Travelling in the opposite direction to the Black Zone should have been a good thing; yet walking towards certain death at the hands of Levi Johnson seemed like the greater madness.
The journey itself was insanity, let alone the reason why we were going in the first place. A mile of tube tunnels to Charing Cross, continuing underground to Convent Garden, then it was topside travel across town all the way to St. Paul's.
Taking the Circle and District tunnels would have been a more direct route and they would have helped us get nearer to St. Paul's before we had to resurface, but it was too close to the fractured Thames and sections of the tunnels down by Temple and Embankment were flooded. Vik had taken a small crew and ventured down recently to see if the waters had subsided at all, but he came back pale and with stories of a sea of bloated bodies floating in the darkness.
At first, I'd almost relished the idea of getting out of Aldwych. Following the meeting with Taj – a lengthy, sometimes heated discussion about the journey, the plan on how we'd tackle the confrontation with Levi and, most importantly, who would be lucky enough to get chosen for certain suicide – I'd spent the day desperately trying to force smiles, be on my best behaviour even though it was choking me and trying not to scream until I brought the ceiling down on our heads.
The Grey had irritatingly stuck by my side most of the time, and I'd had to endure it, every torturous, suffocating second of his company. What was almost worse than being close to him, was seeing the way the others were looking at him. Like he wasTom. Good ol' personable, charming Tom. The one everyone wanted to speak to. The one who pulled you in like a magnet, until you were hooked by his eyes and his smile and the calming, gentle timbre of his voice.
And then, inevitably, they'd looked at me with different eyes – eyes filled with longing and sadness and jealousy, because I had been the lucky one, right? I'd been the one to discover what I had thought was lost forever. I had been the one for whom love hadn't died when the world was destroyed.
The more I saw that look in their eyes, the more I hated myself for betraying them and the more I vowed I would do what I had promised and kill the Grey the first time I got the chance.
I was thinking just that as I trailed behind him in the tunnels just before we reached Covent Garden, staring at the back of his head, when Lena fell in step beside me. Tom was walking with Taj and Gav, with Jace and Abby and Iza ahead of them. We'd thought about bringing Lenny for some extra muscle, but as Taj had said, this mission wasn't about starting a fight and if we took Lenny – who'd had a violent bloodied run-in with one of Levi's right hand men – it might look more like provocation rather than an offer of truce.
'I forgot to thank you,' she said, keeping her voice low as we always did in the tunnels.
'What?' I glanced at her, irritated by her presence. Why couldn't she just walk with the others and leave me the Hell alone?
She pushed her long blonde fringe back as she walked. In the gloom of the tunnels, with only our rifle torchlights illuminating the way, Lena looked paler than usual, like walking in the company of a ghost.
'For speaking up for me at the vote,' she explained. Her tone was short and clipped, as if she was finding it difficult to force the words out. 'I never said thank you. Takk.'
'Forget it,' I said, through gritted teeth. I didn't want Lena's gratitude. It felt fake and hollow and made me grip the SA80 tighter.
'It is important I say thank you,' she persisted. 'I think though, you did not do it for me, but that is okay.'
'No, you're right, I didn't. I don't want you here anymore than the others do.'
'I understand,' she said. 'I do. You don't trust me. If I was you, I would think exactly the same. We did not get off to a very good beginning, nei? Her er det ugler i mosen.'
'What does that mean?'
She shrugged and gave a half-smile. 'Owls in the moss, Evie. Owls in the moss. It means you think there is still reason not to trust me and I understand it. But I think you will find, you and I, we are not so very different.'
I stopped instantly, glaring at her. 'You and I are nothing alike.'
Lena sighed, a whisper of breath in the darkness. 'We are survivors of a certain kind, you and I. I see it in you just as I see it in myself. We think we need nothing and nobody in this terrible world. We build a wall around ourselves because it is the only way not to get hurt. In the end, we all realise that we need more.'
'Ugh, spare me the psycho-babble, Inspector Pedersen, please.'
Lena trailed into silence as the tunnel began to bend to the right and I glanced at her, wondering if my dismissal had stung, but her face was as stoic as usual. A squeak from the impenetrable darkness behind had us both swinging our rifles round to aim the light into the tunnel, and we waited, both alert and tense, just for a rat that looked almost as large as a cat to come scuttling along the now defunct rail. It didn't even look our way as it passed us by, its long hairless scaly tail trailing behind it, making me think of the Grey's elongated fingers as it had grasped Tom's head. I shuddered and looked away before I was tempted to release a bullet into the rat's sizeable body.
When I turned back to look at Lena, the Norwegian's eyes were already on me, pale grey orbs set into a finely contoured face. I'd always thought her attractive, one of those women blessed with fortunate skin that would have needed no cosmetics to brighten its glow, but I couldn't help but wonder now if that skin housed something monstrous underneath. Alien flesh under angular cheekbones and a strong narrow nose. Malleable extra-terrestrial DNA morphed into Nordic beauty.
'And I thought I was a tough bitch,' she said. 'I never imagined an art historian to be quite so... ballsy.'
'How did you know what I did...?' I trailed off. 'Tom told you.' Images of them leaning close, whispering to each other, burned inside my head. Images of them sharing that bottle of wine in the bowels of Spencer House. What else had he told her? What else had he confided in her about me and our life as they'd holed themselves up together in that small room with the candles flickering lazily all around them?
'Yes,' she replied, with a nonchalant shrug. Was that a glint of triumph glinting with the grey of her eyes? 'It was enlightening. This world has made warriors out of the meek and the mild. I suppose we can thank the Greys for that at least.'
I stopped abruptly. 'Thank the Greys? You think we should thank them?'
Lena came to a halt just in front of me. 'I'm just saying that it is not all bad. We find what we are really made of during our darkest hours.'
My skin prickled ominously at her words. I thought of my darkest hours. Endless, chest-crushing days of enduring life without Tom. Feeling so alone that I might as well have been walking this entire world on my own, surrounded by nothing but shadows and memories that haunted me like phantoms.
My gaze locked with hers. 'And what exactly are you made of, Lena?' I jumped forward, pushing her against the wall and using one hand to pin her arm before she could raise her gun. Deftly grabbing the knife that I'd unsheathed in the darkness without her seeing, I pressed it against her throat.
'What the Hell are you doing?' she hissed, her eyes darting towards where we had been heading, but Tom and the others had already rounded the bend, completely unaware that we had lingered behind.
'I'm just wondering if we should see now what you're really made of. After all, you can't find a much darker place than down here, right?' I smiled.' You know they say that if you pierce a Grey's throat just slightly with a blade, just a little bit under the skin, they start clicking.'
I lay the cold steel of the blade flat against her pale skin. She swallowed involuntarily. 'What will happen if I pierce yours, Lena? Will you click for me? Or will you just bleed out?'
'You really think I'm one of them?'
'Are you?' It was a pointless question. She would never have told me if she was.
Lena's jaw hardened, her cheek muscles twitching with what looked like anger. 'I watched them kill my people. I watched them take them kicking and screaming. Even the children. I watched Rico half-transition by my side, when I thought he was running with me to escape, he was leading me to my death and when his eyes went black, I could see he was enjoying it. He enjoyed it all. And you think I am like him?'
'I don't know what you are, Lena, but I know I don't trust you one little bit. I don't know what it is, whether you're a Grey or still our enemy, so I'm watching you. One step out of line and I will plunge this knife right into your throat. You might think you can stick to Tom like glue and he will protect you, but he won't. I see you, okay? Don't ever forget that.'
Her eyes widened even more when I mentioned Tom's name, a look of sudden realisation crossing her panicked face.
'You think...? Nei, Evie... please, whatever you think... I am not a Grey and I am definitely not your rival. Tom is a good man. He saved me. But that is all. You don't have to worry about me when to comes to your husband. He is really not my type.'
'W-what?' I faltered, my grip loosening. My stomach flipped, tumbled, turned itself inside out. 'Th-that's not what I meant. I'm not worried. Not about that.' My tongue thickened with distaste.
'Good. Because you don't need to be. The man is besotted with you. Doesn't stop talking about you. Can't take his eyes off you wherever you go. It's kind of sickening really.' She gave a nervous half-smile, but the tension in her whole body rolled off her in waves, filling the tunnel with an unease that felt suffocating.
I released her, stepping back. I didn't want to touch her now; didn't want her or her nauseating platitudes anywhere near me. Had this been her plan? If she was a Grey, then she already knew what I thought about Tom and she would also have known that just the idea of that thing being at all besotted with me would have repulsed me to the core. I staggered back, almost tripping over the rail.
Light flickered over me and I gasped, blinking at the sudden glare as I turned to see Tom standing just on the curve of the tunnel bend, his rifle raised in my direction.
'What's going on?' he said.
I stared at the muzzle of his SA80, holding my breath.
It was Lena who broke the torturous deadlock. 'Nothing,' she muttered. 'We just heard something in the tunnel. Rats. Nothing but rats. I will be glad when we hit daylight.'
Without another word, she walked briskly away, only pausing to glance back warily at me as she passed him. I watched for a sign, for some hint of familiarity passing between them, but Tom's questioning gaze remained firmly fixed upon me.
Holstering my blade, I grabbed my rifle where it hung on my hip and began to follow Lena, refusing to acknowledge the Grey's presence until he raised an arm, blocking my way. His open palm touched my stomach and I flinched away from it, forcing myself to look up into his face defiantly.
'What just happened?' he asked again. The heat in the tunnels was curling his hair at the temples, the dark curls sticking to his damp skin in a way that once would have had me running my fingers through his hair, stroking it back from his forehead.
I swallowed. 'Like she said,' I told him, the words laced with a bitterness that felt like poison on my tongue. 'Nothing. Nothing but rats.'
***
Before the Final Wave, walking the streets of London had been one of my favourite things to do.
When Tom had been alive, taking a walk through the city had been our Sunday thing. We would stop somewhere in Soho or Covent Garden to catch some al-fresco brunch on warm days, or dine by a brasserie window in winter, watching the rain run in rivulets down the glass as we sat safely ensconced inside, where the air was infused with coffee and conversation.
It seemed weirdly sacrilegious to entomb yourself in a Tube train on weekends, when there was so much to see on the surface. It didn't seem to matter where we went, we would always find some hidden treasure – a bookshop we didn't know existed, a café with a beautiful terrace, a retro vinyl indie store where the music would snag at your ear and lure you in.
Now, of course, everything was different.
Hidden treasures were a thing of the past, and anything hidden now had the potential to be the one thing that would kill you – whether that be a Grey or another survivor, especially when you happened to be trespassing in another crew's Quadrant.
It had been months since we'd passed this way and it never ceased to sadden me that there were so many areas of the city I loved which were now barred to me, so many streets where I might never tread, so many buildings and sights that I might never set eyes on again.
We stood now, the eight of us, taking shelter inside the shell of the old Hardy's Sweet Shop which stood on the corner of Ludgate Hill and Pilgrim Street, surveying the devastation in front of us, with funeral solemnity.
The road of Ludgate Hill was severed, a huge crater decimating the street from one side to the other. The ragged sides of the fissure, a jagged mess of brick and rubble and rusted pipes protruding from the torn earth, looked like a monstrous mouth, as if the ground had come alive and swallowed whatever was unfortunate enough to be on the surface at the time. A double decker bus was the crater's last half-digested meal, its glassless windows looking like a tortured face, forever screaming up into the skies.
'Looks like we're not going that way,' Taj said, his eyes scanning the locale outside.
'Shit, man,' Gav said, exhaling a low whistle. 'Now where?'
I stood a little behind them all. 'I know a way,' I said, as they turned to look at me. 'If we take Pilgrim Street, we can cut round to Carter Lane and then back up to Ludgate Hill on the other side of the crater.'
'You're sure?' Taj said.
'Yeah, unless of course there's no other obstructions. I... we used to walk here a lot,' I said, nodding at Tom.
Everyone looked at Tom as if to get his confirmation, a move that more than irked me to think they weren't going to take my word for it, but instead needed Tom's say-so to believe what I'd said.
The Grey was staring at me, a small wrinkle on his brow, seemingly unaware that everyone was waiting for him to talk. I raised a brow at him.
'Remember? We went to that Korean place just around the corner from here once,' I said, willing him to do something to break the weird stillness that seemed to have overcome him. 'They served the food in those little boxes. You had that amazing kimchi.'
Gav groaned and clutched at his stomach. 'Damn, why you got to mention the kimchi, Evie? I'd probably kill each and every one of you for some kimchi now, I swear.'
Abby slapped him on the shoulder. 'Thanks, mate. I'm so glad to know you'd choose kimchi over us. We're really feeling the love, superstar.'
'What can I say? It's kimchi,' he said, with a shrug and look in his eyes as if we'd be mad to not do exactly the same thing.
Tom blinked, once, twice, and his face changed, a softening of the bones that curled the corners of his mouth and brought a slight flush to his cheeks.
All at once I knew what he was remembering, and I cursed myself for using that night as a reference. There had been a lot of booze that night. A lot of booze and a lot of everything else back at home, which had lasted until dawn had crept through the gaps in the blinds, the soft light accentuating the perspiration on Tom's back.
'Yeah,' he said finally, gently – too gently – and shifted his weight slightly as if trying to gain control again. 'It's only a small detour, won't take long. Besides, we could probably take the side streets all the way down to the Cathedral. It'll give us a chance to properly check everything out. This might be Levi's territory as far as humans are concerned, but London still belongs to the Greys. Who knows how many are still scouting the area?'
Taj nodded in agreement. 'Yep, that's true. Let's go with Evie's route. Go in pairs, stick to the buildings as much as you can. Keep moving, stay alert. You know the drill. Tom, Evie? You guys lead the way.'
Silently, we moved out, all the natural, light-hearted banter of kimchi replaced with grim faces and heavy muscles, as we did as Taj said and crept along Pilgrim Street in our designated pairs. I kept my eyes fixed on the surroundings, but I felt Tom's eyes on me as we moved, cursory glances shot my way that felt like blasts of heat on my skin.
Can't take his eyes off you wherever you go, whispered Lena, in the darkness.
Goosebumps rose along my shoulders and arms and I gripped my rifle tighter, my palms suddenly damp.
I was about to turn and hiss at him to stop, just fucking stop, when I heard a footstep all too late and the cold hard muzzle of a handgun pressed against my left temple. I froze, holding my hand out at the side, motioning for everyone to stay where they were.
'Well, well, well,' a deep voice rumbled from the narrow alleyway to my side. 'Now, I'm positive I told you people to stay out of my Quadrant.'
I let my gaze drift in the direction of the voice, the muzzle travelling across my forehead to rest between my eyes as my assailant moved in front of me, his huge bulk almost filling the entrance of the alley.
Levi Johnson, a six-foot-five mountain of muscle and intimidation, leaned in until I could feel his breath on my face and see the controlled menace in his eyes.
'Which means either I'm staring at a bunch of pure crazy people who have lost their minds out here, or you must be really desperate to have the audacity to be knocking on my door again.'
I didn't need to look around to know we had walked ourselves into an ambush. We might have avoided the monstrous mouth of the crater on Ludgate Hill that had the power to consume whole double decker buses, but we had walked headlong into a monster of another kind and I had a horrible feeling that it wouldn't be long before we too were screaming up into the skies.
'Hey, Levi.' I swallowed hard. 'Long time, no see.'