by Kirby Howell
“How’s your stomach?” I whispered.
“It’ll be fine,” he said.
“I was scared I misread you on the roof at the warehouse store. That you were too injured to project us away.”
“Honestly, I was scared, too. I tried to project myself to you after they dropped me on the roof, but I was too weak. I hoped Karl would keep talking long enough for me to gather enough strength to take us away. Thank God you were smart enough to run to me.”
“I forget how hard astral projection can be for you. You seem so perfect at everything you do.”
“Not perfect.” He shook his head. “How are you feeling? Are you okay?”
“Physically, yes. Mentally and emotionally, not really. I’m mad at myself that I didn’t realize it was Karl all along, and I feel like Sarah died all over again. But I guess it doesn’t really matter. She wasn’t alive; she wasn’t the one texting me. I should have known it was too good to be true, but I wanted her back so much.”
“That was cruel of him to use her like that,” he whispered.
The wound I’d let heal a year ago felt raw again. The image of the last time I saw her played over and over in my mind. Watching her wave at me through the bus window, her brown hair glinting in the afternoon sunshine. “How?” I breathed. “How could he have done this?”
“He might have gotten into The Water Tower. Your family was famous. It couldn’t have been hard to find out where you lived. Though I didn’t see anything out of place when I was there to get those pictures for you.”
“He knew about a trip to Palm Springs Sarah and I went on together.”
“Did you write about it in a journal?”
I thought about the variety of journals I used to keep. “I used to write everything in my journals. He could have learned everything he needed to know about Sarah in there. But how did he get Sarah’s phone?”
Grey looked out over the mid-morning desert and said, “When you check in at a hospital, the staff locks away your personal belongings in labeled bags. Karl could have looked at your journal, and gotten the idea to see if he could find Sarah’s phone at UCLA when he read she went there. That’s what I would have done, if I’d been Karl.”
I stayed silent. I hated that the messages I believed were Sarah, had been Karl. The sick feeling in my stomach returned.
“Did the hospital at UCLA really burn down?”
Grey remained silent so I looked up at him. His eyes were distant. He was inside a memory. “Yes. It was the fourth day after The Plague appeared, and a lot of people died. The hospital staff was dying in the hallways. No one slept. No one knew anything. Order broke down.” He glanced down at me. “It was a horrible week,” he said simply.
I couldn’t believe I was only a few miles away when he went through this. I wondered how long Sarah had lived. If Grey had treated her.
“Did you... happen to, you know, see her?” I asked.
He shook his head sadly. “It’s definitely possible, but I saw so many people, and I don’t remember any of their faces.”
I shook my head. I didn’t have the words. I hoped she had died peacefully after finding her parents. I hoped she was nowhere near the wing that burned down. I shuddered. I couldn’t think about this any more.
“So what are we going to do?” I asked.
“About The Front?”
“The Front, us... everything. I’m so tired of everything being so complicated. In a perfect world, I’d have met you in LA. We’d be dating, and my dad would be telling me all the things he didn’t like about you, and why I shouldn’t be dating yet. My mom would be asking you embarrassing questions, and I’d be telling Sarah every detail about you.” I paused. “Every detail I could share without breaking your confidence, I mean.”
“I would love to have met your parents, and Sarah.”
“Did you really bring it here?” My voice cracked. “How could that have happened?”
“The last time I left Earth to briefly return to The University was four years ago. I didn’t go anywhere else, and we have a rigorous decontamination process when we enter and exit the ship. So I doubt I, personally, transmitted the disease, but I do think a member of The University brought The Plague here. Originally, I thought it was an accident, but the more Lydia and I went over it, the more we both suspect it was premeditated.”
I turned around to stare at him. “Whoever brought it here... they did it on purpose?!”
Grey looked heartbroken as he filled me in on his suspicions. “The Plague spread too quickly for it to be one accidental exposure. Even with the current rate of international travel, it would have taken weeks, or even months for it to spread across the globe naturally. I’m fairly certain it was strategically released all over the planet at the same time. It was the most massive terrorist attack this planet has ever seen.”
“Grey, that’s... crazy. Who would do something like that to an entire planet? You have to be wrong.”
“I don’t think I am, but it’s possible. Lydia and I are in agreement, though.”
“Has this ever happened before? At The University?” I asked.
“No. Never. We’re a peaceful organization. That’s why we left Andros.”
“Can you... go back and ask them about it?”
“When Lydia left, she said she’d report what happened here and find out what they know. We will discover whoever was responsible, Autumn. I promise.”
I turned back around to look out past the Eiffel Tower. The ugly rooftops of the casinos filled most of my view, so I stared at the mountains in the distance. I couldn’t fathom someone intentionally killing so many innocent people. What would be the point?
Grey touched my back gently, and I turned around and put myself into his arms.
“I missed you,” I whispered into his chest.
“I missed you, too,” he whispered back. “And I am still very much in love with you. That will never change. As long as I live, I am yours, Fòmhair.”
It had been a while since I’d heard him say my name in Gaelic. The few words spoken between us in my grandparents’ native tongue were like our own secret language. “I’m so glad you’re staying. I thought you wouldn’t,” I whispered.
“I could never leave you.”
We stayed on the top of the Eiffel Tower for another twenty minutes before he took us back. I didn’t want to go, but he had patients to get back to, and I needed to find Ben. I owed him an apology.
Grey projected us directly back to an empty room at the Egyptian, so I wouldn’t startle anyone with the dried blood all over my clothes, then left again for the clinic. After changing into clean clothes and washing my face and hands, I headed back downstairs. Ben and Sam were eating lunch on the far side of the cafeteria, and Ben looked up at me immediately. I lifted my hand in greeting, but Ben only nodded and Sam looked quickly back down at the food in front of her. She looked miserable. I felt drawn toward her suddenly, sympathetic to what she experienced in Los Angeles and what she went through to escape Karl’s grasp. Maybe it was because the chance of Sarah returning to me was gone now, but I needed to repair the damage I’d done to the potential friendship growing between me and Sam.
I remembered Shad’s warning that Ben might confide in her I was worried about them being together. I decided I should talk to her and explain myself, sooner than later. I didn’t want my words twisted around, because the truth of the matter was, I had begun to like Sam, now that I had spent more time with her. And after witnessing what happened to Arnett at the warehouse store, I had even more sympathy for the situation Sam had been in.
As I grabbed a bowl of ramen noodles, Sam left the room. I abandoned my soup to follow her. Now was as good a time as any, I thought.
I slipped out of the dining room and scanned the area but didn’t see her. I searched the ruined casino floor, winding my way through the wrecked slot machines and miniature sand dunes. I checked inside the Native American exhibit, where a group of people worked to catch all the fish a
nd put them into large buckets to be transported to the Palmetto. But Sam wasn’t among them.
I finally exited through the back entrance of the hotel and climbed out of the cavity of sand made by the recent excavation of the back door. I found myself by the pool, where the water had long since evaporated and been replaced with a thick coating of sand and dead palm fronds. Again, Sam was nowhere to be seen. I sighed and resigned myself to finding her later to smooth things over.
I slid back down into the sand pit to the door and reached for the smooth steel handle, only to discover I was locked out. I sighed, climbed back out of the sand pit and started the long walk around the massive building.
I rounded the pool, heading for the corner of the pyramid, and caught sight of Sam coming out of the shadows of the parking garage toward me. She was running full tilt.
“Sam!” I called. Her head snapped up when she heard me. She slowed her run down to a jog and closed the distance between us.
“Autumn, hey,” she said, clamping her hand on my arm and ushering me in the direction she was jogging. I was forced to keep up a brisk pace to stay with her.
“Do you have a second to talk? I wanted to thank you for finding Snicket for me. I also owe you an apology, or at least an explanation.” Sam picked up her pace, and I began to jog to keep up with her.
“We’re fine! No worries,” she said.
It was unlike her to be brief. I was instantly worried we were not, in fact, fine, so I launched into the speech I concocted while searching for her.
“I don’t know what Ben told you, but I’m not against you being together, at all. I promise. I just was trying to tell him to give you time to process the things that happened to you in LA.” I paused, wondering how to continue. “I swear I haven’t told him the things you confided in me, but I did tell him you should have time to heal before being thrown into a relationship. And I think he misunderstood me.”
Sam wasn’t looking at me, and she didn’t appear to even be listening to me.
“Sam! Stop!” I broke her hold on me. “Please, talk to me.”
She stopped and turned, looking past me. She looked frantic.
“What’s the matter?” I said, completely confused.
There was a gut-wrenching explosion behind us, and the earth lurched beneath our feet. A tidal wave of burning air threw us to the sandy ground, and I covered my head as smoke enveloped us, burning my eyes. I sat up and saw the entire parking garage behind the Egyptian burning and smoldering. The gasoline, I thought. A sharp, popping noise made me look up. Cracks like lightning streaked across the black glass of the Egyptian from the intense heat of the fire. The wind was blowing the flames toward the pyramid.
Sam shoved me roughly off of her, and I turned to look at her, finally understanding.
“What did you do?!” I demanded.
“I didn’t have a choice!” she cried, then pulled herself up and tore into a sprint. I took another look at the raging fire, and then I realized. I had just found the saboteur. And she was getting away.
2Translates to “Do you know who we are?”
3Translates to “He doesn’t know who we are.”
4Pronounced ‘For-ti-tair’
CHAPTER TWELVE
My mind raced like a runaway train. Sam blew up the fuel supply. I was certain. Had she stolen Grey’s medical supplies? Had she broken the radio? Had she caused the stampede? I didn’t want to believe it. But she was running from me, and that was all the proof I needed. I couldn’t let her get away. I jumped to my feet and chased after her, the dense smoke searing my lungs with each breath.
I screamed for help as I saw people emerge from inside, drawn out by the noise of the explosion. But anyone who could have helped me ran toward the burning parking garage. It was up to me.
We crossed Reno Avenue and entered the grounds of Camelot, when I suddenly realized where she was going and ran harder to close the distance while I still could. Fear flashed through me as she climbed over the fence and mounted a saddled horse in the corral. I scampered onto the fence and used its height to look out over the smooth multicolored backs of the corralled horses. There were no other horses left saddled.
“Heyah!” Sam yelled, kicking the horse to jump over the fence, leaving behind a cloud of sand and dust. She galloped around the side of the building toward Las Vegas Boulevard and disappeared.
“Snicket!” I yelled, a desperate hope fleeting through me. The horses nearest me shied away from the noise, revealing a familiar butterscotch speckled horse drinking from a trough. She lifted her head and tossed her mane in excitement at my voice. I jumped from the fence and bumped my way through the mass of horses, until I reached her and grabbed her long nose in a quick hug.
“I’ve missed you! Why did you run away?” I asked, quickly studying her for injuries. I ran my hands down her neck, through her mane, and, out of habit, tugged on her forelock. “We’ll talk later; right now, you’ve got to help me catch Sam.”
I looked around for a saddle, but none were left sitting out. No matter, it would take too long to put one on anyway. Sam was only getting further away as the seconds ticked by.
Snicket stood still while I grabbed a handful of her mane and gently tried to pull myself up. I’d ridden her without a saddle only once before, and not for very long, but the training would have to suffice for what I had to do now. Snicket’s back was broad and slippery underneath me, and I clutched her with my knees and steered her toward the corral gate. As if Snicket understood the direness of the situation, she snorted and pulled against my direction, setting a pace to jump the fence as Sam did before.
“Whoa, girl. Whoa!” I yelled. I couldn’t jump a fence without a saddle. Hell, I couldn’t jump a fence in a saddle. I yanked back on her mane, but she was picking up speed, and the fence was rapidly approaching.
Fortiter, I thought, sinking down close to Snicket’s neck, and as she left the ground, everything went smooth, and my heart stopped. I clenched hard with my knees as she tilted back, and I began to slip off her. I gasped and released one hand long enough to reach forward and grab her neck to hold on. Everything tilted forward as she crested the fence, and I slid back toward her neck. I knew the impact, when most people fell off, was coming.
There was no time to brace myself. I slid forward so far my shoulder pressed against the back of her neck, and both of my arms wrapped around her. Her hooves connected with the ground, rattling my teeth, but I stayed on.
Snicket pranced proudly a few steps and snorted derisively, as if to say, “See?”
“All right, all right,” I said, grabbing her mane once more. “You’ve made your point. Now let’s go!” I yelled the last word and bumped her sides with my heels. She darted forward, and we pounded around the side of the building as Las Vegas Boulevard came into view.
Sam was nowhere in sight.
“Great,” I muttered and thumped her sides with my heels, but it wasn’t necessary to ask her to go faster. She was already galloping at full speed down the sand-covered boulevard. I held on as best as I could; I wasn’t used to galloping. If I weren’t chasing down a girl my own age for multiple counts of sabotage, I might have enjoyed it. I grimaced when I realized how the situation was suddenly reversed: me chasing Sam.
I shot a glance both ways down Flamenco Avenue as we flew through the intersection. I had no idea where Sam went. She could have turned down a side street or might not even be sticking to the streets at all. I decided I should stick to the Strip for the time being.
I looked up at the Statue of Liberty, standing proudly before the Big Apple Casino, as we passed. She reminded me of the Winged Figures at the dam, rising high into the air. Except this statue had a backdrop of peeling red roller coaster tracks and a crumbling skyline of once-familiar buildings. Lady Liberty disappeared temporarily as I passed beneath the pedestrian bridge connecting the Palmetto to the Big Apple. Then a soft metallic hiss of hydraulics echoed from the direction of the Big Apple. I yanked Snicket to a standstil
l and looked into the darkness gathering at the base of the hotel. The late winter sun was already past its zenith, sliding behind the building, and long shadows stretched toward me like reaching hands.
The sounds hissed quietly across the sidewalk to me once more, and I recognized the distinctive noise of automatic sliding doors over the now distant noises of the raging fire back at the Egyptian. I guided Snicket in the direction of the shadows and found an entrance to the Big Apple. Snicket’s hooves made contact with a pad on the ground, and the glass doors slid open, releasing a whoosh of putrid air. I covered my nose and mouth, recoiling from it. The doors revealed darkness peppered with emergency lights. I hesitated. This building hadn’t been cleared yet. And while power was still partially functioning inside, I shuddered to think of what lay hidden for the past year in the patches of blackness inside.
The temperature was much cooler in the shade of the building, and I shivered. I looked desperately down the street, hoping to see some sign of Sam, but the only clue I had was the noise I’d just heard. And unless this mat was malfunctioning, she was hiding somewhere inside.
I nudged Snicket forward, and we passed into the rancid, still interior. I tried not to think about the added comfort a flashlight or lantern would add. I kept Snicket at a walk, unsure if Sam hid nearby, or if an obstacle lay ahead of me, blocking my path.
I jumped as several sharp noises exploded directly underneath me. Frightened, Snicket danced sideways, and the noises followed us. My heart thundered in my chest, and I realized the sound coincided with each strike of her hoof. I tried to calm her down, wondering what she was stepping on.
My eyes slowly adjusted, and I looked around at what seemed to be a large hallway with hulking black shapes bending over me like buildings. I recognized a park bench next to me and a tall skinny pole. My eyes followed it up. A streetlight. What on earth? Snicket nervously took a few steps, and the noises solidified in my ears as a clopping noise. I immediately saw, in my mind’s eye, a period movie with antique streetlights, horses and buggies... and cobblestones.