Read Online Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) by Harry Manners - Free Book Online

need you on my side.”
    She looked taken aback, and glanced toward the others back in the lobby. Norman knew they were all watching, and knew that they must be making something of a spectacle. The grand marble staircase wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. But he refused to look away from Allie and waited until she had turned back to him. “Allie, are you with me?”
    She was chewing her lip again, but her gaze was resolute. “What are friends for?” she said.
    Feeling more than a little embarrassed, he realised she wasn’t moving with him anymore, but hovering. She was waiting to go back to Oppenheimer’s daughter. Despite all the staring and his own little drama, she hadn’t forgotten. In fact, she looked more determined than ever.
    What a little time can do to a person , he thought. She was just a kid not long ago. A damn annoying one. And now … what would I do without her?
    “Will you be alright with her?” he said.
    “I have to be.” No fear, no uncertainty, where only minutes before there had been. Had his story had something to do with that?
    Maybe she’s right. Maybe’s something of Alexander rubbed off on me, after all .
    Left with that uncomfortable thought, Norman made to ascend the staircase to find the council chambers. His focus was so distant that, at first, he didn’t notice the white figures moving past him at all. It wasn’t until the third of them had brushed past him—almost seeming to pass through him—that he froze in place.
    Half a dozen pale shapes were moving on ahead of him, ascending the stairs. Three were gesticulating in conversation with one another, two were running with armfuls of folders and sheaves of paper, and the last was ambling at a leisurely pace with something held to his ear that sent the air wheezing out of Norman’s lungs: a smartphone. All of them were dressed in the kind of formal office attire that had littered the cities in the Early Years, before they were picked clean by traders. Yet they were all white, like figures from a children’s picture book that hadn’t been filled in. As they passed through the sunbeams thrusting in through the lobby windows, each one seemed to shimmer. He heard them, too, but their speech was warbling and muffled, as though he had water in his ears.
    It all lasted only a moment, but it was most definitely there, right in front of him. He could have reached out and touched any one of them. His eyelids flickered, and they were gone. No shimmer, no noise, nothing. Gone.
    “Norman?” Allie sounded a thousand miles away. “What’s wrong? Do you need a hand?”
    “Did you see that?” he cried, whirling to face her.
    “See what?”
    “Walking there, people. People in suits, right there on the stairs!” He reached over and gripped her shoulder. “You didn’t see that?”
    Her lips had parted, and her eyes were wide, afraid. “Norman, are you alright?”
    There was no lie in her eyes; she hadn’t seen anything.
    “I’m fine,” he breathed. “I’m fine, I just … I need a rest.”
    “Good idea. Just make sure you show for the summit. One hour.”
    “An hour.” He nodded. He tried to give her an encouraging smile, but his cheeks had turned to cement. The pain in his chest pulsed, sending blinding flashes up his spine to the base of his skull. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe. He turned back to the stairs and hurried away from her—her and everyone else.
    It wasn’t real. It was the pain. It was making him seeing things.
    They were people from before the End. The voice whispering those words was familiar, but not his own. He had heard it once before, though, perhaps in a half-forgotten dream.
    Echoes. That’s what they’re called. Echoes.
    No, it was just a hallucination. Pain did funny things, played tricks on you. The people who had once lived and worked here were long gone.
    That same familiar voice spoke once more, setting free a torrent of liquid fear into his bowels: That’s right: they’re all dead and gone.