He had to focus.
The blanket covering Mrs. Brown began to ripple like the surface of the sea. Outside, the hazard sirens wailed.
Magic.
Dragging his eyes away from Mrs. Brown, Noam twisted round to face his own apartment and vomited all over the floor.
He stood there for a second, staring woozily at the mess while sirens shrieked in his ears. He was sick. Magic festered in his veins, ready to consume him whole.
An outbreak.
His father, when Noam managed to weave his way back to his side, had fallen unconscious. His head lolled forward, and there was a bloody patch on his lap, yellow electricity flickering over the stain. The world undulated around them both in watery waves.
“It’s okay,” Noam said, knowing his dad couldn’t hear him. He sucked in a sharp breath and hitched his father’s body out of the chair. He shouldn’t—he couldn’t just leave him there like that. Noam had carried him around for three years, but today his father weighed twice as much as before. Noam’s arms quivered. His thoughts were white noise.
It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, a voice kept repeating in Noam’s head.
He dumped his father’s body on the bed, skinny limbs sprawling. Noam tried to nudge him into a more comfortable position, but even that took effort. But this...it was more than he’d done for his mother. He’d left her corpse swinging on that rope for hours before Brennan showed up to take her down.
His father still breathed, for now.
How long did it take to die? God, Noam couldn’t remember.
On shaky legs, Noam made his way back to the chair by the window. He couldn’t manage much more. The television kept turning itself on and off again, images blazing across a field of static snow and vanishing just as quickly. Noam saw it out of the corners of his eyes even when he tried not to look, the same way he saw his father’s unconscious body. That would be Noam soon.
Magic crawled like ivy up the sides of the fire escape next door.
Noam imagined his mother waiting for him with a smile and open arms, the past three years just a blink against eternity.
His hands sparked with something silver-blue and bright. Bolts shot between his fingers and flickered up his arms. The effect would have been beautiful were it not so deadly. And yet...
A shiver ricocheted up his spine.
Noam held a storm in his hands, and he couldn’t feel a thing.
CHAPTERTWO
Noam drowned in a sea of white heat and electric current. A dizzy free fall into the ocean, salt water drenching his lungs.
Then the tide receded. The storm cleared. Noam opened his eyes to bright light.
Everything hurt.
God, everything... his body was a knot of pain and exhaustion. Noam shivered as he shoved the bedsheets down, pushing upright. His mind blurred, and he couldn’t remember—
Noam tipped his head back, a fresh wave of heat searing down his spine.
Where was he?
The room smelled of spoiled meat. He looked to the left.
A girl lay on the bed next to his with her mouth open, her face a solid gray mask, frozen midbreath.
Noam lurched out of bed, ankle catching in the sheets and sending him crashing sideways into an abandoned metal cart. The girl stared back with white eyes.
Jesus—how long had she been there? Days? Perhaps even weeks, her flesh rotting into the mattress three feet away while Noam shook through his fever and never noticed.
Door. There was a door. Get to the door.
