"I'd take a drink over a nap right now," he said after a while.
"Oh no, a nice soft bed with fluffy pillows and a duvet, that would be heaven."
"Maybe you could tempt me," he joked. I got the feeling he was trying to change the subject.
I flushed red and looked away from him. "I get nightmares about my parents dying in that lab," I said lightly. "But I didn't when we drank that whiskey."
I could feel him looking at me but I kept my gaze on the surrounding forest.
"It makes the things I've done seem easier to bear sometimes," he said after a pause.
"Like what?" The words were out before I could stop them, this was clearly not a topic he wanted to discuss but I waited patiently, ready to let the matter drop if he chose to change the subject.
"There used to be three of us," he began. I didn't say anything. "Me, Alicia and Blane. He was our little brother, not blood but real enough for us. You remember that story I told you about Hunter finding us and teaching us to fight?"
"Yes," I said.
"Well it was just like I told you: Alicia and me fighting a losing battle. But the bit I missed out was that we really needed the food for Blane. We used to look after him. He wasn't much of a fighter, he hid and watched us fight those kids. It wasn't because he didn't want to help but he was younger than us, and he wasn't as tough as this world needs us to be.
We always looked after him and we didn't mind. I guess we thought he'd toughen up as he got older and be more able to look after himself." He sighed and looked ahead at the trail for a while.
I waited.
"We loved him, we tried to help him get stronger, we worried about him not being able to look after himself. He refused to join us when we were training with Hunter but I tried to teach him what I'd learnt in the evenings. It didn't really work and I got frustrated with him, I shouted at him about it, tried to make him see it was necessary to survive out here." Coal stopped talking and we moved on. I concentrated on the steady rhythm of our feet pounding the miles away and the sight of Kaloo bounding back and forth, leading us ever onwards.
"I should have just accepted he wasn't a fighter in the same way that we were, he saw the world in a different way. One night there was a raid on the town, a group of outsiders tried to steal food and supplies from us.
We were outside when it all happened and one of them, a boy not much older than me, crossed our path with arms full of food that he'd stolen. Alicia and I moved to stop him, but Blane just turned tail and ran.
We weren't left with any choice b
ut to follow him.
We were spotted and reported to Hunter as cowards. I was furious. After we explained what happened, Hunter understood but I was so angry with Blane.
I shouted at him, called him a liability, told him if he didn't toughen up it was just a matter of time before he got himself, or one of us, killed. I stormed out, left him standing there with tears streaming down his face and I went to bed and slept like a baby.
I didn't even notice he was missing until the next day. There was a note left by his bed saying he was going out to the forest to prove how brave he was.
Everyone searched the forest for weeks. Alicia and me kept it up for even longer. We never found any trace of him. I haven't slept properly since."
I took his hand in mine.
"How old were you?" I asked.
"What?" Coal frowned at me
"When it happened, how old were you?"
"I - nearly thirteen, I don't see what that has to do with anything." He narrowed his eyes at me.
"And how old was Blane?"
"Ten."
"You were children. Would you blame a boy for what happened if it happened now to someone else?"
"Yes."