Contagion (Toxic City, #3)(54)

The stench of death. And the heat, for all he knew, of hell.

“I was wrong,” Reaper said.

“What?” Jack said, aghast.

“I was—”

“I heard what you said!” He could barely even look at the man. Frightening, powerful, inhuman, to hear him utter such words disturbed Jack as much as anything else. It made him realise how much was changing, and how useless everything had become.

“So now what?” Sparky said. “I mean, thanks for sorting me out, mate. And for Lucy-Anne…for doing as much as you can for her. But now what? Rhali's gone. Your charming dad's gang are mostly dead or gone. Apart from Mrs. Frost there. And Hayden's had his brains blown out.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I know all that.”

“So you've got a plan?” Sparky said. “Cos we're shit out of time.”

“No plan,” Jack said. “Other than, just…” He shrugged, because what he was going to suggest was no plan at all.

“What?” Sparky asked. “Tell us. You sound like you've given up, and you can't sound like that. I won't let you.”

“You saved us all back there,” Jenna said, and she cut straight to the core of what was torturing Jack. Not the bomb, or Hayden's death, or even Rhali's disappearance. It was the fact that he had killed again that made everything seem so pointless. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn't alter the way he thought. Even if everything worked out fine, he had killed to make it happen. A world where that was the price was perhaps not a world worth saving.

“Maybe,” Jack said. “Or perhaps I just made your pain go on a little longer.”

“What, you wish we'd all been killed?” Jenna asked.

“Screw that,” Sparky said. “And screw you. I'm going for the bomb even if you're not.”

“Me too,” Jenna said. She was sitting beside Sparky, grasping his hand tightly in hers as if she would never again let him go.

“I'm so scared of myself,” Jack said. He looked at Nomad but she was still slumped beside Lucy-Anne, as if echoing the girl's state. He'd started to hate the woman for what she'd turned him into. His gifts should have brought only good, but instead he'd become a killer.

Just like his father.

“Are you scared of me?” he asked Reaper.

“I'm scared for you,” Reaper replied. He looked like Jack's father, but that was because he was trying. Stripped of his power, he was using other means to advance whatever his cause might be. Give him his powers again and he'll be as much a monster as ever, Jack thought. He snorted and turned away.

Lucy-Anne was looking at him. He caught his breath and went to her, and when they saw she was awake the others gathered around as well. Sparky held Jack's arm and Jenna pressed close to him, and he had to fight back a sob. His friends were loyal, and close, and there was nothing he wouldn't do for them.

Nothing.

Giving up could never be an option.

Lucy-Anne was trying to speak, and Jack could see the pain it caused her. They'd dressed some of her wounds with napkins, and Jack had stopped the worst of the bleeding. But the structural damage to her face was appalling.

“Don't try to speak,” Jenna said, but Lucy-Anne grabbed at her friend's jacket and squeezed tight, clenching her fist against the pain.

“Gu…idee…”

“Got an idea?” Jenna asked.

Lucy-Anne nodded.

“I'll get you a pencil and paper,” Sparky said. “Hold on. Hold on!”

An idea. Jack and Lucy-Anne looked at each other, and he wished he could pluck the idea from her mind. Wished it was that easy.

Sparky returned.

As Lucy-Anne began to write her idea down, Jack was still dwelling on that thought.

Pluck the idea from her mind…

The pain was part of her dream, and in the strange places she wandered, no one knew what she was trying to say. The London of her dreamscape had a bland, washed-out look—all colour was bleached, the sky was a monotone grey, and the parks and avenues were filled with the memories of trees. People walked the streets, but their expressions were neutral. Even when Lucy-Anne tried speaking to them, they only broke into slight frowns. Children walked with parents without being naughty, or inquisitive, or children at all. The River Thames did not flow.

The only splash of colour and life was the woman she was following along the South Bank. Nomad! she tried shouting, but the woman did not seem to hear. Either that or Lucy-Anne's voice was not working, because she could not hear herself.

I was shot. I can see, but not smell or taste. I can feel and wish I couldn't. Some of this is true.

So she ran after Nomad instead, sprinting through her dream of a London that never was, and each footfall jarred up through her body and reminded her of the pain.

Nomad turned, smiled, and Lucy-Anne imagined them meeting and embracing and the bomb not exploding.

She approached Nomad and held out her arms, and the woman raised her eyebrows in surprise. They embraced. I think this is something I can do, for a while, Lucy-Anne said.

When she opened her eyes she was talking to herself, and that grey London was deserted. But it was still there. No heat blast, no mushroom cloud, and a future that might just be malleable, for a time at least.

Maybe for long enough.