Contagion (Toxic City, #3)(58)

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.

But when she spoke of her fears, it was her dead brother Andrew who went some way to laying them to rest.

“The word is out,” he said. “Your friend's sister and mother planted the seed, and there were so many ready to take it up.”

“Yes,” Sparky said. “We knew a lot of them. And so did Emily.”

“Thousands have approached London,” Andrew went on. “The military tried to stop them but couldn't. Press helicopters are barely being kept out of London's airspace. Camps have sprung up all around. The relatives of so many lost in London are there. Lots have come to find people who are already dust. But some of them…they'll recognise some of the people around us now. Mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, will be reunited soon, and no one will be able to keep them apart.”

“They'll be registered,” Jenna said, echoing some of Lucy-Anne's fears. But the girl seemed to hold more hope. “They'll have to be. And maybe they'll be kept in quarantine for a while. But when it's seen how ill so many Irregulars are, a cure will become the priority. And then after that, getting back to normal.”

“Or as normal as anything will ever be again,” Sparky said.

“There,” Breezer said, pointing ahead. “We're close. I've already been this far, but came back to meet up with you all.” They closed on Gunnersbury and the edges of the Exclusion Zone, and saw a haze of light in the distance. It lit the sky like the lights of a town, and aircraft buzzed to and fro within it.

“You?” Lucy-Anne asked Andrew. But she guessed she already knew the answer to that.

“I dreamed myself not dead for you, sis,” he said. “And I've done everything I stayed behind to do. It's down to you now. Survive. Do incredible things with your life. Be amazing. I know you will be.”

“Andrew?” she whispered, sad, resigned.

“Though I won't be there to see, think of me sometimes, won't you?”

Lucy-Anne nodded because she could not say anymore.

“Hey, er…” Sparky held out his hand, then lowered it again.

“Thanks,” Jenna said. “You'll be…?”


“Okay?” Andrew asked, smiling. “I'm already okay. No bomb can touch me.” He turned back to Lucy-Anne. “I'll wait here for a while longer, just to watch you go.” He drifted away from them, pausing beside a tumbled wall and becoming a part of the night.