His words were still with her weeks later, on the train from Holyhead to London. They’d had so little time together before he’d rushed off, so she’d kept his words close to her heart.
As the bullet train rocketed over the tracks she scrolled through his latest photos, pictures meant just for her: The Millennium Eye a glittering array of lights at night, London fog rising up the dome of St. Paul’s, London Bridge so bathed in moonlight the black and white palette was hardly necessary. The last, of an obsidian and steel building being constructed in the form of a pyramid in Hyde Park, seemed almost out of place, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint why.
On the small monitors mounted overhead, news continued of the strife in New York. And not just there—it seemed riots and civil unrest, in not outright war, had overrun cities across the world. Nothing new about that, she supposed. But nervous flutters winged their way through her stomach at the sight of static-ridden video feeds of smoke and violence. The very idea of Jamie in the middle of it all, purposely seeking it out…She shuddered.
Just as she did, the train came to a screeching stop, throwing its passengers about like a broken jar of marbles. The images on the monitors juttered, filled with snow, and blinked off. Surprise rippled throughout the cabin as the lights went out as well. Aika’s stomach flutter turned to a fist-sized rock, her hands gripping the arm rests. The old man sitting across from her sat as she did, but with his eyes closed—unbelievably, he seemed to be asleep.
Thunderous booms sounded overhead, shaking the train with teeth-clattering violence. Surprise turned to screams. Nothing could be seen out the windows for the blackening fog.
Not fog. Smoke.
Eyes bright as electrum regarded her in the dark. The old man, watching her avidly—not asleep after all. She had no time to wonder why, as fear warred with curiosity. Not for herself, but her Jamie. Because as sure as chaos existed, he would be right in the eye of the storm.
Aika stood, bracing herself against another slam of the unseen fist, the train nearly derailed by the impact. This time groaning metal followed. She staggered into the aisle.
Someone tackled her to the floor, her bare hands burning raw on carpet. “Get down!” A heavy weight curled around her. Instinct drove her to roll into a tight ball, armadillo-like, and cover her head with her arms.
Heavy silence, pregnant with descending, rushing anticipation. And the world came apart at the seams. Metal twisted apart, glass shattered to dust. The howling roar of unfettered destruction became a tangible, terrifying thing.
Aika came to an eternity, or perhaps only moments, later. The heavy weight was gone from her back. She carefully uncurled until she could lift her head, dislodging debris. Her ears filled with a banshee shriek, a combination of ringing ears and approaching alarms. She pressed her palms to the carpet and pushed herself to her feet, dislodging a seat torn from its moorings.
She looked around. Others crawled from their hiding places behind seats, or checked on loved ones. Someone wept down the other end of the car.
Aika cleared the remaining glass from her tilted window with her elbow and shimmied her way out. She slid across the bent metal of the toppled train car to the ground, landing hard enough to send tingles of protest up her legs.
The ringing in her ears dissipated; the alarms and sirens did not. She fought her way clear of the smoke, coughing.
King’s Cross Station, or what was left of it, lay in a junkyard heap of rubble around her—trains lying bent across their tracks like dead serpents while passengers climbed from their windows, collapsed beams crushing benches and bodies, and smoke crawling over it all knee deep like a fresh battle field.
The first thing she did when she could see was try to call Jamie, but there was no signal on her phone. If she could get outside the station, perhaps she might have better luck—or at least find out what had happened.
Police and emergency personnel arrived. Both proved equally unsuccessful in stopping her.
A gentle hand on her arm. “We really should have a look, make sure you don’t need help.”
Aika gave the paramedic a cool look, shaking him off. “Unless you can tell me what’s happening, then you can’t help me.”
He stammered at her. “If you’re certain you’re unhurt—
Behind her, reflected in his glasses, a hunk of ceiling escaped the roof, pirouetted with majestic descent, and crashed into a felled train, eliciting more screams. As he gaped she waited for the residual noise to settle before moving past him. “I believe you have more important things to worry about.”
A policeman captured her arm next, near the emergency exit. He was young, and, above all, keen. “Wait here, Miss, we still need your statement.”
The tension in her pulled ever more taut. “I have to get to Soho. Now.”
“Miss—” He pulled her arm..
Aika snapped round and shoved him against the emergency exit door with stunning speed. She wondered at her own strength. “My fiance is out there, in the middle of whatever is happening that you’re not telling me. Unless you let me go find him,” she hissed, “you’ll be geography as well as history do you understand me?”
“But Miss,” the officer coughed, wide-eyed. “There isn’t a Soho anymore.”
She stared at him, saw the truth reflected in his face. Then she ran.
She didn’t find Jamie.
She did, however, find herself arrested.
Aika supposed she should consider herself lucky to have been arrested early enough in the crisis to have had a holding cell to herself for a time before the throngs of looters, pillagers, and general anarchists crowded in with her. But with them came the stories of events taking place out in the city, none of them encouraging.
Soho. Knightsbridge. Buckingham. Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Gone.
She was not anywhere near the right frame of mind to feel lucky. Instead she leaned her head back against the gray cinder blocks and tried not to worry herself sick over Jamie.
They’d kept her here three days. She hadn’t slept much, because of dreams interspersed with explosions, and paid no attention to the bloody crescent moons bit into the her palms by her fingernails. Her fellow denizens took one look at her and apparently decided it in their best interests to not interrupt her reverie, for she said not a word during that entire time, registered nothing by glance or movement.
She became…nothing. A ghost.
“Aika…Aikater…Miss Lareto?”
At the sound of her name being butchered she looked up, focused on the faceless uniform on the other side of the bars. Everyone went quiet.
“Come with me, please.”
Her fingers uncurled from her palms, and her limbs unfolded. Hope guttered to life within her, but she dare not acknowledge it in case it were a lie.
He led her to an interrogation room, cell block gray for consistency. A metal table and several folding chairs awaited her. A cardboard filing box sat on one end of the table, somehow looking sinister. “Please sit.”
Aika stared at the dented metal folding chair a moment before grasping its chill frame in one hand and lowering herself into the seat. It wobbled.
Uniform sat across from her, flipping through his notes. She focused on his badge. “Breaking through not one, but two police cordons, assault on—at last count—a half dozen officers and emergency personnel.” He shook his head. “Normally, you wouldn’t be released before your fortieth birthday, but it seems there are extenuating circumstances.”
“Released?” Aika blinked, and stood. Blood started rushing through her veins once more, having slowed to a chill, iceberg crawl. “I can go?”
He waved her back down. Now she could see his hair curled in front just like Jamie’s, though his eyes were closer to gray than blue. “Despite…well, everything… someone at Whitehall found the time to send orders down.”
Jamie said his new patron was a government bigwig. Guttering hope flared to bright, shining light. She began to shake, relief relegating her voice to a whisper
. “He found me.”
“Someone found you, though don’t ask me how.” He put his notes aside, face stark with discomfort. “Miss Lareto, I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad tidings. You see, the Whitehall messenger left the contents of this box for you.”
Hope descended into nausea. She swallowed. “It’s his, isn’t it? Jamie’s.”
He stood to rummage in the box, drawing out a plastic evidence bag with a small velvet box inside. He pushed it across the table to her. “He’d been at Harrod’s, apparently. We followed the credit card records, and, well, he’d just purchased this, right when…”
Aika looked at it, but didn’t touch it. She couldn’t, as realization deadened her nerve endings, washed her numb. “We were going to be married.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Lareto. I really am.” He hesitated. “Had he any family? Besides you?”
Aika shook her head. “We were all each other had.” She looked at him, and what he must have saw on her face made him take a step back. But she had to know. “It’s not just Soho and Knightsbridge, or King’s Cross, is it? Are we at war?”
“There is…a great deal of destruction. We don’t know by whom, or why. And it isn’t just us. All over the world…” He shook his head, coming to. “You’re free to go, Miss Lareto. But you’ve been asked to report here.” He slid a slip of paper across to her. He searched her expression, to see if any hint of recognition would flicker across it.
It didn’t. Aika read the address, pocketed the paper. “My things?”
These he removed from the box as well—wallet, keys, useless phone. No doubt her luggage had been well and truly lost at the station.
She left, leaving the little velvet box behind.
CHAPTER THREE