Lucy-Anne yawned, scratching at her scalp. “Sparky and Jenna coming later?” she asked.
“Don't think so,” Jack replied, opening his eyes. “Jenna's out with her parents, and Sparky's still working on the car.”
Lucy-Anne laughed without humour. “It's almost forty years old, rusting and dead. Why bother?”
“You know why,” Jack said softly.
Lucy-Anne laughed again but said no more, and that was her way of admitting that, yes, she did know why. Sparky liked working with the impossible in the hope that it could change things. If that old Ford Capri ever started again and took to the road, perhaps it would mean that, against all odds, his brother was still alive somewhere in London's sad ruin.
Jack sighed.
“What is it?” Lucy-Anne asked.
“Mum and Dad's wedding anniversary tomorrow.”
“Oh, hell, I should have remembered.” She sat up straight, flushing with dismay at her bad memory, and Jack smiled and shook his head. But his smile turned sad.
“They'd always wanted a weekend in London on their own,” he said, and even though Lucy-Anne had heard this a dozen times, she would always listen again. “They were just…” He trailed off, and she pulled him into her embrace and hugged him tight.
They'd been together for almost two years. She would always remember the first time they met; she'd been a fifteen-year-old standing on a chair and offering the world out for a fight. They'd gone to the same counselling sessions for orphans of Doomsday—as the destruction of London had become known—and Lucy-Anne had taken it as a chance to rage against the authorities that put them there. Bloody lying bastards! were the first words Jack had heard from her mouth. Her hair had been green then, shaved to a half-inch buzz, and the leathers she wore that day were new, creaking, and obviously stolen.
The others in the group had retreated in fear, cried, or simply turned away, and it had taken the three counsellors half an hour to talk her down. She had sat there for the rest of that session, simmering, and swapping cautious glances with this new orphan.
“We should go,” Jack said. “Be dark soon.”
“It's always dark,” Lucy-Anne said, shivering. And in Camp Truth that was true.
Jack led the way up out of the basement. Lucy-Anne followed, and he wondered once again what had become of them. They'd been down in the basement for almost three hours, and there'd been little more than a quick kiss, and then her haunted sleep. A year ago they'd have spent their time doing a lot more. But things had changed between them, and he still tried to persuade himself that it was because they'd moved on from being teenaged lovers to the best of friends.
She was almost seventeen, but sometimes her grief made her look ageless: she'd lost her parents and brother in London. Her current hairstyle was purple spiked, formed into a carefully sculptured I-don't-give-a-damn mess, and her dark jeans and white tee shirt were tattered and ripped. Those rips weren't designer, Jack knew. Lucy-Anne had been left with her family's house, but very little else.
“Sun's going down,” he said. He stepped through the curtain of clematis they'd trained across the staircase entrance, and the red splash of dusk exploded across his skin.
Lucy-Anne looked cautiously up into the trees, as if expecting to see a cloud of birds descending towards them from any direction. But the trees were silent, and they were alone. “Red sky at night…” she began, and Jack went to her side and put his arm around her waist.
“Shall we check the drops on the way back?”
“Yeah!” She perked up, hugging him with both arms and giving him a kiss. He pinched her bum, she gave him a playful slap, and he welcomed the familiar relief at leaving their secret place.