be right back,” Allie said, caressing the girl’s cheek. “I’m going to make sure he’s alright. He’s special, you know.”
“I know,” the girl answered. She looked at Norman. “He’s the Chosen One from the stories.”
Norman blinked in surprise. “How did you know?”
“Daddy and the others always talk about you. Everyone does.” She fingered her bloodied dress. “You’re going to bring us all together someday, that’s what they say.” She glanced to the wall and the looming city beyond. “Are you going to save us from the monsters, Mr Creek?”
Norman felt his lips part, but his mind had gone blank. He stood lamely before her for some moments while she stared out through the lobby windows, and then he turned on his heel and hurried away. His cane clacked upon the granite floor, his throbbing ribs begged him to stop, and he sensed myriad eyes moving over him from all around, but he refused to let up, his eyes fixed on the staircase. Suddenly his attention was on escape, and nothing else.
“Norman, wait!” Allie called. He tried to ignore her, but she caught up in a few strides and caught his elbow.
He wheeled around, fury surging forth as though a cork had been yanked. “What?” he hissed. “What do you want from me?” He had managed to keep himself from yelling, but only just. His voice had emerged as a sibilant whisper, all the more scathing for its bottled intensity.
She recoiled, her face falling. Others nearby fell quiet, averting their eyes and busying themselves with the remaining wounded. “I just wanted to say thank you.” She seemed unable to meet his eye. “You handled her really well. Almost like—” She hesitated and bit her lip, but then with an almost audible clunk her eyes rolled to stare right at him. “Almost like Alexander.”
He swallowed convulsively. The others were peeking at him once more. He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “That was one of his old speeches, verbatim. He used to say the same thing to me every night when I was a kid, word for word.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I’m sorry. It’s the pain.” He scowled. “This radio message they received better be worth it. Bringing us all together like this, it could have ended us.”
Her eyebrows twitched, and she touched his arm. “I know. It’s okay.”
“No, no it’s not. I can’t take it out on you. You were doing a hell of a job with her.”
She shrugged. “What was I going to do? She just lost her mother.”
“Not everyone would have. It’s ugly, but it’s the truth.” They started for the stairs, slowly this time.
“Well, I don’t know how much good I did. It was nothing on your performance.”
“Like I said, it was Alexander’s story.”
He felt her eyes stabbing at him again, drowning out the others’. “That may be so, but there’s a reason people look to you.”
“They look to me because they’ve been told to. They’ve had fairy tales of some great prodigal son shoved down their throats since before most of them could walk, and the rest are too old to remember anything different. It’s all fluff, something they can lose themselves in, something to believe that keeps them going.” He suppressed a scowl. “Nobody ever really expects me to lead.”
“That’s not true. Maybe it was once, but not now. You’ve changed. There’s something of him in you, in the way you move, talk—the way you are.”
“I’m nothing like him.”
“Norman, your destiny—”
He grunted, cutting her off. “There’s no such thing as destiny,” he said slowly, enunciating every syllable. “They’re just stories.”
They walked in silence until they neared the stairs, leaving the body of refugees behind, and could talk freely again. “Stories can come true, you know,” she said.
He shook his head. She was supposed to be the one he could rely on to be on his side, yet even she seemed be slipping under the legend’s spell. He couldn’t blame her, surrounded by blood and severed families. But she had been a lifeline he had been relying on. He had few allies left. With Robert back in New Canterbury, and Lucian missing …
He stopped mid-stride and gripped her sleeve, gentle instead of hard.
Clutching, he thought. I’m clutching at her. How desperate is that?
“Please, don’t turn into one of them,” he said. His voice was almost cracking. “I need you to see me, not the Chosen One. I need you on my side.”