Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(29)

There was a tattoo on the back of his neck. A snarling wolf. Joan gasped. She’d seen that wolf before. The man in the maze had had the same tattoo.

This man turned fast, perhaps feeling the cool air on his neck. He reached for Joan, but she was already propelling herself into the crowd. She could hear him struggling after her as she muscled herself through the crush of people to the low fence that cut off the memorial from the road.

‘Stay behind the barricades!’ a cop shouted.

Joan leaped over the barricade, ignoring the ‘Oi!’ behind her. She sprinted across the street. Here the crowd was even more dense. People were pressed ten deep, right up against the palace fence.

Someone grabbed Joan’s arm. She threw a wild punch.

‘It’s me! It’s me!’ Aaron looked weirdly dishevelled. He’d lost the floppy hat somewhere. He dragged her farther into the crowd, toward the fence.

‘They’re here!’ Joan said. She looked over her shoulder, trying to pick them out from the crowd. ‘They’re here!’

‘I know.’ Aaron’s grip tightened painfully around Joan’s arm. ‘Do you have enough time to go?’

‘I don’t know.’ Was Nick here? Joan couldn’t see the man with the tattoo. She couldn’t see Nick.

Aaron’s grip shifted so that he and Joan were holding hands. It surprised Joan enough that she turned back to him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘We have to leave now!’

‘But . . . I don’t know if I’ve taken enough time.’

‘Look. There.’ Aaron pointed. He sounded as scared as Joan felt. ‘There. There.’ People jumped over the barricades and ran toward them. A pack of wolves converging. ‘I’ll do destination,’ Aaron said, ‘but you have to jump too. As long as we’re holding hands, we’ll go together. Are you ready?’

Joan nodded, even though she had no idea what she was actually supposed to do.

‘Okay, now,’ Aaron said.

Joan couldn’t take her eyes off the men running toward them. Aaron had said to jump. She imagined herself jumping. Nothing happened.

‘Do it!’ Aaron said. ‘They’re coming!’

Joan visualised jumping again. Nothing happened.

‘I’m doing the hard part!’ Aaron said. ‘You just have to jump!’

Joan jumped for real, jostling everyone around her. People turned and stared.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Aaron said.

‘You said to jump.’

‘Through time!’

Joan heard herself make a sound that might have been a laugh and might just have been terror. She thought frantically back to that morning with Mr Solt, when he’d pushed her and day had turned into night. She couldn’t remember doing anything—it had just happened. Nick’s people were in the crowd now. Joan still couldn’t see Nick. ‘You need to go without me,’ she said.

‘Don’t be stupid!’ Aaron said. ‘Jump!’

‘I don’t know how!’

‘You annoying, backward, time-mired Hunt. Jump!’

She imagined jumping again. Nothing. ‘You have to go!’ she said. ‘They’re almost here!’

‘Look at me,’ Aaron said.

‘It’s too late!’ The sword wound in Joan’s side ached: a reminder of how much this was going to hurt. ‘You have to go!’

‘Don’t look at them,’ Aaron said. ‘Look at me.’

Joan swallowed and lifted her head to look at him.

‘You can do this,’ Aaron said. His face was very serious. His eyes were grey, Joan thought distantly. Like the sky before rain. ‘You’ve done it before. You know how.’

‘I really don’t,’ Joan whispered. Oh God, there were more people leaping over the barricades now. ‘Aaron, you have to go.’

‘Look at me,’ Aaron said. Joan forced her gaze back to him. ‘Yeah, just like that. Tell me why you were working at Holland House.’

‘What? What are you talking about? Holland House?’

‘You volunteered at Holland House.’ Aaron seemed so calm. ‘Why?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Just think,’ Aaron said. ‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Joan took a breath. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know, okay? I just did. I like history.’

‘You like history.’

‘Yes,’ Joan said impatiently. ‘Aaron, they’re coming.’

‘You liked the re-creations of history at the house,’ Aaron said.

‘Yes. I—yes.’

‘Holland House showed you another time,’ Aaron said. ‘And you were drawn to it. It wasn’t the real thing. It was just a cardboard cut-out, but it was as close as you could get to being in another time.’

Joan stared at him. She remembered the first time she’d walked into the house. She’d loved it—immediately and irrationally. It had been restored to its Georgian heyday, and Joan had felt as though she’d stepped into another time.

‘Travelling to other times is your birthright, Joan,’ Aaron said. ‘It’s in your blood. You’ve been stuck here a long time, but you don’t have to be. Remember the feeling you had? When you first walked into the house. Do you remember?’