Free Num8ers by Rachel Ward Page A

started up from a street nearby. “Let’s get out of here.”
    I handed his hoodie back to him, and we set off down the canal path. The gravel crunched under our feet as we walked past the graffiti-daubed walls lining the path. A lot of the buildings were derelict, but here and there some had been tarted up, turned into posh offices or restaurants or wine bars, shinyislands in a sea of grime. The sirens faded as we got farther away, and there was an odd quietness about the place, like everything had ground to a halt.
    When we got near the projects, we cut up to the main road. A couple of people had stopped outside the electronics shop’s window, and we joined them. A dozen TV screens, all the same. The London Eye wasn’t turning anymore. There was a bit missing, like someone had taken a big bite out of it: one pod gone, the ones near it twisted and wrecked, trash all over the ground. Only it wasn’t trash, it was bits of people and people’s things. The camera lingered over some tattered blue material, what was left of someone’s coat, and something flapping in the breeze: the frilly edge of a straw bag, shredded in the blast. Words slid along the bottom of each screen:
TERRORIST ATTACK AT THE LONDON EYE…NUMBER OF DEAD AND INJURED UNKNOWN…POLICE WARN PUBLIC TO BE VIGILANT FOR MORE ATTACKS…
    We watched for ages. Beside me, Spider kept saying, “Shit, man. Jesus Christ.” The news was on a loop, the same pictures over and over again. As I stood there, I could feel stuff rising up inside me. I fought to keep it down, but in the end I had to find an alleyway and get rid of it: the sour contents of my stomach spilling out of me onto the ground.
    Spider came to find me. “You alright, mate?”
    I coughed and spat, trying to get my mouth clean. “Yeah,” I said. I got a tissue out of my pocket, wiped my mouth. “Spider?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I could’ve done something. I knew something was gonna happen. I could’ve warned them, got them to shut the place down or something, I dunno.”
    “Yeah, but what if they’d shut it, and they’d all made for the Tube, and it had happened there?” He was right, I supposed. One way or another, today was their day: the Japanese couple, the old lady, the guy with the rucksack. But there was this feeling crushing me, the feeling that I could have made a difference.
    “You wanna come to mine?” Spider asked.
    “I dunno, I guess I do.” I wanted to go somewhere safe. I wished I could say, “I’m going to head home,” but nowhere felt like home.
    I suddenly remembered Sue and the police — God knows who would be waiting for me back at Karen’s. Yeah, Spider’s was definitely the better option.
    We shambled back to Carlton Villas and let ourselves in. Val wasn’t on her normal perch; she was in the front room with the big TV on. She half got up when she saw us coming through the door.
    “Terry, that you? Ah!” She collapsed back into the chair. “I’ve been fretting all afternoon since the news came on. You alright?”
    Spider bent over to give her the normal peck on the cheek, then wrapped his arms around her and folded his legs so hewas crouching on the ground in front of her chair, hugging her. He held on tight.
    “You were there, weren’t you?” she said. “I knew it. I knew it.” One hand rested on his back, the other clutched his head into her, nicotine-stained fingers buried in his springy hair. “It’s alright. You’re safe now, son.”
    I hovered in the doorway, feeling that I shouldn’t be seeing this; it was just between them. After a minute or so, Val looked ’round at me. “Come here. Sit down, love. You look done in.” I sat next to her and she took my hand. “I’m so glad to see you both.”
    Spider disentangled himself and sat back on his heels. He rubbed his arm across his face, but not before I’d seen the tears glistening there. “We were there just before, Nan. I was going off on a rant because we didn’t have enough money left to