Fast (79 page)

            ‘My parents are in town and they want to thank the man who saved my life. I promised them I’d invite you to have dinner with us.’

            ‘Dinner with your parents? I…well, of course.’

            ‘We didn’t get to talk properly after, well, you know. Or even during the evac. You had your job to do and I had mine.’

            ‘Yeah. It was pretty crazy,’ agreed Harrison.

            ‘Do you know what my strongest memory is?’ Dana suddenly asked. ‘It was at the end. I came out of the comms room and saw you standing before that wave of creatures. You were just standing there with that axe. You were in front of us all, looking like you were going to stop them all by yourself.’

            ‘I was going to try.’

            ‘I know you were. I didn’t doubt that for a second. But then the butterflies came. Those magnificent butterflies.’

            ‘Yeah - Vanessa and Coleman, huh? There’s a dynamic duo if ever I met one.’

            ‘A rose for the lady?’

            A girl selling roses from a wicker basket stopped at their table.

            Harrison raised an eyebrow at Dana and reached for his wallet.

            ‘No thanks,’ said Dana. ‘I don’t like the thorns.’

            ‘These roses are bred to be thornless,’ insisted the girl. ‘Look, they can’t hurt you.’ She ran her hand quickly down the bunch of long stems and then displayed her uninjured palm. ‘Isn’t science incredible?’

            Now Dana quirked her eyebrow at Harrison.

            ‘Sorry, maybe next time,’ he said.

            When the girl left, Harrison pulled a small gift box from his jacket pocket. He pushed it across the table to Dana.

            Without speaking, Dana opened the box, paused, and then drew out the delicate butterfly pendant on a gold chain. She stared at the gem-studded butterfly for a long time.

            ‘Do you want to know my strongest memory?’ Harrison asked.

            Wordlessly, Dana nodded.

            ‘At the end, when I thought we were finished, I wished I’d had the chance to get to know you better. In a way, the butterflies might have granted my wish.’

            ‘I’d like that,’ whispered Dana.

            ‘Me too,’ beamed Harrison. ‘Me too.’

Acknowledgements

Firstly, to you, the reader, thank you for taking the time to read my book. I wrote it hoping that you would enjoy it. I hope I’ve succeeded.

Thank you to my family for supporting my writing.

Thank you to the large community of artists who freely contribute their work through public domain and creative commons agreements, and the websites that coordinate their efforts. Therefore, thanks to Sid Mosdell, cajun-stock, Andre_44, Dwight Sipler, flikr.com and clker.com for providing images used in the cover page.

Special thanks to Alexander Ovchinnikov, (Creative Director for Milk Creative Agency, Moscow, Russia) for permitting me to use his evocative artwork on my copyright pages.