“Leave if you want, I'm going the right way.”
They had been following Nomad since she had left. At least, Lucy-Anne had been leading them north. And soon after the strange woman had seemingly abandoned them, things had started to change. The wilderness around them had grown wilder, and more shapes and shadows made themselves known. They darted across hillsides and huddled beside lush growths of shrubs, and though the two of them kept to the open spaces, Lucy-Anne feared that soon they would meet more residents of the Heath.
Dusk approached, crawling across the hillsides like a living thing and driving the sun into the western expanses of London. Rook's birds drifted along above them like echoes of night, turning and spiralling up into the sky before swooping down again. Lucy-Anne was becoming used to their constant flap and swoosh, and she feared not hearing that anymore. He's scared, he's terrified, and if he leaves me I'll be just as scared.
Something burst from the trees ahead of them and came rapidly down the slope. Rook grasped her shoulder and pulled himself in front of her, squatted down, ready for a fight. He sent his birds and they angled in towards the shape, but then veered away at the last moment. Their caw-caws sounded panicked to Lucy-Anne, and she dreaded meeting what could scare them so much.
But it was Nomad, only Nomad, and she grew from shadows to meet them.
Lucy-Anne went to her knees. I've found him, Nomad had said, and if that were the case, where was Andrew now?
“I'm…sorry,” Nomad said. It was the most emotion Lucy-Anne had heard in her voice.
She took the gold chain and signet ring from Nomad's hand. Their parents had bought Andrew the ring for his eighteenth birthday, and the chain had been a present from one of his first girlfriends. His parting with her had been difficult, yet for some reason he'd still worn that chain, and treasured it. She'd once asked him why, and he'd told her it was because it reminded him of good times, not bad. She loved that about him—his positivity, and optimism.
“Where…?” she asked.
“It doesn't matter,” Nomad said. “You don't want to see.”
I'll sleep, she thought. I'll fall asleep and dream him alive and fine and laughing, and when I wake up…
Lucy-Anne could not find her tears. She realised that she had not even cried for her parents, because from the moment their deaths had been confirmed to her everything had been Andrew, Andrew, all Andrew. And now…
“I've got nothing left,” she said. She felt Rook's hand on her shoulder and remembered his dead brother, but it was Nomad she looked at. “Nothing. Nothing left at all. And…and you killed him. You killed my parents, and my brother.”
Nomad's expression barely changed, but she did not look away.
Lucy-Anne knew she should be feeling rage at Nomad, and the Choppers, and everything that had happened to steal away her family. She should be grieving for her brother, who she had hoped would still be alive so that she was not now alone in this cruel new world. But she felt only a peculiar emptiness. Everything was distant to her, and she was a hollow girl.
“We need to get away from the Heath,” Rook said. “Night's falling, and it feels strange. Like something terrible's about to happen.”
“Something already is,” Nomad said. And she told them.
Running again, always running, and Lucy-Anne so wished she could simply sit somewhere and fill her emptiness with grief.
But she feared that if she did, the grief would consume her. At least running, she had something else to think about. Rook held her hand and she so loved the contact, feeling a rush of affection for him as he squeezed her hand. They had both lost and found someone.