“We can’t just let him,” Sparky said. “That’s stupid! We can’t just let him.”
“He’s already there,” Jenna said. “Between one blink and the next, he’s gone to the museum.”
And he’s already dreaming, Lucy-Anne thought. Jenna was looking at her, the saddest smile she’d ever seen on her friend’s face. Lucy-Anne nodded gently, trying not to disturb her wounds. Dreaming us safe.
“Well, he’s a fool,” Reaper said, standing, turning to go, and then Sparky was on him, knocking him to the ground and punching with fists and forearms. Lucy-Anne wanted to shout for Sparky but she could not, so she had to sit and watch.
Reaper shrugged him off and Sparky sprang up, pouncing again as soon as Reaper tried to stand. They rolled into a table and sent chairs spilling, glasses smashing to the floor, drinks cans adding their own hollow shouts to the fight.
Reaper growled. The ground vibrated, and Lucy-Anne groaned aloud, standing and staggering towards the fight. Jenna grabbed her arm and held her back.
Andrew appeared from the shadows and smiled at Lucy-Anne. “You’re going to be safe,” he said, voice carrying above the struggling boy and man.
Reaper shouted. A window cracked somewhere, a bottle shattered somewhere else. Sparky stood, panting, hands still fisted by his sides.
Reaper stood as well, but he did not shout again. He did not say a word. Lucy-Anne wasn’t sure whether he was able to roar anymore, or whether he chose not to. But he sat down again and looked down at his hands, and the rosettes of blood dripping onto them from his bloodied nose.
“Your son is not a fool!” Sparky said. “Get it? D’you get that, you bloody superior dickhead?”
Reaper did not respond.
“He’s as far from a fool as anyone I’ve ever known,” Jenna said. “You know what he’s doing, and why?”
“Trying to stop the bomb,” Reaper said.
“That’s only a part of it!” Jenna said.
Lucy-Anne frowned, confused. Only part of it?
“He’s seen what Evolve can do,” Jenna said. “The talents it gives; they’re amazing, and deadly. Who knows if anyone will find a cure to the illness, even if the survivors are welcomed outside London? Who knows anything? But he’s also seen the terrible things it can do, too. Like you, Reaper. His father, the man he loved and respected and looked up to. The man he waited two years to find, and who he talked about every single day of those two years. And when he found him, Evolve had turned him into a murdering bastard. Someone who thought he was special, and superior to everyone else. And no one is better than anyone else. Jack knows that. And what Nomad gave him—the ability to spread the infection, and give it to other people—he knows the world isn’t ready for that. It wasn’t ready when Nomad spread Evolve, and it isn’t ready now. I asked him. I wanted him to give me something to help, but he refused. And I’m glad he refused, because now I know why. It’s because he loves me.”
Reaper was still looking at his hands. There was fresh blood on them now, and it was his own.
“He’s the only one who isn’t a fool,” Jenna said. “And the best way to honour him is to survive.”
“You’re talking like he’s already dead,” Sparky said quietly.
“He is,” Lucy-Anne said. It hurt to speak, but she had to make herself heard. “To us…he is.” She was crying. The tears touched her wounds—those injuries that Jack had also touched to take away the terrible pain—and made them sting. She was glad.
“We’re leaving,” Jenna said to Reaper. “And because despite everything I think Jack still held out a spark of hope for you, I’m inviting you to come with us. To be who you were before, not who you’ve become.”
Lucy-Anne expected Sparky to object, but he merely stood to one side, head bowed. Remembering his friend.
“Andrew…” Lucy-Anne said, and she pointed across the darkened room.
“I will guide you out,” Andrew said. “I’ve been to the west, and hundreds are gathering there already. But we have to go now.”
Leaving blood and tears behind, they left.
They headed west. It was almost eleven p.m., and London’s silent streets were as haunting as ever. But with Andrew leading them, Lucy-Anne felt a flush of confidence. The fear was still present—she thought that she would always be afraid, and the dark places she’d seen would remain as shadowy echoes in her soul—but alongside was confidence that they would make it. They had to. They could not let Jack’s sacrifice be in vain.
She walked with the help of her friends. Sometimes she seemed to float, as if the weakness and pain from her injuries caused a kind of delirium in her. Other times, she thought perhaps Jack had done something to help keep her going, for a time at least.
Close to the river, Andrew whispered a warning and they left the street, hiding down a narrow alleyway between tall buildings. Sparky and Jenna knelt before Lucy-Anne and soothed her, protecting her with their bodies. Every time they looked at her she saw her injuries reflected in their expressions. They couldn’t help it. She was never once tempted to put her hands to her face.
She swallowed blood. It ran past the hole Nomad had punched in her throat, and each breath she took was thanks to that woman. But every bad thing that had happened to them all was also thanks to Nomad. Lucy-Anne didn’t know what to think about her, so she tried not to think at all.
Something passed the end of the alley, and a dreadful smell wafted along to them. They looked at each other but did not speak. They had no wish to attract the attention of whatever could make such a stench.
Lucy-Anne did not notice the point at which Reaper and Haru drifted away. They’d left the club with them and followed, hanging back a little and yet still obviously a part of their small group. No one had spoken to either of them, and they had remained silent. But when they crossed the river at Battersea, the Superiors were gone. No one commented. But Lucy-Anne was a little sad, because she’d harboured a vague hope that Reaper might redeem himself. Help them escape, show that he cared in some way. It was the least he could do for Jack.
Sparky kept looking at his watch, worried, but Andrew simply drifted on. They could not move any faster than they were.
They met the first of the people at West Kensington. Irregulars, they huddled down in a small park and watched them pass by.
“Come on!” Sparky called to them. “Hurry up! We’ve got ’til midnight.” They did not emerge again, but Lucy-Anne hoped that they would follow.
There were more people in Chiswick, and here they met a group of people who directed them to Breezer. He was waiting for them outside a ruined pub, a table set on the pavement before him filled with canned drinks and crisps. He looked around for Jack, raised his eyebrows, but no one felt like telling him. Verbalising what was happening would have made it all so much worse, and they needed all their strength to get out of London.
“I waited for you,” he said. “Hundreds have passed me already, on their way out. I gathered as many as I could, spread the word as far as possible. And I’ve seen some of those things, too. From the north. We won’t be the only ones leaving London tonight.”
Those monsters outside London, Lucy-Anne thought, shivering.
But she wondered how well even the Irregulars would fit in, and whether they would be allowed. She imagined fenced fields with hundreds of people wandering aimlessly inside, guarded by watchtowers and machine-gun nests. She pictured huge labs built in warehouses, and people strapped down while scientists in Chopper colours took their blood and cut them up, examining their muscles, their bones, their brains. She saw a dozen children in a metal storage container, dirty with their own filth and crying for parents who would never come.