Page 50 of Never a Hero

A boy of about eighteen stood above her, on the stairs. His hair was ash blond—almost grey toned—and it made a curtain around angular features and a soft mouth. Joan would have said that his eyes were his most striking feature—they reminded her of Gran’s: bright green and hard as emerald—but then she saw his tattoo. The black lines were stark against his pale forearm: the withered branches of a burnt tree.

He was a member of the Argent family—like the man who’d ordered that Nick be still, as if Nick had been a dog.

The boy followed her gaze to the tattoo. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said. His eyes widened in a dramatic mimicry of horror. He was mocking her own expression, Joan realised. ‘Don’t like Argents?’ He bent so that he was looking right into Joan’s eyes. ‘Are you afraid of me?’ His expression shifted to unexpectedly sincere. ‘I think you are. I think you’re so scared of me, you need to run from this room.’

‘What?’ Joan blinked at him, confused now. She wasn’t afraid of him. Disgusted by the Argent power, yes. Afraid, no.

The boy broke into a grin. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve always wondered if the Argent power would work on a half-human. Guess it only works on full ones.’

‘You tried to use your power on me?’ Joan said. She hadn’t felt a hint of compulsion, but the thought of being under this boy’s control made her stomach roll. ‘That’s sick,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t use that power on anyone!’

‘Oh, okay,’ the boy said. He touched his forehead in a lazy salute. Then he pushed past her on the stairs and sauntered around the corner, out of sight.

Joan stared after him, shaken. Why was he even here? Wasn’t this a Hathaway and Liu place?

And suddenly, she didn’t want to be standing here alone, when the Argent boy could come back into the room. She had to get to the others. She turned to the stairs. As she did, a pale mark on the banister caught her eye. Was it a shard of sunlight? Joan placed her fingertip to the mark; it fit perfectly. She ran it back and forth—smooth varnish, then rough wood, then smooth varnish again.

Had she done that? Joan stared at the mark. Had she stripped away the varnish, leaving bare, untreated wood? As if in answer, she felt her power flicker inside her like a fanned flame. It was still faint, but it seemed a little stronger than before.

The floor above showed the bones of a warehouse conversion. On the ground floor, the walls had been plastered, but here, everything was exposed. Unpainted wooden beams ran crisscross along the ceiling and raw brick showed.

Joan walked along the wide corridor until she reached a door with a taped paper sign: We’re in here. Inside, there was a small apartment with a homey living area. The mismatched sofas and hand-knitted throws reminded Joan of the main Liu house. She spotted Ruth and Nick on a balcony overlooking the canal. From this distance, their hair was the same near-black—Ruth’s curly, Nick’s straight.

A few months ago, Joan would have been terrified by the sight of them together; she’d have assumed that Nick was here to kill Ruth. And maybe Ruth would have gotten in a lucky shot and killed him.

‘Hey, there you are!’ Ruth called to Joan. She leaned over to push open the sliding door. ‘Come sit with us!’

Joan walked over. Outside, the building looked even more like a warehouse. Faded white paint on the outer wall hinted at old signage. The balcony itself was an add-on, its blue rails a bright modern contrast to the aged brown brick.

‘Tom and Jamie aren’t here?’ Joan said as Ruth shuffled over so that she could take the seat between them.

‘They’re grabbing some food,’ Nick said. ‘Should be back soon.’

‘And you two …’ Joan said tentatively. ‘You’ve been all right together?’ Ruth and Aaron had hated each other. And as for Ruth and Nick … They’d never actually met. Ruth had been stabbed by one of Nick’s people—that was as close as they’d gotten.

Nick’s mouth tugged up. ‘She knows everything about my life now.’ He didn’t seem to mind that. ‘And she told me some stories about you growing up.’

‘What stories?’ Joan said warily.

‘Only the funny ones,’ Ruth said, waving a hand in a way that didn’t reassure Joan at all. She sat up straighter. ‘I just remembered another one!’ she said to Nick. ‘She tried to make a carrot night-light!’

‘A what?’ Nick said.

‘Caught her trying to stick a carrot into a light socket one night. Because Gran told her carrots help you see in the dark!’

‘I was four,’ Joan protested.

‘That’s practically scientific for a four-year-old,’ Nick assured her, but he bit at his own smile.

Joan opened her mouth, and then could only look between them. It was the kind of conversation she’d had a million times before—with friends, with family—but she’d never imagined Nick having an ordinary chat with any of the Hunts. Had the true timeline been like this, she wondered, with a flare of yearning. Had both sides gotten along?

It struck Joan that she herself could never have been happy without the Hunts in her life. Had the original Joan lied to Nick about the truth of monsters too? No. Her remnant feelings were too pure; she’d trusted him completely. Joan supposed she must have lived in ignorant bliss. To have been happy like that, she must never have known what she was, and Nick must never have known either.

In the main room, a cheerful clatter indicated that Jamie and Tom were back. ‘Hiya!’ Tom called. Under one arm, he held Frankie; under the other, the biggest parcel of fish and chips Joan had ever seen.

Jamie swerved to a cupboard at the corner of the room. He retrieved some plates. ‘Chopsticks or forks?’ he called.

‘Just fingers!’ Ruth yelled back, and Jamie shot her a look.

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