20 Years Later (38 page)

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.”

So now you know how the Four were brought together, and that there are no such things as Giants. I think that's enough for now. We can't spend all of our time in the past. You need to keep this fire going and find something to eat. All I ask is that you don't consign this book to the flames to warm your hands. Instead, perhaps you could be kind enough to leave this where others may find it, so they may also read this tale.

And remember, all of these events happened in these dusty streets around you, in this dead city. I know because I was there, watching. But then why trust me? You don't even know who I am. Perhaps you're curious about that, though in the company of those such as the Four, it seems an indulgence to tell you about someone as insignificant as I.

Of course, the story of the Four is far from over. I haven't had the chance to tell you about how Erin discovered her own remarkable abilities, and how Eve's talent for opening locked doors in the Unders was only a tiny part of her potential. And it doesn't end there for Titus either, who, having found his sister at last, turned his intellect towards discovering what bound the Four together and why they were different. Let's not forget Zane, and how he learnt that sometimes his healing wasn't enough to save loved ones. They don't talk about these things in the stories you've heard, do they?

If you want to learn what really happened, Joshua's part in all this, and how a father's death led to the crowning of the King, then look around you for another book containing the same handwriting as this one. I haven't forgotten what I promised to tell you. Heavens! You didn't think you would find all that crammed into this one little book, did you?

This book never would have reached your hands if it hadn't been for Sally Bassington, an intensely talented librarian with effortless style and great taste in clothes. Sally was a colleague at the school I worked in whilst writing the first draft, and she read every chapter as I wrote it. Sally, thank you for being so gentle with a blocked creative stumbling back into the world of writing. Thank you for badgering me relentlessly until I agreed to try and get this published. You made this happen, and changed my life forever.

Thanks to Peter, Rick and Amanda, without whom Zane, Titus and Erin would never have existed. I hope you like where I have taken them.

Many thanks to the small army of friends and family who read through the early drafts and gave just the right mix of encouragement and constructive criticism to get the book this far. In particular, Dan, I still remember your advice on my writer tics; you made me a better writer. Conall, your encouragement meant the world to me.

All of you have enriched my life immeasurably, I am many
times blessed. Much love to you all.