But there was one more thing to try, one last time. “Lucy-Anne, are you sure?”
She shook her head and drew closer to Rook. “My brother. But I'll do my best to dream the best for you.”
Jack frowned, because he did not understand. But at least the guilt of leaving Lucy-Anne had been lifted from his shoulders. And it was a good thing, because the responsibility already weighing on him would crush him, given half a chance.
“Jack,” Sparky said. He and Jenna were already retreating along the street.
“Nine minutes, forty seconds.”
Jack walked quickly through the line of Superiors—the blind knife-thrower, the shadow man, Reaper—until he was standing face to face with Miller. The man's eye and nose were bleeding, but he did not flinch.
“Rosemary is yours,” Jack said.
Miller snorted, shook his head. “I don't conspire with freaks.”
“Someone's been giving us away.”
Miller only shrugged.
“Fair enough,” Jack said. “But if Reaper does what he says and decides to let you go, remember this: I swear, before everyone standing here, that if you or any of your scumbag friends lay a hand on my mother or sister, I will fucking kill you.”
Miller blinked and looked down at his feet.
“Nine minutes, twenty seconds,” Reaper muttered.
“All right!” Jack shouted, spinning and walking past his father. “We're going!”
He followed Sparky and Jenna as they jogged along the street, and every fibre of him was screaming to look back. But he and Lucy-Anne had said their goodbyes. Miller had Jack's vow fresh in his mind. And his father…
His father was dead.
Nine minutes, Jack heard as they rounded a corner and ran, the three of them sprinting as fast as they could. They passed dead things and living things that had fed on the dead. They smelled cooking meat on the air from the people they had just seen killed. They had no idea where to go next.
Still running, Jack pulled the bloodstained photograph from his jeans pocket. Knowing it had been taken by Miller or his Choppers made it feel tainted. He turned it over, felt around its edges, his suspicion already hardening into certainty. And without actually feeling or touching it, he sensed the small metal square cast into one corner of the card. It was like a smell in his mind, a taste on his vision. He ripped the photo in half, ignoring the sight of his mother's face cut in two.
“What're you doing?” Sparky panted.
Jack tore and tore again, then held up the thin metal device. He did not have to tell either of his friends what it was.
The sound of helicopters grew in the distance, and Jack threw the tracking chip through a smashed shop window.
Once the hunters, now the hunted, the three friends ran deeper into the Toxic City.
When the ten minutes were up, still they ran. Helicopters buzzed overhead, motors echoed around street corners, and they were the centre of attention.
The pain in Jack's injured ankle was awful, and as he ran, the Nomad's taste came to him again. The pain ended, and he coughed up something that looked like black rice. Spitting it out, he wondered, What the hell's happening to me? But really he knew.
Sparky lifted a grating in the pavement outside an old greengrocer's, and Jack and Jenna slid down the steep chute. Sparky lowered the grating and followed them down.
In the darkness, they huddled together at the rear of the basement. It was empty and unused, and there was the faint scent of old decay from one dark corner. They kept away from it; they had seen enough dead things.
“You think it was only that photo?” Sparky asked.