Page 10 of Never a Hero

A woman advanced on Joan. Her neat bob of hair and flared 1950s dress made her look like a black-and-white advertisement come to life. Her lipstick was a touch asymmetrical, giving her mouth a cruel twist. From her breast pocket, she plucked a slim golden cylinder. She handed it to Corvin, and he flicked it with his thumb. It unrolled into a short length of paper-thin gold, cut into lacework.

‘What are you doing?’ Joan managed. What was that thing? ‘Who are you?’ She kicked at the woman to keep her back.

‘Steady her,’ Corvin said, and someone seized Joan’s right arm and shoved her shirtsleeve up, popping the button.

Joan struggled. ‘Nick!’ she gasped out. He was still just standing there. What was going on? ‘Nick!’

Corvin draped the lacework onto Joan’s forearm, just below the wrist. For a moment, it lay there like a pretty golden arm cuff. And then it seemed to shiver and writhe and burn, burrowing into Joan’s skin like a live thing. Joan gasped—it hurt like a splash of molten metal.

‘She’s anchored to me,’ Corvin said. ‘We can go.’

Go? Were they taking her somewhere? ‘Who are you? Why—’ Joan’s voice cracked, and she blurted, ‘Why did you kill Margie?’ She couldn’t believe Margie was dead. ‘Why didn’t you let her go?’ Margie’s little sister, Sammy, was turning six on Wednesday. Margie had been planning to make a smash cake in the shape of a rock with dinosaurs inside. And now … ‘She was leaving. She was on her way out!’

‘Oh, stop,’ Corvin snapped, as if Joan had questioned his professionalism. ‘There was barely half a year left in her.’

Little butterfly of a thing, he’d called Margie earlier. Was he saying that Margie would have died soon anyway? Joan shook her head. She couldn’t bear it.

Corvin raised his voice. ‘Someone stay back and clean up!’ he ordered. ‘Deal with the body and the boy!’

Kill the boy, he’d said before. Joan lost it then. She elbowed and kicked, trying to get out of Corvin’s grip. Nick was still standing there, statue-still. Had he even blinked? ‘Nick, fight!’ Joan begged him. ‘Fight! You have to get out of here! They’ll kill you!’ And it would be Joan’s fault. The other version of Nick could have stopped them all, but Joan had stripped him of his memories and abilities. She’d made him helpless against monsters. Even he didn’t know what he’d once been.

In the distance, a siren started up. ‘Head out!’ Corvin said. ‘Quickly now!’

Joan was peripherally aware that the courtyard was emptying as monsters vanished into thin air.

Out of nowhere, the desire to time travel hit her too—a punched-gut yearning so strong that for a second, it overwhelmed every other feeling, even her fear for Nick. But it wasn’t her own desire. She’s anchored to me, Corvin had said. He’d put that thing on her—that cuff—and now he was trying to drag her out of this time.

‘Come on!’ Corvin said to her.

The feeling of forced yearning increased. Joan needed to follow him—more than she wanted to breathe. It was primal.

Joan fought on the same primal level to stay here in this time. Monsters time travelled by thinking of a time and yearning for it. Joan filled herself with a yearning for home. For here. For the place they already were.

She fought it like she’d fought the fade-out this morning, focusing on her senses. It was cold. She could smell wet cobblestones and baked bread and chimney smoke. I’m home, she thought. I don’t want to be anywhere but here.

‘Do you have her or not?’ This was said by a thin man with a pointed face and spare grey hair. He sounded dubious, almost condescendingly so.

Corvin’s response was irritated. ‘Course I have her.’ He grunted, though, as if he were struggling with a heavy weight.

The forced desire became desperate. Joan could feel herself losing grip. I don’t want to be anywhere but here, she told herself again. But her internal voice seemed weak in comparison with the desperate need to travel. She twisted again in Corvin’s arms until she could see Nick, and only him.

Corvin growled with effort. Joan couldn’t breathe. Nick, she thought, letting herself yearn for him rather than pushing her feelings away for once. I want to stay here with you. But Corvin was too strong. Around her, the sound of the siren faded to nothing. The sharp smell of rain disappeared.

Nick … Nick …

In the growing darkness of her vision, Joan glimpsed movement where there’d been none. Nick’s hands were clenching slowly into fists. His face took on expression like water filling a cup.

‘Run!’ Joan gritted out. Her own voice sounded tinny and far away.

But instead of running, Nick turned toward Corvin with grim purpose. In one stride, he was there. He did something hard and fast that made Corvin croak with pain and stagger back, pulling Joan with him.

‘Kill him!’ Corvin called, looking over his shoulder for help. ‘Stop him!’

But there was no one to help.

The other monsters had vanished, leaving him alone in the courtyard with Joan and Nick.

four

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