Glow (20 page)

64.

Lucy

We’re pacing. Every single person is pacing. Scared to go after the brothers, because what will that do? Layla had to stop me from sprinting after Lukas as he told me where he was going. “Don’t follow me. This is for Charles. I must do this for him, the one who kept you safe. I owe it to him
.
” I heard the intensity in his words and nodded my head, but my heart trailed him as far as it could. Then he disappeared from sight, none of us have any idea what’s behind the smoky wall.

“Lucy, look,” Junie shouts, tugging my arm. I cover my mouth with my hands, scared to take in what she’s pointing at.

Women surface from the dying embers and dark, heavily cloaked, air. Floating angels emerging from the dark, entering the light.

Vessels.

I count them as they exit. One after another, tiny bodies and older bodies. But all the same in the fact that they struggle to walk and stand. Twelve in all.

Then I see him; well first I see his light. He holds the smallest girl. He carries her with a grim look on his face, but he is alive. He went into the burning mountain and came out breathing with abandoned Vessels, in one piece.

I run down the stairs, knowing first and foremost that these Vessels need help removing the thick smoke from their lungs. With relief I hear more footsteps pound down the stairs behind me. Our crew is courageous and selfless and I could never dream of a more generous family. The word “family” sticks in my head as I think them, knowing what choosing them means. Means for the ones I don’t choose. The ones who didn’t choose me.

“Lukas,” I shout, making my way down the ferry landing, toward this rescued group of Vessels. “Where’s Charlie?” Terror rings through my voice.

“He’s coming.” Lukas points behind him and relief washes over me.

In his strong arms, he carries a badly beaten Perfection. She looks much weaker than she did the day she ran from us. Her grip is tight around Charlie’s neck and it dawns on me how she’s with the boy she always loved. No wonder she ran, I think with shame. At the compound I treated her terribly for being Bound with Lukas.

And then Charlie had his eyes set on me. Of course she left. Her heart was beaten, stomped on in ways I’ve never known. I was the girl everyone wanted and that left her with no one.

It’s easy to remember her words at the Refuge when I first was partnered with her. “Lukas is the most desired by many. Most girls’ dream of being Bound with him
.
” She never came out and said it was her true desire. It was just her role in this world. Fight for the Nobleman, because what other choice did she have? None. She’s never had a choice.

Until now.

I feel horrible for getting in the way of them. My selfishness, my pride, my entitlement keeps getting in the way.

I help a girl who struggles to walk by holding her hand, putting my arm around her. The rest of our crew does the same. We support the women up the stairs, slowly but surely and lay them on the benches lining the boat.

Cowboys have cooked the rations we’ve found. This ferry being left untouched has provided us canned sausage gravy with biscuits from a mix. Chili and cornbread. Dried cranberries and discolored chocolates called M & M’s. There were cartons of a drink called chai and mixed with water it turns creamy and exotic.

Lukas and I work our way around the room as everyone scrambles to help. Thankfully most of the Vessels have only been affected by the smoke when they were exiting; somehow they were protected in the dark rooms. I thought the rooms would have turned into a furnace, but somehow they escaped the fire.

The Vessels are dehydrated, but not much. When the Council orders someone to a dark room, they’re still fed. The fire must have just started in the wee hours of the morning, by our estimate. The worst thing they are affected by is the trauma of walking out of the dark rooms into a world consumed by flames and surrounded by the death of the rest of the Refuge. Their families. Their children. Their sisters and daughters. I can’t even imagine that amount of loss. An entire world, disappearing in a day.

“You came for us, Nobleman?” a Vessel asks as I press my hands delicately against her chest, helping her breathe easier.

“Lucy and I will always help. In every way we can,” Lukas says, standing next to me, as his light pours over her. She smiles, tears in the corner of her eyes, glistening in the reflection of Lukas’s glow.

I look at him with respect, with love. He went in for Charlie, looking for his brother, and was willing to risk his life. I want to believe I could be that brave when push came to shove.

We walk over to where Perfection is lying. Layla and Ernie are both with her and Charlie, a reunion for them. It’s been six years since they saw Perfection, and I wonder if they always held out hope that one day Charlie and she would be together again.

“She needs you,” Charlie says, not meeting my eyes.

“I’m here to help.” I mean it. Perfection winces as I press my hands on her cheek. “I’m sorry, it will feel better soon, okay?”

She nods, but barely. Images of Duty and Mom lying in the dark rooms cloud my mind.
Stay strong, Lucy. Now’s not the time to get held up by the past. Perfection needs you for her future.
I lightly brush my fingertips over her cheek and as I do, my green light fades the bruises, dissipates the discoloration on her neck where hands held her against her will.

The men and Layla turn as I lift Perfection’s dress, revealing more horrors of a battered body. I see lines of blood trail her leg, and once more my mind finds Timid under the cedar tree where we camped with Junie and Colton. Her injured leg, how well it healed, how it doesn’t matter anymore because she’s gone.
Focus. Focus on Perfection.
Using my light has never been this hard, maybe because it never felt so close to home.

I’m no doctor, but I can tell she has broken ribs, and she cries out in pain as I push her dress up higher, showing broken skin, close to her heart.

She takes a sharp intake of breath as I press my hands over her core, then she cries in relief as the light evaporates so much of her agony.

I brush her long golden hair from her face, and I swear there are strands of silver light reflecting off of her. I wipe away injuries above her brows. “Who did this?” I whisper, not wanting to upset her with such wretched memories.

“Conviction. The … Councilmen … from Refuge Two brought me here, and tortured me, trying to get me to talk … but I wouldn’t tell … I wouldn’t tell them where Lukas was….”

“But Charlie said you wanted to go with them at first? On the bridge, right? You could have gone with him.” I shake my head, trying to understand. “Why’d you go back to them?”

“At first they were nice. I didn’t want to believe the truth about them, that they were bad. And I was so angry. At Lukas, at Charlie, at you.” She breaks down crying, her lips tremble, her shoulders shake. “But I was never going to tell them about Lukas, and his plans, but then the fire started….”

“Who started the fire?”

“When I first refused and the riot started at Refuge Two, by Care, I knew trouble was coming,” she says, her breathing easier now that my hands have had a chance to work on her. “They had already beat me senseless at that point, but they brought me on the boat as they got away, anyhow. They hoped Conviction would have more luck with me, which he did, obviously. I was here for a few hours and he already did this, torturing me for information.” She points to her body. “At that point I decided I’d rather die than tell that monster anything. He was willing to tear out my eyes, he told me so himself.” Her sobs bring the men and Layla back around, and Charlie is quickly at her side, comforting her.

“When the Refuge heard that Lukas was supposedly dead, the same people who must have been on Care’s and Integrity’s side started a riot,” Perfection continues. “As I was sent to a dark room I heard shouts about fire. I can only make guesses about what happened next. I was shoved in the room and locked in. I never thought I’d make it out, sure I pounded on the door, but what was the use? No one was running to help, because everyone was already dead.”

I sit next to her, listening, but also trying to understand. “Where was Integrity? The Vessels at Refuge Two said he left on a boat, with you.”

“I haven’t seen Integrity since I’ve been back.” She says this matter of fact, but my eyes narrow at Lukas as we try to piece the story together.

“Why did he leave Care to fend for herself?”

“He had to leave for Refuge Three, he must have had a reason,” Lukas says this as though it’s the only possibility.

“Maybe. But why leave Perfection? He knew she was with us, knew she was on our side … why leave her for dead?” I ask, annoyed that he can’t consider the other options.

“Easy there, Lucy,” Charlie warns. I look at Perfection who must have felt the sharp edge to my words. Once again I slip into my pattern of zero empathy.

Lukas rolls his eyes. Even though I’m annoyed, I can’t help but smile slightly. Lukas rolling his eyes seems so … normal. So un-Nobleman-y. “Maybe he thought she was a traitor, which at that point, she was. She ran from us, to them.”

“Maybe we should have this conversation elsewhere,” I say, knowing we’re upsetting Charlie and Perfection.

For Charlie and Perfection the story is only as deep as the Councilmen being bad, and the Vessels being killed. But for Lukas and me it’s deeper than that. This is our future.

I take Lukas’s hand, knowing that in doing so, we’ll be able to talk privately in our bubble of color.

65.

Lukas

“If Integrity knew Perfection was on our side, why would he leave her and flee?” Lucy asks, searching my eyes. “She was so close to dying. And the fire? It’s all so much crueler then I thought they could be.”

“I don’t know. I don’t. But we can’t assume until we speak with the source.”

“Do you think when we get the Councilmen that we could maybe, not kill them?”

“What are you saying, Lucy? After all this you want to let them live?”

“I don’t want to play God. Decide the fates of people. It doesn’t seem right.”

“But the people you’re protecting can’t protect themselves. They need us to stand up for them.”

Lucy pulls away.

“Don’t run. From me. Just because we don’t understand everything doesn’t mean we can’t try to understand one another.”

“I just want this part to be over with. So we can start the next part.” She looks up at me with eyes full of sorrow, exhaustion. Healing the Vessels takes a lot out of her.

I can understand that, my life is littered with days of fatigue after nights of expending myself. This time away from the Energy Room has not been a real break from that. First I helped power the compound, was in a Taser trance, and have now been fueling the boats.

“The next part isn’t going to be easier, Lucy. Just different. If we’re the Rainbow Children Integrity says we are, then we have a lifetime of giving of ourselves ahead of us.”

She nods, lacing her fingers through mine as though she wants me to steady her.

“What if Integrity’s wrong? What if we aren’t what he thinks we are?”

“How could we not be? We are The Light.” Nothing is clearer, as we float in our orb of energy.

“I think Perfection has light too. Like Junie. Like you and me. I saw this silvery halo around her head when I healed her.”

Now I am the one who pulls back.

“That’s crazy. I’ve known her my entire life. I kissed her.” Lucy winces at that, but I keep explaining. “And there was no spark, no charge between us. Not like with you.”

“You can be awfully stubborn when it comes to hearing other people out, you know that?”

“Regardless, it’s just another thing we can ask Integrity about, okay? Happy?” I lean over and kiss her lips, softly. We stand a few feet from my parents, and even if they can’t see us, we can see them.

I let go of her lips and her hands, and we push away from one another. Refueled by the kiss, by her touch. I lean over, before she walks back to the group. “I think your healing powers work on me too, you know.”

Everyone mills around the rest of the day uncertain of how to proceed, and there’s talk of Colton planning some sort of talent show for this evening. It was decided that we will stick around here for the night, and then push off in the morning. Even though we can make it to Refuge Three in a little over an hour, we would be fighting at night. No one wants to play that game.

I find Junie sitting alone after dinner, outside on a bench, facing the water. A scarf wraps around her, muffling the cold fall air. She wears gloves with the fingers clipped off and her boot-clad feet rest on the bench in front of her, the psychic book rests in her lap.

“Am I disturbing you?” I ask, sitting next to her, zipping the winter parka I’m wearing all the way up to my neck. It’s from Lucy’s compound and it smells like soap and lemons, preserved for nearly two decades in a closet. It doesn’t smell like the outdoors, which it was made for.

“No, not at all. How you holding up, prophet?” Her fingers reach for the ring slid through her bottom lip. Twisting it, she looks at me.

“I’m good,” I say, without thinking.

“Right. You saw the fiery massacre of the women and children you’ve devoted your life to, and you’re “good.” I call that bullshit.”

“You’re really taking your gift of intuition seriously aren’t you?”

“This isn’t about intuition, Lukas. Anyone could pick these things up from you.”

“What things?”

“I don’t want to get into it with you, but since I always see you and Lucy fighting, I’m sure she tells you the same thing.” She smiles, as though this is a lighthearted conversation.

My muscles tense. “No, really tell me what you think.” Growing agitated, I press.

“Lukas, it’s all good.  Don’t get all fire-throwing mad at me, okay?”

“Don’t worry. I can’t do that anymore,” I shoot back.

“Why not?” Her eyes narrow, taking in my words.

“I got rid of it. When I burned the barn, it all left me. I was sick of being filled with such anger all the time. So I let it go.”

“But you can still get angry? Like a minute ago, with me?”

“I think that’s just the normal sort of anger. Like regular anger. The kind you get.”

“Oh, I never get angry. I’m psychic remember?” Junie laughs. I can’t help but give in and laugh too. She makes it impossible to stay annoyed. “But seriously, you should have a more intense reaction to everything you’ve been through. You ran through a burning building to save people this morning. That’s like, heroic.”

“Tell me that after we’ve killed the Councilmen. I’m not ready for a victory dance quite yet.”

We sit in silence, looking out at the water. It’s still and dark and a place you could get lost in.

“Do you know how to swim?” I ask.

“Not the kind you mean. I never did like treading water.”

“Do you feel like you’re treading water right now?”

“No. I’m going somewhere I’ve never been before, Lukas. You’re the one who’s swimming right back to the place you came from.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I want to yell, “How
dare
you.” But I don’t have it in me to fight what is true.