Never a Hero, page 27
Nick took a step toward her, and Joan couldn’t stop herself from stumbling back. Nick’s eyes widened. He stopped in his tracks, looking sick. “Are you scared of me?” he said. There was still blood on his mouth from where he’d been struck. Joan was horribly reminded of his torture in that chair. “You think I’d hurt you?”
“Do you . . .” Joan hesitated. Do you have any new memories along with those new abilities? “Do you feel like yourself?”
“Nothing’s changed for me,” Nick said softly. “I told you we’d just talk, and we will.”
Joan had meant it as a different question: Are you him? Do you remember? But she had her answer. This wasn’t him. The other Nick wasn’t anywhere anymore. She’d felt it from the moment she’d woken up in this new world—in the hollow absence inside her. The boy in front of her was still the new Nick, untrained and untortured.
Except . . . he’d caught Corvin’s punch. He’d torn a chain from the wall. He hadn’t just broken through the Argent power; he’d broken through to something else too. “Nick . . .”
“I’m myself,” Nick said now. “The Argent power’s gone. Joan . . . you said I’d hate you when the Argent power came off. I don’t. I . . .” He looked vulnerable suddenly. Uncertain. “All the things I said are still true.”
I could never hate you. It’s the opposite.
He couldn’t have meant that. Joan shook her head.
“I want to be with you.”
Joan felt like her heart was being crushed in her chest. All of this was so wrong. He had to hate her. She’d hidden the truth—that monsters stole human life. “I’m a monster,” she said to him. “I’m a monster.”
“I know,” he said softly. His hand twitched toward her and then back, as if it were killing him not to touch her. But she’d told him not to, and he’d never go against an instruction like that. “You told me that,” Nick reminded her. “You also told me that you don’t steal human life. You told me that you love your family even though you can’t stand what they do.”
Guilt sat heavily in the pit of her stomach. “I can’t . . . I don’t understand.”
“Don’t understand what?” he said gently.
“Why you’re still talking to me. Why . . .”
“I never want to stop talking to you,” Nick said. “Joan . . .” He took a step toward her, and his shoes crunched. He blinked down. Shattered stone lay at his feet. He hadn’t broken the chain itself; he’d pulled the anchoring ring from the fireplace wall, and bits of wall had come with it. “What . . .” He stared at the chain wound around his arm, tracking it to the ring. “I did that,” he said, but with a lifted note at the end as if he wasn’t sure of it.
Joan saw questions rise up in him. He was silent for a long moment. Then he said, as if feeling out the thought: “When we first met Jamie . . . he was afraid of me. Like you were afraid when I caught that punch. And then we got to the boathouse, and half that room was terrified. Of me. I couldn’t make sense of it. All those people with all those powers, and they were afraid of me.” He looked down again at the end of the chain, lying loose on the ground. For a second Nick looked scared—and lost. “Why were they afraid of me?”
“Nick . . .”
He waited, listening. His expression was the same one he’d had outside his house—like Joan was a lifeboat in an ocean.
“There was another timeline before this one,” she said.
“Another timeline?” Nick’s forehead creased.
“The Lius remember it, and so do I.”
“The Lius were afraid of me,” Nick said, realizing. “Only the Lius. They knew something about me . . .” Joan could see the wheels turning in his head. “What did they remember?” His gaze focused on Joan. “What am I?” His posture was stoic. He seemed braced for something terrible.
“You’re not a what,” Joan said.
“All right, then. Who am I? Who was I . . . ?” He stumbled over the words. “Who was I in that other timeline? Who was I that people are still afraid of me? That you’re afraid of me?”
Joan couldn’t help but react to that; her breath caught in her throat. He noticed it. Of course he did. It cut through her—the way he was looking at her. Joan was reminded as always of old comic-book heroes who protected the vulnerable and punished those who hurt them. She remembered the relief she’d felt when he’d rescued her from the Olivers that very first time.
“You were a hero,” Joan said. “Not just a hero. You were a legend. Like King Arthur.”
Nick went to laugh, but the uncertain amusement died on his face when he saw that Joan wasn’t laughing with him. “You can’t be serious,” he said.
“My grandmother used to tell me bedtime stories about you,” Joan said.
“People aren’t afraid of heroes.”
It wasn’t funny, but Joan heard her breath come out hard.
For a moment, he looked confused, and then understanding put a shadow in his eyes. “Monsters are.”
“You were a hero,” Joan said, needing him to understand. “You were more than just a hero. You were the hero. People told stories about you. Made art depicting you.”
“That doesn’t seem like me.”
Joan had never asked that other Nick how he’d felt about it. Maybe he’d found the thought just as strange and alienating. There’d been so many myths about him—adventures, tragedies, horror stories—they obviously weren’t all true.
“I’m not anything like that,” Nick said.
Joan had spent all this time thinking of how different he was from her Nick, but now—with him looking down at her, serious and dark-eyed and handsome—she was struck by their similarities. And struck again by the realization that she’d met him here in this house—in this room. He’d walked through that door into the library, head bent over a book, and when he’d looked up at her, Joan’s heart had turned over.
“When I got caught by the attackers at the bakery, you came back to help me,” she said. “You could have escaped, but you came back. Your first instinct is to take care of people. You didn’t know why the Lius were scared, but you wanted to make them feel safe. There’s something that’s just good inside you.”
This Nick was different—he seemed more complex, more difficult to read. But both Nicks shared the same core of goodness. In the other timeline, Nick’s torturer had told Eleanor: Must we use this boy? He’s always so virtuous. It had taken them two thousand attempts to break him. They never really had.
Nick’s gaze roved over Joan’s face. “That’s how you see me?” he whispered.
Joan nodded. There was no way to actually explain to him how she saw him. He was a bright light in the darkness. Every version of him.
“Before . . . ,” Nick said, and now he sounded tentative. “You said you wanted . . .” His voice felt like a low rumble in Joan’s bones. “What did you want?”
“I . . .” Joan’s voice faltered. She couldn’t say it even to herself. She shouldn’t.
“I can tell you what I want,” Nick said steadily. “I want to be where you are. In any way you let me.”
Joan couldn’t take her eyes from him. She’d expected to lose him today; she could feel the phantom ache of it now. She hadn’t realized how important this Nick was becoming to her until she’d had to face the prospect of that loss.
“I want . . .” Joan’s breath shuddered out. What do you want? She’d hardly let herself want anything since she’d woken up in this new timeline. Wanting was dangerous and it hurt. Yearning for other times led to fading out of this time as her body tried to jump. Wanting meant watching Nick from afar, knowing she couldn’t ever be with him.
Except he’d just told her she could be with him.
And she felt . . . Joan took a sharp breath. This wasn’t Nick. It wasn’t him. But . . . she let herself admit the truth. She’d been falling hard for this Nick too. Every iteration of him was the same at his core.
“I want you,” she admitted. He seemed to light up from the inside at her words. Her heart clenched. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered.
“I don’t want to hurt you either,” he whispered back. His eyes were as clear as a new day. “So we won’t,” he said.
Could it be that simple?
“Can I?” he said. He held out his hand. “Please?”
It only took three steps to move to him. Nick’s hand came up to cup her face, one big thumb sweeping over her cheekbone. Joan’s breath caught. Another sweep across her cheekbone, and Nick’s eyes darkened. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said. “I thought that the first time I saw you. You’re so beautiful.” He was beautiful. He was a work of art. A painting. His dark hair was just curling at the ends, framing his handsome face. “I really want to kiss you,” he whispered.
Joan was already crying as she lifted her face. She could feel his confusion as he wiped away her tears. She’d missed him so much. And this wasn’t him. But it was. This was him as he could have been.
Nick bent and kissed her and it felt like everything she’d missed and wanted. She kissed him back desperately.
“So sweet,” a cold voice said from the doorway. “So touching to see new love blossoming.”
Joan jerked back from the kiss, turning fast.
The library door was open. Eleanor swept into the room, along with a handful of courtiers and guards—and Aaron, Joan saw with dismay. He didn’t look at Joan as he followed Eleanor in.
“Such a sweet first kiss,” Eleanor said to Joan.
Joan flushed. What did Eleanor want? Why was she taunting them? It was clear that she knew it hadn’t been their first kiss. “What do you want with us?” Joan said.
Eleanor turned to Nick. “I heard what she said to you. She almost sounded sincere, didn’t she? Like she hasn’t been lying to you this whole time.”
“I wasn’t lying,” Joan blurted, confused. Eleanor’s mouth lifted in a cruel, amused smile. “I mean . . . ,” Joan said to Nick, faltering. She’d only just told him the truth.
Nick dropped his hold on Joan’s waist and took her hand, reassuring and comforting. It’s okay, his touch said. We’re okay. He turned to Eleanor and said coolly, “Answer her question. What do you want with us? Why are you keeping us here?”
Eleanor looked at their clasped hands and smiled wider. “The timeline is such a romantic old fool, isn’t it? It was always going to bring you two back together.” Nick looked confused, and Eleanor laughed. “Oh, she hasn’t told you that part of it? Well . . . I bet there’s a lot she hasn’t told you.”
“You’d be surprised,” Nick said softly.
“Would I?” Eleanor’s eyes dropped to the broken chain. Her expression brightened. “Now, look at that. All we had to do was threaten her.”
“You . . .” Joan stared.
Did Eleanor think she could make Nick into the hero again? If so, she was going to fail. Joan had already told him the truth of monsters. He’d been horrified, but he hadn’t turned into a killer. He’d suggested talking to Joan’s family. He’d wanted to persuade, not fight.
“Well, now that we’re all here,” Eleanor said, “the show can start.”
“Show?” Joan said slowly. A feeling of foreboding rose in her then. “What show?”
“The show that’s always here.” Eleanor nodded at one of the guards—a man with a pink flower tattoo like the cherry seller who’d saved Joan and Nick at the Wyvern Inn. The man walked over to a space just south of the picture window—a few feet from Joan and Nick. Then he reached into the air with a pulling motion, like he was opening a curtain. There was a discordant sound. No, not a sound. A feeling. Joan was hit with a shock of nausea. The man was an Ali, she realized belatedly. He’d just opened a seal.
Around the room, the guards groaned in horror. Aaron stumbled back, and then he bent over double, retching. Nick grabbed Joan’s hand and drew her back.
Joan stared. The opened seal had revealed a tear in the timeline—like the one in the café. Joan and Nick must have been just a few paces from it the entire time they’d been here. The tear stood beyond the fireplace, and its jagged edges rent the air—Joan was reminded sickeningly of a torn shroud. Inside were the shadows of the void. . . .
One of the guards whispered something and made a quick gesture, fingers rising and falling. Joan didn’t recognize the motion, but she guessed it was some traditional warding against evil.
“Poor old timeline,” Eleanor said to Joan. “It’s more fragile than you’d think.”
“Why is this here?” Joan whispered. She’d been in this room a hundred times, had cleaned every inch of it when she’d volunteered at the museum. There’d never been an Ali seal here before. There’d never been a hole in the timeline.
“Look closer,” Eleanor said.
“At what?” Joan said. But as she spoke, the shadows inside the tear seemed to shift and coalesce into shapes.
“What is that?” Nick said.
There was something familiar about the scene that was forming inside the tear. It was this library in the evening. And there were figures within it. Joan squinted, trying to make them out.
“Give it a second,” Eleanor said.
And then the image sharpened and brightened, and Joan gasped.
The figures inside the tear were Joan herself from the previous timeline—and Nick. Her Nick. The Nick she’d unmade and lost. Joan heard herself make an agonized sound of grief. She’d dreamed of him, but that didn’t come close to seeing him again. God, she’d missed him so much. She’d missed him like part of herself had been lost.
He wasn’t flat like a screen image; he was three-dimensional and real, as if he were really here, as if Joan could have taken a few steps and touched him.
“They can’t see you,” Eleanor said. “The timeline can still protect itself that much.”
The new Nick took a step toward the vision, still gripping Joan’s hand tight. “What is that?”
“It’s the previous timeline,” Joan said shakily.
“That’s him?” Nick said uncertainly. “The hero? And . . . you?” He turned to Joan.
Joan didn’t know what to say. Now that the two Nicks were in the same room, she could truly see their similarities. They radiated the same earnest goodness. They both looked at her in the same way. Like they couldn’t believe she was here with them. There were differences too, though. The new Nick didn’t have the same shadows in his eyes, and the old Nick had an exhausted edge to him that Joan hadn’t remembered.
“The timeline was always going to bring you two together,” Eleanor said to Joan. “I knew if I brought one of you here, the other would follow. And then you’d both get to see this.”
“To see what?” Joan said. “To see . . .” She stared at the scene inside the opened seal. And understanding slowly dawned about what exactly Eleanor was about to show them; why she’d brought Joan and Nick to the guardhouse. Joan looked over at the new Nick’s still-trusting face, and her stomach lurched. “No,” she said to Eleanor. “Close that seal back up! Please!”
“Joan?” Nick said, confused.
“Hush,” Eleanor said. “This is my favorite part of the show.”
Through the tear in the timeline, Joan watched Nick pull her into his arms, his face full of love and wonder and relief.
I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you, Joan said in that other timeline.
I love you, the other Nick said. I always have.
Joan heard her breath shudder out, and beside her Nick turned his gaze to her. His expression was so raw that Joan was almost undone by it. He was remembering their own kiss, she knew. The way she’d reacted to it.
In the other timeline, Joan kissed him. She’d been crying then, and she was crying now again. Her past and present selves both knew what was coming next.
Joan? It was the Nick from the previous timeline. He pulled back, face filling with shock and agony. Joan flinched now, as if she were the one in pain.
“Joan?” Nick said now. “What’s going on?”
In the vision, Nick spasmed as if he’d been jolted with electricity. The ceiling rattled, and Nick started to scream. Joan knew that sound like it was from her own throat. She’d heard it over and over in her dreams.
Joan, he cried out. Please.
Joan could see herself mouthing, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered now. She didn’t even know who she was saying it to—Nick then or Nick now.
Nick stared at her now as if he’d never seen her before. The betrayal had already started in his expression. “What did you do?” he said. “What did you do?”
“She unmade the hero,” Eleanor said. But her gaze was directed at Joan, triumphant and furious, as if she knew exactly what Joan was losing, and she only wished she could hurt her more. “She unraveled the hero’s life, and she replaced him with an ordinary boy. I suppose you could say she killed him.”
Nick reeled back, tearing his hand from Joan’s grip and staring at her in horror.
Humans had a protector, Astrid had said. A hero. And you unmade him. Did you think there’d be no consequences?
Eleanor lifted a pendant from under her collar. Joan had a moment to see that it was a coin on a chain. A travel token. And then Eleanor was gone. She’d vanished. She wasn’t even going to watch the aftermath of all this.
Nick was still staring at Joan as if he’d never seen her before. “You killed the hero?”
“I—” Joan saw Mr. Larch again in her mind’s eye—kind, loud Mr. Larch, her history teacher from last year . . . He was dead. So many people were dead, just like Astrid had said. Joan had unmade the hero and everything that the hero had done. Joan saved her family and doomed every human that Nick had ever saved.
Nick’s eyes burned into Joan’s.
“Nick—” Joan was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass. The window exploded inward, and a cloud of white smoke billowed into the room.
Joan choked. Through the smoke, a guard crumpled. There were heavy thumps—the bars on the window falling. And then Joan couldn’t see anything but thick white fog. Someone grabbed her hand. She yanked away from the grip.
“It’s me.” Tom’s voice, close to her ear. Something covered Joan’s face. An old-fashioned gas mask. Joan wrenched it off. “Nick,” she said to Tom, and choked again on the smoke. Beside her, Nick slumped. The smoke was laced with something soporific, Joan realized. Her vision darkened. “Nick,” she tried to say again. Nick knows.
