Joe Craig - Jimmy Coates - Revenge

“I don’t have any more time, Jimmy,” Zafi said softly. She stood up and placed a hand on his wrist. “And nor do you.” Jimmy tensed up. So did Georgie and Felix. “I did what I could tonight to help you,” Zafi continued.

“What do you mean?” Georgie asked suspiciously.

“I created a diversion so they couldn’t follow you out of London so easily.” Zafi thought for a moment and smiled to herself. Jimmy couldn’t stand the way everything seemed to amuse her. “I need you to come with me now.”

Jimmy looked at his friend and his sister. He could see on their faces what they thought. The last thing they wanted was for him to leave them. But everything inside him was drawing him to go with Zafi. Surely he couldn’t – up to now, he had done everything he could to avoid causing harm to anybody. The DGSE would almost certainly send him to kill. But who?

He closed his eyes and pictured Paduk, the huge Secret Service agent who ran the Prime Minister’s ‘Special Security’. He pictured Miss Bennett, who had pretended to be protecting Jimmy for so long as a fake form teacher at school. Then she had emerged as his most venomous enemy – Head of NJ7. They had stolen his life. They had tortured and tried to kill the people he loved. Was this the chance that he had wanted so badly? Was this the opportunity to get his own back and be working for a good cause at the same time?

Then Jimmy pictured Ian Coates.

“I’ll do it,” he rasped. His voice seemed reluctant to leave his throat. “I’ll do it.”

“Jimmy you can’t!” Georgie shouted.

Jimmy was already moving towards the window. It was Zafi who stopped him.

“I presume we can leave by the front door, no?” she chuckled.

Jimmy felt himself laugh too, but it came out like a grunt. It didn’t even sound like him. He turned to the door.

“Jimmy, stop,” Felix ordered, grabbing his friend by the arm. Jimmy didn’t look at him.

“Get off me,” he growled.

“No way.”

“Get off me, Felix,” Jimmy said again. “You know I could snap you in two, don’t you?”

“Jimmy, what are you saying?” Georgie yelled. She stepped between her brother and the door. Her face had gone white. “What’s happening to you?”

“Let him come,” Zafi insisted. “He wants to, can’t you see?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Georgie countered. “It’s not him.” She seized Jimmy’s face in her hands. “Come on, Jimmy, pull yourself together!”

Suddenly, Jimmy exploded with rage. “Get off me!” he boomed. He shook off his sister’s hands and pushed Felix away. They both staggered back a step or two.

“It doesn’t matter what you say,” Zafi muttered. “He doesn’t have any choice about it anyway. It’s his destiny.”

Jimmy felt the dark power inside him. It was the force that he thought he had learned to control. But it was always there and always growing more layers. It felt like a wild animal had burrowed even deeper inside him, devouring his soul as it went.

“Why are you doing this?” Georgie whispered. Jimmy looked at her and saw a horrible fear on her face.

“Are you winding us up?” Felix asked. “You are, aren’t you?”

Jimmy didn’t know how to respond. Felix’s chirpy tone was completely out of synch with the weight of Jimmy’s emotions.

“All right, tell you what,” Felix continued, bouncing on the spot, “I’m coming too.” Jimmy sighed. “Let’s go,” Felix insisted. With a flourish, he plucked one of the pillows from the bed and whipped off the pillowcase. Then he tied it around his neck. “Got to wrap up warm, cos, baby, it’s cold outside.”

“Felix, what are you doing?” Jimmy asked.

“I, my friend, am going to come with you and become a killer.”

None of them knew what to make of this – least of all Jimmy.

“Felix, this is serious,” he said.

“Yeah, serious,” Felix echoed. “Seriously, I’m so serious. Let’s go get serious with some Frenchies.” He grabbed Jimmy’s wrist again, but this time he was dragging his friend towards the door. “Come on, come on, haven’t got all day. People to kill.”

“Stop,” Jimmy urged feebly. He pulled his hand away. “You’re nuts.”

“I’m nuts?” Felix mocked. “Oh, I’m nuts. Yeah, cos, funny thing is, we all thought you wanted to stick with us and get away from the fighting and the murdering. But some little French bird flutters in here with her little gadgets and her cool eyeball trick – that was so cool by the way,” he quickly turned to Zafi and grinned. “And next thing you want to skip off to Paris to become an assassin, which is what NJ7 wanted you to be in the first place. But you’re right – I’m nuts.”

The others were stunned. If Georgie hadn’t been so upset, she would have laughed. Zafi was the first to break the silence.

“Your friend is weird,” she whispered.

“I know,” Jimmy mumbled, “He’s…”

“I like it.”

Finally, a smile forced its way on to Jimmy’s face. “Take off that pillowcase,” he said. “You look ridiculous.”

“So we’re staying?” Felix asked. Jimmy nodded, and his sister plunged her arms around him.

“You’re such an idiot,” Georgie scolded Jimmy even as she was hugging him. “You have to think about these things more carefully. We’re going to get out of here and be safe and normal again.”

“It’s a shame,” interjected Zafi. “They said if you didn’t want to come with me I should kill you.” Jimmy’s blood fizzed in his veins. Georgie gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “Ha! Joking!” Zafi exploded into laughter. “Your faces are hilarious.”

Felix and Jimmy both let out a huge sigh of relief.

“I don’t think that’s funny!” Georgie shrieked.

“It was quite funny,” Felix suggested. “Not as funny as me obviously.”

“So it’s OK if I don’t, you know…” Jimmy asked.

“Of course,” Zafi replied, her voice light and almost squeaky. “You won’t work for us, but that’s OK because we know that you are no friend of NJ7.”

“I’d never work for them, don’t worry.” At last Jimmy started to relax. He almost felt like himself again.

“But NJ7 won’t have any distractions now,” Zafi warned him. “I can’t throw them off your trail any more. And if I can find you, they can find you. Get out of the country as quick as you can.” She opened the door and was framed by the darkness in the rest of the building. “Maybe we’ll meet again.”

To his surprise, Jimmy was sad that this girl was leaving. There was so much she might have been able to tell him. He was suddenly overcome by the urge to know everything about her. Had she also grown up thinking she was a normal child? Or had she always known that she was only 38 per cent human? She seemed a lot happier with it than Jimmy was. Did she have parents? Were they, like Jimmy’s, agents of the Government’s intelligence services? And had they kept it a secret?

With all this blurring his thoughts, Jimmy found it hard to say anything – even a simple goodbye. Zafi reached into her pocket.

“I’ll rewire the power supply outside on my way out,” she announced casually. Her hand emerged holding the remote control clicker that had turned on the lights in the room. “Something to remember me by.” She tossed it at Jimmy, who caught it in a daze.

“Don’t you need it?” Felix called out, but Zafi was already floating down the stairs, making hardly a sound. She glanced over her shoulder, her hair catching the streak of light through the banisters.

“I’ll make another one.”

Jimmy, Georgie and Felix were unable to move. They were stunned. Zafi had come in like a whirlwind and left as much devastation. She had made so little noise – they didn’t even hear the front door closing after her – and she displayed all the clinical killing instincts of a highly trained assassin. Yet her eyes had sparkled, her physique was delicate, her voice was soft and high, with a giggle that reminded Jimmy of the most annoying girls in his year at school.