“If you come back up here and ask nicely.”
I climb back up the cliff, fast as I can, showing off, but when I get near the top I stop. She’s moved to the place where I normally climb over. She’s blocking my way. There’s a different route to the left that’s harder and I go down a couple of holds and then back up and she’s shuffled along to be sitting there now.
“Hi,” she says, leaning forward and smiling at me.
The only way I can get up is by climbing over Annalise. “Excuse me,” I say. “Can you let me pass?”
She shakes her head.
“If I say please?”
She shakes her head again and is smiling a huge smile. “For a badass Half Code, you really aren’t very badass.”
“Please, Annalise.” My hold isn’t good: my fingers are already cramping and my toehold is slipping. I won’t be able to stay here for much longer.
“I can’t understand how you were expelled from school. You seem such a timid boy.” She says that in a teacher-ish voice.
“I’m not timid.”
She leans toward me, grinning. “Prove it.”
I have to either jump down or climb over her and I have to do one or the other pretty soon as my right leg is starting to shudder with the strain. I think I can get over her if I put my hand to the right of her leg but I’ll have to somehow pull up over her lap and— “I can’t wait to tell my brothers what a frightened little thing you are,” she teases. I look up at her face and, even though I know she’s joking, just the thought of her speaking to her brothers about anything makes me mad. I see her smile disappear in an instant. I let go of the rock, turn in the air, and drop to the ground. She calls out, “Nathan! I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have . . .” And she drops to the ground beside me, as graceful and light as ever. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was stupid.”
“If they ever find out we meet. If—”
“You know I won’t tell them anything. It was a stupid joke.”
I realize I’m overreacting and ruining the day, so I scuff around the sand with my boots and say, “I know.” And I smile at her and want to get back to having fun. “Just don’t tell anyone I’m really a wimp, will you? And I won’t tell them what a badass you are.”
“Me! Badass?” She’s grinning again and her feet scuff the ground too. Then she makes a long line in the sand and says, “On a scale from badass here”— she sticks her heel in one end—“to nice, polite, and timid over here”—she walks to the other end of the line, puts her heel down, and looks at me—“where am I?”
I mutter to myself, “Annalise, Annalise, Annalise,” and I move up and down the line. About three-quarters of the way to the timid end I stop and then shuffle a little nearer to the other end and then further and then further until I’m about a tenth of the way along the line from the badass end.
“Ha!” she says.
“You’re far too bad for me.”
She growls at me. “Well, most of my school friends would put me here.” And she jumps to a spot near the timid end.
“All your school friends are fains,” I say.
“But still capable of spotting a nice girl when they see one.”
“And where would they put me?”
I move out of the way as Annalise shuffles along the line almost to where I’d been standing, close to the complete-badass end.
“And your brothers? Where would they put me?”
She hesitates but then walks past the badass end as far as the cliff. She says, “The fain kids at school were scared of you cos you beat people up. You had a bad reputation for being wild but they saw you in class most days, sitting quietly, so they knew that if they left you alone you’d leave them alone.”
“But your brothers couldn’t quite work that out. To leave me alone, I mean.”
“No. But they were scared of you too.”
“They beat me up! Left me unconscious.”
“You beat them up first! But it’s more than that.” She hesitates and then says, “It’s who you are. Or who your father is. It all comes down to Marcus. They’re scared of him. Everyone’s scared of him.”
She’s right, of course, but it’s not as if he’s going to appear any minute and back me up in a fight.
Then she asks me, “Are you scared of him?”
I’m not sure: he’s my father. He’s dangerous and murderous but he’s still my father. And I want to meet him. I wouldn’t want that if I was scared of him. I say, “I trust you more than anyone, Annalise, but if the Council ever hears me talk about him, or my feelings about him, or anything . . . I just can’t talk about him. You know that.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I’ll tell you who I am scared of, though: the Council. And your brothers. If . . .” But I don’t go on. We know that if they find out we’re meeting both of us are in big trouble.
Annalise says, “I know. I have the worst, most messed-up family ever.”