Immortal Light: Wide Awake (45 page)

Quickly, she slid the sword in between the two
support posts and laid it down until it rested sideways on the
ground. Releasing it, she felt the bond with the sword break and
she sat perpendicularly to the blade. With her feet, she pushed
against the handle. She was surprised at how easily the blade bent,
and within only a few seconds it was all but wrapped around the
support post. Unzipping her backpack, she slid the bent sword into
the large empty pouch with her foot and zipped the pouch back
up.

Before heading back upstairs, she
looked over to her totem. She felt for some reason that it might be
useful, so she ran over to it, picked it up, and put it into her
jacket pocket.

Back at the top of the stairs, she casually
checked for Jack and anyone else that might be home. Her heart was
still racing. The living room was clear, so she walked in. As she
entered into the room, she saw headlights through the front
windows. It was most likely Benjamin in the Camaro. She panicked
for what to do. Swiftly crossing the room, she headed for one of
the overstuffed couches. She had only just sat down before the
front door opened. Benjamin walked though, talking on his phone. He
waved and smiled at her.

“
No, I can pick it up. What time
do they close?”

Lucy fumbled through her
pack looking for something that would make her sitting there any
less awkward. Her fingers brushed the sword and she felt the
tingling of the
light
bond being made. She swiftly pulled her hand out, not wanting
to restore the sword to its perfect shape, and opened the smaller
pocket. There, she found the pages of
The
Outsiders
and pulled it out. She randomly
opened to a page and pretended to read.

“
No, I’ll have it when you get
here.” He listened to whoever was on the other end. “Okay, bye.” He
pressed the screen of his phone and walked toward Lucy. “Would you
like to go pick up a suit for Peter at the drycleaners with me?
It’s just on the west side of Coos Bay, we can pick up dinner while
we’re over there.”

Lucy looked up from her feigned reading
session and managed what she considered a pretty decent yawn. She
rubbed her eyes.

“
I’m pretty tired, I was thinking
of just taking a quick nap right here.” She lay down on the couch
and smiled at Benjamin.

He looked at her with a sly, teasing grin,
“Okay, but you’ll be missing out. I hear the drycleaner’s is a riot
around six o’clock.”

“
I think I’ll pass this time. You
go have fun.” She smiled playfully.

“
Okay, well, I’ll be right back.
He winked at her and reversed course back out the front
door.

Lucy lay on the couch until she heard the deep
rumble of the Camaro pull away down the hill. When she was sure he
was gone, she sat up and looked around the room. Jack was probably
in his part of the house, taking a shower. She stood and slung her
backpack over her shoulders and walked toward the door.

As she put her hand on the
knob another sound startled her. It was the vibration of her phone
in her pocket. The display said
Library
. Her heart stopped for a
moment and she took a deep breath ready to answer it when Jack came
back into the room.

“
Leaving so soon?”

Lucy was between Jack and her exit. All she
wanted to do was get out of the house and into her car.

“
Uh, yeah. Kat called, she wants a
ride. Her mom needs the car tonight.”

Jack just looked at her with his usual
carefree smile. He was holding a bottle of red Gatorade.

“
Oh, okay.” His phone exploded
into a tinkling ring tone and Lucy jumped. Jack looked momentarily
curious at her before looking at the display. “Hello,” he said,
waving to Lucy and walking back into the kitchen.

Lucy ran out the door and
looked at her phone. The words
1 missed
call: Library
glared up at her. There was
no message. She was running out of time. She tried to call back,
but there was no answer. She wasn’t sure if she was too late and if
going was even the right thing to do, especially having not told
anyone.

Trying to look natural, she drove out of the
driveway and down the hill. The winding drive was clear of any
other traffic. As she pulled onto the road into Charleston, there
was no sign of the Black Camaro.

The streets were full of rush hour traffic. It
would be easy to hide in the concourse of cars as she made her way
to downtown Coos Bay. The benefit to rush hour was that by the time
she got to the library, the downtown area would be relatively
quiet, as everyone would have gone home. There wouldn’t be anyone
to notice her. Winding in and out of downtown streets, Lucy decided
to take a circuitous route, using one-way streets to double back on
herself in case anyone she knew had taken notice of her.

When she was a block from the library, she
parked her car next to the curb so she could see the front of the
building. It looked completely empty. The parking lot lights were
still on and all Lucy could see was yellow police line that had
been wrapped around the trees out front to prevent anyone from
straying onto the property. The front of the building was draped in
plastic sheeting with some sort of painter’s scaffold in front of
it.

Lucy’s heart raced as she wondered what
information Kenny might have and what she would ultimately do with
that information.

Okay, Luce, this is it. He wants
to talk. He has information that you need. Find out what it is and
get out. That’s all you have to do.

She tried to psyche herself up, but it was too
late. All she could do was grab her backpack, throw it over her
shoulders and walk to the library. Before doing just that, she
found the bottom of her pack and with a metal fingernail file, she
tore a hole in it so that the handle of her sword was barely
visible. It would provide a quick retrieval if needed.

The plastic sheeting was thick and attached at
what seemed every possible point of contact. She walked around the
entire perimeter until she found where she assumed Kenny had gotten
in. It was a small corner lifted up near where the drop box had
been before it had been blown off by whatever explosion had
destroyed the library. She didn’t know how Kenny had gotten in
because it was a tight squeeze for even her, but she managed it on
her hands and knees.

The entryway was a mess. There was debris all
over the floor and the walls looked as though a large piece of
machinery had just grabbed onto the front of the building and
pulled it right off. Books and carousel racks lay torn and mangled
near the circulation desk. As she got deeper into the main part of
the library, the street lights did less to light her way and she
began to get nervous and a little scared.

“
Kenny! Are you in here?” There
was no sound. She walked over to the desk and tried to look into
where his office had always been. She couldn’t see anything through
the darkness.

“
Kenny!”

“
I’m here.”

The voice startled her. It was the same raspy
sound she had heard on the phone, and it came from behind her.
Turning around she saw him standing in the shadows. He was hunched
over as if someone had just punched him in the gut. She couldn’t
make out his face, but his willowy shape and long greasy hair
pulled back into a haphazard ponytail were tell-tail signs that it
was him. Lucy walked toward him.

As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could
see that he didn’t look the same. His cheeks were more sunken and
his eyes had dark circles—so dark that they were visible against
his pale skin in the shadows.

“
What did you want to tell me?”
She reached into her pocket and gripped her totem. The bond was
instant.

“
I’m sorry,
Lucy. I really liked you.” He stepped into the yellow glow from the
street lamps. Lucy saw that he was far different than she had
initially seen. He was pale as death and his lips were purple.
Behind them, she saw yellow teeth, some jagged, as he spoke. Lucy
held tight to her totem,
light
pouring into it.

“
You’re not here to give me
information are you?”

Kenny held up his hands.
“No, I am.” His raspy voice was somehow timid despite what Lucy
assumed was his transformation into a reaper. “Lucy, I don’t want
you hurt, and he told me that if I brought you to him that he
wouldn’t kill you, he would only take your
light
and turn you into one of
us.”

Lucy swallowed hard, wanting to gag at the
thought of being anything like what she saw Kenny had
become.

“
Kenny, you’re not one of them.
It’s not too late. Come with me and I can have Peter help you.
There has to be a way.”

“
It’s too late for me, Lucy, but
we can stay friends. We can always be together.”

His words made her stomach churn. He somehow
found confidence in his new state and was trying to win Lucy over.
She found it nauseating and sad. She felt nothing but pity for
him.

“
Where are you supposed to take
me? Where do they want to do all this to me?”

Kenny walked a little closer to her and did
his best to sound friendly and nice. He spoke in a softer voice
that made him sound even more vile and frightening. “Oh, don’t
worry; it’s not far from here. It’s an abandoned motel near
Crescent city. It’s a nice little town. That’s where we’re all
at.”

Lucy gripped the totem with one
hand and was ready to reach into the hole she had created in order
to grab her sword.

“
What if I say no? What if I kill
you and run?” Lucy stood ready to fight.

Kenny didn’t like her comment. “Why would you
want to kill me, Lucy? Haven’t I been a good friend, a good boss?”
His voice was getting louder. “Didn’t I always treat you right,
Lucy?” She didn’t want to answer. She wanted to strike, but Kenny
backed away and faced the other direction.

“
Then, if you
don’t want to volunteer …
”
he snapped his fingers and spun his hunched
figure back toward her. From the darkened recesses of the office,
Lucy saw as a dozen or so reapers exited into the main lobby area
and two of them were dragging something—it was a person—by the
arms. As the dark wavy hair came into the orange light that
radiated in from the street lamps, she knew who it was. In a matter
of seconds she felt hands all over her, dragging her into the
familiar black realm of lifelessness. She couldn’t fight it. The
process was so sudden and took so much out of her that she couldn’t
retreat into her
haven
. In the moment before darkness, she regretted not telling
Benjamin anything. She hoped that he would somehow find her and
save her. But, because of her own stupidity, that wasn’t even a
possibility. The last thing she saw before passing out was Kat’s
limp body lying on the floor next to her.

Chapter
21

Lucy was surprised to be
awake. She hadn’t yet opened her eyes because she felt absolutely
exhausted. It was a familiar side effect of having her
light
drained from her.
She wondered how she was still alive based on what had happened to
her. She remembered Benjamin explaining it to her like giving
blood. Lucy just assumed that
light
was a replenishing resource.

She assessed the state of her body. Her knees
were bent, elbows the same. She slid her arms slowly up and down
the scratchy surface on which she lay. It felt like a worn out
mattress, and she remembered that Kenny had said something about an
abandoned motel. As her hands finished an entire sweep of the
general vicinity, she opened her eyes to a very dark room. As she
rolled over, the hilt of the sword painfully lodged itself into her
lower back, causing her to sit up. Reaching around her back to
massage away the pain, she realized that she was still wearing her
backpack. The only light came from somewhere outside. Cracks
through a boarded up window glowed an incandescent orange. Looking
around, she saw that the room seemed to have been occupied only by
the passage of time for multiple decades. Large, round water stains
covered the ceiling and long, brown streaks stained the
walls.

Lucy looked over and saw Kat lying next to
her, still unconscious. She rolled Kat over and brushed her thick
black hair from her face. The worst thing she could think of was
that Kat was dead from having her soul sucked from her. Putting her
ear up to Kat’s mouth and watching her chest, Lucy determined that
Kat was still breathing. A wave of relief swept over her. She shook
her friend’s shoulders and whispered her name into her
ear.

“
Kat, wake up. Can you hear me?
Kat.”

There was no immediate
response. Lucy tried diverting some of her
light
into her friend. The flowing
sensation filled Lucy’s fingers and flowed into Kat. There was a
moment of unbearable silence, then Kat took a gasping breath and
her eyes shot open.

“
Oh my gosh, Kat!” Lucy hugged her
friend as she lay breathing trying to regain control of her
senses.