“What?” Jack asked harshly.
“You're interesting. Impressive. Maybe you'll be as much a Superior as me.”
“No,” Jack said. “I might be able to do things, but you know what? I'm just a normal boy.”
He would have liked to believe that. As they left the room and Reaper spoke to a couple of his people, Jack did his best to find the truth in the statement. But when he knocked and entered the small room where Sparky and Jenna were resting, and saw them both glance up at him with momentary fear in their eyes, he knew that they had been talking about him, and that he was moving farther away from normal with every breath he drew.
Nomad never slept, but still she dreamed. These moments came at calmer times when she remained motionless for a while, letting her limbs and body settle and her mind wander. She would drift, and return, and she had always assumed that what she saw were echoes from her earlier life. Memories shaded by the change within her. She had been something far different before Evolve.
But recently she had been dreaming of the girl with purple hair…
She walks towards Nomad along a lush riverbank of waving reeds and gorgeous orchids. Hummingbirds flit from bloom to bloom, bees buzz in the sunlight, and the grass underfoot is soft and healthy. There are straight edges and corners somewhere, but mostly out of sight. The verdant growth is the future, and it is a fitting cloak with which to mask the less-perfect present. Nomad goes along with it, even though she knows it is a lie. Even though she knows that the present is her fault.
The girl reaches for her and calls. But then Nomad sees something—her stance, her face, the way her fingers claw at the air—that promises only pain. The girl is desperate, yet Nomad turns away.
Light dawns. The explosion blasts away the plants, flowers, and hummingbirds, and as they are scorched to nothing they revert to their true forms—melting metal, flying glass, flaming things scarring the air.
The purple-haired girl screams at her. Nomad moves towards the blast, hoping that she can stop it. But no one is that special.
The girl promised fire and death. Nomad had no sense that her random dreams were visions of the future, and yet they could surely be nothing else? She had never seen the girl before, and now knew that she existed. What was that if not prophecy?
The explosion would kill everyone. That, Nomad did not mind. She had killed so many through her actions, and more would only add to her damned tally.
But…
I cannot allow Jack to die. He is my greatest hope, the pure version of every impurity I seeded. He has to survive to make everything right. And perhaps…perhaps for Jack to survive, the girl has to die.
The cries of inhuman things welcomed them to the north. They were awful, alien sounds, and they set Lucy-Anne's nerves on edge. First from one direction, then another, they seemed to sing across the dark city, imparting secrets that everyone but she knew, and however much she tried to deny it, she could not shake the idea that she was at their centre. The shrieks had an intelligence to them that she found disconcerting, and Rook had no answer when she whispered her fears. That he was also troubled made everything that much worse.