Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) Read online

  “You can’t do it.”

  A muscle leapt in Charlie’s jaw. “Enjoy the trip.”

  Then the hood was over his head and he was back in darkness.

  CHAPTER 3

  Norman retched, clutching the toilet bowl between his hands. Precious, irreplaceable morsels he’d eaten for breakfast slicked the U-bend. He wiped his mouth, head swimming, his fractured ribs throbbing, and then he stumbled from the stall to lean against the door. Two weeks since he had been attacked, and still the pain was no better.

  But it wasn’t the pain that was making him sick, not really. It was something else. Something was at odds with the world, and the weight of two cities rested on his shoulders. They had all stared at him in the lobby. Hundreds upon hundreds of expectant, dull, cow eyes trained upon him, as though all they had to do was fall in behind him and he would saddle up a warhorse and vanquish the enemy.

  He took a deep breath and headed out into the lobby of Canary Wharf Tower, cane clacking on the faded marble floors. Yesterday, the tower and its fenced-off compound had been near empty; the shining pinnacle of England’s last coalition of societies, relics of the Old World. Today, it was a refugee camp. Torn knapsacks, crushed luggage, bloodied bandages, and filthy exhausted refugees littered the floor. As many wept as those who had gone deathly still, dull-eyed and lobotomised by trauma.

  Canary Wharf’s fortified compound was fast becoming the last remaining safe haven. The summit between the land’s dwindling societies had been called weeks ago, but the ambassadorial parties had been attacked en route. Now that Oppenheimer had arrived from Bristol, they were at least all accounted for, but they had taken heavy losses. Unnervingly, the council members themselves didn’t have a scratch on them. It was their families, friends, aides, and subordinates who had been slaughtered.

  It was almost as though the enemy knew about the summit and was keen to let it go ahead. The thought that they wanted to let them scurry around, squabbling in politics made the hairs on Norman’s neck stand on end.

  The tower’s concrete walls and regiment of armed guards had kept back the tide thus far, but how long would that last? Who knew how many the enemy were? This place was no fortress, and its guards were few. They were calling it a siege, but if that became the reality, Norman didn’t like their chances.

  And what of home? New Canterbury had guns and men, but no high walls. And they had no fewer defenceless folk than here. Now that he had heard just how many towns had been hit, it was a wonder that New Canterbury remained almost unscathed. They’d had break-ins and raids—Norman’s broken ribs could attest to that, not to mention Ray Hubble’s corpse—but no more. One death, one injury; it was nothing compared to the hundreds of bodies that lay in the enemy’s wake.

  Again, it was almost as though they were being spared. New Canterbury had been revered as the home of the great Alexander Cain for so long that its name was synonymous with their cause. Now it looked as though its name was the only thing saving it. But that was all the more chilling, because if it were true then it could only mean one thing: they were being saved for last.

  All that was left to them was the summit. There was still power among them. The enemy might be playing cat and mouse, but that couldn’t be justified. They were rabble, after all; a mass of farmers and traders brought together by a tenuous common goal. And they didn’t have Alexander.

  Norman walked across the lobby and tried to keep his head held high. The looks aimed at him were the same, demanding and fawning, but he ignored them. Let them have their hopes. That was the least he could try to do for them. He would do anything to avoid the future Alexander had in mind for him, but that didn’t matter now; they all believed in him, even if his great destiny was all smoke, and that was all that mattered.

  Not far from the stairwell, he spotted Allie. She was crouched down over a frail young girl in what had once been a pretty summer dress. It was Oppenheimer’s daughter. She was awake now, but lay very still as Allie whispered a constant stream of sweet babble. The little girl had just lost her siblings and her mother, but still the faintest of smiles was on her lips. Allie had a gift with words.

  Norman tried to ignore the flutter in his chest, but it now came whenever he looked her way, and he could no longer ignore it. Allison Rutherford had been a spurious gossip not long ago, a newcomer in New Canterbury who could be relied on to incite rumour wherever she went.

  War had changed her. Her eyes had hardened, her hearsay had shifted to fierce mummery, and even her soft rounded face seemed to have become older, more angular. In a few short months, she had blossomed into a true woman. And during that transition, Norman’s eyes had begun to linger.

  It had been she who had stayed by his bedside after he had been attacked.

  She caught his eye, and before he knew it, he was walking toward her and the little girl.

  “Someone wants to meet you,” Allie said.

  He knelt with difficulty beside them both, facing away from the prying eyes of the crowd, and tried to smile for the little girl. She returned the favour, though timidly, and her eyes flicked to Allie for comfort.

  “It’s okay.” Allie gripped her forearm. “He’s not a grump, really. Most of the time.”

  “Unless I skip breakfast. Then I grow gruffalo horns.”

  The girl’s face remained pale and taut, but her brow relaxed a tad. Allie gave him an encouraging look, and together they leaned over her and did their best to entertain her while the worst of the wounded were stabilised in the lobby and hauled upstairs, where their old infirmary had overspilled across two whole storeys. Complimenting her on her dress, asking her about home and her favourite books; it all brought back memories of the martial arts class Norman led back home.

  He had always considered teaching one of the more taxing chores on New Canterbury’s duty rota, but he missed the kids. He had never appreciated how easy their lives had been until now—just what Alexander’s vision had meant for their quality of life. How many years had he moped and brooded over the destiny foisted upon him, meanwhile enjoying all the comforts of electricity and baked bread and fried eggs, curated libraries, and a comfy bed? And all that time, thousands had eked out desperate livings on the edge of rotting towns, fighting off thieves and succumbing to simple illnesses, slowly forgetting who they were and all they knew.

  And then the famine had come. With their mission to thrust them into swift action, Alexander had insisted that the council impose a policy of aggressive scavenging, to stock up on food to buffer the impact of starvation. They couldn’t afford to starve, not if they were to continue protecting the legacy of the Old World. They had scoured all the land and taken all they could find, leaving little, if anything, for anyone else. At first they had been unaware of just what effect they were having, but by the end of the famine’s height, it had been obvious that they had robbed thousands of their already slim chances of survival.

  In truth it was no surprise this army had banded together. They had brought this on themselves.

  “I want my mummy,” the little girl was saying.

  Allie hushed her and brushed a stray lock of hair away from her cheek. “Rest, now, darling.”

  “I want her!”

  Allie’s lips tightened and grew pale. She glanced to him for help.

  Norman was gripped by the same paralysis, and for a moment he thought they would both remain that way; but then a bright flash winked to life in the abyss behind his eyes, and he leaned toward her, taking her hand in his. “Back home, do you go to school?” he said.

  She nodded, sunken eyes glazed.

  “Do they tell the story of the End?” He waited, but she had grown still. He smiled. “I bet they do. They’ve been telling it all over since I was a boy. Before the End, the great cities were full of people, millions, and all the old machines rang and trilled and flashed around them, doing their bidding and talking to other people and other machines across the sea. Because, of course, there were many places across the sea, and each
one was home to millions more people. We were wise, and we had power. The world had big problems, terrible problems, but we strived to put them right just as we do today—and that’s what’s important: we’re no different today than our ancestors before us. They might have lived in tall buildings and talked to others on the other side of the world just like I talk to you now, but they were just people, no different from us.” He paused, and squeezed her hand. “Why do we tell that story?”

  “Because they’re all gone,” the girl whispered.

  “Yes, they are. They left us behind to carry on, and though we don’t know why they left, we have to do our best to carry on their way of life. One day we’ll be ready for that power again. If places like this and people like us fail, everything they worked for will vanish just like them. And we can’t let that happen, because that’s how we keep them alive.” He placed both their hands over her chest. “So long as we carry all they knew, felt, and dreamed, they’re still here with us.”

  The little girl looked down at her own chest. She said nothing, but her lip quivered. She wasn’t young enough for fairy tales, but a child’s imagination was the most powerful thing Norman knew of; it made them tougher than diamond. He could almost see the cogs turning inside her head. After a long time, she looked back up at them and gave the smallest of nods.

  He gave her his best smile, despite the swell of embarrassment swelling in his throat, and stood on shaking legs, suppressing a grunt as his ribs cried out.

  “I’ll be right back,” Allie said, caressing the girl’s cheek. “I’m going to make sure he’s alright. He’s special, you know.”

  “I know,” the girl answered. She looked at Norman. “He’s the Chosen One from the stories.”

  Norman blinked in surprise. “How did you know?”

  “Daddy and the others always talk about you. Everyone does.” She fingered her bloodied dress. “You’re going to bring us all together someday, that’s what they say.” She glanced to the wall and the looming city beyond. “Are you going to save us from the monsters, Mr Creek?”

  Norman felt his lips part, but his mind had gone blank. He stood lamely before her for some moments while she stared out through the lobby windows, and then he turned on his heel and hurried away. His cane clacked upon the granite floor, his throbbing ribs begged him to stop, and he sensed myriad eyes moving over him from all around, but he refused to let up, his eyes fixed on the staircase. Suddenly his attention was on escape, and nothing else.

  “Norman, wait!” Allie called. He tried to ignore her, but she caught up in a few strides and caught his elbow.

  He wheeled around, fury surging forth as though a cork had been yanked. “What?” he hissed. “What do you want from me?” He had managed to keep himself from yelling, but only just. His voice had emerged as a sibilant whisper, all the more scathing for its bottled intensity.

  She recoiled, her face falling. Others nearby fell quiet, averting their eyes and busying themselves with the remaining wounded. “I just wanted to say thank you.” She seemed unable to meet his eye. “You handled her really well. Almost like—” She hesitated and bit her lip, but then with an almost audible clunk her eyes rolled to stare right at him. “Almost like Alexander.”

  He swallowed convulsively. The others were peeking at him once more. He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “That was one of his old speeches, verbatim. He used to say the same thing to me every night when I was a kid, word for word.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I’m sorry. It’s the pain.” He scowled. “This radio message they received better be worth it. Bringing us all together like this, it could have ended us.”

  Her eyebrows twitched, and she touched his arm. “I know. It’s okay.”

  “No, no it’s not. I can’t take it out on you. You were doing a hell of a job with her.”

  She shrugged. “What was I going to do? She just lost her mother.”

  “Not everyone would have. It’s ugly, but it’s the truth.” They started for the stairs, slowly this time.

  “Well, I don’t know how much good I did. It was nothing on your performance.”

  “Like I said, it was Alexander’s story.”

  He felt her eyes stabbing at him again, drowning out the others’. “That may be so, but there’s a reason people look to you.”

  “They look to me because they’ve been told to. They’ve had fairy tales of some great prodigal son shoved down their throats since before most of them could walk, and the rest are too old to remember anything different. It’s all fluff, something they can lose themselves in, something to believe that keeps them going.” He suppressed a scowl. “Nobody ever really expects me to lead.”

  “That’s not true. Maybe it was once, but not now. You’ve changed. There’s something of him in you, in the way you move, talk—the way you are.”

  “I’m nothing like him.”

  “Norman, your destiny—”

  He grunted, cutting her off. “There’s no such thing as destiny,” he said slowly, enunciating every syllable. “They’re just stories.”

  They walked in silence until they neared the stairs, leaving the body of refugees behind, and could talk freely again. “Stories can come true, you know,” she said.

  He shook his head. She was supposed to be the one he could rely on to be on his side, yet even she seemed be slipping under the legend’s spell. He couldn’t blame her, surrounded by blood and severed families. But she had been a lifeline he had been relying on. He had few allies left. With Robert back in New Canterbury, and Lucian missing …

  He stopped mid-stride and gripped her sleeve, gentle instead of hard.

  Clutching, he thought. I’m clutching at her. How desperate is that?

  “Please, don’t turn into one of them,” he said. His voice was almost cracking. “I need you to see me, not the Chosen One. I need you on my side.”

  She looked taken aback, and glanced toward the others back in the lobby. Norman knew they were all watching, and knew that they must be making something of a spectacle. The grand marble staircase wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. But he refused to look away from Allie and waited until she had turned back to him. “Allie, are you with me?”

  She was chewing her lip again, but her gaze was resolute. “What are friends for?” she said.

  Feeling more than a little embarrassed, he realised she wasn’t moving with him anymore, but hovering. She was waiting to go back to Oppenheimer’s daughter. Despite all the staring and his own little drama, she hadn’t forgotten. In fact, she looked more determined than ever.

  What a little time can do to a person, he thought. She was just a kid not long ago. A damn annoying one. And now … what would I do without her?

  “Will you be alright with her?” he said.

  “I have to be.” No fear, no uncertainty, where only minutes before there had been. Had his story had something to do with that?

  Maybe she’s right. Maybe’s something of Alexander rubbed off on me, after all.

  Left with that uncomfortable thought, Norman made to ascend the staircase to find the council chambers. His focus was so distant that, at first, he didn’t notice the white figures moving past him at all. It wasn’t until the third of them had brushed past him—almost seeming to pass through him—that he froze in place.

  Half a dozen pale shapes were moving on ahead of him, ascending the stairs. Three were gesticulating in conversation with one another, two were running with armfuls of folders and sheaves of paper, and the last was ambling at a leisurely pace with something held to his ear that sent the air wheezing out of Norman’s lungs: a smartphone. All of them were dressed in the kind of formal office attire that had littered the cities in the Early Years, before they were picked clean by traders. Yet they were all white, like figures from a children’s picture book that hadn’t been filled in. As they passed through the sunbeams thrusting in through the lobby windows, each one seemed to shimmer. He heard them, too,
but their speech was warbling and muffled, as though he had water in his ears.

  It all lasted only a moment, but it was most definitely there, right in front of him. He could have reached out and touched any one of them. His eyelids flickered, and they were gone. No shimmer, no noise, nothing. Gone.

  “Norman?” Allie sounded a thousand miles away. “What’s wrong? Do you need a hand?”

  “Did you see that?” he cried, whirling to face her.

  “See what?”

  “Walking there, people. People in suits, right there on the stairs!” He reached over and gripped her shoulder. “You didn’t see that?”

  Her lips had parted, and her eyes were wide, afraid. “Norman, are you alright?”

  There was no lie in her eyes; she hadn’t seen anything.

  “I’m fine,” he breathed. “I’m fine, I just … I need a rest.”

  “Good idea. Just make sure you show for the summit. One hour.”

  “An hour.” He nodded. He tried to give her an encouraging smile, but his cheeks had turned to cement. The pain in his chest pulsed, sending blinding flashes up his spine to the base of his skull. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe. He turned back to the stairs and hurried away from her—her and everyone else.

  It wasn’t real. It was the pain. It was making him seeing things.

  They were people from before the End. The voice whispering those words was familiar, but not his own. He had heard it once before, though, perhaps in a half-forgotten dream.

  Echoes. That’s what they’re called. Echoes.

  No, it was just a hallucination. Pain did funny things, played tricks on you. The people who had once lived and worked here were long gone.

  That same familiar voice spoke once more, setting free a torrent of liquid fear into his bowels: That’s right: they’re all dead and gone. Aren’t they?

  CHAPTER 4

  Billy Peyton was dying. Tree-studded darkness lay all around her, and no matter which way she turned, the forest always looked the same. The great maze had swallowed her up, and she had been stupid enough to wander right into it. How long had she been in here?