“There was that one fellow,” Lucas drawled. “Barnaby, was it? You two were rather close, weren’t you? Until they relocated him, anyway. Such a sweet little couple, we always said.”
Danny flushed, then turned pale. The sudden shift was so similar to the heat and chill of a fever that his body began to tremble. Lucas had been walking down the hall when Barnaby had given Danny his second-ever kiss. Lucas had looked into the empty classroom just in time to see it.
That had been before Danny had felt comfortable with others knowing his secret. They’d begged Lucas not to tell.
Danny should have known better.
“Bit brave of you, doing that in a classroom,” Lucas went on. “We all thought you and Barnaby were such shy little things. Imagine my surprise when I saw him pawing at you like an animal!”
They laughed at Danny’s stunned face.
“Darling, I think he’s about to burst into tears,” Lucas’s companion loudly whispered into his ear.
Danny did nothing of the sort. Instead, he grabbed Lucas by the shirt and punched him in the eye.
The people around them screamed. Lucas staggered and nearly fell, but Danny caught him and clouted the side of his head. Lucas regained his senses and sank a fist into Danny’s stomach, winding him. Cassie wrenched Danny back as a whistle sounded. Two chaperones elbowed the crowd out of the way.
“He hit me!” Lucas whined. He had dropped dramatically to the floor upon their arrival, one hand covering his eye, hair in disarray, companion fretting at his side.
“Explain yourself,” a chaperone demanded.
“It’s not his fault,” Cassie pleaded when Danny remained silent. “This lot was provoking him!”
“That’s no reason to come to blows. Come along, then.”
“But he hit back!” Cassie pointed at Lucas, who had somehow managed to work up tears. He should have been a bloody actor.
“Did anyone else see this young man fight back?” Of course, Lucas’s friends shook their heads, even though Danny was doubled up clutching his stomach. “There we have it.”
The chaperones escorted Danny out of the building. It seemed he’d found an escape route after all. His head spun, and the dark, narrow streets of London blurred together. He shrugged their hands off his shoulders.
“Give us your pass, please.”
He thrust the crumpled paper at them.
“Daniel Hart?”
He nodded.
“We’ll be letting your parents know about this.”
Danny turned toward his auto. Go ahead, he thought, tell them. One of them doesn’t give a damn, and the other is frozen in time.
He kept clenching and unclenching his hand. The other—the one he’d slugged Lucas with—throbbed painfully, and his stomach ached where he’d been hit. Danny had never punched anyone in his life before tonight. Matthias had once taught him how, in case he found himself in a situation like this one, but he had never warned Danny how his knuckles would bruise and split.
He had to get away. Looking around, Danny realized an unsettling yellow fog had descended. It was the type of fog people could get lost in. In fact, several had ended up drowning in the Thames this way. His lungs hurt, and his head was woozy, but there was no way to tell if it was from the poisonous fog or his own desperation.
Finally, he recognized his auto and hurried to it, guided by a desire as sharp as hunger. He wanted to drive through London, through the fog and the night, all the way to Enfield. He wanted to see Colton.
The new idea took hold and he ran faster, wincing when his stomach protested.
Enfield. To hell with what the Lead said; Danny would go tonight. He’d stay with Colton in his tower, learn how to be a shut-in, a recluse. They could have all the next day to practice reading, and Danny would tell him stories of London, and listen to the local gossip.
Danny hopped into the driver’s seat. The auto gave a promising little jump, then quieted. He tried again and again, but it wouldn’t start. The fog had done something to it.
He yelled into the night air, then got out and kicked a tire in vexation. His toes twinged, but he couldn’t stop.
“You damned—piece of—rubbish!” He punctuated each breath with a kick. “You’re never—here—when I need you!”
What did any of them know about him? That he preferred blokes, that he had no friends, that his father had left him forever.
The saddest thing about it all was that his father wasn’t even dead. No—his father was trapped in time, unmoving, a memory.
And now he couldn’t do the one thing that might free him. He had been too caught up in himself, in Colton. Putting Enfield before his own father.
“Oy, what’s going on here? This your auto?”
Two constables had seen what he was doing and approached to investigate. Danny stood panting in the cold night air, glaring at them both, his breath bursting into white clouds.
“Yes, it’s my bloody auto,” he said. “’Course it’s mine, it’s a piece of shit, isn’t it?”
“That’s quite the mouth on you, young man.”
“Shove off.”