Immortal Light: Wide Awake

by John D. Sperry

  Quietly, they ushered the girls from the car and headed for the house. The four entered together and Benjamin locked the door behind them.

  “Any word from Peter?” Lucy asked Benjamin.

  He looked at his phone and shook his head. “You two should get some sleep, we’ll camp out here, out of sight, just in case.”

  “Okay,” Lucy responded and reached out for Benjamin, embracing his strong figure. “But you need sleep, too.”

  Benjamin smiled down at her, “We have ways of getting around that.”

  Lucy snuggled into his chest then reached up and kissed him on the cheek. She pulled away to head upstairs as Benjamin smiled and winked the familial tick.

  Kat stood facing Jack, fidgeting with her hair as he stood like a giant over her. Kat slipped out of the black jacket she had been loaned, her red satin dress revealing her athletic yet perfectly feminine frame, and handed it back to him. He just held it for a second, looking into her eyes. Kat brought her hands up to her arms and rubbed them in an attempt to keep herself warm. Jack immediately swung the jacket back over her shoulders, gently wrapping her in it by folding one lapel over the other.

  “How about you hang onto this and I’ll get it later.”

  He winked at her and she couldn’t contain her elation as she flashed him back a beautiful white smile. With a flirtatious shoulder nudge, she connected with Jack’s muscular arm.

  “Well, it is rather cold in here, and with my feeble, tender build, a girl like me might need something big and durable to wrap up in,” she said, then shot a sultry wink back at him as she turned to walk upstairs.

  Jack’s eyes shot open.

  Benjamin could only respond with a silent mouthed “Wow!”

  Lucy just shook her head and laughed.

  “I’ve never seen him get such a taste of his own medicine,” Benjamin whispered.

  Kat stopped at the base of the stairs and looked over her shoulder again at Jack before disappearing.

  Jack ran his hands through his surfer-boy hair and blew a mouthful of air forcefully through his lips while he stared in Kat’s direction. When he noticed Lucy and Benjamin staring at him in awkward silence, he composed himself with a cough and headed for the front door.

  “I’ll be outside checking the tree line again.”

  As soon as the door clicked shut, the two of them laughed out loud.

  “That was truly amazing. Jack’s usually the one melting his dates, but that …” He couldn’t help but laugh.

  Lucy’s smile melted into a gaze and Benjamin returned it. She remembered the moment when they had kissed in his haven, and it seemed to be happening again, but this time it was real. Lucy closed her eyes and felt his hand on her cheek, his light gently flowing to her. The moment she had been waiting for was imminent. Benjamin’s warmth was close, she could feel it, and when there could have been nothing to stop their collision, the buzzing vibration of Benjamin’s cell phone interrupted them. Lucy waited for the kiss, but she felt Benjamin retreat. He was staring at the display on his smartphone. Lucy waited, but the wait never seemed to end.

  “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.

  Slowly she took a bite, chewed, and swallowed, almost mechanically. Then she took another bite, and another until the muffin was gone. Next, he handed her the fruit.

  “Eat.”

  She did, and little by little she began to feel stronger. When she had eaten about half the fruit, she sat the container on the table and reached for the backpack at her side.

  She stood and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. Her hair had slowly come unraveled and her cheeks were black with mascara. Embarrassment tried its hardest to emerge, but at that moment she just didn’t care; she simply shook her head at her reflection and closed herself inside the bathroom.

  Thirty minutes later, Lucy emerged from the bathroom, showered and dressed in jeans and a collared shirt, a light blue hoodie in her hand. Throwing the backpack on, she pulled the straps tight and wa
lked over to her father’s side. Gently she stroked his cheek, bent down and kissed him. She then turned back to Benjamin, who had stopped reading a book to watch her.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “We’re going.” She spoke the words as if they had come to visit her father at work. Her demeanor was steely and cold, which caused Benjamin immediate concern.

  “No, we’re not. You need to be here with your father.”

  “Why? What good am I going to be here? If my father wakes up, they’ll call me.”

  “What do you intend to do, Lucy? You’ve experienced more in the last twenty-four hours than the average person experiences in a lifetime. You need to rest.”

  Lucy just shook her head. “I’m rested. I’m ready to start.”

  Benjamin squinted his eyes inquisitively. “Ready to start what?” He knew and feared her answer.

  “I’m ready to start training.” Her attitude was of complete determination as she tightened the straps of her pack.

  He stood up, dropping the book to the couch, and walked over to Lucy placing his hands on her arms.

  “No, Lucy, you’re not ready. You need time.”

  “Time for what?” she barked at him.

  “Time to heal.”

  “I’m healed. If this is my life, then I need to learn how to live it. If I really am what you think I am, then I need to learn how to be that; otherwise, I might as well just jump off a cliff for all there is left for me.”

  “Lucy, stop this. You will learn it in time, I promise you that, but not right now.”

  “In time isn’t soon enough. They’re out there and they won’t stop until they get me or you, or we get them. If you won’t train me, I’ll get Jack to do it. Either way, I’m leaving this room.”

  She spun and walked through the door. Benjamin followed after her.

  “Lucy, wait a minute.” He reached for her shoulder but she shrugged him off. He stopped and watched her take a few more paces. “I’ll do it.”

  Lucy stopped but didn’t face him. She could hear him sigh.

  “I’ll do it. But, you need to make me a promise.”