Autumn in the City of Lights (13 page)

“We need to go back out to the oil rigs to check on Kevin and the others,” I said. “I know we weren’t supposed to go back for another several days, but he deserves to know what happened to his friends, and they also need to be warned to stay out there and away from the mainland.”

Daniel nodded. “We can leave tomorrow morning. The voting for the representative to go to Paris is supposed to happen tonight at the library, so we should all make sure to cast our votes. I’ll be glad when the elections are over. The squabbling over delegates got old months ago.”

I stood up, pushing my chair back. “I’m going back to the hospital to see what I can do.”  Daniel started to object, but I cut him off. “I won’t get in Grey’s way, or crowd him. I promise.”

Daniel seemed satisfied and nodded agreement. Connie gave my mostly full bowl a pointed look, and I picked it up, shoveling a few spoonfuls of chowder into my mouth, then set the bowl back on the table.

“I’m coming with you!” Rissi exclaimed.

“No you’re not!” we all replied in unison.

“But I want to tell Grey about my —”

“Not a good time, Riss,” I told her. Her face fell, and I stopped to hug her. She half-heartedly returned the squeeze. “There will be time later,” I promised her.

The roads were busier than I’d ever seen them. Snicket and I cut across deserted lawns and down uncleared side streets to avoid the crush of horses and wagons full of people going to cast their votes at the old Burbank Public Library. A backpack of food Connie insisted I bring with me to hand out to the hospital staff bounced on my shoulders as I cut down another side street. I kept my eyes trained on the tall building less than a mile away: the hospital.

When I arrived, the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and the sky was darkening. I tied Snicket to a post with a few other horses in the parking garage and entered the hospital’s main doors.

The reception area was empty. I stood still and listened. Everything was silent. I walked toward the desk, and a chill passed through me as I stared at the bottoms of the scuffed wooden clipboards. All but one was turned upside down.

A muffled sniff caught my attention, and I followed the noise to the supply closet. I paused outside the door. Someone was crying inside. I tapped quietly on the door. The sniffling stopped, and silence followed. I was raising my hand to tap again when the door swung open. I moved back quickly as Jen stepped out.

“Hey Autumn, are you looking for Grey? He’s around here somewhere. I’ll go find him for you.”  She took care to keep her face pointed away from me. I guess she didn’t want anyone to know that she’d been crying, so I tried to play along.

“I just came by to see if I could do anything. Connie sent some food with me, too.” I motioned to my backpack. “Has anyone eaten?”

“Not really. It’s not been a good day,” Jen said, as we started to walk down the hallway.

“I saw the clipboards,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“I think Grey is in room six, with Zak. He’s the last patient. He’s unconscious.”  Jen finally turned to face me, her cheeks splotchy with color and eyes bright with tears. “You can give me the food, if you like, so you can go see him. I’ll make sure everyone gets something to eat.”

I quickly opened the bag and pulled out one of the covered bowls of chowder and a foil-wrapped piece of cornbread and then handed her the backpack.

“Thank you for this,” Jen said, her smile warm but trembling. “Tell Connie thank you, too. And if you see Ben later, will you tell him I’m sorry for not having time to come visit these last couple of days?”

I smiled and nodded, then excused myself. I found room six and peeked through the window before opening the door. I knew I probably shouldn’t bother Grey, but I couldn’t will myself away. He was arranging bags of ice around Zak’s head, neck, and shoulders. I pushed open the door. Grey didn’t look up at the sound.

“Hey...” I said, stepping into the room. "I brought you something to eat.”

“Thank you,” Grey said, finally glancing up at me. He motioned for me to sit down on top of the ice chest.

“No, I’m fine,” I said. “You should rest, though. I bet you haven’t slept yet.”

He shook his head. “No one here has slept. I keep telling them to go take breaks. Maybe they’ll listen to you.”

“I gave Jen a bag of food. She’s going to pass it out, so maybe they’ll all have a chance to sit down and rest for a while.”

He pushed back one of Zak’s eyelids and shined a light into his pupil. I stepped closer to Grey, touching his arm. He didn’t respond. Something dense bumped against my leg, and I glanced down. The side pocket of his white lab coat bulged, and I peeked down into it. The half sandwich I’d given him early this morning was tucked in the pocket, still wrapped in the holiday plastic wrap. He hadn’t eaten.

“Grey, please sit down and rest. Just for a moment.”

He pulled his arm from my grasp and reached across Zak’s body to inspect his other eye. “I can’t,” he said simply.

“Of course you can. I’ll watch Zak, or I’ll go get Jen to come in, and you can go sit down and eat something and maybe take a short nap —”

“No,” he said sharply, and I stepped back. He didn’t look at me but continued to bustle around the bed, arranging the ice bags and checking the IV. “What if he wakes up while I’m gone? Or what if he slips into a coma? As long as I’m here, I can do something for him.”

“Okay, you don’t have to leave the room.”  I pushed the ice chest toward him. “Just sit down and eat.”

“Not now, Autumn.”  His voice broke when he said my name, but I charged ahead.

“Grey...” I didn’t want to say what needed to be said. But he needed to hear it. “You can’t save him.”  Without the Elemental Vitamin, Grey didn’t have a chance of saving anyone. But he hadn’t been able to find it because of me. Because I broke the chain, and the vial was lost back in Hoover.

I stared at his back. He didn’t move. His hand rested on one of the ice bags, already mostly melted. His head tilted forward, chin to his chest.

I went to his side and turned him to face me. His face was blank, his eyes dry and empty, staring at nothing. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Please just go,” he murmured.

Stung, I stepped away, then turned and fled the room.

Jen and a few of the other nurses were sitting in the reception area, silently sipping soup and dividing up the cornbread. I didn’t feel like socializing, so I kept walking and found my old chair in the hallway next to the never-ending vine wallpaper.

My thoughts were like a plate overflowing with spaghetti – I’d try to catch one as it slipped off the side of the dish, but five more would slither off the other side while I was busy with the first. I sat there a long time, spiraling downward in my misery.

I didn’t move when the chair next to me creaked under the weight of someone sitting down. I could tell it was a man, but it wasn’t Grey, or Daniel. Curious, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Karl.

I sighed. I might just kill him. Here and now. Most of our problems would go away, I was sure of that. And it couldn’t make me feel any worse.

“What do you want?” I asked, dejected.

“I came to offer my congratulations,” he said.

I looked at him, confused.

“You’ve been elected to be the representative of New Burbank at the Summit of New Nations.”

“What?!” I demanded.

“Don’t kill the messenger,” Karl said, holding up his hands.

I stared at him. He was surely joking. I couldn’t have been chosen to represent New Burbank in Paris.

“Diego would have gotten the popular vote.”  He feigned sadness for Diego for all of a moment before continuing. “But in the wake of his untimely death, you were a shoo-in. According to the New Burbank general public, you make people feel ‘safe.’”  He shook his head in disbelief. “Though it’s probably just your famous mother you remind them of. Obviously, none of them has ever been on the receiving end of your right hook, or they might have a different opinion of you. All in all, I’d say very well played.”  He nodded as if impressed.

“I didn’t play anything. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but Grey and I have been a little busy since getting back from the oil rigs.”  I gestured to the hospital we sat in.

“It seems death and devastation follow you wherever you go these days.”

My eyes narrowed at him.  I stood, still stiff, not only from the unknown amount of hours spent sitting, but also from the ten hours of sleep on my bedroom floor. It was nearly 3 a.m. by now.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked.

“I didn’t. Diego, before he died, of course, invited me to be present during the counting of the votes. What with our spirit of cooperation, full transparency and all that. They just finished tallying the votes an hour ago, and I was on my way home. But I thought I should stop by to see how the patients were doing... not so good, I see. That’s when I found you. Seems like the universe keeps putting us in the same place, Miss Winters. What do you think of that?”

“I don’t think of it,” I said and turned to walk away.

“If you’re going to represent New Burbank to the rest of the living world, I suggest you work on your manners,” he called after me. “Your diplomacy is the slightest bit off-putting.”

I muttered a few things I thought he could work on under my breath and turned the corner, leaving him sitting alone by the endless peach vines. It occurred to me I didn’t know a thing about politics, other than listening to my parents occasionally talk and things I’d learned in movies. I doubted that would help me in Paris. If I was going to accept the nomination, and I didn’t see any graceful way of getting around it, I’d need a crash course, and soon.

I found Grey sitting on the ice chest next to Zak’s bed, his own head in his hands. The machine next to the bed emitted a long, low beep. Grey looked up as I came in, and my heart broke when I saw his face. His eyes were puffy and dark; his cheeks even looked slightly sunken. His shoulders were hunched in defeat as he stared in my general direction. I wondered if he even saw me.

I looked at the machine and then at Zak, who was practically buried in bags of ice. He wasn’t moving.

“Grey?” I asked, stepping closer. “Is he...?”

The heart monitor screen came into view — it showed a flat white line. Zak was dead.

Grey reached up and snapped off the machine, its screen fading to a deep black, then replaced his head in his hands. The silence that filled the room was somehow louder.

“There wasn’t anything I could do,” he finally said. “I tried everything I could think of, no matter how old or new the remedy or what culture it was from. I tried stuff I hadn’t thought of during the initial outbreak that I wondered about afterward. I even tried giving him a dose of my latest inoculation, but he slipped into a coma... which might have been caused by the injection.”  He pressed his palms into his face, hiding his horrified expression.

I knelt on the floor next to him and took his hands in my own. “You did so much good for these men. You helped them get through this, and you comforted them just by being here to take care of them. Don’t blame yourself for something that’s beyond your control.”

He leaned forward and rested his forehead on my shoulder. We stayed like that for a few minutes until I squeezed his arm and said, “I’ll run and get the mortician. He’ll come, and then you can go home with me.”

“No need,” he mumbled. “Jen already went to get him.”

He stood and disconnected the heart monitor pads from the man’s chest and then gently began removing the bags of melting ice from around the body. I helped him dump the ice into the sink, and he paused when we were done. He touched Zak’s hand with his fingertips for a moment, and then drew the sheet over his upturned face.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

Minutes later we were side by side on Snicket and Gideon.

“We’re going to start back to the oil rig tomorrow morning,” I said. “We need to tell Kevin what happened.”

Grey nodded, but it seemed more like a sleepy head bob.

“You need a few days of rest. We’re leaving at dawn, which is just a few hours from now, so you shouldn’t come.”

Grey didn’t respond. I looked at him as we turned onto our driveway and passed beneath the curved brick arch leading to the back of the property. His blue eyes were open and gazing ahead at nothing.

Once in the stable, he methodically removed Gideon’s saddle and reins, brushed him down, and then helped me lift my saddle onto the hook on the wall. We left some food in their troughs, and then I walked with Grey to the guesthouse, deciding I would spend the next few hours before dawn with him, to make sure he was okay. I doubted Daniel and Connie were waiting up on me, and the main house was dark.

Grey pulled open the door and made his way down the dark hallway, through the kitchen and living area, to the bedroom in the back.  I closed the door behind me and followed him.

I found him standing at the foot of his bed, motionless. I recognized the hesitation from my own experience not 24 hours ago: unwilling to concede, unwilling to take a break from battling the darkness in our lives... undeserving of the reprieve while others couldn’t have one.

I touched his arm, and he sucked in a breath suddenly, as if he’d forgotten to breathe.

“I can’t,” he murmured. “I can’t do this... I can’t sleep here. I can’t sleep...”

I pushed until he turned and sat down on the bed, then knelt and removed his shoes. “You can sleep,” I told him. “Everyone else is resting. There’s no one you need to help right now.”

He looked at me with wide, searching eyes, as if he were a child asking me if I was sure Santa did, in fact, exist.

“Come on, lie down.”  I coaxed him under the covers until he lay there, tense and taut, like he was expecting an alarm to go off at any moment. I kicked off my own shoes, then crawled under the covers.

Instinctively, Grey drew me into his arms and then kissed me forcefully. His hands clasped my back, pressing me against the length of his body and rolling on top of me. His lips were hard on mine, the pressure sharply painful, and I gasped in surprise. I clutched his shoulders, unsure what to do, but then as fast as it had started, something changed, and he buried his face in my neck, his shoulders shaking from sobs under my palms.

I tried to look at him, but he refused to draw away from me. So I held him until he quieted and his breathing evened. I thought he’d fallen asleep and started when I heard his voice, quiet and muffled against my neck.

“It was UCLA all over again...”

I waited to see if he’d say more, but he remained silent and still in my arms. Guilt twisted in my stomach. Even though I knew it wasn’t, couldn’t, be my fault these men had died, I’d still played a part in their death. Unintentional, of course, but still... we’d brought them inland, and they’d gotten sick because of us. And Grey had relived the worst days of his life. I’d never seen him like this before. It was as if he felt all of this was on his shoulders and his shoulders alone. As if he were alone in this fight. But he wasn’t, I thought angrily.

The news Karl had delivered to me earlier drifted through my head like an almost forgotten dream. The possibility that this could be how I might help seemed very small and far away.
I
would be the one who needed help.

I turned my face toward Grey, but his eyes were closed. My news could wait until tomorrow morning. I let my fingers slide down his shoulder to his arm and paused, breathing him in. He rarely smelled like lemons anymore, though once in a while I caught the bright scent behind another, a remnant of a past life still clinging to him like a scarf in the wind.

I woke three hours later to a room filled with light and the sounds of horses nearby. I was alone.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes, looking around the room. Where had he gone? Surely he wasn’t thinking of accompanying us on our journey back to Castor and Pollux today. I lurched out of his bed, stuffed my feet into my shoes and hurried for the door.

“Autumn!”

Daniel’s voice startled me as soon as I stepped through the door of the guesthouse. Grimacing, I closed it behind me. Of course, Daniel would have caught me leaving Grey’s.

I trotted over to him, trying to ignore the loose shoelaces whipping around my ankles. I started talking before he could begin chastising me for spending the night in Grey’s guesthouse, hoping I could make him understand.

“Look, Grey was in a very bad place last night... actually, I think he probably still
is
in a very bad place. He needed me.  This was nothing more than that, I swear it. And Rissi didn’t see us. We only got back a few hours ago.” When I finished, I looked up into his wide eyes. I could see him considering, and after a moment, he closed his mouth and nodded, understanding. Then he set down a bag next to a few others stacked near the stable’s open doors and looked at me. His red hair flared orange in the post-dawn glow.

“So... it sounds like you were elected for this Summit thing.”

I nodded, one tension replaced by another. “Karl stopped by the hospital last night and told me,” I said, as uncertainty flooded through me, suddenly unbearable. I looked up at him desperately. “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know anything about politics or how this is supposed to work. There’s going to be people from all over the world there, and I only know a little Spanish, and even less French, and while I know some Gaelic, I really doubt it’ll help me. And —”

Daniel interrupted me. “You’ll be fine. You won’t be alone. I’m going to propose we bring Grey along, as a safety precaution. He’s a fine doctor, and we can say he’ll be there in case something unforeseen happens. And Shad and I will be there, too, as pilots. This is going to be a team effort, okay?”

I nodded, and he squeezed my shoulder, then chuckled. “Like it or not, kid, you’re in the middle of this now.”

But I always had been in the middle of this. I looked at the ground to avoid his eyes.

“The jet I’ve been prepping is pretty much ready to go any day now that The Front’s supplied us with fuel.”

I nodded, thankful for the pep talk. And the truth was, I did feel better about the looming trip to Paris. Maybe with Ben’s coaching, and my friends there to help, it wouldn’t be a complete and utter disaster.

“I should run inside and grab some fresh clothes. Have you seen Grey?”

“About half an hour ago. Said he was going to pick up some supplies at the hospital and be back before we left.”

“He’s not thinking of coming, is he?”

“Sounded like it. Don’t you want him to come?”

“Of course. It’s just that he hasn’t slept in I don’t know how many days, and Teddy and Zak and Andrew and all those men we brought back died. I thought he might need to stay here and rest.”

Daniel squinted into the rising sun and said, “We all deal with tragedy in our own ways.”

By mid-afternoon, we were well on our way back to the beach. Daniel was using the time to help me train for Paris. He’d been into politics in college and knew a thing or two about debate strategies.

“You just have to stay on the offensive. Take a moment before you respond. Collect your thoughts. Don’t react emotionally. Once you’re ready, lodge your counter points, then move back to the offensive. Keep them reacting to you. That’s how you stay on top of every debate. Also, when you’re winning, make sure the maximum amount of people witness it. It’ll show others how smart you are and help you rally others to you.”

I was becoming a bit dizzy with the thought of how much went into every word I was going to speak. It was good advice, but how could I ever implement it all?

“And don’t raise your voice. It’ll make you seem young and irrational. Stay calm. Collected. We’re at a disadvantage because of your age, so we need to play against it. You need to project maturity. And whenever possible, if we can think of some new, edgy ideas, let’s work those points in so your youth might even be seen as a fresh perspective, or a new way of thinking!” Daniel was rattling on and on now. I suddenly wished it was him who’d be representing New Burbank.

We paused in the shade of a freeway overpass for a break. I slid down from Snicket’s back and led her over to where Grey stood next to Gideon, his back to us and his head down.

“Hey,” I greeted him. It felt odd not to have spoken much to him during the ride. He’d listened to Daniel, but never chimed in himself.

He fed Gideon a piece of the apple he was cutting up, then looked at me briefly and smiled. Snicket snorted and stomped one of her front hooves.

“I think she’s jealous,” I said, stroking her soft nose.

Grey sliced off another piece of apple for me. I took it and held it out for Snicket, who plucked it daintily from my palm, crunched it loudly, then stamped her hoof again.

“Are you okay?” I asked.  “I was worried this morning when I woke up and you were gone.”

He offered another piece of apple to Snicket. Gideon, offended at his treat being given to someone else, knocked his nose into Grey’s shoulder.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’ll be fine.”  He split the last bit of apple in two, and held out a piece for each of the horses. Then he wiped off the blade and folded the knife.

“Are you...” My voice faltered. “Are you disappointed with me?”  I hated how weak my voice sounded. But I had to ask.

He tucked the knife into his pocket and swung up onto Gideon suddenly.