Immortal Light: Wide Awake (37 page)

“
What is it? Is it
Peter?”

He looked up with an expression of such deep
pain that Lucy knew immediately something was wrong.

“
What happened?” Lucy asked,
feeling panic begin to churn inside her. “What happened,
Benjamin?”

Lucy could feel herself begin to lose it
because she had a gut wrenching feeling that things were not okay
at her house. She ran out the door toward her car, Benjamin trailed
right behind her.

“
Let me drive, Lucy.”

She ignored the request and got into the
driver seat, starting up the car. As she put it in gear, Benjamin
jumped into the passenger seat, and she pulled onto the
road.

Lucy drove in the darkness as a misty rain
began to spatter on the windshield. She would let the clouds cry
for her, because she couldn’t afford the tears.

Benjamin decided not to tell her what Peter’s
message said, but he was sure he didn’t really need to tell her. He
placed his hand on Lucy’s forearm, and she immediately brushed it
off.

“
Lucy,” Benjamin spoke
soothingly.

Lucy ignored it.

They were at the Higgins home in a reckless
matter of minutes. Lucy left the car on, headlights shining at the
garage as she ran, still barefoot, up to the door. Benjamin stopped
her on the front steps holding her so she couldn’t go in. She
struggled to get away from him, but found herself unable to fight.
Anger ripped through her body.

“
Let me go, Benjamin; I have to
see them! I have to see my parents!” Lucy yelled, as she flailed
her arms, trying to fight him off.

“
Lucy, listen to me.” His voice
was firm but not controlling.

“
Let me go! Please! I have to see
them,” she screamed, the tears finally starting. Benjamin loosened
his grip, but kept a firm grasp on her shoulders as she entered the
house.

The living room lamps were still on, shedding
light on the furniture. At first, Lucy couldn’t see anything but
Peter standing in front of the couches.

He briskly walked over to Lucy, taking her by
the hand.

Lucy started to breathe even more heavily when
she saw the sadness in Peter’s face.

“
Lucy, I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t want to hear it, but she knew what
he was going to say. She knew that her parents were both gone,
killed by vicious reapers. She imagined her mother’s reaction to
the disgusting creatures as they most likely seized her and drained
life out of her.

Pushing the men aside, she walked over to the
edge of the couches, where she saw both of her parents lying face
up in the lamp light. Both lay peacefully with their eyes closed
and faces expressionless. She fell to her knees and wrung her hands
in her lap and sobbed over her parents’ bodies.

“
Wh … why? Why?
They … they had nothing to do with anything.
”

She placed her hands on
either side of her mother’s face, gently stroking her cheeks, sobs
wracking her body uncontrollably. She wanted to give her mother all
of her Immortal Light, to bring her back to life because it wasn’t
her fault, but she knew she couldn’t do it, not in the real world.
She had only ever done it in … then it occurred to her to take her
mother to her
haven
.

Closing her eyes, she held tightly to her
mother and before long she was on her knees in the sand, but Laura
had not come with her.

No! Oh, no!

She shot back to the outside
and tried it again. Her mother still wasn’t there. She tried it
repeatedly, over and over, each time bringing the same result; her
mother was never there in the
haven
.

Finally, Lucy stopped trying and just knelt
there, crying.

I’m so sorry, Mom. I’m so
sorry. This is all my fault
, she thought
as her sobs made it impossible to speak.

She reached over to her father, placing her
hands on his cheeks. Leaning down, she touched his forehead with
hers, his familiar smell of aftershave filling her nose.

Goodbye,
Daddy
.

Her emotions were so ragged that all she could
do was cry. In her mind, she wished so badly that she could bring
him back. In spite of everything they had fought over, and
regardless of his fake sternness that she had always found so
ridiculous, she wanted him back so badly that a sharp,
breath-stealing pain surged through every inch of her body, making
it difficult to do anything except gasp for air between her
sobs.

As she sat there holding her father’s hand,
she heard a sound come from his mouth. Sitting up abruptly, she
watched his mouth and then saw his chest rise ever so slightly.
Wiping tears from her eyes, she looked back to Peter and
Benjamin.

“
He’s breathing, he’s breathing!”
she cried out.

Peter jumped over the couch
and kneeled down next to James, taking his hand. With eyes closed,
he sat silently. Lucy had wondered if he had taken her father to
his
haven
, but as
time went by, he did nothing more than breathe
shallowly.

“
Don’t worry, Lucy. If anyone can
bring your father back, it’s Peter.”

Lucy held onto her father’s other hand and
Benjamin kneeled down beside them, wrapping Lucy in his arms. She
leaned against him and sighed heavily, her breath still
quavering.

Peter opened his eyes and gently placed James’
hand on his chest.

“
He isn’t dead, but he’s very far
away from us right now. I’d say he put up a hell of a fight when
they tried to take him.”

“
What does that mean? Is he going
to live? Is he going to wake up?” Lucy pleaded.

“
It means that he could come back
to us as though nothing had happened, or he could stay this way
forever; but, wherever he went, I’m not able to reach
him.”

Peter did his best to explain and Lucy did her
best to understand.

“
So he’s in some sort of
coma?”

“
That’s definitely one way to look
at it. But, we need to get him to a hospital right now.”

Peter jumped to his feet and ran to the
kitchen. As he came back, Lucy smelled the familiar distasteful
scent of natural gas.

“
Benjamin, help me with his
feet.”

Lucy watched as the brothers carried her
father out to the front lawn and laid him down. They came back for
Laura and helped Lucy get out of the house to escape the
overwhelming smell of gas.

“
Benjamin, call
911 and tell them—
”

Benjamin cut him off before he could finish.
“Understood.”

Lucy kneeled down again, holding her parents’
hands as she heard Benjamin’s voice on the phone.

“
Yes, I have a
serious incident. There was a gas leak and two people are in
serious condition. We can’t get a pulse on the mother, but the
father seems to be breathing …
”

Lucy zoned out the lie, knowing how necessary
it was, but hating it all the same. Her mother was dead and there
was nothing anyone could do about it. There had been rare moments
when she thought about the time when her parents would no longer be
around, but she had never in her worst nightmares expected it to be
so soon.

Lucy rode with her father all the way to the
hospital. Her mother was declared dead at the scene in spite of the
CPR Peter was performing on her when the emergency crews arrived—a
necessity in order to maintain the cover up. As the ambulance
rocked back and forth, she held her father’s hand and thought about
all that had been happening to her. It was overwhelming and she
suddenly felt exhausted.

An hour later, James Higgins lay in a hospital
bed covered in white sheets and blankets. His eyes were closed and
his hair fell in its natural part across the left side of his head.
Lucy sat in a chair next to him, completely unaware of how long she
had been there holding his hand. She wanted to curl up in the bed
next to him and comfort him. She spoke to him periodically but,
against her deepest wishes, he was unresponsive.

Benjamin, Peter, Jack, and Kat all stood
outside the room, but Lucy ignored them. Benjamin was in the
doorway, leaning against the frame. Kat stood next to him, having
changed out of her dress and into jeans and a sweater. In her
hands, she held a backpack of clothes, toiletries, and a few novels
from Lucy’s car. She was the first to fully enter the room.
Kneeling down next to her best friend, she placed a hand on Lucy’s
arm, but Lucy didn’t move.

“
Lucy,” Kat endeavored softly. “I
brought you some things.”

There was still no response.

Kat stood up and wrapped Lucy around the
shoulders, then headed back to the doorway, tears forming in the
corners of her eyes. Benjamin hugged her and assured her that
everything was going to be okay. She and Jack walked over to a bank
of soft couches, and Kat fell into the recess created by his arm
and chest and closed her eyes.

“
Why don’t you go; take Kat home.
I’ll stay here with Lucy,” Benjamin said as he turned to face
Peter.

“
Don’t push too hard; she’s going
to be upset for a while,” Peter advised.

“
I know,” Benjamin responded in a
whisper.

Just as Peter was about to walk away, Benjamin
called to him. Peter turned back around and Benjamin led him to a
nearby corner of the hospital wing.

“
I’m not going
to tell her. We’ll just see if we can catch him first. Once her
mother’s
light
is
free, we can tell her what happened.

“
That’s probably
best for now, but if we can’t find him—
”

“
Then it won’t matter; we’ll all
be dead,” Benjamin interrupted.

Peter just sighed. “Go be with her.” He gently
pushed his brother back in the direction of James’ room.

Benjamin walked the hallway until everyone had
left. He then entered the room and sat in a chair against the wall
behind Lucy. She didn’t acknowledge his presence and just held
tight to James’ hand. Benjamin leaned forward, resting his elbows
on his knees, and that’s where he stayed until finally she fell
asleep, sitting upright and holding onto her father.

Carefully, he picked her up and placed her on
the small couch under the window. Throughout the night, nurses came
in and out of the room. Benjamin sat up in a chair next to Lucy as
she slept, reading the books Kat had packed.

When the sun came up, Lucy stretched, her back
aching from sleeping in an awkward position. She didn’t remember
moving over to the couch, so she assumed she had been moved. The
clock on her father’s bedside table read 7:23 AM. The cold, sterile
room was empty except for her father, who lay in the bed, eyes
closed. She walked over to him and took his hand again. He hadn’t
moved a muscle all night, and all that had transpired flashed again
in her mind.

She thought of her mother
lying peacefully on the grass. She didn’t know where her body
was—probably in some hospital basement ice chest. She sat down in
the chair she had occupied the night before and held her
father
’
s hand
gain.

“
Good morning,” a soft, gentle
voice whispered behind her. She turned to see him in the doorway
holding a brown paper bag with rope-like handles. She was so glad
to see Benjamin’s familiar face and feel the comfort of his
presence. With a weary smile, she looked up at him.

“
I got you some breakfast,” he
said, offering her the bag.

“
Thanks.”

She took the bag and sat it on the bedside
table. Benjamin reached across her and picked up the bag
again.

“
Uh-uh. You have to eat
something.”

Opening the bag, he pulled out a clear plastic
container of freshly cut fruit, two muffins, a small tub of butter,
and some plastic utensils. He then pulled out a small plastic bag
filled to the brim with James Higgins’ favorite salt-water taffy.
He placed it on the night stand next to the bed.

“
Those are from Jack. He drove to
Bandon this morning and beat down the door at six o’clock just to
get them.”

“
That’s so sweet,” Lucy said,
wiping her face, her voice hoarse from crying most of the
night.

Benjamin smiled sympathetically as Lucy
grabbed his hand and held it as tightly as possible.

“
Thank you, for
everything.”

Benjamin tenderly winked at her and
immediately went to work preparing Lucy some breakfast. Using one
of the plastic knives, he cut a muffin in half, buttered it, and
handed it to her.

“
Eat,” he commanded.

“
I’m really
not—
”
she
protested, but Benjamin cut her off.

“
Eat.” This time his voice carried
a little force behind the words.