Glow (18 page)

58.

Lukas

I push open the door to the room where the soaking tubs are located. A chill fills the empty room. It’s just Lucy and I and these enormous basins of water carved into the ground. I hadn’t planned on bringing her here, but the night has been exhilarating in new ways and I am not ready to say good night. I never want to say good night.

              We don’t have to say what is going to happen next, we just know. I press out my light, warming the room, and she bends down, strumming her green fingers over the water. Heat rises quickly around us, steam wrapping around our bodies, making me breathless, making her sigh.

“Turn around,” she says quietly, as she turns her back to me.

I obey, pulling off my flannel shirt and tug off my boots and socks, clothing courtesy of her compound. I unbutton my jeans, leaving my shorts on.

“Are you done?” I ask, not wanting to be forward, but also wanting to see her. The freckles on her shoulders and the curve of her waist and her hands as they pull her chestnut hair from her face.

“Yes.” She walks past me and takes a step towards the pool of water in this hollow room where our words echo just like the beat of our hearts and I can hear her rhythmic pulse as it grows with each step she takes.

She dips her toes in the water’s edge and hesitates.

“Is it wrong to be here, together, when so many people are suffering?”

“There are so many things I don’t know, Lucy. But this one thing I do. Life is fragile, precious. Holy. I won’t waste any more of my life second-guessing what I know to be true. Our time together is a gift, and I won’t waste it.”

Her face breaks into a soft smile, the one I haven’t seen for days and days. The one I know I took from her the moment I let Perfection explore parts of my heart I never should have let her have access to. I walk toward her, wanting to take her hand and pull her close and never, ever let go, but I know that is too much, too soon.

For now I can look at her face and marvel at her delicate beauty. She has kept on her underclothes, but still the amount of skin I see right now is more than I’ve ever seen before. The next closest would have been in the bunker while I cut her hair in her towel-clad moment of distress.

This is so much better.

I push out my light as I walk, gingerly at first, down the steps into the soaking tub water. The water rises up past my waist as I plant my feet on the bottom of the tub. The pool continues to warm as my light spreads throughout.

“Come in,” I say, raising my hand towards her.

She takes it as she lowers herself down the stairs, toward me, toward the middle of the pool. She lets go of my hand and sinks beneath the water’s surface, immersing herself. It feels so good to be filled with such warmth and steam continues to rise.

Lucy comes up for air, her red hair slick off her face and drops of water drip from her face.

“Oh God, this is amazing.” She laughs, splashing water toward me. “No fair, I’m not the only one going all in. You too, Lukas.”

“As you wish.” I let myself fall into the water and dunk my head completely, for her satisfaction. I open my eyes below and smile as I see her bright green eyes under the water with me. She swims over and wraps her arms around my waist, as we resurface.

“You look different when you’re all wet.” She laughs playfully, pushing back from me. “Your blond hair looks longer and you look….”

“What?”

“You look like Poseidon, God of the water.” She sits on the bench in the tub. I sit opposite of her, our faces five feet apart, but if we stretched our hands our fingers could lace.

“Is there a goddess of the sea?” I ask.

“I don’t know … I don’t want to be a goddess anyway.” Lucy shakes her head at the thought.

“What do you want to be then?”

“I want to be yours. And I want to be happy and safe and free. Is that too much to ask for?” She looks at me wistfully.

“Nothing is too much for you. I’ll give you all I can, and then more.”

I pull her arms toward me and together we stand once more. She wraps her legs around mine as I hold her tight against me. My arms hold tight around her waist, and her arms pull at my neck and we are intertwined. Both our bodies and our souls.

“I don’t need the whole world, Lukas. I just need this.”

She holds my face as she kisses me deeply; kisses the places I’ve wanted to go but was scared to visit. Places I have never travelled to before. Places I only ever want to go with her. As she does the room explodes in a rainbow of light. Our rainbow.

Her lips are soft and sweet and all the things we held back before, in fear of electric outages are no longer threats. The Councilmen brought her closer to me when they broke my Energy Room here. I can no longer ruin what has already been destroyed.

I don’t want her to stop, like she has before, pulling away in fear of what being together might mean. She gives in to what we are, gives into what we aren’t.

When the kisses slow in urgency, as we find pieces of one another in our tender embrace, I tell the truth.

“I love you, Lucy.”

“It was destined to be so,” she whispers, and our lips collide once more like the color around us as we fill the marble room with a rainstorm of light, pouring down on us.

59.

Lucy

I close my eyes. My arms and legs wrap around the one I love as I lie on a pile of towels on the soaking room floor. My eyelids dance with stars. I drift off, even though I fight it. There is no want for sleep if my waking hours can be spent like this.

60.

Charlie

“Who’s in favor of leaving them here?” Colton asks, annoyance ringing from his voice. No one is making any decisions and we have no clue where Lucy and Lukas are.

The early morning dawn is here and Duke made fresh coffee. Well, not exactly fresh. The expiration was marked twelve years ago, but still,
freshly brewed.
We’ve gathered in a few booths on the ferry, hashing out the plan as water reflects brightly off the windows around us.

“Look! I think that’s a seal!” Junie shouts. I can’t help but smile. Colton is ticked off already. Something about a horse that was neighing all … night … long.

“It’s not a seal … that is a sea otter. A smaller, less noisy member of the weasel (not a member of feline family) family,” Colton says, as if he is the expert on mammals.

“Oh, look who decided to join us!” Basil exclaims as Lucy walks on board, with a smile plastered on her face like she’s punch drunk. Or worse. I look behind her, and see Lukas has the same expression.

Precious.

“Well, it looks like you found some place quiet to sleep last night. I wasn’t as fortunate, err … unfortunately.” Colton waves his hands in the air. “Regardless, we’ve been trying to make a plan, while you lovebirds slept, or whatever you did.”

He has a smirk on his face; that he wipes off as soon as Mom and Dad walk toward us with a tray of steaming coffee.

“What are you discussing?” Dad asks.

Lucy and Lukas turn beet red. Serves them right to show up tussled from a night of making out, when the rest of us are scrapping our hearts off the ground, still.

I turn towards Duke to commiserate, but see his hands are wrapped tightly around Junie’s. Of course.

“We were discussing the plan. Colton wants to get the heck out of Dodge, but Junie thinks it’s cruel to keep the women here alone.”

“It’s not because they are women,” Junie starts. “It’s because they’re all mostly recovering from severe trauma, have no way to get food, no pow--”

Lucy cuts her off. “Can they come on the boat?”

“Uh, and then what?” asks Colton.

“Well, if Lukas is powering the ferry to the next Refuge at least they’ll be warm and safe. We can protect them this way. If we let them stay here alone, who knows what the Councilmen plan on doing with them?”

“Are you and Lukas planning on keeping all three Refuges running?” Basil asks.

“Your plan is to have Lukas keep charging everything? Like he’s always done?” Jax asks.

“Well it’s our destiny….” Lucy stumbles.

“Yes, we’re the Rainbow Children,” Lukas says, helping her.

“I’m not wanting to rain on your parade, but what happens when you die?” Duke asks with raised eyebrows. “You’ve already said you’ve almost been run into the ground. You really think you can do this indefinitely? It’s like playing with fire on your life.”

Lucy bites her nails, a nervous reaction I’ve never seen her do before. Lukas runs his hands through his hair; clearly stressed by our questioning.

“Maybe you just need to talk with Integrity. Then we’ll have a better idea of what to do from there. Okay?” I hope my words cool everyone down.

“The Energy Room here is broken beyond repair, anyhow. Even if the Vessels survive, it won’t be the long-term solution,” Dad acknowledges.

“What is?” Basil asks.

“Good question,” Colton says. “The thing is, like we were saying before we got off track, we need to keep these people safe. Are all the Refuges about this size?”

“No. This is the smallest by far. Refuge One has nearly 700 and Refuge Three nearly 500,” Lukas tells us.

“Shit, that’s a boatload of people to take care of!” Duke whistles low. He’s used to the outside world, where small packs led the way. Even Mom’s and Dad’s Coalition topped out at one hundred.

“We need to bring them with us,” Junie says, decidedly. “I know it’s more difficult, but these women need our protection.”

No one argues with Junie. She has a sixth sense the rest of us don’t. Lucy looks at Lukas, as if they’re having a private conversation, telepathically. I want that connection with someone.

“Okay, Junie, we’ll do like you suggest,” Lukas declares. “It makes the most sense. Lucy and I wanted to keep everyone together anyways because it feels more like a family that way. Let’s get a few dozen men to help get everyone on board. Ideas on who that could be, Colton?”

“Yeah, easy, everyone will help. There were a couple of guys last night that reunited with lost family. It was awesome. One guy, Sam, he hadn’t seen his mother in ten years. She was here. Still alive. Did you guys see that?”

I had. It was one of those moments you never want to forget because Sam got his happily ever after. He got what all the cowboys have been fighting for.

“It was wonderful,” Basil says, wiping a tear from her eye at the memory. “And it’s what the cowboys needed to keep pushing to the next Refuge and not give up.”

Heads nod collectively.

“We’re going to get cleaned up, feed the horses, and push off in two hours. Got it?” Colton asks, taking charge once again.

A wave of “you got it’s” run through our group as everyone leaves. I took care of Lucky this morning, so I stay where I am.

“Charlie?” Lucy comes and sits down next to me, with a cup of coffee in her hand. “I can’t find Timid. Do you know where she is?”

My heart drops.

It’s one of those times where you think you can plan out the next ten steps in your life. Moving forward. Onward and upward. Go to the Refuge. Fight the bad guys. Let the Rainbow Children create Utopia. Live quietly.

But then one sentence from one girl reminds you where you come from. And all that moving forward crap means nothing, because you remember the other small girl’s last breaths, the innocent life taken. You remember how you treated a girl, from the same place, how you let her leave. How you didn’t fight. How suddenly all the crap that we’ve been through seems a waste because only one thing matters anymore.

Only one thing ever mattered. Fighting for the ones you’ve loved, but also for the ones you’ve lost.

“She’s gone, Lucy.” My words catch in my throat, but she still knows what I’ve said, because she presses her hand against her mouth. Her eyes are like glass, swimming with tears.

“I thought, when I was passed out, that something bad had happened. I heard Junie screaming, I just couldn’t hear the words.
I didn’t want to hear.”

“There was a fire, and Mom and Dad were caught inside, with Reagan. At the time we thought they were trying to hurt you and Lukas. It was confusing. We couldn’t go back, it was a suicide mission. But Timid did. She told Mom and Dad….” I stop. This part will hurt Lucy and I don’t want to do that to her. She’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

“Tell me.” She presses, quietly.

“Lucy, I don’t want to hurt you … and I think this will. I don’t know all the history between everyone here. I only know what I see, what I live. And I know you cared about Timid. And I know she did things to make you feel like you couldn’t trust her.”

“What did she say, Charlie?” Her words more fierce this time.

“She told Mom and Dad she needed to save them, to make things right with you. Because she knew she had betrayed you--”

Lucy cuts me off. “And the fire? She died in there,” she states.

I know her light glows bright, but if you looked at her, at her face, at her eyes, it’s like the light has gone out. “I have to go.” She sets down her coffee, and then runs to the other end of the boat.

She pushes her way past people getting their breakfast and barrels through the swinging doors at the other end of the ship. I stand, watching as she heaves herself against the railing. Her face points toward the sky and her screams bounce off the water, off her chest, off her heart.

People turn and look as Lukas rushes out and grabs her arms, pulling her to his chest.

I look away because that is their story, the chapter where they fight for the ones they love.

I need to get to the next Refuge, so I can fight for the one I lost.