Page 85 of Never a Hero

‘Joan.’ He wrapped his free arm around her, and Joan pressed her forehead to his shoulder. His free hand came up to thumb a tear track from her face. When had she started crying? ‘We’re going to get out of here,’ he said seriously. ‘We’ll figure it out.’

Joan touched his tethered wrist. Under the manacle, his skin was chafed raw. The cuff was attached to a cruelly short chain that ended in a metal loop embedded halfway up the stone wall of the fireplace, like a ship’s mooring ring. Its position meant that Nick had to sit awkwardly with his hand raised above him. And if he got to his feet, he’d have to uncomfortably stoop. ‘How long have they made you sit like that?’ Joan said. There was new chafing over old.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Nick pulled her closer, mouth pressed to the top of her head. His voice seemed to rumble through her whole body. ‘I’m okay.’ His voice darkened. ‘How did they capture you? Did they hurt you?’

Joan shook her head against his shoulder. ‘Let me get that chain off you,’ she managed.

She looked around. The Holland House library was a long gallery that spanned the full width of the house. In its prime, its shelves had been full of leather-bound books, its walls crammed with oil paintings. But Eleanor had stripped the space bare, leaving the shelves and walls eerily empty. The only remaining decoration was the evening-blue ceiling with its constellation of silver stars, and the red wallpaper of rich Cordova leather.

Joan couldn’t see anything that would help with picking a lock. She had a couple of pins in her hair, though. She always did now—ever since Nick had chained her up in this same house.

She pushed away the memory of her own shackled leg and cuffed hands, and she took his wrist to study the keyhole. Nick’s pulse jumped under her touch.

Joan was aware suddenly that she’d just been pressed right up against him, his mouth against her head like a kiss. They were still close enough that the air between them felt warm. His T-shirt was so thin that he could have been bare-chested. Joan could see every muscle.

‘How … how long have you been here?’ she asked again.

‘A few weeks,’ Nick said.

‘Weeks?’ Joan said, horrified. Eleanor had had him for weeks? What had she done to him in that time?

‘They brought me here in a horse and carriage. This is the past, isn’t it?’

‘1891,’ Joan said, and Nick made a soft sound like when he’d looked out onto London’s new landmarks. Weeks, Joan thought again. ‘Did she do anything to you? Hurt you?’

‘She?’ Nick seemed puzzled. ‘You mean the woman you just spoke to? I’ve barely seen her.’

Joan took a deep breath, trying to feel relieved. She had too many questions, though. Why had Eleanor taken Nick again? Why had she made him into the hero in the first place? Why had she put Joan and Nick in here together?

‘Where’d you learn to pick a lock?’ Nick said.

Joan looked up at him, and his eyes crinkled—he was trying to distract her from being scared. Joan tried to smile back. She focused again on the lock. It was a little large for bobby pins. ‘My gran taught me,’ she said. ‘She used to make a game of it with me and Ruth and our other cousin Bertie.’

‘Racing against each other to pick locks?’

Joan found herself smiling a little for real. ‘Nah. Bertie doesn’t like games that people can lose. Gran used to put chocolates in locked boxes. If we could break the lock, we could keep the prize.’

‘My brother Robbie’s a bit like Bertie,’ Nick said. ‘Ruth reminds me of Alice.’

Joan blinked up at him. It felt strange to be talking about her family with him—in this house where they’d died. Where Gran had bled out in Joan’s arms. This Nick didn’t remember that, though.

Joan touched his arm—careful to stay away from the raw redness of his wrist. ‘You miss them,’ she whispered, and Nick nodded.

‘All of them. My mum, my sister Mary … I used to walk the little ones to school.’ His forehead creased. ‘God, they haven’t been born yet here. My grandparents haven’t been born yet.’

Joan knew how he was feeling. The first time she’d travelled, she’d felt unmoored. She’d arrived in 1993—a time before her own birth, before Dad had immigrated to England. She hadn’t known anyone but Aaron. ‘I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to get you home.’

Nick lifted his eyes to hers. ‘The blonde woman …’ he said. ‘The one you spoke to. I heard her name—Eleanor.’

It creeped Joan out that Nick didn’t remember her. Eleanor had moulded him into the hero last time. ‘She’s an authority figure in the monster world,’ Joan explained. ‘Just below the King himself. I think she’s trying to change the timeline—to that vision we saw through the café window?’

Nick’s jaw tightened. ‘The van with the corpses.’ You saw the world as it should be, Eleanor had said. As it will be. Joan clenched her fists. No, it wouldn’t be.

‘Eleanor wants to make that world a reality. She wants to change the timeline.’

Nick’s gaze was very clear. ‘It’s not going to happen. We’re going to stop her.’ He sounded so certain that Joan could almost believe him. A flicker of sickness crossed that clear gaze, and Joan knew he was seeing them again. The dead people. ‘I don’t understand why she’s doing this,’ he said. ‘We saw a murder in broad daylight. All those people in the van. Who would want to create a world like that?’

Joan dropped her head. To answer that question, she would have to tell Nick the truth of what monsters were. And if she did that, she’d lose him. Again. When Gran had told Joan the truth, Joan had run from the family house. It had seemed too horrifying to believe.

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