Autumn in the Dark Meadows (The Autumn Series)

by Kirby Howell

  I imagined Grey gone. Gone from Hoover and gone from my life. And however long I lived, I’d be forever looking up at the stars until I was old and gray, wondering where he was and knowing he looked exactly the same.

  Maybe it was better if he did go back. Maybe he needed to be with his own people for a while. Re-learn their ways and shut away all his emotions again. My brow furrowed at the thought of him becoming as cold and detached as Lydia. I remembered the way he grabbed me in the basement hallway of Hollywood High, how large his hands felt against my back and in my hair. And his kiss. My eyes slipped closed as I remembered. The explosion of warm emotion, and the direness in his crystal blue eyes as he looked at me, begging me to understand him, to accept him.

  He had a choice then. He chose me over The University. And then I chose to walk away from him. Because I didn’t understand. Because I was scared. And now he had a chance to go back to the way he was before I came along and everything unraveled.

  The sky grew brassy in the afternoon heat. Hot air blew in blustery gusts through the broken windows. Thin slivers of cloud appeared over the mountains in the distance, and I silently willed them to come closer to blot out the oppressive sun.

  “Hey, you just beeped,” Shad said.

  I sighed heavily and opened my eyes. “What?”

  “You beeped,” he repeated.

  It took a moment before I realized what he meant, and then I heard a small beep as well.

  My hands went into my pockets, frantically searching for my phone.

  “What is it?” Shad asked.

  “Sarah. It’s Sarah,” I said, fumbling with my phone.

  “Who’s Sarah? Where did you get that?”

  I ignored him. There was a new text on my screen. It was from Sarah. I opened it, excited, terrified.

  “hurry! karl doesn’t know i know u yet, but i’m afraid he’ll find out. he’s a psycho!”

  I suddenly had a flash of Karl seducing Sarah the way he had Sam, and bile burned in the back of my throat. I needed to convince Grey to take me to Los Angeles as soon as he could.

  I stood and held up my phone, finding one small bar of signal strength, and then tapped out, “stay where u are. i will come for u.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The clouds hung low and dark in the sky as we got closer to the Egyptian. The wind came in short, chillier bursts. I wracked my brain for reasons to excuse myself and go find Grey. I was exhausted, but I had to get to Sarah while I knew where she was. I couldn’t count on another text making its way to me.

  I groaned, a little more loudly than was necessary, and started stretching my shoulder. Ben pretended not to notice, but Shad seemed receptive.

  “Hey guys, I think I might go over to the medical center to get my shoulder looked at. It’s been bugging me since the stampede. Think I aggravated that old injury.” I wasn’t entirely lying. My shoulder had been hurting since the stampede, and holding up heavy binoculars for hours hadn’t helped matters. But it wasn’t bad enough to require medical attention.

  Shad frowned. “Everyone will probably be at dinner. And besides, we should get inside until this storm passes. I know we’re technically in a desert, but there are flash flood warnings everywhere. Las Vegas Boulevard can turn into a river pretty quickly.” He pointed to a yellow warning sign that showed a storm cloud raining on a stick figure up to its waist in water.

  I knew he was right about the flash floods. I’d heard stories about this area surprising unsuspecting tourists before. With any luck, Shad would be right, and Grey would be at dinner. I could talk to him about Sarah there.

  We reached the Egyptian just as the first raindrops began pockmarking the hot sand. Dinner service was ending. The casino floor was lined with boxes and bags and loose items stacked everywhere. The move to the Palmetto was definitely underway. I wondered how long it would take to get completely set up. I heard the Palmetto towers weren’t fully cleared yet. People helping with the relocation effort were moving slowly and stiffly, as if they’d survived a war. Which they pretty much had, I thought. After the sandstorm and accident with the helicopter, the digging out effort and then the stampede, it was a surprise there were still this many people standing.

  “We need to find food, ASAP. I’m about to eat my own arm,” Shad said to no one in particular as we passed underneath the Sphinx and made our way through the main entrance of the massive pyramid. “Hope they haven’t moved the cafeteria to the Palmetto yet.”

  “You guys go ahead. I’m gonna go find Sam,” Ben said. He tossed a glance in my direction, but I didn’t allow any semblance of a reaction to appear on my face. As far as I was concerned, what he did with Sam was now officially his business, and I wasn’t going to be butting in again any time soon.

  “You guys are killing me,” Shad said as Ben disappeared down the hall.

  “Not me, him.”

  “Yeah, sure. It’s all his fault. Look, just apologize to him, and Sam, too. The silence between here and the Mesosphere was really bumming me out.”

  “What do I need to apologize to Sam for?” I demanded as we joined the end of the line for food.

  “Because she’ll notice he’s upset and will bug him until he tells her he had a fight with you. And being a girl, she’ll weasel all the gory details out of him.”

  “You’re talking like they’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” I mumbled.

  “They might be, and what does it really matter if they are? The point is she’ll be upset you’re trying to break them up. She’s sweet and all, but she seems like the type to get her feelings hurt. And I just can’t take that kind of drama in my life.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So this is all about you then, not Ben, Sam or me.”

  “Now you’re catching on, Winters.”

  The restaurant inside the pyramid was still the acting cafeteria, but was starting to empty by the time we sat down. I kept an eye out for Grey as we ate.

  I returned my tray and thanked the woman behind the counter for the stew she made. I suspected it was from a gallon-size can, but it was warm and filling.

  “I’m going to go find a place to hide and catch a nap,” Shad said. “I’m useless without my beauty sleep.” He turned to leave, and I followed. As we neared the cleared exit to the Egyptian, Grey walked in with Daniel. Their hair and shoulders were wet with rain, and they were in another heated discussion. Grey must have confided his suspicion of sabotage to Daniel. It felt like a year had passed since we talked this morning. My steps grew heavier and slower as we neared them. I was suddenly nervous about asking him to help me find Sarah. What would I do if he said no?

  Grey was mid-sentence when his eyes left Daniel and locked onto mine. His voice dropped a decibel, and his demeanor calmed. I smiled at him and looked at the exit, then back at him, hoping he’d take that as a sign I needed to talk in private. But his attention turned back to Daniel, who also noticed me and dropped his conversation with Grey to a whisper.

  “You wanna go see Kathy instead?” Shad leaned over and asked me. “Looks like Grey might be busy.”

  “No. It has to be Grey,” I said immediately, then blushed.

  “Well, we better interrupt then.”

  “No, we don’t need to interrupt,” I said. “I’ll just wait. You can go on ahead.”

  “It’s okay. I get it. I like playing ‘doctor,’ too,” Shad said, grinning at me over his shoulder as he walked toward them. My face went cherry red as he approached Grey and Daniel, and their conversation came to an abrupt halt. I chased after him before he could say something potentially embarrassing.

  “I see you’ve made it back from the Mesosphere,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah,” I said weakly. “Sorry to interrupt you guys, but I was hoping Grey could help me with something.” I fumbled, trying to explain myself further. “I mean, my shoulder. I think it needs to be looked at,” I said, and my opposite hand touched my sore shoulder.

  Grey ran his hand up under my t-shirt sleeve to feel my shoulder. His
light touch on my bare skin dazed me, and for a moment, I forgot to wince and feign serious injury as his strong fingers pressed on my shoulder in several places.

  “Doesn’t feel like you’ve dislocated it again,” he said.

  “No,” I jumped in, “But it really hurts. I was hoping you could...” My voice trailed off. What could I say to get him alone? We would need privacy for him to project us to Sarah.

  “I was hoping you could examine it a little further. I can’t tell if I’m just projecting the pain, or if it’s really injured again.” I hoped he’d catch my subtle cue. I stared hard into his blue eyes, willing him to understand, and for a second, I thought I saw a dawn of realization there.

  “Perhaps. Daniel and I need to finish up first. Go get some rest, and I’ll find you when we’re done. Okay?”

  I nodded. It would have to wait a little while longer. Again. I was beginning to hate waiting. I felt Shad’s eyes on me as we walked away, and I glanced over at him. He was still grinning at me, his eyes glinting in the dim hallway.

  “What?” I asked, annoyed.

  “Do you make him wear a white coat when he comes to see you? Do you listen to each other’s hearts with his stethoscope?” Shad crooned before I elbowed him hard in the stomach.

  I left him half-laughing, half-gasping in the hallway and jogged up the stairs. I was almost to room 212 when I ran into Ben coming around a corner. I took a step back, wishing I’d made it to my room a little faster. Though I understood what Shad said to me over dinner, I wasn’t ready to discuss it again with Ben so soon.

  “I was just looking for you,” Ben said, staring past me down the hallway, as if wishing he hadn’t actually found me.

  “What’s up?”

  “Sam found Snicket. She’s back in the corral over at Camelot.”

  Relief flooded me, and my heart lifted. I suddenly didn’t feel so defensive. I pictured Snicket safe in the corral, speckled butterscotch coat gleaming in the evening sunshine. “Where was she?”

  “A couple miles away in a neighborhood. Sam knows how important Snicket is to you and went out of her way to look for her.”

  A couple miles, I thought? Sam really had gone out of her way. I resolved to go talk to her as soon as Grey and I were back. I stared at Ben, but he wouldn’t look at me. I needed to fix this now. It was no good for us to be fighting with each other. I opened my mouth, but Ben brushed by me, face blank. Too stung to call out to him, I watched his retreating back until he disappeared through the door to the stairwell.

  I closed the distance to my room and glanced back down the hallway once more before shutting the door behind me. I was anxious for Grey to come for me, but after sitting with nothing to do but stew about my most recent encounter with Ben, I decided to take a shower to help pass the time.

  When I finished, I was surprised to find myself still alone. I stared at Sarah’s last message on my phone. She was waiting for me. And the delay in getting to her was excruciating.

  I spent the next couple of hours flipping through the hundreds of pictures and videos I had stored on my phone, alternately flexing my sore feet and stretching my aching back. I found pictures from the camping trip in Oregon with Sarah’s family. Hidden in the green shadows of ancient trees, Sarah and I posed for pictures with her dog, a Cairn Terrier just like Toto from The Wizard of Oz.

  It was like looking at illustrations in a children’s book you once loved and forgot about. I curiously studied each pose, watching the progression of silliness through the series, and tried to remember what we’d been thinking about.

  The sun set, and a few of the children from Hoover appeared and nestled into their spots for bed. I wasn’t concerned when Rissi wasn’t among them. She was most likely over at the new clinic with Connie. I figured she might stay the night there. I hoped Connie would be able to get enough rest with an eight-year-old buzzing around her room.

  I shifted my position in the armchair by the window and wondered if Ben spoke with Sam yet about our conversation at the Mesosphere. My stomach felt hollow, and I wondered how things became so complicated between Ben and me again. It seemed like we only just found normal again over the past couple of months. But could that be because Grey hadn’t been around as much?

  Maybe we’d have a chance to reclaim our friendship after Grey left for good. Though I didn’t know which was worse – not being friends with Ben or Grey being gone.

  My mind began to wind in circles, my thoughts doubling back and swaying like seaweed in the deep ocean, rocking me to sleep. I was dimly aware of the soft cushion beneath me, the smell of my clean hair, and the gentle sounds of sleeping children. I felt on the verge of a dream when Grey’s soft voice filled my mind. He said my name. Then I felt his light touch on my arm, and inside that beautiful half-sleeping state, I was happy and smiling. Then his touch became more real, and my mind tipped from the side of that wonderful place close to slumber and fell toward the side that was awake. I opened my eyes and saw him.

  I think I told him I was waiting for him.

  “I know. I’m sorry I’m so late.” He brushed the hair from my face with his cool hand. “Are you too tired to come with me tonight?”

  My senses returned to me one by one. I was so tired that full consciousness took a moment. And suddenly, I was awake and looking directly into his eyes.

  I sat up slowly and whispered, “Yes, I can still go with you. But we have to go to LA first.”

  He was confused. I showed him my phone and watched his soft features subtly harden.

  “She’s at the warehouse store with Karl right now, but I don’t know if she’ll have to move soon. The signal’s been so inconsistent. We have to go get her tonight.” I realized I was talking too loudly and glanced at the children still sleeping around me, then whispered, “Please, Grey.”

  Grey’s brow deepened over his eyes, and he pressed his lips together.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You weren’t there as often as I was.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t think it’s prudent to go at night.”

  “Why?! I’m not waiting any longer to get her out of there!”

  “And we will,” he said calmly. “I’ll take you myself, but tomorrow morning. Odds are good she’ll still be there then.”

  “But, Grey, what if something happens between now and then?” I said, not wanting to bring up the fact he might leave before I could rescue Sarah. “Why can’t we go now?”

  “Autumn, please listen to me. Karl’s defenses on that store were doubled, sometimes tripled at night. When we were setting up the hideout at Hollywood High, before I met you, we’d wait until night to go in and steal from them, until he caught on and changed up his guard schedule. We found out the hard way and lost several lives, and nearly my own once. If we wait until daylight, we can project a small distance away first to see what we’re dealing with. There’s a lot of security on the outside, for show, but less on the inside. At least, that’s how it used to be. I can get us inside once I see what their offense looks like, but at night, well... I don’t want to risk either one of us getting hurt.”

  I gulped. “But Sarah...”

  “If she’s made it this long with Karl, she’ll make it one more night. I promise we’ll go tomorrow morning. Tonight, we have other things to deal with, if you’re still able to come with me.”

  I feebly nodded my head, in disbelief that I’d have to wait until tomorrow to go back for Sarah. I could see her face, her dark brown hair and her chestnut eyes in the shade of the spruce trees in Oregon. I closed my eyes and tried to focus instead on Hoover.

  “Do you think anyone will be up late working on it?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. I suppose that will depend on how badly it’s been damaged. I’ll project us a little way from it, so we can get a better idea of the situation. I’m hoping everyone will be asleep.” I looked at the clock. It was after 4 a.m.

  “May I?” he asked, extending a hand to me. I took it, and he pulled
me to my feet. He hesitated, then drew me close to him.

  “Is this okay?” he whispered.

  “Of course it is,” I replied, feeling stupid and nervous all at once.

  His other arm slid up my back. Our eyes locked for a moment, and my pulse quickened. I broke his gaze and stared at his chest instead.

  “Close your eyes,” he whispered. I did, and then a gust of air kissed my skin and brushed through my hair. When I opened my eyes, we were on the side of a barren hill overlooking the water main, the great white Hoover Dam in the distance.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The moon shone brightly down on us, and I saw we were alone. We stood on one of the mountains overlooking the reservoir of the dam. Beyond its inky blackness was the East Watchtower. Grey pointed to a guard visible in the moonlight.

  “The guards should have their backs to us, watching for outside threats,” he said.

  “With everything that’s happened here, they may be looking for internal threats, too. We should assume they’re keeping a watch on the entire town just to be safe,” I reminded him, scrutinizing the watchtower. “You think the guard up there might be part of The Front?”

  “Don’t know. Best we’re not seen, either way.” He squinted in the direction of the dam. “This might be a little more complicated than I originally thought.”

  “Where’s the water main?” I asked.

  “It’s on our side of the reservoir, directly across from the East Watchtower.”

  I looked in that direction. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the large pipe that snaked through the mountains from Hoover and disappeared over the bank into the reservoir below.