He lowered the water bottle and wiped his lips. “Whatever it is you want, I want my Mum and Emily back. And we can help each other.”
Reaper was silent for a moment, still looking into his bottle. His confident smiled had dropped. For a long moment, not moving or talking, he was Jack’s father once more.
“I don’t need anyone’s help,” Reaper said. “A normal child’s least of all.”
“You know I’m not that,” Jack said. “Nomad touched me. Things are changing. I don’t know what the future might bring, but I want my family safe.”
“And you’re putting thoughts in my head,” Reaper said.
“Does it matter? It’s your reaction to them that’s important.”
“I have no reaction. I see strangers, that’s all. Strangers living normal, boring lives, with their normal, boring children. Pointless lives.”
Jack laughed out loud. Reaper, startled, growled softly, and Jack felt a massive unseen hand shove him back into his chair and against the wall. It hurt, but he laughed some more, somehow managing to fill his compressed lungs. I could fight back, he thought, circling constellations of power. But he chose not to. Fighting back would give Reaper what he wanted—simplicity. This was far more complex than power and strength.
“You think your family’s lives are pointless?” Jack asked, unbelieving. “What have you got? You live like a rat, you’re hunted by people who want to chop you to pieces to examine your brains. You think you’re special, but you’re more normal than anyone! Just a sad man who thinks power is his friend.”
Reaper’s growl increased, and the pressure shoving Jack against the wall intensified. One shout from the man and Jack would be a smear across the concrete. From living to dead in a blink. How everything he knew and was could be wiped out in an instant terrified him, but it also gave him more determination. His story was far from over, and he would not let the monster his father had become end it.
“And you’re my father,” he wheezed. “I’m not putting any thoughts into your head now, Dad. But what are you thinking when you see me? When I mention Mum and Emily? What are you thinking?”
Reaper grimaced, baring his teeth and leaning in over Jack as he prepared to unleash his killing shout. On the outside, he was farther away from his father than Jack had ever seen. But inside, something was changing.
Reaper eased back. He was breathing heavily, and he turned back to the bottle-strewn table, snatching up that whiskey bottle and drinking again.
Bloody hell, Jack thought, trying to halt his shaking. It was excitement as well as fear, and so he let it come.
“They’re probably dead already,” Reaper said.
“I can’t just assume that.”
“We don’t know where Camp H is.”
“I’m sure you have an idea,” Jack said. But Reaper shook his head.
“I’ve been trying to find out. But it’s protected. Choppers we capture can’t tell us. Whatever we do to them, they won’t divulge. I’ve asked them nicely. Beaten them. Burnt them. Sliced them up. But no one’s that well trained. Either they’ve never known where Miller’s base is, or they’ve had something done to them to make them forget.”
“And none of your Superiors can find it.” He tried not to inject a note of satisfaction into the statement, but it was difficult. Reaper positioned himself as a leader of superhumans, way above and beyond the sad remnants of humanity left in London. But here he was getting steadily drunk and admitting that there were simple acts beyond their means.
“We could if we really wanted to,” Reaper said. It sounded like schoolboy bluster, and it was Jack’s turn to snort.
“There really aren’t many of you, are there? A few of you living underground, planning grand schemes, killing a few soldiers here and there to make yourself feel important. Special.”
“Watch your tone, child.”
“I’m no child!” Jack whispered, and without even thinking he imbued those words with a hint of the power Reaper himself possessed. They became heavier, harder, seeming to travel farther, and by the time they were uttered they had picked up a deadly momentum. Reaper took a step back and dropped his bottle, and as it smashed at his feet, a dribble of blood ran from his nose.
Jack tried not to show his surprise at what he’d done. Now more than ever was the time to display complete, conscious control. Because this is the moment everything hinges on, he thought. Reaper can choose to fight back, and we’ll destroy each other in this room. Or Dad will make himself known.
But Reaper did neither. He smiled without threat or affection, and dabbed at the blood dribbling from his nose. Unbidden, a slew of memories came to Jack—this man as his father, doing fatherly things and being a solid core around which his life used to proceed. For the past two years that physical core had been absent, but Jack had been able to continue looking after his younger sister precisely because he kept hope alive that he would find his father and mother again. He had found both…yet they were both still lost to him.
“I’ve killed a hundred people for doing far less than that,” Reaper said.
“A fine lesson for a father to teach his son,” Jack said.
Reaper looked at his blood on his fingers, then up at Jack again. “So I assume you have a plan?”
“Of course,” Jack said. “You and the Irregulars, together.”
“They’ve suggested that before. But they’re no part of my life or outlook. Weak. Ineffectual.”
“And dying,” Jack said. “How about you and the Superiors? Any of you sick?”
“We’ve evolved way beyond human diseases,” Reaper said, and Jack could not read him at all.
“They might be weak, but they can help you find Camp H. You and them together. Pooling talents. Feeding off each other’s powers, instead of using them to repulse each other. You’ll be…the New.” Jack smiled, pleased at his moment of inspiration. “That’s what you’ll call yourselves. Work together to find Camp H, rescue Mum and Emily, and get us all out of the city. Then we blow the whistle on everything that’s been happening in London. It all changes. Exposure.”
Reaper said nothing, but he looked thoughtful.
“If everything stays as it is, everyone will die,” Jack said softly. “And death surely isn’t the only way out. The New, Dad. It’s the only way.”
Reaper nodded slowly. “If we do this—and that’s ‘if’—we’ll need to congregate without being seen.”
“Yes,” Jack said. “I’ve thought about that. And I’ve got it covered.”
“You have?” Reaper said. Well done, Son, Jack wanted him to continue. I’m proud of you, Jack. You’re grown into a strong young man, even though I wasn’t there to…
Jack glanced away, feeling tears threatening. When he looked back, Reaper was watching him, smiling.
“What?” Jack asked harshly.
“You’re interesting. Impressive. Maybe you’ll be as much a Superior as me.”
“No,” Jack said. “I might be able to do things, but you know what? I’m just a normal boy.”
He would have liked to believe that. As they left the room and Reaper spoke to a couple of his people, Jack did his best to find the truth in the statement. But when he knocked and entered the small room where Sparky and Jenna were resting, and saw them both glance up at him with momentary fear in their eyes, he knew that they had been talking about him, and that he was moving farther away from normal with every breath he drew.
CHAPTER NINE
THE WILD
Nomad never slept, but still she dreamed. These moments came at calmer times when she remained motionless for a while, letting her limbs and body settle and her mind wander. She would drift, and return, and she had always assumed that what she saw were echoes from her earlier life. Memories shaded by the change within her. She had been something far different before Evolve.