Contagion

“Oh, Jack,” Jenna said, and he was filled with admiration and love for his friend, because she knew him so well.

“What?” Sparky asked again, frustrated.

“You’re too badly hurt,” Jack said to Lucy-Anne. He knelt before her and held her reaching hand between his own. She was breathing heavily through a bloodied nose, her airways cleared now, the wound in her throat covered with a wadded napkin. Jack had been able to close that wound, at least.

“Oh,” Sparky said. “So…”

“So Jack’s going to do the dreaming,” Jenna said.

Lucy-Anne shook her head, then slumped against Jenna when the action made her dizzy. She groaned again. Jack held her to him, stroking her hair and enjoying the warmth of her. He’d held her like this many times before, but never would again.

“So we’ll have to arrange where to meet you,” Sparky said. “And how to get out of London without them doing to us what they did to Reaper’s lot.”

“I won’t be meeting you anywhere,” Jack said.

“Huh?”

Jenna started crying.

“Oh, no,” Sparky said. “No mate. Absolutely not. Not after everything. No way. Not if I have to pick you up and carry you myself.”

“And I won’t let you do that,” Jack said. He moved closer to Sparky and hugged him close. “There are other reasons,” he whispered in his friend’s ear. He let him go and looked at Jenna. She met his gaze and wiped her eyes. He could see that she hated this, but also that she knew he was doing something important, and that she could never stop him.

He could not tell her right now, because Nomad was here. He only hoped they would work it out.

“You’d better move,” he said.

“Jack—” Jenna began, but Jack held up one hand. If they started a long good-bye, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to go through with any of this.

“Just…kiss Emily for me.” He took a breath, thought of plenty more he wanted to say…and then flipped.

For one final moment before Nomad followed him through, he looked at the best friends of his life. Lucy- Anne looked wretched, but he hoped she would not bear any guilt for what was his own decision. She was damaged in many ways, but she was also a clever girl. She’d understand.

Jenna’s tears glittered on her cheeks and her fluid eyes reflected Jack’s image. She and Sparky had such a future together.

And Sparky, his big strong mate, so ready with a quip but so sensitive underneath. He might suffer the most over what was to come. But Jenna would tell him why. Jack was confident of that.

He’d told her enough for her to work out why.

Jack left the club without taking one final look at Reaper. He preferred to remember his father as he had been two years before, and he hoped he would have been proud.

Out in the silent, still streets he breathed in stale air and waited for Nomad to join him. She came moments later. Without a word they set off for the museum.

Perhaps she still believed this was not the end.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN ONE

Jack had soothed some of her pain, but Lucy-Anne could still feel the damage done to her face, and her friends’ expressions when they looked at her told her everything she needed to know.

But she did not care about that. Neither did she care about what Nomad had done to her, and why, though it showed once again that her dreams were ambiguous things.

She cared about Jack and what he had done. It had been her idea, and he had taken it away. Stolen it for himself. Lucy-Anne was the one who should have been in the museum with the bomb—her and Nomad—but now Andrew was with her again, and they were going to try to leave London at last.

Jack had been in her mind. He’d left a sense of himself behind, and it was an almost sensuous feeling, like the memory of a kiss or the promise of making love. She could not help feeling that she’d lost him again, but she would treasure what he had left behind. Maybe she could dream it afresh again and again.

“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.