Authors: Anya Monroe
79.
Lukas
Charlie pulls out a gun, and I know in an instant what I have to do.
“Stop!” I scream, throwing my white light out of me as forcefully as I can.
I can’t let him kill a man, a monster I had a hand in creating. I gave up my integrity for Conviction’s mission over and over again. If I’d said stop, demanded more understanding, fought for the Vessels all the times I turned a blind eye, then no one would be here right now, squaring off.
I have a better way. The only way.
When I was at the Rehab Center freeing Basil and Hana-Grace, I was able to push darkness out of me, into a room where a Humbleman was. I pushed out all the darkness within me and it instantly consumed the room with darkness.
And it nearly cost me everything. I spent days telling lies to Perfection, filling myself with deception as I worked to escape. It made me sick. I did things with my gift I should have never chosen. Pushing more darkness into the world isn’t justified, even in the hopes of freeing Basil. I filled myself with darkness, and then I unleashed it on others.
I have spent the last month learning about my limits. I knew the fire within me was going to destroy me in the end, so I forced it out of my skin. The anger I have pent up inside for years was finally released.
But the same is true for my light.
It will be what destroys me in the end, too.
Maybe others, with this ability, would have more success in using it. Have a better gauge of right and wrong, good intentions versus pride. Light and dark. I can’t control my emotions; they override my decisions time and time again.
I need to let it go.
Even if it means I lose it all.
My light.
My life.
Lucy can take her gift and use it for good, but I’m not like her. Even in all my proclaimed prophet status, I am more human than ever. Weak. Complicated.
I am a man, a flawed one throughout, but also one who has learned the meaning of bravery in all the unexpected places. I always thought that bravery should have been found in me, the Nobleman.
Instead, bravery was found in Junie’s wisdom. In Colton’s leadership. In Basil’s wit. In Duke’s loyalty. In Jax’s compassion. In Perfection’s devotion. In my parents’ dedication. In Charles’s commitment.
In Lucy’s love.
And now I can choose how I can be brave, by taking the example of the people around me, right now.
I push my light out farther, deeper, until I can feel the penetration of my glow fill Conviction’s heart. Until it fills him, as it has filled me. Not just a glowing light, but a pure one. The goodness, the tranquility it gives off in the Haven, that’s what I pour over Conviction. Taking away all the darkness in him, instead filling him with love. Filling him with light.
“Lukas, stop!” Lucy screams at me, pulling me back, away from the man who’s caused me years of pain. “Don’t. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Lucy, it isn’t a choice. You asked me to do what you wanted. You don’t want us to kill the Councilmen. And we won’t I promised you that. But we can’t leave them like this. Not if we can help it.”
“But, Lukas, you can’t draw all that darkness out of them. It will….” Lucy stops, her chest rising and falling fast as she takes my face in her hands.
“You can bring me back, Lucy. If it’s too much for me, and I fall, you can heal me. Your light has always healed me before, it will do it again.” This isn’t even a choice. I know it’s what I must do.
Knowing, finally, why I was born with this light. It wasn’t a waste. It wasn’t all false prophecy like Integrity died believing. I have a gift that I can use to take darkness out of these men and the world will be a better place for it.
“But if I can’t … if you die … I need you. I came all this way, for you. Don’t do something brave now that could cost us everything.”
“If I don’t do this now, finish this once and for all, The Light will haunt me all the days of my life. That isn’t living, that is trading one prison for another.
I want to be
free!”
“That’s all I ever wanted,” Lucy whispers.
“Then let me do this.”
I stand in front of Conviction once more, pressing out my light, his eyes filled with tears as the release of darkness overwhelms him. Black vapors rise from his flesh. Hysteria covers the crowd. Partly in fear, because this transformation is an entirely new phenomenon. It is clear that as the darkness leaves, he is stronger, clearer. The murky shadow he always casts when he looks at me, leaves his eyes.
The shock to my system is slight, but still there. I stand back and look at the eight other men in a row, knowing they each need this freedom. Just as I need deliverance, so do they.
“Lukas, what have you done?” Conviction sobs. “I … I feel like the boy I once was … thank you. You have freed me.”
Conviction’s tender cries bring Lucy to tears, and I understand why. Forgiveness is a gift that has a price. It cost me my pride.
“I am doing what I would want someone to do for me.”
I walk to the next Councilman in the row, Discernment, and I press my hand against his chest. I let the light flow from me to him.
I grow weak as I grow strong.
80.
Lucy
By the time Lukas is at the final Councilman, I know it’s too much. Lukas is faltering; his light barely streams forth anymore. The other men on the Council, who’ve already been relieved of the torment, beg him to stop, seeing, for the first time, how much he has always sacrificed of himself for The Light.
“Lukas, don’t….” I press my hands against his back, wanting the light inside me to help him. To save him. But I can see it already, as he begins to gather up his energy and transfer it to a man I’ve never seen before, that this is more than I can heal. More than I can compress with my small fingers on his chest.
I am losing him.
The intensity in his eyes don’t pull away from the man before him.
“Stop, Lukas, I just got you back,” Layla cries, and her heartache is echoed throughout the crowd.
But I know Lukas. He’s determined to do everything within his power to make the wrongs of the world right. To make his wrongs right.
I cry watching him press out his light, leaving him barren, empty. I cry because there is nothing I can do to stop him and I want to yell, drag him away, but I can’t. I won’t.
Even though it’s heartbreaking to watch the one I love break, it’s also the most beautiful act of mercy anyone could witness.
Lukas is giving his life, freely, for these nine men who have taken his.
The black billows from their bodies rise to the sky. The clouds of my apple tree ash rise with the Councilmen’s, and once more I see how letting go is the only real way to be free.
When the man before Lukas blinks, opens his eyes, and looks around, it’s like he sees for the first time. He immediately calls for help, “The Nobleman! Help him!”
Lukas falls to the ground, empty of his life force. I fall over him, not wanting it to be true. Wanting my hands to heal him, charge him, revive him.
“I love you, Lukas,” I sing out to him, hovering over his limp body. “I’ll always love you.” My light covers him, but this time there is no rainbow as our bodies collide. It’s changed. There is no pulse, no drumming of his heart.
There’s nothing.
“No!” I scream, desperate for my green light to flow into his veins, to absorb the void and fill it with myself.
“Lucy.” Charlie leans down and speaks to me. “Move back, we need to try and bring him to the Energy Room.”
But I don’t want to let go. I can’t let go. I’m too terrified to imagine life without him.
“What’s in there?” I ask, clawing at his words, trying to decipher what the Energy Room would do for Lukas.
“Mom and Dad think that maybe they can redirect the energy, push it back in him. Something like a transfusion. We need to try,” he says gently, taking my hands from Lukas.
Jax, Colton, Ernie, and Duke carry his body from the ground. I look around, seeing the crowd for the first time, realizing how overwhelmed everyone is by Lukas’s sacrifice.
Basil and Junie take me by the hands and lead me with the men as we follow where Lukas’s body is carried into the Refuge. We walk down the great marble halls, our feet echoing, but all I hear is the cries of my heart.
Come back to me Lukas, like you have all the times before. Come back.
Not hearing him whisper back is the worst feeling of all.
“Be brave,” Basil encourages. My longest friend, by my side now. Forgiving me, supporting me, and now she holds me. I’m surrounded by the faithful, surrounded by a family. The family that has risen from the ashes.
The Energy Room is barely lit and I feel the combined let down, from this band of travelers, as we realize the Refuge has already lost nearly all of its reserve power. Lukas has been gone for days, long enough for his spare energy to have already been dispersed by the greedy men he just freed.
“Ernie, it won’t be enough. The shock to his system is too much,” Layla says.
“We can try. We have to try!” Ernie bellows as he pulls the cords from above Lukas’s chair away from the rafters. He drags them to Lukas, setting the crown of wires on top of his son’s head.
“Keep holding his hand, Lucy, pour your light into him, as best as you can,” Ernie urges as he runs across the room to the lever I’ve seen Lukas pull down before.
There is, at first, a jolt of power, but I can literally see it drain away the light I have been pouring into him, not reverse like they hoped. It begins to draw out of me as I hold Lukas’s hand.
“Stop, ahhh!” I scream out in pain. Is this the feeling Lukas has grown numb to, each night of his life? Is this how much it hurts him to release his energy to the Refuge? This revelation breaks me. It’s always cost him more than he would admit. He
was
brave.
Was.
I can’t let this be the end of this story.
With new fervor I fight for him. “Ernie, this isn’t working. It isn’t reversing it like you’d hope. We need a new plan,” I urge.
“There is no other plan, Lucy!” Layla falls at her son’s side. “Lukas, sweet boy. I let this happen to you. I’m so sorry.” She presses her hands on his face, her tears falling on his cheeks. If any love were going to revive him it would be his mother’s. But still.
Nothing.
“It’s not working,” I sob. “What are we … what am I?” I fall over his chest. “Don’t leave me.”
But he is.
I feel it. I feel him slip away to the great in-between place, but knowing he won’t float there forever. Knowing he will eventually leave, disappear in the atmosphere and be free.
Exactly what he wished for in the last words he spoke to me.
Exactly what he always wanted, always dreamed of, even if was too scary of a wish to really cling too.
I saw Charlie as the one who wanted to run away with me.
But it was always Lukas. Always Lukas who wanted to jump off that ledge, holding my hand, finding our way together. But he was too good of a man to just leave. He wouldn’t leave the Vessels here alone; he wouldn’t choose himself over the needs of others.
And he has left this Earth living that truth out.
He is leaving just like he always wanted.
Lukas is finally free.
81.
Charlie
The room falls silent. Lukas lies on the ground, his head covered in the wires of his past life. And now….
Now he’s gone.
Now he’s a martyr and a man and a prophet and a brother.
“Lucy,” I hear myself say her name. “It’s….” I don’t finish. Because I don’t know what to say to the girl I understand, but the girl that isn’t mine.
The girl who never was. I squeeze Perfection’s hand, holding her as she holds me. The whole room exhales the breath we’ve been holding in. Hoping against hope that Lukas’s chest would rise.
But it doesn’t.
The tears fall on our faces, at the realization that all we fight for, everything we live for, can change in a moment. In an instant the world can change. It has for Lucy.
“I know,” Junie says, breaking the wordless room. “I know what we can try.”
Lucy looks up at her, desperation written on her face, “What? Tell me?” she begs of her friend.
“The Rainbow Children,” Junie answers.
“It was a lie, you heard Integrity. It was a joke. A game. It isn’t real. Lukas was the only thing that was real!” Lucy sobs.
“But it wasn’t. Integrity knew about it, wrote it in his Sacred Book, because he had heard of it somewhere else. It’s still a real thing, I mean, it was written about in the book from the compound.”
“I don’t know, Junie….” Colton says, pulling back his sister. “Don’t get Lucy’s hopes up. It’s over. He’s gone.”
“No. Not yet. Us. Everyone here. Every one of us.
We are the Rainbow Children.”
I look around, seeing Perfection’s silvery halo, and Junie’s lavender light, the blue tint that follows Duke, Lucy’s emerald green.
She’s right.
The Rainbow Children are right here.
“I think, we all … we all have light inside of us. Agreement, we need to gather everyone. Quick,” Junie directs.
Agreement and Duke run out of the room with her.
“We need to free the Councilmen, they are still tied up. They are full of Lukas’s Light. We need their help too,” I say, the truth dawning on me.
Jax and Colton nod, and we head toward the courtyard. We need everyone.
Outside we cut the Councilmen’s hands from the ties that bind them to stakes in the ground. They cry in relief, and we’re flooded with questions of Lukas. “Is he alive?”
“
Where is he?”
“Can we help?”
In the past these questions would have been a threat to me. But not now. Now I know that it wasn’t about me. What I could do, what I couldn’t. Lukas didn’t choose to be the way he is.
But I can choose how I react.
“He needs our help, all of us.”
The Vessels and Humblemen in the Courtyard follow down the hallway as we race back to the Energy Room with a newfound commitment. A newfound hope. It might not work.
But maybe it will.
Lucy still hovers over Lukas when we make our way back in the room. The Energy Room quickly overflows with people. We pull in closer, tighter, as though our bodies have become one. Not everyone can fit, but people wind up the stairs that lead to the room, and the rest of them stand at the top of the stairs in the hallway.
Junie calls out, addressing the fold, “We are gathered together in hopes that we can--” but Lucy stands, stopping Junie from finishing.
All eyes in the room change focus, and Junie nods at Lucy, encouraging her to finish for speech.
She pulls her shoulders straight and wipes her cheeks dry. Her red hair is bright as flames and green light circles around her. She glows in the radiance.
She glows in her strength.
And she speaks.