Never a Hero, page 7
Joan clenched her teeth. It wasn’t safe to feel these feelings yet. But she couldn’t stop the hitch of her breath.
“You don’t have to . . .” There was a small crease between Nick’s eyes. “Hey.” He shifted. “Can I?” he said.
Don’t, she told herself. But she found herself nodding. He put a warm hand on her back. It was heavy and almost unbearably comforting. She turned toward him. And then, to her agony and desperate solace, he pulled her to his chest and tucked her close.
This wasn’t him, she told herself. He wasn’t here with her. He felt like him, though—his hard chest against her cheek. And he smelled so good. Joan took a deep breath as if she could fill herself with him.
“I’m so sorry you lost your friend,” Nick whispered. “I’m so sorry she died.”
“I can’t believe—” Her voice failed, and she squeezed her hands into fists. She tried again. “I can’t believe she’s dead.” Margie had died because those people had been after Joan, and Nick had been dragged into this too.
Nick’s arm tightened, and it felt like everything Joan had needed forever and shouldn’t need. She missed his other self so much. It was messed up how much she missed him.
“Why don’t you sleep for a little while?” Nick said, his voice rumbling against Joan’s cheek.
Joan shook her head. They needed to be alert. They weren’t safe here. He might be dangerous. What if she dropped her guard and he remembered who he was?
“I’ll keep watch,” Nick said. “I’ll wake you up if they come back.”
She shouldn’t give in to how safe she felt with him holding her like this. She shouldn’t feel anything for him at all. “I’m tired,” Joan admitted hoarsely. I’m so sorry you lost your friend. She was so tired of losing people. Gran. Bertie. Uncle Gus. Aunt Ada. Margie. Nick. Aaron. Dad. Mum, so long ago. She was so tired of fighting how it felt.
“You can sleep,” Nick said. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”
Joan’s breath hitched. She tried to slow her breathing, to push it all down. It had been working since she’d come home after the summer, but this time a sob spasmed painfully from her chest, tearing from her. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t anywhere, and he’d never be anywhere again. Distantly, she heard Nick murmuring. And then she was crying against his chest.
He put his other arm around her, and Joan knew she shouldn’t be touching him like this. It was wrong. This wasn’t him.
But it didn’t feel wrong. He felt like home. He smelled like home. And she found herself clinging to him instead of pulling away.
Seven
Joan ran desperately through the hedge maze of Holland House, breath burning in her throat. Her clothes caught on twigs and leaves. Someone was chasing her, someone just a few paces behind. She put on a burst of speed, and the sharp edges of the hedge scratched at her face and hands. There was a turn ahead. Left or right? No time to think; she went left.
In front of her, the path ended abruptly in a high wall of dense leaves, forcing her to stumble to a stop.
“Joan,” someone said behind her. She turned, panicked breaths cutting into her lungs like knives.
It was Nick. His body filled the path like another wall, trapping her. He held a sword in one hand, as if it weighed no more than the plastic souvenir swords in the Holland House gift shop.
“Please,” Joan whispered. There was a stitch in her side, and her chest hurt more with each heaved breath.
“You stole human life,” he said. His voice was sad. He wasn’t here for vengeance. He was an executioner, carrying out his duty. “I can’t allow you to harm anyone else.”
“We wanted to make peace between humans and monsters!” Joan said pleadingly. It had seemed possible, once upon a time. “Remember? We were going to make peace!”
“You didn’t choose peace, though.” He raised the sword. It was the one he’d used to kill Lucien and Edmund. Last time, he’d used it to protect her. “You killed the person protecting humans. You chose monsters.”
“No!” she begged him. “Nick!”
The blade flashed toward her.
Joan woke with a gasp, heart pounding.
“Joan?”
Nick was here, looming over her. Joan heard herself make a terrified sound. She tried to scramble away, but her back struck something hard and smooth. He had her trapped in a tiny corralled space. She searched for a weapon and, finding nothing, kicked out at him. He dodged easily, clambering to his feet, eyes wide.
Joan looked around frantically. Had he hurt the others? Where was Ruth? Where was Aaron?
“Joan, you’re safe. It’s okay.” Nick’s voice was very soft—the tone you might use to soothe a frightened animal. “You’re on the train. We’re going to London, remember? It’s just you and me here. No one’s going to hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Joan’s vision adjusted slowly. He wasn’t standing among hedge leaves but in a narrow aisle. Behind him, long windows showed a rushing view: red-roofed houses and trees. They were on a train. And Nick . . . Joan gulped in air. This was the other Nick.
“They didn’t find us,” Nick reassured her. “We escaped.”
“I had a nightmare,” Joan murmured numbly. She’d kicked at him, she remembered. Thank God, she hadn’t used her hands. She could have killed him with a touch. She could have drained all his life from him. “Did I hurt you?”
“Of course not,” Nick said gently, and Joan saw in her mind’s eye how easily he’d dodged. “I didn’t mean to crowd you when you woke up. I thought . . .” He hesitated. “I thought you called my name.”
Joan’s breathing had been evening out, but the next one caught. “What?”
“You called out to me when you woke up. Or maybe . . .” Puzzlement passed over his face. “Just before you woke up . . .”
Outside, the blur of green reminded Joan too much, suddenly, of the hedge walls from the dream. She shivered hard, and Nick saw it, forehead creasing. Joan struggled out of the seat. “I just need to—” she said, and Nick shuffled back quickly, giving her room to pass him down the aisle.
Joan put her back to the train’s glass door. The cold seeped through her shirt, grounding her. She looked around the carriage. It was still empty.
She realized with a start that she’d been looking for Aaron since she’d woken; the dream had felt too much like the time they’d fled through the maze together. She’d needed to see for herself that he was okay too. But he wasn’t here. He was somewhere out there, hunting her down. Joan felt that weight settle again in her chest.
“Last stop was Leagrave,” Nick said. “You barely slept.”
Joan folded her arms around herself. She felt groggy with exhaustion, but there was no way she’d get to sleep again. Not after that dream. She focused on Nick and saw now how pale he was. He was still standing in the aisle, a hand on a backrest for balance. That need for a crutch told Joan how tired he must be too.
“Why don’t you sleep?” Joan said. They were only half an hour out of London, but he could at least close his eyes.
“Don’t think I can,” he said. “Too much in my head, you know?” And then, so quietly she could hardly hear him over the drone of the train: “I know how long we’ve been missing.”
“What?” Joan straightened. “You got your phone working?”
“No.” He fished his train ticket from his pocket.
Oh. They’d had the date on them since Bedford. Joan suddenly didn’t want to know.
“It’s been six years,” Nick said. “We’ve been missing for six years.”
“Six years,” Joan echoed numbly. Margie had been dead for six years. Dad hadn’t seen her for six years. . . .
“I knew it had to be a couple of years at least,” Nick said. “All those changes to the shops couldn’t have happened in a few months. But . . . six years . . . I keep thinking how my little sister, Alice, would be twelve years old now. Robbie would be eleven. Do they even remember me? They don’t remember my dad. . . .”
“Nick . . .” Joan couldn’t bear the thought of that. “I’m so sorry.” It sounded completely inadequate out loud. She didn’t know how to express how sorry she was. He was only here because of her. Because he’d come back to help her when he could have run.
“If it was possible,” Nick said slowly, “I know you would have said, but . . . I have to ask. Can’t we go back? Can’t we stop that attack from happening?”
Last time, Joan had circumvented the timeline’s restrictions. She’d undone Nick’s massacres by unmaking Nick himself—reverting him from a trained hero back to the ordinary boy he’d once been. But . . . when she’d used that power, she’d known instinctively that reverting Nick would bring her family back. Even if she’d still had access to her power, that same instinct was telling her that there was nothing to unmake here. Nothing that she could undo to bring Margie back. And just that thought sent a wave of grief through her.
It must have been in her expression because Nick took a sharp breath. His free hand curled into a fist. He was clearly trying to hold it together. Joan knew how that felt. “It’s just . . . ,” he said. “My family needs me. Ever since my dad died, I . . . I help out a lot at home.”
She’d do anything for him, she thought. Anything she could. If there was any way to fix this, she would. “There’s a lot I don’t know about this world,” she said. “When we find my gran, she’ll know more, but . . .” She shook her head. “It’s really hard to change an event. There’s a . . . a force that pushes back against changes we make.”
She could feel the timeline even now. The other night, it had seemed like a storm, but this morning her impression was of an animal—for once, purringly content, as if it was satisfied that it had finally put Joan and Nick into extended proximity. Just stop, Joan wanted to tell it. Leave us alone. You’re trying to mend a rift that can’t be healed.
“It’s hard to change an event,” Nick echoed. “But not impossible?”
Joan hesitated. She only knew of the timeline being changed twice. Legend had it that the monster King had erased the original timeline to create a new one in his own image. And Joan herself had changed the timeline again, in a much smaller way, to unmake Nick.
“We should talk to my gran,” she said. They weren’t far from Queenhithe now. If anyone would know a way to bring Margie back, to get Nick home, it would be Gran.
The train rattled on the tracks. Outside, a platform slid into view: Welcome to Luton, the sign said. Commuters leaned sleepily against the station’s brown brick wall, some scrolling on their phones, some staring at nothing, earbuds in.
Nick went back to their seats, and Joan joined him, squeezing close to allow the new arrivals to walk down the narrow aisle. Joan watched each person pass. Could any of them be monsters? They didn’t seem to be, but for the first time, she wished she had the Oliver power—the ability to know for sure.
The train started. Joan began to shift away from Nick again, and she felt him take an unsteady breath. There’d been a time when she’d wanted to see him in pain. He’d taken her family from her, and she’d wanted him to suffer for it.
Since then, though, she’d seen him in enough pain for a thousand lifetimes. She’d seen recordings of him being tortured; of him having to watch his family being murdered. Over and over and over. She couldn’t bear the thought of him hurting more now. She pressed closer to him, and it seemed to help a little. His shoulders went down, and he took a deeper breath.
“Why don’t you close your eyes for a little while,” she suggested.
Nick shook his head. He glanced around the carriage, still checking for the attackers.
Ever since my dad died, he’d said, I help out a lot at home. Joan could imagine that he’d taken on a lot of responsibility.
“I can keep watch,” she said. “You don’t have to do it all yourself.”
To her surprise, he met her gaze and quirked his mouth up, a little self-deprecating. Butterflies fluttered in Joan’s stomach as he closed his eyes.
This had to stop, Joan told herself—these feelings she kept having. They had to stop. The boy she loved didn’t exist anymore. And this Nick would loathe her if he ever learned the truth.
The dream had been a reminder of that.
Eight
By the time they got to Blackfriars, the train was packed with bright-eyed early-bird tourists and yawning people on the way to work. Nick couldn’t have slept more than half an hour, but when Joan woke him, there was some color in his face. He surveyed the platform as he exited the train. Even tired, he was methodical about it. After he’d checked and dismissed people, he didn’t look at them again.
Joan imagined him filing away the details. When they’d volunteered at Holland House, his memory hadn’t been as perfect as a Liu’s, but it had been close. In the first week, the head curator had asked them to take all the tours. It’ll give you a feel for the place, even if you don’t remember it all, she’d said.
But Nick had remembered it all. Every fact from every tour—every name and date.
Good memory runs in my family, he’d told Joan once. They’d just started an early shift. They’d been mopping the foyer, sunlight slanting in through the shutters, making stripes on the floor so that it was hard to tell what was water and what was shadow. At the word family, the rhythmic swish of Nick’s mop had paused, and Joan had turned to find his head ducked, his nape exposed above his collar. Nick had never liked to talk about his family. That morning, though, his guard had seemed down. When he’d spoken again, it was with the northern burr that always came out when he was tired. But I was trained to notice things too.
Trained? Joan had said, confused.
Taught, Nick had corrected himself quickly. And before Joan could ask who had taught him that, he’d changed the subject and the moment had been gone.
Now, in the station, Joan scanned the crowd too. People’s clothing and technology seemed subtly different, although she couldn’t have said what had changed. Maybe the cuts were more tailored; maybe the phone screens were brighter and sharper. If anyone was a monster, Joan couldn’t pick them out.
“I remember all the people who attacked us at the bakery,” Nick murmured as they made their way to the exit. “But there were a couple more attackers I didn’t see.”
“Hmm?”
“At my house,” Nick said. He hesitated, and Joan suddenly knew what he was about to say. “Did you . . . recognize one of them?”
His eyes were still on the crowd. Around them, the sounds of the station clamored: trains, near and distant; people hurrying; tourists chatting. He wasn’t aware of the cat-and-mouse game they were in, Joan told herself. He just wanted to know more about the attack that had upended his life.
“His—his name is Aaron.” It felt strange to say his name aloud. She hadn’t said it since the last time she’d seen him. It was her turn to hesitate. “I met him over the summer.”
“They said they brought him in because he could identify you,” Nick said. He looked curious. “Who is he?”
“Just . . . someone I knew for a while.” It felt wrong to phrase it like that. Aaron had meant something to her by the end. He still meant something to her. She couldn’t believe he’d been in that garden. That he was working to hunt her down. She put a hand to her cheek where Aaron had touched her on their last day together. Joan, if you somehow remember this, remember what I’m saying now. You have to stay far away from me. From me and from my family. Never let me close enough to see the color of your eyes.
Joan hadn’t felt a glimmer of her power since she’d burned it out on Nick. She’d never even used it in this timeline. Someone knew about it, though. If Aaron had been called in to assist with the search, they surely knew.
Nick’s dark eyes turned to her with the same intense attention he’d given to the crowd. “Why do I get the feeling,” he said slowly, “that whatever happened to you over the summer, it was bad?”
Joan opened her mouth, feeling off-balance. She’d expected him to ask about the attack again. To ask how exactly she knew one of the attackers. She didn’t have an answer for this. You happened, she thought. You happened to me, and I happened to you. But it had been more than that. Edmund Oliver had tried to kill her. The Monster Court had tried to kill her. And now someone was after her again. That was what Nick had been caught up in this time.
“What does he look like?” Nick nodded at the crowd.
Joan took a breath. “Blond with gray eyes,” she said. “He isn’t here.” She’d have known if he were—Aaron Oliver turned heads. Crowds rippled around him like he was a stone thrown into water.
She braced herself for the next question, but instead there was a flicker of measurement in Nick’s expression. She watched him make the decision not to push. He knew, she thought. He knew she was keeping something from him. Not unintentionally. Not I didn’t get the chance to tell you. But deliberately. He knew.
They emerged from the station into a clouded London morning. The glass-and-steel monolith of Blackfriars Station was exactly as Joan had remembered it. There was no sign of the six years that had passed without them.
Cars and trucks crawled past as they made their way along Blackfriars Bridge, heading for the staircase down to the riverside walk. Scaffolding to the east and west blocked most of the view, but on the other side of the bridge, the One Blackfriars building looked just as it always did, pale and sail-like under the white sky.
Nick’s vigilance began to ease slightly. They hadn’t seen a single monster since Milton Keynes. Joan loosened a little too. Maybe they really had escaped.
“I thought there’d be more differences,” he said, looking over the railing at the cars streaming by on the underpass.
“Six years isn’t so long, I suppose,” Joan said. “On a city scale.” On a personal scale, though . . .
Nick gave a crooked smile, acknowledging the unsaid part of it. “You know what’s weird? I keep thinking I’m late for Sunday football. I get up at six on Sundays to coach my brother’s team. And then I’ve got my own match after that.”
