“Don't be afraid, Jack.” It was barely a whisper, androgynous. “We're going up, and you and your friends will be safe. There will be fear. You'll be scared. But trust me, there's no danger.”
With a jolt they started carrying him again, and Jack prepared himself. When Rosemary had taken them down into the subterranean hospital to find his mother, a pair of twins had guarded the place, manifesting terrors in the minds of anyone who approached as a defence against the hospital being discovered. Jack had seen huge scorpions, Emily had seen moths, and Sparky for some reason had imagined giant, deadly chickens.
But the sense of fear that settled quickly over him now was terrible and all-consuming. He would have cried out, had his mouth not been bound. He writhed, then froze. His heart hammered. Everything he couldn't see was going to eat him, everything he couldn't feel or hear would crush him, consume him. The anticipation of this was more terrible than the act itself might be, and he moaned so hard against his gag that he thought his brain would erupt.
“It's safe, it's safe,” that calming voice whispered, but the darkness pressed into Jack, trying to drown and crush him down.
It's safe, it's safe, he told himself. He sought something extra—a new sense, a burgeoning power—but he was simply Jack. Scared, lonely, worrying about his mother and sister held in the Choppers’ Camp H, fearful of his father, the dreadful Reaper. Scared little Jack. He started to cry, wishing his mother were there to hold and calm him as she had been for most, but not all of his years.
I've only just found her, I can't lose her again!
“We're there,” the voice said, and the hood was removed from Jack's head, his limbs unbound, and tape was ripped from across his mouth.
His vision swam from the tears, and he squinted his eyes against the glaring light.
“Oh, sorry.” The light levels lowered. A man was revealed before Jack, silhouetted against the strip lights in the ceiling. He was tall and thin with a wild head of hair haloing his face, but his expression was in shadow.
“Who are you?” Jack asked. He gathered his composure, grabbing onto the normality of what he saw after the terrors he'd been experiencing. “Why are you doing this to us?”
“Because I have to. And my name's Breezer.”
“Oh. Right. So what's your special power?”
The man chuckled and moved to the edge of the room, leaning against the wall. Across the room Sparky and Jenna sat up as they were released, and Jack locked gazes with them. Sparky looked angry, but Jack knew that they were safe. There was no threat here.
“No, that's really my name,” the man said. “Bill Breezer. I'm fifty-four. I'm a heating engineer. Or used to be.” He glanced at all of them, and Jack thought perhaps his smile was always there. He looked like someone who smiled a lot. Which meant that he was difficult to read.
“Where are we?” Sparky asked. The people who carried them had retreated from the large room, though Jack saw two of them just outside the open door. The room itself was sparse—bare plasterboard walls, a polished floor with holes where something had once been bolted down. A few paler patches on the walls where frames had once hung. It had the air of somewhere abandoned.
“If I felt comfortable telling you that, we wouldn't have knocked you out to bring you here.”
“Thanks for this anyway,” Jack said. “The Choppers almost caught us three times, at least. We can't run forever.”
“No,” Breezer said. “And Miller really wants you, it seems. Because…” His smile dropped slightly and he took on a faraway look, staring through Jack rather than at him. “Ahh. Wow. Nomad touched you.”
“So you read minds,” Jack said.
“I see histories. It doesn't amount to the same thing, but it can be more useful. You could have denied Nomad's touch, but I would have still known.”
“You see through lies,” Jenna said.
Breezer nodded. “You're all welcome here, of course. Even you, Jack.”
“Even me?”