Page 18 of Never a Hero

But … if she didn’t tell him something, she could lose him right here. Maybe he’d figure it all out anyway. Maybe he’d find that path again by himself.

Nick shifted, all contained strength, reminding Joan again of a superhero. Or maybe something more old-fashioned. An old-school knight. A king. The kind who got crowned because people wanted to follow him. The kind who could raise armies.

She looked down and saw that her hands were shaking. Careful, she told herself. Only tell him enough to satisfy him. She started slowly. ‘There’s a—a world,’ she said. ‘Hidden within our own. A world of people with …’ She searched for the right word. ‘Powers.’

‘Powers?’ Nick’s eyes sharpened with interest. ‘Like the ability to appear and disappear?’

Joan wet her dry lips and nodded. She’d just broken a taboo. You must never tell anyone about monsters, Gran had always said. It was the most fundamental monster law. And here Joan was, telling the most dangerous person she’d ever known.

‘Like the ability to command people?’ Nick asked.

‘Well …’ Joan’s stomach churned. She’d never seen the Argent power before today. ‘Some people can do that.’ She felt sick remembering how Nick’s eyes had blanked and his body had stilled.

‘Can you?’ Nick said. His voice lowered to a pitch that Joan felt in her bones. ‘Can you control people’s minds? Can you control mine?’

‘What?’ Joan whispered. ‘No.’ This conversation already felt wrong: a train that had jumped the tracks.

Nick took a step forward, his face falling deeper into shadow. ‘You’re one of them, though, aren’t you? The guy at my house called me human, but not you.’

Joan couldn’t stop her flinch. I never thought you were one of them, he’d told her after his massacre of monsters at Holland House. She had a flash of him plunging a sword into a man’s heart, throwing that same sword across a room as easily as if it had been a dart. He’d once been a bedtime story to frighten monster children. And he was already thinking of them and him—of her and the attackers on one side, of him on the other.

But then he took one more step into the moonlight, and his face was gentler than she was expecting. Joan had conjured his old self in the shadows, a predator full of suspicion. But now that she could see him properly again, he didn’t look like that at all.

‘I phrased that poorly,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m sorry.’ His next words were careful. He watched her, taking in her response. ‘Can you tell me how you know about this world?’

This wasn’t him, she thought, with one of those strange tugs of grief and relief. This wasn’t a slayer, probing for weaknesses. This was a boy who’d been attacked; who’d saved her life; who’d lost his family and was trying to make sense of it all.

Joan tried to find an answer. ‘My mum was a—’ She stopped again before she said monster. ‘My mum was like the people in the courtyard, but she died when I was a baby. My dad is human. I didn’t know that this world existed until last summer.’

‘You’re new to this too,’ he said. Joan heard him shift his weight and realised she’d dropped her gaze. She lifted her head, still half expecting suspicion, but his eyes were soft. ‘I’m sorry about your mum,’ he said. ‘My dad died a few years ago.’

‘Your dad died?’ Joan whispered, shaken. In the other timeline, his father had been murdered by a monster when Nick was much younger; Joan had assumed his whole family was still alive in this timeline.

‘He had a heart attack at home,’ Nick said. ‘It’s been … It’s been hard.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Joan had imagined him happy, his eyes unshadowed. But grief had still been part of his life here too. She found herself looking at him properly for what felt like the first time—not the hero and warrior he’d been, and not even the school football star, but the boy in front of her right now. He was shivering a little in the growing chill. He’d arrived in this time in a thin T-shirt—far too cold for the November day they’d left behind and still too cold for spring. The kind of clothes you’d wear when you thought you’d be home again in fifteen minutes. ‘I’m so sorry I got you into this,’ she whispered. He should have been home, safe with his family—not on this dark path, being hunted by monsters.

Nick tilted his head as if he’d heard a sound that Joan hadn’t. ‘You didn’t get me into it.’

Joan wished that were true. ‘They came for me.’

‘You were attacked,’ Nick countered. ‘I was there. Nothing about that was your fault.’

Joan didn’t want to have a whole back-and-forth with him about what was her fault and what wasn’t—he didn’t know enough. She’d stripped him of his knowledge. She felt sick.

‘Do you know what they wanted with you?’ Nick whispered.

‘I …’ Joan had once overheard a Court Guard describe her power in a hushed voice: Something forbidden. Something wrong.

Before she could answer, Nick’s head lifted. For a second, Joan was sure he was going to press harder. But then he murmured, ‘Do you hear that?’

Joan strained, listening. She couldn’t hear anything at first but distant traffic. Then a sound rose above the others, one engine louder than the rest. A car—maybe as close as the cul-de-sac. Time to go.

‘We need to keep away from cameras,’ Joan reminded him.

‘And people with strange clothes and haircuts.’

Joan had already turned away, but now she jerked her gaze back to him. ‘Right,’ she said, unsettled. Not all the attackers had been in strange clothes, but now that Joan thought about it, they’d almost all sported haircuts that weren’t quite of this time. She hadn’t noticed that until now. ‘That’s … that’s right.’

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