Glow (8 page)

24.

Lucy

Back inside the house, after Lukas’s rallying speech, I escape. A huge party rages outside, and I have no interest in being a part of that. After our glorious light display, the group of cowboys went wild. Delirious at the hope they had found, not questioning who Lukas and I were.

Not realizing that beneath the hazy green light, I’m longing to know who I’d be if the light weren’t a part of my identity. No one would be cheering for me if I were just a girl with chestnut hair and green eyes, with a narrow waist and hollow cheeks from a lifetime of being underfed. A girl without many skills to her credit, besides sliding a needle through fabric and creating a sunset with thread, or gathering herbs and identifying flowers.

Those skills aren’t special. They aren’t traits that would define me, not to anyone that mattered. They are just tiny pieces of a person who still doesn’t know who she is.

I don’t want to be outside at a campfire, drinking stolen booze, watching as Junie and Duke kiss by the fire, or Colton emcees a game of truth or dare. I don’t want to listen to tales of auras being read or lines traced on palms.

I came back to the compound to make peace with my past, like the symbolic burning of the tree. I have to let the parts of myself from before become like dust, otherwise I’ll never be the person Lukas needs me to be. The person, according to a book Junie found, I’m destined to be.

Walking down the small hallway toward the study, a small voice whispers to me. I thought the younger girls were sleeping, but Timid calls out to me.

I slip in the bedroom where Timid and Hana are supposed to be sleeping. Timid takes my hand and I crawl into bed with the girls, lying down on top of the covers. I drape my bright arm across their bodies and Timid repositions herself. Hana sleeps soundly, her heavy breathing lulling the room. The room glows with me here and I wonder, not for the first time, how Lukas can lower his light. Years of practice I guess.

“I’m glad we’re going back, Lucy. It’s just what Councilman Integrity wanted me to do. Bring you back. And I am doing my job. He’ll be so proud of me.” Her voice is so soft, still so full of innocence and I try to think of what Junie would say right now. She’d offer comfort, not start an argument. But I can’t sit by and not speak my truth.

“I’m glad I can do that for you, Timid.” I draw in my breath, not wanting to say what I know I must. “You mustn’t keep things from people just because a man tells you to. Even if it’s a Councilman. You need to follow your heart and never hold back.” I speak the words to myself as much as her.

And I feel the struggle inside as tears fall, not only because I’m doing what Lukas wants, but also because I feel trapped, stuck. I’m caught in a life I never wanted. I want my destiny to be the one I make, not the one thrust upon me.

And I’m ashamed that I don’t want to be the person I was made to be. Ashamed I want to be another girl, the one who rises with the sun. Rises with the ashes. The one who can start all over.

25.

Lukas

I sit on a log next to one of the dozens of fires I started for the people who just arrived. Gathering firewood in the dark was too much of an undertaking, and although I could have supplied energy for their headlights, I opted instead to create little fires for each group huddled, seeking warmth and a way to heat the food they’d packed.

This is new for me. In every possible way, I feel alive and in control of my destiny. I’m not spending my night strapped to a chair, letting my energy drain until a Councilman’s heavy hand tells me to stop. Instead, I’m sending my light as far as it can go, and it feels as though I’m getting back every ounce I pour out. Everyone is happy and animated, the smiles on their faces reflecting the impact of my light.

I wander from campsite to campsite, listening to my new friends, new followers of the Light, as they trade stories of their pasts, all horribly tragic, the wounds raw. I listen as they gossip about who’s with whom, and I watch as pairs wander off in the darkness, hands held, grasping for the night to never end.

“You doing okay, Nobleman?” Basil walks over to me, with a funny look in her eye.

“Never better. I feel invigorated. I’ve never had friends, you know that? I’ve always been alone, until Lucy. I’ve finally found a place I belong.”

“You mean, belong at The Light, right?” she asks, pulling her arms around her chest, blocking the cold night air.

“Let me help.” I press my hand to her, letting my touch fill her with warmth. Her body immediately relaxes as the chill leaves her bones. “And yes, I mean, belong with the people here. They accept me for who I am. Not what I can do for them.”

Basil snorts, and eyes me with concern. “Well, they’re expecting you to deliver them from a hard life. Everyone wants the resources The Light has, Nobleman. I mean, I get it, I was there. Now I know what it feels like to have clean blankets and a warm shower and fresh food. These people are looking at this opportunity to go as arriving at Utopia or something.” She shakes her head at me. 

“If that’s all they want, Basil, they would have gone before. Why now?”

“Because now your parents and Reagan -- all the leaders-- have gone rogue. They’re desperate. Besides, The Light won’t take boys over twelve years old. But your new plan and leadership is changing that. You’re offering them a free pass to paradise.”

“Why are you telling me this, just to upset me?” I look at her, the girl I saved, risked my life for. She’s trying to kill my sudden sense of purpose, my reprieve from being a slave and finally thinking I have a shot at being the one in charge.

“I’m not trying to upset you, Lukas. I read the book about your light and being a Rainbow Child. I accept it as truth. I just think it isn’t always about people believing. Sometimes people do things out of desperation.” As she finishes speaking, Colton comes over to us, smiling, as usual. His good mood kills the heavy tone, and I’m grateful.

“Why so serious, Basil? This could be the night of your life, darling! Come, dance with me!” She laughs at him over the top bravado, but doesn’t protest when he grabs her around the waist and throws her over his shoulder.

“I’m going to kill you, Colton!” she squeals. She’s hanging over Colton’s shoulder as he drags her off, but I catch her considering me as she goes. I look away, not wanting her to ruin my night. Because this is the night of my life, too.

26.

Lucy

Waking before the girls, I slip outside and am greeted by the brisk morning air. Birds chirp overhead, the weather boasting blue skies, and I breathe in deep at the sight around me. My parents would roll over in their graves if they saw this.

I mean, if they were in graves.

Still, it’s shocking to see the landscape that for so much of my life was blank, now littered with sleeping bodies, horses, the remains of a party. I don’t belong here.

“Hey, Lucy,” Charlie says, brushing up behind me. He holds a mug of steaming tea toward me. I recognize the cup and the smell of the chamomile makes me want to vomit.

“No, no, no. Get this away from me.” I shake my hands at him, and watch as he takes back the mug, tossing the contents into the dirt with a swift jerk of his hand.

“So, I take it you really, really hate herbal tea?” he asks, a faint smile on his lips. He jokes, but his gaze is somewhere far away, and it’s clear something’s on his mind.

“No it’s just….” I stop, stuck with the way everything ended, the way my story began. The tea Diane carried to the table, the lethal dose my dad wanted me to take. The happily ever after that ended in a massacre in the dining room twenty feet from where we now stand. I don’t know how to explain the ways in which my heart has been broken. “Tea brings up bad memories, Charlie. Thanks for the thought.”

“Want to take a horseback ride? I think the rest of these crazy kids will sleep until noon. I take it you didn’t stay up and party last night?”

“After that night with you at Headquarters I decided parties aren’t really my thing….”

“What is your thing, Lucy?”

“Charlie … no….” I say, as he tries to peer into my heart. I chose to close it up to everyone, I’m not going to let him crack it back open.

“I know, Lucy. You made your choice. It was always about Lukas anyways, wasn’t it?”

I avoid his question, and his gaze. “A horseback ride, you said?” I plaster a smile on my face, but my mind remembers the way I fell asleep last night. Tears had spilled across my face as I realized my choice was stolen from me, how it was never mine to being with.

We walk to the back of my domed house, where Charlie has tied up Lucky.

“Want to ride together or…?”

“Separate,” I say, firm.

Charlie doesn’t say anything; if he thinks something, he keeps it to himself. He unties another horse, and after putting a saddle across his back hands me the reins.

We both start riding away from where we came, and where the cowboys are now camped out.

“Isn’t calling them cowboys kind of anti-feminist?” I ask as we ride stride in stride.

“I suppose it is. No one’s ever really questioned it, with the end of the world thing happening, no one seemed too worried about being PC.” Charlie smiles looking over at me, and I remember the easy way it was with him, it feels good to not be on guard. “Anyways, cowboys or cowgirls, the whole thing is an outdated term my grandpa made up.”

I try to come up with new names for the Cowboy Coalition. Rebel Army. Vigilante Vagrants. They sound silly, all of them.

  “You know, I guess it makes sense, you calling the name out like that. You’re all about women’s liberation, right? Not under the thumb of a man. I mean, you
were
like that,” Charlie says, shooting me a look that he has more to say on the matter.

“What are you trying to say, Charlie?” I’m in no mood to be manipulated. I’ve had my fill the past twenty-four hours.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Since the day I met you, freedom has been the one thing ringing in my ears when you speak.”

I don’t argue. Freedom has been the single cry of my heart.

“I just find it strange then,” Charlie continues. “How you leave for The Light and suddenly are promised to be Bound after only few weeks with my brother.”

I can tell Charlie’s worked up and I’ve never seen him this way. Even when he shot those men in defense of my mom, he kept his cool. He’s never been so animated before. I don’t like it.

“And then I leave after Perfection for
one day,
and I come back to this. You and Lukas declaring your freaking Rainbow Children theory.”

I pull the horse I’m riding to a stop. I feel attacked, and it’s not what I need right now. He has no idea how the strumming inside of me feels off key. No idea how all of this doesn’t sit right with me, either. But he hasn’t even asked. He just accuses.

“In one day, Lucy, you decide to forfeit everything you want. For what? For Lukas? You hardly even know the guy!”

“Stop it, Charlie,” I plead. My spirit is in no place to be treated this way. I feel weak, and I want to feel strong. Beating me down isn’t going to help me, or him, or help anything. It just makes me feel fragile and broken and alone.

“I didn’t forfeit anything,” I tell him. “My life wasn’t mine to begin with. I’m just a
vessel
for a bigger plan. And for the record, you know nothing about Lukas and me and what we have. If you spent half as much time talking as you have accusing you might learn a thing or two.”

I pull the horse into a gallop and fly away from him.

I hear him yell in the distance, but not for me. He yells because he’s spent his life with a liberty I’ve only read about in books.

And as much as I wish it were different, it isn’t.

We are too different to ever understand one another.

His motives for freedom are different than mine.

It’s the only way he knows, and for me, it’s the Pandora’s Box I’m desperate to open.

27.

Charlie

“Bullshit.” It’s a word Reagan always used. And it’s the first thing that comes to mind as Lukas rambles on about destiny, prophets, and fate. What about free freaking will?

“It isn’t crazy, Charles. If you would just look at the book, you would understand what Junie’s been showing us. Don’t reject it without even trying to understand.” He sits down on the couch, irritated.

“It’s crazy,” I tell him, flat out refusing to give into his theories. “And Mom and Dad have been manipulating us. They send Jax here to fetch us, pull on our heartstrings. It’s a game.”

“I haven’t seen them in six years, I thought they choose to leave. All this time I’ve held this against everyone in my family. Now that I know the truth, I want to see them again.”

“They tried to force Lucy, the girl you say you can’t live without, into their machine. You’d be walking into a death trap.” I roll my eyes, pacing the room, not wanting to be here anymore. If Lucy doesn’t want me, then I should go.

This whole thing is a mess. All morning while I was off trying to get my heart and head off of Lucy, Lukas has been strumming up the cowboys’ support. He wants them all to join the fold. And apparently, they’re willing.

“Just go to Mom’s and Dad’s with me. My hope is they will want to come back to The Light. Lucy and I are going to change things there.”

He wants this, so bad.

“Look around, Lukas. The idea of one big happy family is dead. It doesn’t exist in this world anymore. No one has that. Not a single person camped out here has what you’re asking for.”

“So because they don’t have it, I shouldn’t? I deserve it, Charlie. I do.
I am the prophet, I am set apart.
And we’re going back to our parents’ house.” He’s angry now, in a way I haven’t seen since we were kids, when Mom and Dad lectured him about what he’s not ever to do. “Never let yourself be consumed by your anger, it will devour you, Lukas, in ways we don’t understand.”

“Lukas, cool it, okay? I don’t want--”

“What, now you don’t want something bad to happen to me?”

Lukas storms out of the study, slamming the door as he leaves. I’ve pissed him off, but I don’t really care. Not anymore.