London Eye: 1 (Toxic City)(51)

“And Reaper?” he said, looking at Rosemary again. “My father?”

“Your father,” she nodded. “Jack—”

“Please, just tell me the basics.” He kept his voice down because he did not want Emily hearing any painful truths, not yet. Not so soon after seeing people killed. And not from anyone but him.

“The Superiors are Irregulars who have utterly embraced their powers.” Rosemary sighed. “They shun everyone else, spurn humanity, and see themselves as the future. They set themselves apart. As you've seen, they can be brutal, and they're driven. There are those who say they have plans—escape, domination, control—but that their powers haven't yet developed enough to implement them.” She looked down at her feet.

“And?”

“And Reaper is their leader.”

Leader? He blinked, trying to imagine his father—softly spoken, tall, and loving—resembling Puppeteer in manner or intent. “What can he do?”

“He kills people with his voice.”

“He's killed people? What does—”

“I told you there's no time right now! Jenna needs help, and soon. Let me go, Jack. Please.”

He lowered his head. Without another word, and without a backward glance, Rosemary left. Jack wondered what she felt most: guilt, or relief.

Back in the living room, Emily and Sparky glanced up when he entered, and perhaps they read something else in his grave expression.

“Is Jenna going to die?” Emily asked.

“No!” Sparky said, and he had truly returned, Jack's angry, wonderful friend. “No, she isn't! Not on my bloody watch.” He sat next to Jenna on the sofa and took her hand. “You die, you'll have me to answer to.” Only death would make him let go.

Jack shook his head. “Rosemary's going to do her best,” he said. And though there was so much more to tell, he did not have the energy to do so right then.

“I'm hungry,” Emily said, and Jack realised that he was as well. However ridiculous that it may have seemed after what they had been through, and what they had seen, hunger gnawed at his stomach. He looked at Jenna's constant pained movements, her blood, her pale face, and he left the room to find the kitchen.

Jack felt dizzy. He leaned against the worktop and pressed his hands to the surface, casting prints in dust. Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes and tried to see past what had happened. But all he could see was red. It's much worse than we ever thought it could be, he thought. So much worse.

“Is it a war?” Emily said quietly. She'd crept in behind him, and Jack turned and hugged her to him, resting his chin on top of her head.

“I think so,” he said. “And I'm not sure anymore that we've done the right thing. Jenna might be…” He gasped, unable to say the word. “And Lucy-Anne's gone, none of us know where, none of us have any idea what's happened to her, who's got her, where she is…” He cursed, and this time it was Emily's turn to hold him. “I just can't believe it's all gone so bad like this!” he growled, and every word hammered the guilt deeper.

“It's not your fault,” Emily said. “It's their fault.” Them, they, their, he and his friends had used those words so much to signify the devious government and military that perpetuated the myth of a dead, toxic London, and Jack had never been sure that Emily knew exactly who or what they were. Now he was sure, and he felt ashamed at ever doubting her.

“I don't want any more people to die,” he said.

“Mum and Dad?” Emily asked quietly.

“They're alive, Emily.”

She pulled back and looked him in the eye, picking up on his hesitation. “Rosemary told you?”

“Yeah. Mum's a healer, like her.”

“And Dad?” she asked, his beautiful little sister, wide-eyed and confused.

“Alive, but she doesn't know him.” He couldn't tell her yet. There was so much he didn't even know himself.

“Then that's good, isn't it?”

“Yeah, Ems, it's good.”

“Don't call me Ems, Tobes.”

“Whatcha gonna do about it?”

Emily hugged him again, and they stood together in the kitchen of a dead stranger's house.

They looked around for some food, but there was nothing here to eat. If Rosemary and some of her friends used this as a safe house, they certainly didn't keep it stocked. They did find some bottled water, however, and they all swigged down most of a bottle each. Sparky gently lifted Jenna's head, while Emily poured some into her mouth, but it dribbled out when she winced in pain, soaking her neck and the sofa beneath her.