Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1) (53 page)

That same eternal truth still rang out at him:
I’m not Alex
. But now, cutting over it, the disembodied voice of that nameless stranger spoke even louder:
Tsk, tsk, Norman. Storm’s on its way, and you need to be ready
.

He sighed. “Maybe I can change,” he said. “Maybe I don’t even have a choice.” He closed his hand over hers, looking out over the ruins of the Old World metropolis. Despite the warmth of her skin, a splinter in his thoughts kept him frowning. They had reached a turning point, and there was no going back. Their lives hinged on the council convening. Though it was only hours away, it might be too late. Amidst the city’s streets he sensed malevolence, and a great many eyes moving over his skin. “They’re out there, waiting. I can feel them,” he said. “Whatever happens, it’ll happen fast. We’re not out of the woods, yet. Not by a long shot.”

Alexander waited until the others had taken in the horrors under the tower block’s roof, and could bear no more. While he sat motionless in the gloom, he heard them traipse outside to gag and vomit, one by one. The sound of scuffling also reached his ears. A few must have fainted, and were being carried outside. Only a handful remained inside, who he glimpsed passing by at the end of the corridor, searching for survivors with rags held to their mouths.

They found no one.

Eventually, they too filed outside, cursing under their breath. So shocked did they seem that all pretence of keeping watch had been abandoned. Through the nearly opaque office window he could see them gathered on the outskirts of the rubble field, sitting atop boulders with their heads bowed, broken.

Alexander waited until all had grown utterly still and silent. Even then, it took him some time to muster the will to move. His knees felt heavier than blocks of lead, while his hands, moulded around the envelope, seemed stuck fast to its wrinkled surface.

It would have been so easy to stay like that indefinitely, devoid of thought or worry. The world seemed distant; the massacre outside could have been a mere figment of his imagination. He might not have been so very guilty—so very responsible for every single part of it.

He was finally on the verge of moving when Lucian appeared in the doorway. His cheeks were pale, and his fists bunched. Alexander’s heart sank at the sight of his distant gaze.

“Nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing. They cleaned the place out.” He glanced at the bloodied walls. “Cleaned it out, killed every last one of them, and left. And we’ve got
nothing
. We’re still on square one. I…” He threw his bunched fists to his temples and grunted. “I don’t know if we can ever come back from this, Alex. I don’t see an end to it.” His arms fell to his sides, and his jaw grew slack. For the briefest of moments, Alexander saw the eight-year-old boy he’d once met in a roadside warehouse. “What have we done?” he muttered.

Alexander swallowed, felt a lump of self-loathing pass along his gullet, and shook his head. “We survived, Lucian,” he said. “All we’ve ever done is survived.”

Lucian’s shoulders slumped. He lingered for a moment longer, and the light in his eye—the one that Alexander and so many others had relied on for countless years—died, perhaps for the last time. He nodded, slid from the doorway, and disappeared from sight.

Alex was left alone once more. It was only after Lucian’s footsteps had well and truly faded, and the office building was filled with the tell-tale whistle of total silence, that he brought the envelope from his lap and tore it open.

Lucian stumbled in darkness.

So it’s come to this
, he thought.
How? How has it come to
this
?

The others’ voices grew faint as he raced headlong into the building’s bowels, desperate for shelter, for isolation. He wouldn’t let them see what this was doing to him. They needed strength, and he was going to give it to them. But not now. He needed a minute. “Christ,” he muttered and stopped in the gloom, leaning against the wall. He breathed deep and let his head fall back, staring up at the ceiling. “Forgive us.”

A quiet
snick
was his only warning before a cold blade pressed against his throat. He made to struggle, but arms gripped him from behind, while the blade pressed hard enough to draw blood. Lucian stilled, gagging as an elbow wrapped around his throat. He looked over his shoulder, and was dismayed to recognise his assailant. “We let you go,” he choked.

Charlie’s face was murder. He still stank like a sewer, and was dressed in the very same rags as when they had last met. But there was something changed in him. The child was gone. It was written in his eyes. “Let me go?” he breathed. “Letting me go would have been letting me die in that sewer. What you did was worse. You took away the only thing in the world I had left and dropped me back in the world like an animal.”

He brought the blade up to Lucian’s eye. “My father deserves justice.”

“We didn’t know, Charlie,” Lucian said. “I’m sorry, but I did what had to be done.”

“Shh, quiet! I’ve got plans for you, but if they hear us, I have no problem ending this right here, right now.” The knife grew closer, a mere centimetre from Lucian’s cornea. But it wasn’t the blade he was afraid of. What really scared him was how frightened the kid sounded beneath that angry scowl. In the corner of his eye he could see Charlie’s face, and wasn’t comforted to see tears in his eyes.

“You’re a good kid,” he said. “Think about this.”

“Oh, I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought of nothing else,” Charlie spat. He wrestled Lucian’s arm back until it felt like it might snap, and clamped a cloth over his mouth. “I won’t be denied what I deserve.” An ugly sneer crossed his quivering lips. “Let’s see how the wise and powerful messiah fares without his dog to do his dirty work!”

Lucian did something of which he would have thought himself incapable. It was only the thought of Alexander that spurred him on. He begged, not with his stifled mouth, but with his eyes.

Charlie’s face filled with glee. “That’s right. You’re mine. Blood is coming, and there’s nowhere to hide. For them, anyway…It’s time they faced the music.” His eyes darkened, and he hauled Lucian back into shadow, lips pressed against the flesh of his ear. “But not for you. You’re coming with me.”

The crumpled note tumbled onto the desk, landing amidst the dust. Alex didn’t need to touch it, for it had landed right side up, and the flowing hand was cast into sharp relief by the torch-beam. He read it without moving an inch. All the while, boiling agony festered in his gut, stemming from long-repressed memories—memories of hope, of dreams, and of emerald eyes:

Know this, brother: if there had ever been a time in which you could have saved them, could have ever truly saved anyone, it was the last time you looked into my eyes—when you chose your dream over your family.

Destiny calls, Alex. I’ll be seeing you, soon.

— J

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