When they got there, she froze. “Shit.”
At first, Noah thought it was the door she was swearing about. Locked, probably. Fucking up their plans even more.
But then he looked down behind the counter.
A skeleton stared up at him.
No. Two skeletons. Adult and child.
Looked like they’d been here a while.
Bulletholes in their heads.
“And the door’s locked too. Fuck.”
Noah’s stomach sank. He looked around. Saw the shadows of the approaching Society guards. “I told you this was a shit idea.”
“Can we just do something?” Iqrah shouted. Her heart racing. Her voice cracking. Desperate in her blindness. “Please. I’m scared. I don’t want to go back. Don’t let them take me back. Please.”
Noah pushed Kirsty aside. “Let me try that.”
He grabbed the handle to the door. Tried to open it.
Locked.
“Shit.”
“Yeah, like I said,” Kirsty said. “What’s up with that? Didn’t believe me?”
He stood there with Iqrah over his aching shoulder, those footsteps getting closer, and he wondered if he could tap into that place inside. If Iqrah still had the energy to tap into it, too.
The virus.
He didn’t know how it worked.
Only that they could harness it.
Together, they could harness it.
“Noah?” Kirsty said. “What… what the hell are we going to do?”
Noah looked at Iqrah.
And as much as his head ached, as much as he felt weak, as much as he tasted blood across his lips, he knew there was only one thing he could try now.
“We’re going to have to try, Iqrah,” he said.
Kirsty frowned. “What?”
“Get down,” Noah said. “Seriously. Just get down. If this works… we’ll be okay.”
“If what works?”
“Just…”
He didn’t get to finish.
The Society guards stepped inside the antique shop.
All four of them stood there. Rifles in hand. Hard to see their faces behind those masks. But he could tell from the wrinkles around the lead guy’s eyes that he was enjoying this.
“Well, well,” he said. “Noah. Iqrah. Definitely match the descriptions. At least from what I can see.”
Bruno kicked back. Growled.
They took a few steps forwards. Rifles raised.
“Tell you what we’re gonna do here. You two are gonna step out. Your friends here, well… they’re gonna have to join you, too. But I can’t promise we’ll be as easy on them. I just wanna level with you, pal. It’s not personal, alright?”
Noah watched these Society guards enter the shop. He tried to focus on that place within him. Tried to hone in on the void. But it still felt distant. And he felt exhausted.
And even worse than that… he couldn’t sense Iqrah anywhere close.
He couldn’t feel her like he’d felt her at Blackpool, or in the Folkesmithe labs that day.
The Society guards stepped further into the antique shop. Held their rifles out. “Come on,” the leader said. “Get from behind that counter right this second or I might have to put a bullet in your mutt. Understand?”
“Leave my dog out of this.”
The man laughed. “Ah. There it is. Knew there was a bit of passion in there somewhere. So what’s it gonna be?”
Noah clenched his fist.
He looked at Iqrah’s distant, blind eyes.
Then over at Kirsty, who crouched behind him, holding on to Bruno.
What’s it gonna be?
He didn’t want those two to get hurt.
But he didn’t want Iqrah to get hurt, either.
He knew they were crucial to the recovery efforts, the pair of them.
He knew they were both important.
So maybe he had to try something different.
Maybe he had to try something else entirely.
He looked into Kirsty’s eyes.
And as hard as it was, as goddamned impossible as it was, he said the words he knew he needed to say.
“Look after her, okay?”
Kirsty frowned. “What—”
“Not gonna co-operate?” the man barked. “Ah, well. Can’t say we didn’t try.”
He pulled the trigger.
Noah felt something hit his chest.
But it didn’t feel like a gunshot.
More like a stabbing pain.
More like a…
He looked at his chest and saw the fluffy end of a dart poking out.
He looked up at the Society guard. Into his smiling eyes.
“No,” he said. “N…”
His legs turned to jelly as he tried to stumble away. He clutched on to Iqrah, but his grip was loosening. He fell, smacked his head against the shop counter, and tumbled to the floor, Iqrah rolling to his side.
He stretched out his hand, but it felt like wading through tar. His entire body going cold. Pins and needles everywhere, swallowing him whole. Iqrah saying things. Kirsty saying things too; things he couldn’t hear.
He stretched out and felt Iqrah’s arm against his fingertips.
“It’ll be okay,” he said. “It’ll be…”
That’s when he saw the dart pierce Iqrah’s back.
When he saw her distant eyes widen.
When he saw her start to struggle, then scream.
And then everything turned to darkness.
Chapter Fourteen
Noah opened his eyes.
A sharp pain splitting through his skull.
The taste of blood on his lips.
A sense that something had happened. Something he couldn’t put his finger on. Something he couldn’t explain.
He looked around and saw nothing but darkness.
The memories came back to him. Fleeing the Society guards. Racing to the back of the antique store. Turning around and finding the Society guards entering the store, guns raised.
And then he and Iqrah being pelted with darts.
After that, darkness.
His heart raced. He felt like he was moving, like he was in some kind of vehicle. He had no idea whether it was dark because something had happened—something like what’d happened to Iqrah. Losing her sight. Ending up blind.
His stomach turned every time he thought of Iqrah. He didn’t know where she was. Didn’t know what’d happened to her.
He just prayed she was okay, and that she was close.
“Iq… Iqrah?” he called.
His throat was raspy. Felt like he’d swallowed a bunch of daggers. He started coughing, leaning forward, only to be pelted back against the wall of whatever he was in—a vehicle, no doubt. Moving along some road.
He tried to move his hand, but it was cuffed at the wrist.
He sat there in the back of this vehicle and thought of all the ways he could try and get out
