“Fixed me?” David growled. His hands clenched. His breathing grew tight.
“My boy?” Alan said, his voice trembling.
David struck his own head. “Everything feels different. Wrong.”
“David, stop.”
“You’re… proud,” David said faintly. “She’s scared. Outside—people are hurt. Sick…”
His arms began to twitch, jerking like they had a will of their own.
He looked up, eyes blazing. He focussed on Lyra’s dead body beside him. His face went white with horror.
“What have you done to me?”
“Please, David—”
David threw his arms out. The air around him began to vibrate.
The lights flickered—once, twice—like the room itself was bracing.
Golden light exploded from his palms, slamming into Alan and hurling him into the wall.
He hit hard. Blood splattered behind him as his body slid slowly to the floor, eyes already unseeing.
I couldn’t move.
He killed him.
Oh my god.
David stared down at his hands like they had betrayed him. His face crumpled, confusion breaking through the glow.
“Grandad?”
Marr reacted instantly, driving a sedative into the boy’s arm. David’s eyes rolled back in his head as his body went slack.
“There, there. Rest,” Marr murmured. “You did well.”
He straightened and looked down at Alan’s body without a flicker of expression. Then he sighed.
“Let’s hope the cheque still clears.”
“Monster,” I rasped, fighting the fog pressing in on my mind. Years of medicinal abuse had given me a small resistance tosedation. I clung to it now, desperate. “You goddamn monster!”
Marr ignored me and turned toward the doorway.
“Eugene. Edmund,” he called calmly into the hall.
Beyond the glass, people were already running. Shouts echoed down the corridors.
Marr frowned and stepped outside.
Something scratched lightly at my wrist.
Then again.
I looked down, taking advantage of his distraction.
