happening. I tap Jen’s shoulder and point.
“That’s weird.”
Ash looks, too. “She doesn’t want him to see the blood.”
“She didn’t seem that bothered when they were killing people,” I say.
Jen’s struggling with the smell, she looks really gray. Her leg is still angry and crusted, but it is much better. It’s the bound hand that is the problem now. She constantly tugs and twists at it with a furrowed brow, desperate to stretch her fingers, but there’s no chance of that.
“Don’t even attempt to get your head around them, Rio,” she says. “They’re a bunch of psychos.”
Mwemba must see how upset we all are, because he throws the gorilla’s head at us as a joke. Jen screams, but the head falls short, landing with a dull thud. I can’t tear my eyes from it, though. Neither can Ash. The bloody collar fell off in the air and is lying in the grass just a few feet away. There’s a small black box on it, and I’m closest.
I look at Ash and whisper, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Ash nods, slipping off one of his blades and rubbing his stump. “GPS tracker?” He hands me the blade, and says loudly, “Hold this for me, would you, Rio? My legs are killing me.”
Nobody looks, they’re all too interested in Mwemba’s kill. Keeping my eyes on our nearest guards, I take the long, curving prosthesis, slide it through the grass, and hook the small foot through the loop of the leather collar. I pretend that I’m checking the carbon fiber blade as I draw it back up the slope. Then a quick flick, and we’ve got the collar. It’s covered in warm, sticky blood.
“Do you think it still works?” I shoot a quick look over my shoulder and find myself staring Gabriella square in the face. She’s still some way off, but she’s watching us intently. I put my finger to my lips. For whatever reason, she does nothing, and for the first time I feel something, some connection. Iz was right. The LRA fighters are just kids, especially Gabriella. There’s something about that girl that I just can’t put my finger on. Something hidden behind that wall of steel she puts up.
Ash notices she’s looking, too. It takes a bit of work, but eventually he manages to twist the box free of the collar and slip it into his pocket. When he’s finished he beckons to Gabriella. She doesn’t move. Patiently, he smiles at her and beckons again.
“You’re wasting your time …” I begin, but she’s already getting to her feet and walking over. I can’t believe it. “Hey! What have you got that I haven’t?”
“Charm, charisma, good looks …”
Jen mutters, “Give me a break. Don’t tell me she’s got a thing for you, too.”
When Gabriella arrives, she just stands there.
Ash tells her, “I want to thank you.”
She squats, tugs up a handful of grass, and starts braiding it.
“For letting me go. You’re not like the others, are you?”
I take a look over at Mwemba. He’s noticed that she’s here, but he doesn’t make a move, so I nudge Ash to let him know.
“I’m Ash, this is Jen, and this … this is Rio.”
Gabriella’s voice is as flat as ever. “I know your names.”
“Good. I just thought that if we’re going to be friends we should be properly introduced.”
To my utter astonishment, Gabriella looks up and meets Ash’s gaze. She seems shocked, and glances away. When she looks back in my direction she’s blinking like she might cry or something. No way.
Whatever it is, it’s brief. She sucks in a deep breath, then whispers so quietly that we can barely hear her. “You cannot be my friend. No one can be my friend. It is too dangerous.”
“Too late,” Ash tells her with another heart-stopping smile. “The deed is done.” Then he asks her softly, “Where are you from?”
“Maracha. It is in Uganda.”
This is amazing. I ask her, “Do you have any family there?”
Her head drops and she shakes it. “They are all gone.”
“But these guys are your family now?” Ash wonders, waving at the other fighters.
A shrug, then she shakes her head. “They are not my family —” Something ignites behind her eyes, makes her rethink whatever she was about to say. “I do not have one. Kony owns me. They do not trust me because, when we get back, Kony will force me to be his wife.”
Now Ash looks lethal. “We have to get you out of here,” he hisses. “When we escape, you’re coming with us.”
Gabriella’s eyelids flicker, but she won’t look up at either of us. “I cannot.”
We look at one another and I tell her softly, “Gabriella — you’re not old enough to get married.”
She looks at me like I’m an idiot. “I will not have a choice.” Gabriella is closing down and straightening up. My stupid comment has confused her.
Interview over — and Iz is on my shoulder saying, I told you so. Just children — broken. I understand now that I can’t see my captors in black and white — with the exception of Mwemba and his creepy Sangoma. There’s no hate left in me for the others, in spite of what they’re doing. It’s like my eyes are suddenly opening and when I look around all I can see is children — disturbed, deranged, frightened children. They laugh with Mwemba over his kill, but fear is always behind their eyes. Everything they do is about survival — it has never been clearer. None of them should be here. What I thought was a lack of emotion in Gabriella is something else. Everything in that kid has shut down; all she is doing is protecting her heart, because she thinks that the moment she allows herself to feel, her whole world is going to fall apart. Worse than that, it could all be over for her. The thought leaves me feeling raw and even more helpless. I remember her shocking words — I disgust myself! A sharp, shooting pain grips my chest, and I let out this involuntary gasp. It’s as if I can feel my heart snapping in my chest like a twig.