Jack leaned over the handrail and dipped both hands into the cold water. The ice was already turning slushy without the ice woman there to tend it, and as Jack heated the water from one of his inner suns, the boat drifted away from the floe’s grasp. Breezer started the engine and reversed the boat, aiming for the gentle arch closer to the north bank.
Jack sat close to Fleeter and looked back at the others. They were sitting close, talking quietly, tending cuts and bruises and trying to move on from the tense confrontation. Rhali more than anyone seemed quite calm, but she had not seen what Reaper could do. And what she had been through was worse than anything he could have dreamed up.
“So,” Jack said.
He heard Fleeter laugh softly, but they sat almost back to back. He knew that sometimes it was easier to speak honestly when you did not have to look someone in the face.
“So,” Fleeter said, “Reaper was telling the truth. I’ve been following you ever since I got back from taking your mother and sister out of London. And though a big part of why I did so was because Reaper asked me, because he likes control and, well, I think somewhere inside he still cares a little…I also followed you for myself.”
Jack wasn’t sure what she meant. She’d flirted with him, but he’d put it down to her seeking a measure of control more than anything else. “For yourself?” he asked.
She laughed again, and this time it sounded more heartfelt. “Don’t flatter yourself. Well, maybe you’re a cutie, Jack. Maybe you are. But I know you’ve got a good heart, and you’ve seen what I can do, and what I’ve done. I know you’re still beating yourself up about those Choppers you had to kill. I must be a monster to you.”
“No,” Jack began, but Fleeter turned around and grabbed his shoulder, hard enough to hurt. She pulled him around to face her. She was serious. Even behind the omnipresent smile, she was as serious as he’d ever seen her.
“I saw outside,” she said. Her eyes went wide like a kid seeing Disneyworld for the first time. “When I took them through there was a sense of…release. Even though there were still houses and streets where we came out, it all felt so different. It felt like another world because it was another world, and I knew that. And for the first time in a long while I allowed myself to…to remember.”
She trailed off, but Jack did not prompt her. This was a story she had to tell in her own time.
“Almost as soon as Doomsday happened, my life became a dream,” she said. “I’ve always been a daydreamer. When I was a kid my mother said I’d sit in the garden with my dolls and plastic animals and…just…disappear. Into my own world. She told me she used to worry about it, but then she started seeing it as something wonderful. I’d sit there for hours just playing, totally immersed in my imagination, and those dolls and animals would come to life. She timed me once, and I was there for almost three hours without looking up. And when I did look up she said I looked blank, blinking, wondering where I was. Then I smiled at her…at my mummy…and…”
There were tears in her eyes, but she seemed unaware.
“Guiding your mother and Emily out of London reminded me of the world I’ve forgotten,” she said. “Reaper took me in and made me what I am.” She frowned, shook her head. “No. He showed me the way. What I became was all my fault. But under his wing I forgot my mother and my brother, and London became my whole world. Coming back in yesterday, leaving your mother and sister out there, free, in the world I’ve forgotten…that made me realise I’ve been living in a dream. For the last two years, with Reaper and the others, doing what I do and seeing what I’ve seen. All of it has been a dream.”
“And you’re waking up,” Jack said.
“No, Jack,” Fleeter said. “But at least I know I’m dreaming. Helping you get back to your family, helping you all…perhaps that’ll give me a chance to wake.”
Jack could have asked Breezer to use his own talent to probe inward, discover Fleeter’s truths. And Jack thought he could have also done so himself. But he thought this was something that demanded trust.
“Thank you,” he said, and he meant it.
“Don’t thank me yet.” She shrugged. “I know he’s your father, and there’s more of that left in him than you give him credit for. But Reaper’s a mean bastard. No saying what he’ll do next.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jack said. “Not as if we haven’t already got stuff keeping us on our toes.”
She laughed again, and Jack prodded her shoulder, a friendly nudge. He might have hit Sparky in the same way. Something told him that Fleeter was not the hugging kind.
CHAPTER NINE
EIGHT
They moored the boat and disappeared into an Italian restaurant on the riverfront, gathering in the kitchen, and their mood was dour. Few words were exchanged. They had to formulate a plan, but their futures looked so bleak that no one knew where to begin.
Breezer decided to leave. Jack asked him to stay, but he only shook his head, defeated. “I have friends,” he said. “People who’ve looked up to me for too long for me to abandon them now. I want to be with them when…at the end.”
“You can’t just give up!” Jack said.
“You can’t,” Breezer replied. “Jack, you can get your friends out easily. With the abilities you have, and with her.” He nodded at Fleeter. She sat apart from the others, quiet and still.
“There’s no way I’ll do that and leave everyone else to die,” Jack said. But the harsh idea had already crossed his mind. Around eight hours until the bomb exploded, and soon would come the cut-off time for him and the others to escape London. Before then they’d have a chance, and Breezer was right—Jack could get them out. After that point, they’d have run out of time to flee. He didn’t know the extent of the damage the bomb would cause, but the Exclusion Zone formed the boundary they had to cross.
The thought of running, and failing everyone in London, was terrible. Jack’s abilities gave him a sense of responsibility which he couldn’t shake. When the time came, perhaps he would send Fleeter out with his friends. But he could never leave. Nomad’s touch had made him a part of what London had become, whether that city’s doom was sealed or not.
“We can’t just give up,” he said to Breezer. This time it sounded like a plea. The others were watching, and Jenna stood close to Jack, supporting him with her strong silence.
“We rush the Exclusion Zone, they cut us down,” Breezer said. “We stay here, we’re toast.”
“Something will happen,” Jack said. “I’ll make something happen. See the truth in what I say. It’s what you do, so see it!”
Breezer sighed, eyelids drooping. “I see that you want it to be the truth,” he said. “You’re a good kid, Jack.”
“So don’t just sit down and die!” Jack said. “You’ve already spread the word to get as many as you can to Heron Tower. So now go back there and take them west.”
“And then?” Breezer asked.
“One way or another, we’ll march out of London. And if we have to fight our way out, so be it. Better than just waiting for the bomb.”
Breezer sighed, nodded. He seemed relieved to have had the weight of decision taken from his own shoulders.
“Good luck,” Breezer said. He shook Jack’s hand. “You and your friends…you’re pretty amazing. I’ll see you in the west. We’ll wait somewhere near Chiswick.”