Immortal Light: Wide Awake (35 page)

When her door opened, she jumped a little, but
seeing it was Jack helped to relax her. For the first time she took
a good look at Jack and noticed that he was probably in his early
twenties with a wave of light brown hair falling in front of his
face. Other than the black jacket he wore, she saw he had on only a
t-shirt underneath, accompanied by cargo shorts and flip
flops.

Looking him quickly up and down, Kat said,
“Aren’t you cold?” Though there was a lot going on, it was the only
thing that she could think to say.

Jack just smiled at her. “I’m never cold, but
you look like you could use something.”

He took off his jacket, which to Kat seemed
like it could never warm her up because of the cold metallic feel
of the outside. But, to her surprise, the inside was made of a thin
liner that was warm and dry.

Kat wrapped herself up in the enormity of the
coat and thanked Jack. Hunkering down into the jacket, Kat noticed
that it had a unique aroma. It was probably Jack’s smell, but it
was a warm and comfortable smell, like a mild cologne mixed with
the fibers of whatever made up the jacket. She felt like she was
wrapped in a cloud and wanted nothing more than to just close her
eyes and fall asleep.

Standing up Jack said softly to her, “I still
never got your name.”

Kat looked up into his dazzling blue eyes.
“It’s Kat; Kat Caldwell.”

“
Ah, so you’re Kat Caldwell. It’s
a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Jack’s smile was comforting to Kat.

“
Are you going to be alright?” he
said, noticing her shaking hands.

Kat looked down and covered them up. “No,
yeah, I mean I’ll be okay.” She tried to fake a smile.

Jack looked at her with a skeptical grin.
“Okay. I’ll be back after I talk to Peter.”

He stood up and prepared to walk away when Kat
grabbed his wrist.

“
Is Lucy okay?”

He looked down at her. “She’s going to be,” he
said and winked. Kat inhaled the deepest breath she’d taken in some
time, and curled up in the seat as the door softly clicked behind
her.

***

Lucy lay in the sand, out of
breath. Her head was pounding and she felt completely disoriented.
Everything seemed the same: the surf, the beach, the sunset, but
she felt tired, like she had just run a marathon. She tried to get
to her feet, but she was too weak. Looking to her right, she saw
her log chair. All she wanted to do was get to it, but her body
wouldn’t do it. Whatever was happening to her on the outside, it
was tearing her up inside the
haven
.

The sound of the ocean echoed in her ears. She
felt a sudden wave of despair come over her and she wanted to cry.
Grabbing handfuls of sand, she struggled with all her might to get
up, but she just couldn’t.

Whatever it was that had her
had removed her ability to struggle. Hitting the back seat of the
car was the last thing she could recall with any amount of detail;
it was then that she used her last iota of strength the get to
her
haven
.

Frustration was taking its toll as tears of
anger fell to the sand. Lucy could feel herself begin to fade away
as she lay there. The feeling was one of absolute despair and
failure. She knew in that moment that she was going to die. If not
by means of some outside force, then by way of her inability to
carry on, to even want to live.

It was in those last moments
that she thought of her family; her father and his outwardly firm
manner. While he was stern, she knew that deep down he was a man
just trying to do his job as a parent and was probably scared to
death every day that he was screwing something up. Her mother came
to her mind. Lucy wondered if she had even said
I love you
to her before leaving the
house to go to Kat’s that night. And then she thought of Benjamin.
The moment they had shared on the dance floor. How, beyond any
doubt, she had learned the truth about everything, and the thought
made her sad. All she wanted was to be in Benjamin’s arms one last
time, to feel him next to her and know that it was actually him,
that he was real inside and outside any
haven
.

She began to sob and felt more life leave her
body. She decided to let go, it didn’t feel right hanging on when
there was so little to hang to. She cried into the sand and rested
her face on her arm, lacking any kind of strength to hold it up.
She thought of Benjamin as she closed her eyes for the last time,
but it wasn’t long that she waited in the darkness when she felt
firm hands grab her by the shoulders. There wasn’t even enough
strength to open her eyes and she hoped that the hands belonged to
the one person she wanted to see before dying. Looking up into the
bright sky, she could smell his characteristic scent before she
even saw his face and more tears rolled down her cheeks.

“
Lucy, I’m here.” His voice was
calm and tender as he rolled her over onto his lap and cradled her
head.

She felt him brush the hair from her face as
she lay limply in his arms with tears that she couldn’t wipe away
obstructing her last view of Benjamin.

Absolutely
pathetic
, were the only words she could
think to describe herself when, out of nowhere, she felt a spark of
hope begin to rekindle deep down inside of her. It started at her
core and began to spread outward. Benjamin was pumping life back
into her; she felt it like a battery being recharged. She felt
strong again and was able to move her limbs. Hope was replaced by
joy at the thought that perhaps she wasn’t in the last moments of
her life.

Slowly reaching up she wiped the tears from
her face and saw Benjamin’s face over her. His eyes were closed and
his face was one of absolute concentration. As she felt that she
might be able to stand, or at least sit up, she reached up and
touched his unblemished cheek and he opened his eyes.

For a long moment the two of them just
absorbed each other’s presence. Lucy wanted to say so many things
to him. She wanted him to know, even if he didn’t reciprocate the
sentiment, that she loved him. She wanted him to know that there
would never be a moment when she wouldn’t love him. She never
wanted that moment, being cradled in his arms, to end. And as much
as she wanted him to love her back, she was content knowing that
everything they had shared in the past was real.

“
How do you feel?” were the next
words to break the silence.

Lucy smiled at the sound of his voice. “I feel
much better now.”

“
Good.” He breathed deeply and
exhaled slowly, as if expelling all worry and concern.

“
Were you worried about me?” Lucy
asked slowly with a teasing grin, fatigue beginning to flee her
body.

Benjamin held her close and tight. He closed
his eyes and let out another sigh of relief. “You have no
idea.”

The two sat there, basking
in the warmth of the sun and each other’s embrace. The surf came in
and moved out rhythmically as Lucy regained her strength. She knew
it was Benjamin that was giving life back to her, and she wondered
what the effects were on him. Was he actually surrendering his
own
light
?
It’s like giving blood
,
he once told her. Finding the strength, she sat up and faced him.
He let go of her and she gripped his hands in hers. She felt
stronger.

“
What does that do to
you?”

Benjamin looked at her and cocked his head
slightly. “What does what do to me?” he said, looking almost
painfully exhausted.

“
Saving me like that. What does it
do to you?”

Lucy understood that
whatever was happening to her before, Benjamin had stopped it. The
despair, the depression, and the loss of all hope had been on the
brink of literally killing her, and he stopped all of it by giving
his
light
to
her.

Benjamin looked pensive for a moment then
gripped Lucy’s fingers. “It doesn’t do anything that you don’t
deserve.”

Feeling worthy of such a gift was beyond
anything Lucy could ever imagine and though she was grateful for
it, she wasn’t done asking questions.

“
That’s what you did for the deer
wasn’t it? The night of my wreck, I did kill it, and you saved
it?”

Benjamin answered with a simple
“Yes.”

“
And when the bird came back to
life for me, I did the same thing, didn’t I?”

“
Yes.”

“
And the moth.”

“
Yes”

“
And with
…
”
She
couldn
’
t say the
words, because if that were true, she knew exactly what it did to a
person to give them
light
.

“
And with Mark?” Benjamin asked
out loud, as if knowing how difficult the words were to
say.

Lucy just looked at him
affirmatively.

“
Yes, Lucy, with Mark as
well.”

Thinking back, she recalled
the moments she spent with Mark in her arms in Benjamin’s
haven
. She remembered
the feeling of life being drained from her as she instantly
realized she had been giving her own
light
to him. It also explained why
she was so exhausted when she woke up in the totaled
vehicle.

Lucy sat, feeling unworthy of more than just
the great gifts she’d been given; she felt unworthy of the power
she wielded.

“
Why do we have
this … ability, or power, or whatever it is? Why
can
’
t other
people use it?
”

“
It’s definitely
a
power
that we
have. We have it for different reasons. I have it because of my
lineage. It’s literally in my blood. You have it because you have
been chosen for a sacred obligation.”

He meant her job as a guardian, but she still
didn’t know what that meant, or even how she was supposed to guard
anyone when she couldn’t even take care of herself.

“
But who chooses? Who gets to
decide?”

He hesitated to answer for a moment. “I guess
nature decides. There is a lot that I don’t fully understand about
it, even after two-thousand years, so all I can say is that nature
decides, but it is up to us to accept it.”

Lucy looked confused. “What do you mean it’s
up to me?”

“
You do have a choice in all of
this, Lucy. It wouldn’t be fair to you if you weren’t given the
option to choose.”

“
But, what if I don’t want
it?”

“
Then it will fall to someone
else. Nature is pretty easy that way.”

Lucy was silent as she contemplated this new
information. It had never occurred to her that she might have a
choice. Looking around she wanted to get up and walk along the
beach. Desire and action were two very different things, having
just been through what she had been through. Rising to her feet,
she stumbled backward, and Benjamin immediately caught her before
she fell back to the sand.

She slowly started to walk along the beach,
keeping the waves to her left. A sand dollar stuck out and she
picked it up. Turning to face the ocean she hurtled it into the air
and it flew well beyond her ability to throw, having caught the
wind perfectly.

“
What happened to me out there
that it had such an effect on me in here?”

“
That person who
grabbed you was trying to steal your
light
.”

“
Why? Why did he want me?” Lucy
responded in a subdued tone.

“
He thinks you have knowledge
inside you.”

He stopped for a moment. Lucy could sense that
he was distressed, but she had to know, so she just
waited.

“
He thought you were the queen and
he was hoping you had vital information about how to bring the city
back. So he tried to extract it from you.” Benjamin breathed
deeply. “In doing so, he took you pretty close to the brink. If we
hadn’t stopped him when we did, he might have killed
you.”

Benjamin looked at her, the truth of that
possibility written all over his face. Lucy swallowed hard, feeling
the gravity of the situation she had been in.

“
That’s one of the reasons I
needed to tell you everything tonight.”

Lucy stopped and turned to face
Benjamin.

“
What do you mean? You came to the
dance to tell me that my life was in danger because somebody
thought I was someone else? You didn’t think it was important to
quit the charade more than five minutes before I was going to be
killed?” There was heat rising in her voice.

“
Peter and Jack tracked a group of
reapers to the coast yesterday as far north as Florence. They
stayed mostly to the woods, looking for something.”