Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Prologue
- 2046
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- About the Author
The fat disappears from his body. He becomes lean and hard. The muscles show in his limbs and torso. He weathers and browns. His beard grows, his hair becomes unkempt. The bags under his eyes darken and grow too. The haggard look intensifies week by week. The battles are at night. The worst of times. The most awful of times, when he fights to prevent sleep while feeling so tired that all he wants is sleep. Sleep brings the nightmares. The ever-worsening terrors in his head. They become confusing and jumbled. Steph becomes Safa. Safa was having an affair. Safa was going to leave him. Steph is here. It is Steph making him cling to a life he does not deserve. He killed Safa and Steph when he was seventeen. He tried to save Steph and Safa when he was seventeen but Roland killed them while Harry laughed.
The main room changes around him. The chairs and tables broken during the big fight are replaced. The food varies. The uniqueness of people living in a place starts to show. Stains on the tables. Circle marks from the coffee mugs. The mark on the floor where Harry knocked the jug of coffee over.
Malcolm and Konrad move around them. Fixing, repairing, fetching and carrying. Waiting and watching.
Roland frets. His nerves fraying with every passing week. Safa remains brutal and never before has a person guarded another as she does Ben. Never before has such a protective energy enveloped another as hers does him. The others don’t speak to Ben. Don’t speak to him. Don’t even look at him. Roland stops asking because to ask will invoke her wrath and they all get caught up in the challenge of waiting for Ben to snap out of it.
Safa’s dedication becomes a thing. An entity. An almost living object to be discussed and thought about. Wherever Ben goes she is there. At his side. Behind him. In front of him. She knows what he did. He saved that woman and child. He killed so they could have life. He did it at Holborn. He killed so others could live and for that, her energy seems endless. She will never tire. She will never submit. Ben has worth. Harry retrains with eighty or more years of new skills, weapons and tactics to play with. His proficiency in his art is sublime. He is perfection at what he does. He gives calm to Safa. He gives patience and can say more in one nod than Roland, Malcolm and Konrad can do with many words.
Safa tries repeatedly to bring Ben out. To draw him from himself. And in those months that pass, she has hope only once and cries only once.