Page 64 of Never a Hero

The guard glanced toward the café. Joan flinched back, but his eyes grazed past; apparently, he couldn’t see them through the window. He adjusted his cuffs and, with an air of casual entitlement, he beckoned to the blond man.

The blond man had stopped running, Joan saw then. His posture was utter defeat. Now, hesitantly and reluctantly, he walked toward the guard.

‘What is this?’ Joan whispered. The scene was all wrong. On the other side of the street, people were still going about their business as if nothing unusual was happening, as if the van with the Monster Court sigil was a common sight.

No, that wasn’t quite true. Here and there, people snatched glances; they weren’t uninterested, Joan realised. They were afraid to show interest. And that made her heart beat faster too.

The guard said something to the blond man; he was cautioning the man, Joan guessed. Arresting him. The blond man stood there, chest heaving, eyes glassy. He whispered back, and Joan read the words on his lips: I’m loyal. I’m loyal.

Joan waited for the guard to pull out handcuffs, but instead he stepped closer, cupping the blond man’s neck almost possessively. You’re nothing, he said.

‘No!’ Joan heard herself say as she realised the guard’s intent. ‘No!’

‘What’s wrong?’ Nick asked.

And then the blond man crumpled to the ground.

Joan heard herself make a horrified sound. She had a clear view of the guard’s emotionless face. He might as well have swatted a fly. She could hear her own breaths coming out in harsh gasps. Across the street, no one was sneaking glances anymore. They’d all turned away.

‘What …’ Nick said numbly. ‘We—We need to go out there and help that guy. We need to call an ambulance!’

He didn’t know the blond man was dead. He didn’t know that the guard had just stolen all his life from him—in front of dozens of witnesses. A monster had just killed a human in broad daylight as if he’d had the right.

Did we travel in time? Nick had said. Joan couldn’t catch her breath. Had they?

The guard glanced up at the grey smoke clouding the sky. Then he wrenched open the back of the van.

And—Joan gasped. There were more bodies inside. She took in the details in disconnected flashes: a woman’s shoe with a broken strap, foot still in it; a boy in some kind of uniform; a middle-aged man with a mustache.

Joan shoved back from the booth in horror, half falling into Nick behind her. And then the world seemed to shudder. In the time it took Joan to blink, the worn Victorian-like buildings were gone. The guard was gone. The van full of corpses was gone.

Everything was as it had been when they’d arrived—even the misshapen, jagged hole was back. There was nothing inside it now but the void.

‘Did you see that?’ Nick said disbelievingly. ‘What was that?’

Joan couldn’t stop shaking. She hadn’t felt like this since Ruth had told her that her family was dead. Since she’d seen the bodies of Nick’s victims lying in the garden.

What was that? If she were to guess, it had looked like a London where monsters lived openly among humans; where a monster could kill a human in broad daylight; where onlookers didn’t dare protest.

‘Was that the future Astrid saw?’ she whispered.

‘But it was wrong.’ Jamie sounded numb. ‘That’s not the future; there’s never a time like that.’

‘But what was it?’ Nick said. ‘What did he do to that man? I don’t understand! I think he killed him! I think he killed all those people in the van!’

‘We need to get out of here,’ Tom said firmly. ‘We can figure things out on the boat. We shouldn’t have stayed so long. This place has to be monitored.’

Joan squeezed her eyes shut, trying to pull herself together, trying to unsee the inside of that van. She opened her mouth to call to Ruth, and then stopped as she saw Ruth’s face. Ruth was as shaken and pale as Joan felt.

Ruth put a finger to her lips. Shh, she mouthed. Guards.

For a long moment, Joan couldn’t process what she meant. Guards?

Still silent, Ruth jerked her chin in the direction of the windows—on her side of the seal. There was a crash then. Someone called, ‘Got that scaffolding off!’ Keys jangled.

Joan had a second to think, They’ll see Ruth first. And then Nick was sprinting past Joan, faster than she could have believed. As the lock clicked and the café door opened, Nick was through the frame. He shoved Ruth back into the sealed part of the café and then knocked the frame aside. It was still falling as the first guard entered. It hit the floor with a loud clatter, making the guard start back in surprise.

‘No!’ Joan shouted. ‘Nick!’ She sprinted to him unthinkingly, and her shoulder hit the invisible barrier. She rebounded, gasping. ‘Nick!’

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