But I've already turned invisible again and am running. I go fast, listening and looking all the time. I'm scanning for Hunters but see none. I slow at the edge of the camp. Camp One is not set in a clearing but the tents are dotted among the trees. There's no noise of people. No noise of birds or anything. The only sound is the electric hiss of mobile phones in my head. But it's very faint, fainter than before, as if the Hunters are moving away.

I go closer to the tents, slowly, looking around all the time.

Then I see someone. Her eyes are on me, wide open, but she's not seeing anything and as I get closer to her I see there are no glints in her eyes. But I don't need that to tell me she's dead: the way she lies, so still, so awkward, says it all. She's been shot in the head. I only see the wound when I move round her, neat and clean to the back of her skull. A few flies on it. I stare at her face, trying to remember if I've seen her before, but I'm not sure. She's a member of the Alliance, not a Hunter.

I move to a tent. Slowly, silently. I'm still invisible but I don't want to risk anything.

The tent seems to hold stores: cans, boxes and blankets are scattered around its broken, collapsed frame. But then I spot someone I do recognize, his body half hidden by the tent canvas. Gus has a bullet hole in his chest. There are ants crawling across him.

And at the next tent I see another body.

And another.

They're all around.

My heart races. This happened recently, but not that recently. Maybe this morning.

But if it happened this morning and I can hear hissing then ... I think the Hunters are leaving. They're leaving but they're not rushing. They don't know we've arrived. Maybe we can follow them ...

I move through the camp, trying to locate where the hissing is coming from. Then I see a wooden building, a hut: the prison? I move closer, slow and steady. The door is broken down. Is Annalise in here?

I lean inside the hut.

Empty except for chains. They're unlocked. Annalise must have been kept here. Did she go invisible and escape? More likely they have her.

Then I hear a noise, footsteps behind me, and I turn to see Nesbitt racing through the camp, clearly not caring about the noise he makes. He looks panicked. Behind him in the distance are Gabriel and the others, fanning out through the trees.

I become visible and say to Nesbitt, 'I think the Hunters have only just left.'

'Have you seen Van?'

'No.'

'She '

An explosion fills the air behind Nesbitt. He cowers and as he goes down I see Kirsty fly through the air, her body cartwheeling high and then falling to the ground.

I've crouched down too.

The sudden noise slowly drifts away. I look around for Hunters. Listen for them. Nothing.

Celia shouts, 'Booby traps! Don't touch anything.'

Donna is a pace or two from Kirsty's body and she looks towards me. Her face is pale. Gabriel joins them and bends down. He calls to Celia, 'Kirsty's dead.'

Nesbitt is already moving again. The ground is bare here, and there are numerous footprints: Hunter boot prints.

I follow Nesbitt through the camp and into the trees beyond. I ask him, 'How many?'

'Lots. Twenty, maybe more.' His voice is different, shaky as he adds, 'They're dragging someone, maybe two people. Prisoners. Or wounded.'

We're moving away from the camp now, through the trees, and Nesbitt speeds up to a jog and then slows and he groans.

I see past him to the body lying on the ground. Her hair is glistening with fine raindrops. Her eyes are open, the sapphire blue is still strong but there are no glints in them. Her skin is pale. Her stomach is a mass of blood.

'Van!'

Nesbitt stumbles forward and I grab him in case he goes too close.

She's holding her cigarette case in her hand and I know he wants to take it but I say, 'Don't touch her, Nesbitt. They might have booby-trapped her body too.'

He sits on the ground by her.

I can't hear hissing any more. The Hunters are leaving but they still can't be too far ahead.

'Nesbitt, I think they have Annalise. We can still catch them if we keep going.'

Nesbitt lets out a faint groan that gets louder and louder as he gets to his feet, roaring. He sets off fast, his rage taking him over. And I can tell he's struggling to keep his breath, but on we go. He's panting and grunting as we reach a small stream, and he leaps over it and goes uphill, through thin trees until we reach an open scrubby area and he stops. He's panting hard and I realize he's crying too.

'That way,' he says, pointing.

I go fast, Nesbitt behind me. I don't think the Hunters will be invisible unless they're attacking or think they were in danger so I'm hoping to catch sight of them soon. My breathing is slow and controlled. Uphill now. It's hard, but we've got to be gaining on them, though Nesbitt has dropped well back.

Then I hear it: a hiss.

And over the next rise I see them. Distant black specks. Lots of them lined up at the edge of the bare rocks ahead. They're going through a cut.

I go invisible and run as hard as I can. Not thinking, just running. Eyes fixed on the line of black Hunters getting closer but also reducing in length.

I can see the figures clearly now: there are nine, then seven. All in black except one. Annalise!

I'm running hard. Breathing hard. Legs burning.

I'm staring at Annalise, but then one more Hunter disappears and so does she.

There're four figures ... three ... two ...

One.

And I recognize her. Jessica. But I'm too far away to hit her with my lightning. She looks towards me but doesn't see me. I'm still invisible. Then she disappears.

I keep my eyes locked on the cleft in the rock where she was standing. My legs are giving out now but I push them on and on and then I'm there. I slide my hand through the air, feeling for the cut.

Nothing.

And again. Nothing.

And again.

And again.

Finding cuts is hard enough when you know exactly where they are. And I know it's been too long. They'll have closed it by now. But I keep trying. Sliding my hand through the air.

I was so close to them. So close to Annalise.

'Shit, shit and fuck!'

I try again and again.

Nesbitt drops beside me, breathing heavily.

It doesn't matter that we were right behind them. The cut is closed.

They're gone.

every second is precious.

It's raining heavily as me and Nesbitt walk back to the camp. Celia and Adele are there, cautiously walking around. Donna is standing by one of the tents. She looks sombre. Everyone is quiet, taking it all in: death and destruction, and the ground turning to mud. I go to Kirsty. Gabriel's jacket covers the top half of her body; one of her legs is bloodied and bent horribly.

Gabriel is sheltering under a tree. I tell him, 'Van's dead.'

'Yes. But we can't move her. Can't bury her. Can't even put a blanket over her in case her body has been booby-trapped.' He looks up at me and asks, 'How can people do this?'

And I think of the Hunters I killed in their sleep and say, 'I don't know.'

But I know how to do it, how to be a brute, and Gabriel's done plenty of it himself. And then I realize that's what he's thinking: that we've done this before, he's done it before killed groups of Hunters and left ten or twenty bodies.

'And Annalise?' Gabriel asks.

'She's alive. I saw her in the distance. They've taken her prisoner.'

'Or just taken her,' Gabriel says.

And I know he's right. She'll either be chained and tortured, or showered with praise and glory: a prisoner or a hero. But much as I hate her I still don't believe she's Soul's spy.

Gabriel says, 'Let's go away. Leave. Now. There's nothing to keep us here.'

And maybe the sensible thing is to walk away but I'm not sure where I'd go. And much as I want to live in a quiet place by a river, to do that while Soul carries on killing and torturing doesn't seem possible. This is about more than Annalise; it's about Soul and his system of persecution and terror.

Celia comes to stand by us and asks what I've seen. I tell her about Annalise and how close we were to the Hunters.

'Did they see you?' Celia asks.

'No. I was invisible.' But then I add, 'Nesbitt wasn't. They might have seen him. I don't think so but ...'

Celia rubs her face and looks around, saying, 'They can't have planned to come back or they wouldn't have closed the cut. But, still, if they did see Nesbitt or hear the explosion ... We need to leave anyway. There's nothing we can do here.'

Me and Gabriel go to find Nesbitt. He's sitting on the ground by Van. I crouch down on the other side of her body and glance at him, expecting to see tears, but there are none. The rain on Van's face makes it look like it's her who's crying.

I remember the first time I saw her, at the house in Geneva when I thought she was a man. She was always so beautiful: stunning, literally breathtaking at times. So sharp and quick and clever. And I remember the stakes and potions she made to help Gabriel recover from being stuck as a fain. How cool she was in that whole process. And then with Pilot and Mercury and with Annalise too. She was always calm and calculating, but also wise and funny. And now she's nothing. She'll be pecked at by birds, eaten by insects. And the Alliance has lost another important person. Another Black Witch gone. Another witch with huge power and it's all lost, lost to the Alliance and lost to the world. And instead all we have is a corpse lying in the mud. There is only Soul to blame for this. He's to blame for it all: for my father's death, for driving Annalise and me apart, for the deaths of so many Black and White Witches. Soul is the root of the problem.

Adele comes and says, 'Celia says we have to move out. Now.' And Gabriel and I go with her, leaving Nesbitt alone with Van for the last time. Celia is waiting at the side of the camp near where we entered it. She looks impatient.

Gabriel says, 'Nesbitt's just coming.' But I know he won't want to leave Van. It's not good having to rush away.

'Have you seen Donna?' Celia asks.

'Not for a while,' Gabriel replies.

We stand there and wait. No one comes. Celia mutters something about discipline.

'What do you want to do?' Gabriel asks her.

'I want us to leave five minutes ago.' Celia shakes her head. 'Gabriel, go and find Donna. She can't be far. Nathan, tell Nesbitt we're going. We leave in ten minutes, with or without them.'

I trudge back towards Van's body and am not surprised to see Nesbitt still by her side.

I tell him, 'We have to go.'

He leans over Van and says something to her quietly. I step back, not wanting to hear. Then he stands but keeps his back to me. I think he's crying again.

I tell him, 'Donna's disappeared. We need to find her.'

Nesbitt says, 'I saw her a few minutes ago. This way.' And he sets off into the trees, scanning the ground. I think he's looking for her tracks.

'What do you think?' I ask him. 'Has she run off?'

'Wouldn't blame her. She's hardly been welcomed into the Alliance and now she's seen that this is what's in store for her if she's given the grand honour of joining ...'

We reach the edge of the trees the way the Hunters went.

'You don't think they're back already, do you?' Nesbitt asks, looking to the distant hillside.

'They closed the cut. They can't get back so quickly.'

But I'm wondering if they have another cut, or if the cut they went through only took them a mile or two away and they're already on their way back.

Nesbitt curses the Hunters under his breath.

'We need to find Donna,' I remind him.

'She was here.' He points at the ground and I see the smudge of a trainer print. 'But ...' He glances up and around and says, 'She could be anywhere by now.'