Glow (3 page)

7.

Lucy

I walk away from Lukas and go back into the compound. I want to lie in a bed, fall asleep and wake up like the sun, rising to a new day. But everyone in the compound is agitated and I feel obligated to help them since I brought them here.

“Why did everything buzz for a second and then stop? I thought the generator had no fuel?” Junie asks as I step into the kitchen.

“Yeah, all the security cameras flipped on too, and then disappeared,” Duke says.

“Sorry, it was my fault. Lukas and I….” But I stop, not wanting to finish, feeling foolish and exposed. I don’t want to tell anyone about who I kiss or don’t kiss. Especially not this room full of people. “It must have been a fluke. This house has been empty for a while now. Anyways, don’t you have to get water, Duke?” I ask, my eyes narrowing in on him, changing the conversation.

Everyone goes back to what they were doing, when Charlie comes in with the roasted rabbit, Basil and Junie set bowls of dried apples and more nuts on the table, and I remove the teacups from the table.

Perfection, moody as ever, goes through her belongings and produces a bag of cookies from the Refuge, adding that to the meal. However, once she begins nibbling on dinner, her attitude shifts, and I see her talking with interest to Junie and Duke over plates of rabbit.

After everyone has eaten, we divide ourselves and find a place to sleep. I walk through the study to my old room, but before I slip inside, I look back. Lukas and Charlie are huddled over a chessboard, talking intently. Perfection is lying down on the sofa with a big blanket covering her. She closes her eyes, seeming to take this whole thing with Lukas not really wanting to be Bound to her in stride. I saw her sneaking looks at Charlie all day and though I don’t want that to bother me, it does. Basil and Hana-Grace have claimed another, Colton and Duke are in the last room, and it feels good to have everyone situated.

It means I can rest. In my room I pull open all the drawers in my dresser looking for cozier clothes, clothes that feel like me. I tug my dirty pants off my narrow waist and pull the sweatshirt off over my head. Finding a pair of flannel pajamas to cover myself in and slip them on. I’m sure everyone else will be grateful for clean clothes as well, and I make a note to tell everyone they are free to rifle through the clothes here, although they don’t seem to be the style Junie and Colton prefer. Not enough black with safety pins holding worn fabric together, but I have no doubt they’ll make do.

Slipping under the covers, I stare at the blank walls around me in the room is empty. Why was I content reading the adventures of people in the novels that lined the shelves, but never fought for more for myself?

Fear.

My life had been planted in fear and those roots went deep. I don’t want to be like that anymore. I want to cover these walls in color, shoot up from the earth like a blade of grass. I don’t want to stay underground, in the dark. I want my life saturated with the kind of color that swirls around Lukas and me when our bodies collide.

The compound is peaceful as I try to reconcile myself with the past, but then the room outside my door grows loud, cutting short my rest. Charlie and Lukas begin shouting at one another in the study. The walls are thin, and though I can’t make out their words, I can take a guess. Not even reunited for twenty-four hours and already tensions are high.

I hear them leave the house through the front door, and the air of the house settles once more. Intent on not letting myself get worked up about what they are mad about, I close my eyes, hoping they can come to some sort of understanding. They have a lot of ground to cover; for starters they could discuss what’s happening with their parents. Why we aren’t going to them right now. Why Charlie and I chose to leave without saying good-bye.

My eyes drop to a close; heavily weighted with the thoughts of the two boys my heart has a tight hold on. As my eyelids shut, I’m lulled back to the place I always go, where the Light dances inside me.

8.

Charlie

Lukas is quieter once we’re outside. I don’t understand him, he’s a literal ball of energy, too explosive for me. I want things steady, he wants things to combust. And all because he’s lived too many years trapped, never having practiced spreading the breadth of his wings.

“I just want to see them. It’s the moment I’ve wanted for the past six years -- wanted even when I thought they chose to leave me. They’re my parents. You wouldn’t understand because you’ve always had them.” His words smack bitterly and his Light burns brighter as he speaks.

“Lucy did it for you. She knew if we stayed with Mom and Dad they’d convince you to help them. She didn’t want that for you.”

“So now?”

“Now I guess you and Lucy have to figure out what happens next. The rest of us are here for you both, we have no place else to go.”

“Do you think Mom and Dad are bad people?” Lukas looks at me, this lost-then-found brother. This person who is nothing like me, but a person who shares my DNA-- he’s my family. I don’t want to let him down because he’s suffered more than I’ll ever understand.

“They aren’t bad people, Lukas. Just misguided.”

“Aren’t we all?” he asked. Regret crosses his face as though every misguided choice weighs him down. As though everything weighs him down.

I feel sorry for him, my brother. He’s only just decided to be his own person and it resulted in the one he loves being betrayed.

It all keeps coming back to her.

9.

Lukas

I walk away from Charles, needing space. That seems to be the one thing we can both agree on.

I look to the right and see the large ring of ash now settled on the ground. I’m not interested in going that way, to the past. Instead I warp to the back of the domed circle and sit with my back against its curved wall. Grass grows high and large evergreen trees surround the property. It’s a secluded home, which makes sense. The entire point of her parents building here was for isolation. It’s hard to imagine a world before. Before houses-in-hiding were one of the only ways to stay alive. Before Refuges were the safest choice.

Back here, hidden from everyone’s eyes, I reach in my pocket and take out Integrity’s journal. I hesitated to open it after I read how the dark rooms were his idea as a measure of creating subordinate Vessels.

But then Integrity helped Perfection, Basil, Hana-Grace, and I escape.

And now I don’t know anything anymore.

Maybe the dark rooms are for people’s own good. Who am I to say they aren’t? We can’t have people in this world just doing whatever they want all the time. Look where doing what I wanted has gotten me. Maybe it isn’t the worst idea, to help set someone straight. Like the sacred text says, “Darkness is needed to better see the Light
.”
Maybe that is truth. The suffering that comes from our choices is what we want to avoid, but should we?

According to these ideas, I should have been put in a dark room just like Basil and Hana-Grace. It would have been better than making my own decisions and making things worse.

Sitting down and leaning against the house, I flip to a page a haven’t read yet, in Integrity’s neat scrawl,

“Lucy and the Nobleman have grown closer, and it is no surprise she told the Haven today that they were to be Bound.”

This was the night Lucy bowed before me, along with the entire fold, and announced our Binding. That night was so special, I had never felt so treasured. So wanted.

“
These two are the Rainbow Children I had hoped they were. They must stay here, together, if The Light is to survive. The Council is too corrupt, everything has changed course for too long. But now it can return to what it once was.”

What are the Rainbow Children? I have so many things I want to talk to Integrity about. How can we make The Light whole once more? I have ideas of my own. Ideas of how we can better generate energy, and maybe even condense the Refuges into two instead of three. Ideas I have ruminated over in my head during the years I sat in the Energy Room.

“I have long felt displaced. It happened slowly, over time. My opinions mattered less and less, but I am invigorated as I think of the world we can create once more.”

“What are you reading?” Perfection slips into view, stealthily. She’s not herself, her tangled blond hair loose from the braid, walking across the damp green grass in her bare feet, circles under her eyes.

“Nothing.” I close the journal. “You look tired, maybe you should get some more rest?”

“I thought maybe you could show me how to read, Junie is making a fuss about teaching Timid and Hana. Maybe you could use that book of yours?” Her syrupy words a little too sweet for me. “Don’t you want to?” She looks at me with a deranged smile, pushing strands of hair from her face.

“Umm, not now. Maybe later, Perfection.” Looking up at her while she rubs her hands nervously, I ask, “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay. I just wanted to spend some time with you is all. But clearly you’re too busy out here doing nothing to be with me!” She turns, stomping away as quickly as she came.

I puff out my cheeks, releasing a long exhale. I can’t make her happy, and maybe it’s selfish, but I don’t even want to try to make her happy at this point. I just want to get back to The Light to talk to Integrity and begin my future with Lucy.

I’m tired of feeling displaced, just like Integrity wrote in his journal. I’m ready to belong.

10.

Lucy

The sounds of laughter wake me. Genuine laughing. I haven’t heard the hums of happiness for far too long. I smile to myself as I lie in my bed, relishing the noise.

A big thud in the study causes me to sit up, but the crash is followed by big belly laughs. Colton.

I stand and instinctively make my bed, folding the corners of the blue comforter tight under the mattress.
There is no order in disorder.
Dad’s voice rings in my head.

I look down at myself, still in my pajamas, but not caring enough to change. I re-braid my long, tousled red hair, as I slip out of my room quickly, not wanting to miss the good mood in the other room. I want some of it to rub off on me.

Colton’s on the treadmill. God, I hate that thing.
Exercise for energy.
Another favorite compound quote. And it was vital. That treadmill recharged our batteries and allowed us to have a small lamp in the evening or operate our security devices. It powered our stovetop. It was our lifeline.

“Hey, sleepyhead! You missed it, Colton pushed that machine to the highest gear and it threw him off. Classic Colton move,” Junie says, laughing again, and Colton eats the attention up as he pushes the button to accelerate the treadmill once more.

“It’s good you’re running, it will power the generator so we can take hot showers tonight. It will take a bit to get through all ten of us, oh, and whatever clothes you find in the rooms, help yourselves.”

“Okay, go faster, Colton, I haven’t had a hot shower in ages. It sounds like heaven.” Duke sighs in pleasure. He’s a big guy, but a softy.

“Why don’t you go first, Duke, seems like you could use one the most anyway,” Colton adds as he works his long and lean body into a sweat, a smile spread across his face.

Perfection, curled up with her legs under her in a reclining chair, rolls her eyes and says, “You’re all smelly and in need of a shower.”

“You aren’t in such good shape yourself, Perfection,” I say.

“Okay, hold up guys! Lucy has a sense of humor! This is a rare moment. I need to soak it in. A moment of silence, please?” Colton, always the funny man. I want to purse my lips and scowl, but then I would feed into what he already thinks.

“You think I’m too serious?” I ask, knowing it’s how I think of myself.

“I think you haven’t had much of a chance for fun,” Basil says, lying on the couch. Her legs are swung over Junie’s lap as she flips through a book. The girls are already comfortable around on another. I don’t get like that with anyone.

“And you have?” I ask Junie and Basil.

“Well, we haven’t had adult eyes monitoring our every move like you. We’ve, all of us,” she points to Colton and Duke, too, “had a lifetime of doing our own thing, fending for ourselves. Where no one questioned our choices. You haven’t had that luxury.”

She’s right. I could never just lounge like they are on the couch. That would have been a
wasteful choice
. It’s foreign to me, the idea of doing what you want, when you want.

“Well, dressing like slobs, piercing your nose, and casually
hanging around men,
doesn’t seem
like a luxury. It seems uncivilized.” Perfection picks at her nails as she speaks. “And I would rather have wise people looking after me, feeding me something besides nuts and berries, then what the lot of you have been doing.”

Basil jumps up, ready to pounce. Her words are fueled by her anger, “What the hell did you say? I do not ‘hang around men.’ I am
not
a slob. And what does it matter if I was? At least I’m not a pin-up girl for some old man who’s going to knock me up, for his pleasure only, I’m sure. A man who will leave you to take care of a dozen babies -- on your own. Awesome pick, Perfection.”

“Whatever, I’m not the one who was put in a mental facility, was I?” Perfection stands, pointing at Basil as Charlie and Lukas walk inside the house, taking in the scene, as Perfection continues, undeterred by their presence. “By the way, how were the dark rooms at our Refuge? I heard that Lucy knew exactly where you were, that entire time, but did nothing to help you. I’m sure you’re right, that was
so civilized
of your dear friend.” She gives me dagger eyes as she walks out of the room, down the hall, slamming a bedroom door after her.

Basil turns to me, a look of horror sweeping her face. How did Perfection know I knew where Basil was locked up? My stomach turns and I want to hide. It doesn’t really matter how she knew, whether from having girls spy on me, or if she was spying on me herself. The truth is out. My hands and their power to heal are useless here. My hands can’t heal hearts.

“Did you really know where they put me? That whole time?” Basil’s eyes search mine, and I look away, ashamed. “I nearly lost my mind, Lucy. We promised we would look out for one another.”

She’s right. We did promise. We promised to treat one another like sisters. But I was a coward. I was selfish. I could have tried harder, fought for her.

“I knew you were taken to a dark room, but I didn’t know what it meant … And at that time, Integrity had promised me that I’d have the chance to leave the Refuge. I didn’t want to do anything to compromise that possibility.” My words are flat and hollow. Colton stops running, beads of sweat run down his face. He leans over the treadmill, listening to my words. Everyone is. I’m thankful the little girls are not here to hear me.

I’m so ashamed.

“So you just wanted to save yourself?” Junie asks.

“And that’s why you wanted me to go get her from Refuge Two. You felt guilty,” Lukas finishes. His words fill me with shame.

“But if you hadn’t gotten her, regardless of the reason I wanted you too, she would have died. So it’s a good thing. I mean, we made it right.” I press these words out loud and clear, because I want to emphasize them so everyone hears my intention. “I was scared to help at first, but I am not scared anymore.” I don’t know how to defend myself, so I stop and look Basil in the eyes, hard as it is. “I’m so sorry.”

“Whatever, it’s cool.” She shakes her head and sighs, letting me off the hook too easily. “Besides, it could have been worse, right? You could have let the same thing happen to Hana in one of those rooms, right? You could have let her take my place.” Basil looks at me, shrugs her shoulders as if all is forgiven.

But I know the truth.

And so does Lukas.

I look at him, and my eyes sting from his gaze boring into mine.

W
e did do the exact same thing to Hana
. Only that time, we both did it to her. I wasn’t alone in my cowardice. We were the guilty party. Instead of taking the responsibility for our actions, we let Hana take the fall.

If we had turned ourselves in, we would have been prisoners. Instead, we let a nine-year-old nearly die.

Once again, I wish I were the sun, able to disappear past the horizon.

But I can’t run.

Not now. This is my life.

And I have to be the one to pick up the pieces; I have to make the dark places disappear.

I look at Lukas, remembering I don’t have to do it completely alone.  He’s the only one who can help me.