They emerged from the stairwell in the hour before dawn, the birds starting to stir and call to each other. Their songs sweetened the air, softened the edges of the horror they had all lived through that night. The grey-blue light sketched out the buildings, the drifts of dust, the rusting cars, all strange, terrifying things to the new children. They clustered tightly together, many of them trying to hold Eve’s hands, or at least be close to her. The huddle of children quickly separated themselves from the others, regarding them suspiciously.
The women, some crying, some staring silently, also clustered together and watched the other adults with as much suspicion as the children. Titus, Erin, and Zane, still in his father’s arms, found themselves between the two groups as Jay and Luthor joined them.
“S’alright.” Jay smiled at the children and said, “You’ll love it in my patch and your mates are there already.”
He said it in such a relaxed way, with that smile and such self-confidence that some of them nodded. Eve, caught in the centre of the huddle, watched Titus as if hoping for clues, but when none were forthcoming, she looked around at the tall buildings and then up at the sky and began to cling to the boys in return.
“It’s all so … big,” she whispered, and several of the children began to whimper in fear.
“Everyone’s like this when they first come up,” Jay reassured, his voice gentle. “But believe me, you get used to it dead quick. And it’s great up ’ere. Honest-like.”
As he was speaking to them, Luthor turned to the women. “You should all come with me, and consider yourselves under the protection of the Red Lady.”
“Hang on!” Jay rounded on him. “You ’ent got the right to go claiming’ them when we’re this close to my patch!”
“Nobody should be claiming anyone!” Titus interjected. “Where do you want to go?” he asked the women.
Nobody replied straight away, many of them were looking at the children, studying their features in the dawn’s light. Two were whispering to each other excitedly and the taller of the two stepped forward and said, “I think you’re my son!” to one of the boys clinging to Eve.
The word clearly meant nothing to any of the Unders children and the boy in question simply clung onto to Eve more tightly, staring at the woman in such a way that stole the excitement from her eyes.
“They don’t know who we are,” the red-headed woman muttered and in that moment, it was as if their collective maternal yearning shrank back, repelled by the sight of their own children fearing them as strangers.
“But we should stay with them,” the tall woman said tearfully. “Else they’ll never know who we are!”
“You’re more than welcome!” Jay retorted, flashing a triumphant grin at Luthor. But when he glanced back at the children cowering away from the adults, it quickly faded.
“That is an absurd idea,” Luthor said to the woman. “His gang has no means to protect you or provide for you.” He pointed at her swollen belly. “You need protection. We will give it. There is no debate here.”
Erin stepped forward, eager to soften her father’s words. “You won’t be prisoners!” she urged. “The Red Lady’s gang is strong, and we grow food and hunt, and have clean water. There’s a proper kitchen and rooms with beds that are clean. Won’t that be better for you whilst you’re ill?”
“We’re not ill,” the redhead retorted. “We’re pregnant.” When she saw no understanding in Erin’s expression, she added, “We’re going to have babies.”
Erin’s nose wrinkled. “Oh. Well …” She glanced at Shannon, but saw that he was setting Zane down on a nearby doorstep. “I don’t know much about that …”
“You will be vulnerable.” Luthor stated. “You will need protection for you and your children. Come with us.”
Jay was about to wade in again when he saw Hunters emerging from the next street, returning from their part in the plan. His hands flicked out the bottom of his jacket to rest on the hilts of his knives as he glowered in their direction, but he said nothing. It was no coincidence that he was the only Bloomsbury Boy to see the early days of adulthood; he knew which fights were worth the risk, and which were not.
“Fine,” he said. “Take ’em. My new Boys don’t like ’em anyway. We’re all better off without ya!” He turned on his heels, jerked a thumb towards his territory. “This way you lot, come and see my Boys.”
“But what about Eve?” one of the boys wrapped around her left arm squawked. “She’s a girl!”
Jay stopped and looked at her, frowning. “That’s true …” He watched the way the collective mass hung on his response, nodded to himself, and said, “Well, I’ll let her join too, if you think she’s that great. But that don’t mean any other girls can. Only Eve.”
At that, they swept off, Jay marching ahead of them like the Pied Piper. With a slightly dazed expression Eve glanced back at Titus, who called out, “I live very close to Jay’s square! I’ll find you soon!” and then looked rather surprised at himself for doing so.
Once Jay had left with the children, the rest had been simple. Shannon asked to go with the women, having discussed something with Zane who was slowly coming back to himself. Luthor agreed, knowing that a doctor would soon be indispensable.
Erin didn’t join her father straight away as she helped Titus to take Zane home, one under each of his shoulders. It was the first time that the three of them had been alone since it had all started, and even though he was struggling to walk in his exhaustion and aftereffects of the injection, Zane held onto his friends as tightly as he could.
“How did you get down there?” Erin asked at the end of the street. “Did they catch you on the way home?”
He shook his head. “I went to speak to Radley. I was trying to stop you all.”
Erin and Titus stopped, bringing Zane to a halt also.
“I’m sorry,” Titus said quietly. “I’m sorry we didn’t listen. I should have guessed what you were going to do, but I was so –”
“It doesn’t matter,” Zane mumbled. “It’s too late now. It’s all over.” His voice was flat. Titus and Erin both frowned as they watched him, sagging between them. “I was stupid to think I could’ve done anything.”
“You’re saying that because you’re so tired,” Erin said quietly. “It must have been horrible.”
They started to walk again, their footfalls echoing off the buildings around them. “Don’t say anything to Mum, about Dad I mean,” Zane said as they neared the square. “He wants to see her himself, once he knows the women will be ok, and once I’m feeling better.”
“We won’t say a word,” Titus affirmed.
“Promise,” Erin added. “It’s your business.”
None of them were surprised to be met at the edge of the square by a ragged Miri who had spent a sleepless night imagining the worst. Titus outlined only the briefest version of the events as Miri crushed Zane to her. Callum soon joined them, helping Miri put the exhausted boy to bed, giving her a steady shoulder to weep her relief into.
Erin left quickly to join her father and the escort of the women, leaving Titus outside of Zane’s house as the sky blushed red and the clamour of the birdsong reached its crescendo.
Lyssa emerged from the house, still rather frail and thin in her mismatched clothes. She pulled the blanket from her shoulders and wrapped it around Titus, making him realise for the first time that he was tired, and cold, and just wanted to stop. They embraced.
“They’re gone now,” he whispered to her, squeezing her tight and feeling her ribs under his hands. “They’ll never take you again.”
A strange, choked noise erupted from her and she began to sob, not only for the first time since they had got her back, but the first time that Titus had ever known her to. It frightened him to feel her body shake as she wept uncontrollably. Lyssa, his rock, the one who had always protected him, was now leaning into him, clinging to him for support. He realised in that moment that at some point since they had first strayed into this part of London, he had grown taller than her. He parted slightly to look at her, look down into her eyes. “I think we should stay here. Until you’re strong again at least.”
She nodded, sniffing, reddening with embarrassment. She attacked the tears on her cheeks with her hands. “Sorry. I’m just tired.” Titus smiled at the lie. “Where’s Eve? Is she ok?”
“She’s fine. She’s with Jay and the Boys.”
“I’m not sure she should be with that Jay,” Lyssa muttered and Titus nodded in agreement.
“That’s something for tomorrow,” Titus replied. “Right now, let’s just … catch our breath.” With that, he led her inside the house and shut the door.
Zane slept all of that day, through the night, and woke with the next dawn. After breakfast, Miri took him straight into the garden to work by her side in the hope that a normal day would be just the thing to restore his spirits. She had no idea what had placed that haunted look in his eyes, what had stolen the boyish look from his face. She had no idea that Zane would never be the same again.
“Mum,” Zane said as they both plucked weeds from between the herbs. “Why haven’t you asked me what happened in the Unders?”
Miri paused, then rocked back onto her heels. “I wanted to. But you haven’t seemed ready to talk about it. And right now, you being ok is more important than me knowing.”
Zane looked away, picked some of the leaves off a weed. Part of him wanted to tell her, but once he started, where would he stop? Would telling her that one man had killed all of the people she loved make her feel better?
“I’m not ready yet,” he replied.
She nodded slowly. “Alright,” she replied reluctantly, pushing away that maternal urge to find out everything and make it better.
“But I do want to talk about Dad,” Zane continued, taking her by surprise. “Why haven’t you asked about him?”
She sighed. “The same reason. And, if I’m honest, because I’m scared to know.” She drew in a deep breath. “Is he still alive?”
Zane nodded. “Yes. And he isn’t what you think … or what I thought too. They made him do the experiments and said they’d kill us if he didn’t.”
Miri pulled off her gardening gloves, laid them carefully on the ground in front of her. She swallowed hard. “Where is he now?”
“There were lots of pregnant women, down there in the Unders, and Luthor took them to live with the Red Lady’s gang. Dad went with them to make sure they’re ok.”
Miri pinched the point where the bridge of her nose met her forehead and massaged the small muscles under the skin.
“He’s going to come and see you,” Zane continued. “He just wanted to give me a chance to talk to you when I woke up.”
“Miri,” Shannon’s voice called to her from the gated entrance to the garden behind him. She turned so quickly that she almost fell into the herb bed.
Zane got up and ran to him. They embraced as Miri got to her feet and wiped her hands on the apron and pulled the scarf from her hair.
“I told her, Dad. I explained it to her. Now you can come and live with us!”
He pulled away to look at the two of them taking each other in. He couldn’t understand why they weren’t running into each other’s arms, why they weren’t holding each other tight and laughing with delight. He had played the moment through in his mind many times–why wasn’t it becoming real?
“Mum?”
She approached slowly, looking at Shannon in such a way that Zane wondered if she disbelieved her own eyes. “Zane, go and put some water onto boil,” she said with a cracking voice. “We need some tea.”
He didn’t know what drew him to the room in the hospital. Perhaps it was the desire to see his father happier, younger, in another life filled with colour and laughter and friendship. With the Unders emptied and the Giant’s mystique destroyed, the place no longer held any fear for him. Not even the words of his mother frightened him now. Even now he could hear her saying, “Never go into the hospitals, Zane,” but its power over him had been burnt away like mist on a summer morning.
As his eyes searched the photos, he thought about Roper and the monstrous thing he’d done. He remembered the coldness in his mother when his father returned; he thought about Erin plunging the knife into Doug’s chest. He sank into the dusty office chair. How could he not have seen all these things so clearly before? How could he have thought that people were kind underneath it all?
Now he knew what lay underneath. Hatred. Fear. And the desire to survive. Nothing more.
He wept.
The hand on his shoulder made him leap up and cry out. Titus stepped back as Erin spread her hands in the universal gesture of harmlessness.
“It’s only us!” she exclaimed. “It’s ok.”
“What are you doing here?” Zane asked, frantically wiping the tears away with his sleeve in Bloomsbury Boy fashion.
“Finding you,” Titus replied. “We knew you were here.”
“We thought you might be upset,” Erin said softly. “We wanted to make sure you’re ok.”
Despite his best efforts with his sleeve, Zane’s cheeks remained wet as new tears fell. For the first time he felt angry that he was still crying. His cheeks burned.
“How can I be ok?” he spat, shaking with heaving sobs. “He killed all of them! And Mum hates Dad! And I thought we’d all be together! But what does it matter anyway? All those people! All those people!”
Violent sobs stole the breath away from any words that might have emerged. Titus and Erin watched, speechless, as Zane dropped back into the chair and buried his face in his hands.
“Who killed all of them?” Erin asked after a few moments.
“The man, the man in the room,” Zane garbled. “He made a disease that killed everyone. That’s what It was, s … something that man made to kill the people he didn’t like.”
Only Zane’s anguished sobs filled the air. Titus leant against the desk and Erin frowned intently at the top of Zane’s head, both of them struggling to take it in.
“Only,” Zane continued, “only it went wrong and started to kill everyone, and it killed millions of people.” He pointed at the pictures. “All of my dad’s friends, all of those people.” He broke down again, unable to speak.
“That man, the one you were with when we found you?” Erin asked and watched Zane nod. “Zane … did you –” She stopped when Titus put his hand on her arm and shook his head. Zane didn’t seem to notice the unfinished question, and even though she was desperate to know if Zane had let the man die, she saw from Titus’ expression that now wasn’t the time to ask.
So they waited as Zane’s grief and anger flowed out of him with the saltwater. Finally he looked up at them, his face blotched and pale. “Sorry.”
“Your mum is talking with your dad,” Erin said gently. “Maybe they just needed to … I dunno, talk about it all.”
“Perhaps Miri is finding it hard to come to terms with,” Titus offered. “She’s used to the idea of him being gone–perhaps it’s too much of a shock for her to be happy straight away.”
Zane shrugged. Erin crouched in front of him, putting her eyes level with his. “It’ll be ok,” she said but his eyebrow rose in disbelief. It threw her, to see anything but trust there. “Um … but seriously, it will be. I know all that happened with the Unders, and that man, that all that was really bad, but you know, we have us. And we got Eve and the children out. And your dad.”
Zane sighed and nodded. “I suppose so.”
Erin’s hand shot out to take Zane’s and she squeezed it hard. “Don’t be like this, Zane!” she blurted. “If you stop being … if you’re not …” Her words faltered and Zane simply leant forward and embraced her.
“I’ll be ok,” he whispered, feeling like a liar. “You’re right anyway. It is good that the others are out, and we do have each other.” He squeezed her tight, not caring about how awkwardly she held onto him. He glanced up to see Titus watching and forced himself to smile at him, to reassure him that he was alright. “I can hardly remember what it was like before you two came, it feels so right for us to be together.”
Erin nodded and gently pulled herself away. “We’d better go before we get too soft,” she muttered and left the room quickly.
Zane stood, noticing the dark spatters of his tears drying in the dust. “What next?” he asked, and looked to his friend.
Titus smiled slightly. “We recover, we get Eve, then we have two things we need to do.”
Zane frowned, noting the seriousness of Titus’ manner. “What things?”
“We find out what happened to Erin’s mum, and help her if we can,” Titus stated. “If we can bring down the Unders, then we can definitely do that.”
Zane drew in a deep breath and let it out again with a sigh. “It’s only right, we can’t leave her with the Gardners.” Titus nodded. “What’s the other thing?”
“We find out why we’re different,” Titus replied.
“You mean me making people better, and the dream room?”
Titus nodded again. “Then we might know why the Red Lady is so interested in us.”
“It’s not just because she likes us?” he asked, crestfallen, and Titus laughed affectionately at the glimpse of the old Zane.
“No, it’s not,” Titus replied with certainty, steering Zane out of the room to follow Erin out of the hospital. “But we’ll talk about that another time.”