Autumn in the Dark Meadows (The Autumn Series) (31 page)

“What did you do that for?!” I yelled to him.

“They shouldn’t be tied up when there’s a fire.  They’ll run to safety and then come back to town when they’re hungry tomorrow.”

Grey freed his horse as well, and we went inside the general store.  The rows of goods were mostly unharmed, though it looked like there’d been a fight near the door.  A sack was split open, spilling dried beans across the floor, and a windowpane had a bullet hole through it.

Grey and Ben shuffled through the spilled beans, carrying Shad to a blanket Kathy laid out for him.  Several patients in various states were spread out all over the store, and the few medical people left hurried between them.  Robert, the man from Area 51, was one of them.  He carried a large water jug between the beds, stopping to fill the cups patients held out to him.  He looked up at me and nodded, then pointed to a cot in the corner, where I recognized Daniel by his flaming red hair.  His torso was wrapped tightly in bandages, and he appeared to be sleeping peacefully.

I looked out of the cracked windowpane to the burning med center across the street.  “Are we safe here?” I asked.

Kathy looked up from the box of supplies she’d set down next to Shad.  “As long as the wind keeps blowing away from us,” she said.

Gunfire erupted outside, and everyone hit the floor.  I looked up at the windowpane with the bullet hole in it, wondering which direction the bullet had been going when it broke through the glass.

“The fighting has been so sporadic, no one really knows what’s going on,” Kathy said, as Grey began to dig through the box of supplies.  “Though one thing is clear; The Front doesn’t seem to be very organized anymore.  They’re scattered all over the place now and don’t have a unified front.”  She chuckled and said, “They should really think about changing their stupid name.  False advertising is what it is.”

The street was silent again, so I hesitantly got to my knees.

Grey got to work immediately, cutting the remains of Shad’s shirt off, but Kathy stopped him.  “I can take care of Shad.  Why don’t you go clean yourself up?  We’ve got everything under control.”  She smiled and handed Grey a clean cloth and a tube of antibiotic ointment.

“Are you sure?” Grey asked, reluctantly accepting the items.

“It’s just stitches.  Shad’ll be back to his old self and coming on to me in less than an hour.  There’s clean water and a mirror in the back room.”

I followed Grey behind the counter that was strangely empty without the storekeepers, Royal or Manny, sitting behind it.  I righted the stool and picked up Royal’s clipboard that was lying face down on the floor.  His pencil was nowhere in sight.

Grey opened a door leading to Royal and Manny’s apartment.  As soon as he closed it behind us, he swept me into his arms.  Startled, I didn’t hug him back at first, but when I felt him trembling against me, I clasped my arms around him.

Grey didn’t let go for several seconds.  When I finally pulled away, I looked up into his face.  His temple and cheek were crusted with dried blood, and his lip was split and swollen.  I pulled the cloth from his hand, wet it with water from a jug on the table and dabbed gently around the cuts, cleaning away the dried blood and dirt.

His hand closed over mine, and he held it hard against his cheek.  He looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t.

“It’s all right.  Everything’s okay,” I assured him, leaning my forehead against his chest.  “Karl seemed like a different person tonight.”

“He’s been alone for a long time, and now he’s found something,” Grey said.  “It’s made him desperate to have it.”

A bad feeling settled inside me.  “What does he think he’s found?”

Grey pulled away to look down at me.  His face was sad.  “Us,” he said quietly.  “He thinks he can use you to get me to help him.”  He pulled away from me and began pacing the length of the small room.

“I was so afraid he was going to disappear with you,” he said.  “Astral projection isn’t a problem for him like it is with me.  Did you see how fast he could do it?  All it would take is a second, and you’d be gone, and I’d never be able to find you.”

“But he didn’t take me away.”  I tried to sound reassuring, but the thought of Karl taking me away from Grey made me shake.  Grey possessed some pretty spectacular abilities, but there would be no way for him to find me if Karl disappeared with me.  How many times had Karl been in a position to project with me tonight?  I shook my head and asked, “But why didn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Grey sighed, rubbing his eyes.  “He’s already got me.  He knows how much I love you.  If he were to get to you... I
would
do anything he asked to get you back safe.”

“What’s he waiting for?”

“I don’t know.  But he’ll come back.  I’m sure of it.”

I wondered if we would forever have the cloud of Karl’s threat casting a shadow on our life.

Grey pulled Karl’s vial from his pocket and studied the small amount of black powder inside.  “He’ll come back for this, for sure,” he muttered.

“We need to destroy it, so he can’t use it again,” I said.

Grey nodded, but then said, “And we will, but I’d like to do some tests on it before we destroy it.  It might be the key to creating a vaccine.”

I agreed, thinking of all the good Grey could do if he could create a vaccine for the Crimson Fever.  Watching him roll the vial between his fingers brought back the memory of Grey’s own glass vial disappearing into the dark canyon below the overlook.

“We’ll go back for your E-Vitamin crystal.  I’m sorry I broke the chain.  It was an accident.  I’ll help you search for it when it’s safe.”

He shook his head.  “That’s not necessary.”

I looked up at him, confused.  “Why?  Will you go back to The University to get more?”

He shook his head.  “I haven’t had E-Vitamin since I was in the hospital after arriving in Hoover.”

I stepped back from him in astonishment.  “You haven’t?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“But, I’ve smelled it on you.  The lemons...” My voice trailed off.

He smiled.  “I’m afraid this sweater will smell like lemons for another hundred years.”

“Don’t you get sick without it?” I said, remembering when I’d first seen him taking a dose and how haggard and tired he’d looked.

He nodded slowly.  “I have been sick off and on over the past several weeks but not as much lately.  It’ll eventually fade for good.”

“How did I not know you were sick?”

He touched my hair, fingering a few strands, then said, “We weren’t seeing much of each other for a little while, remember?”

Flooded with shame, I looked at the floor.  “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry,” I whispered.  An image of him, weak and alone in his house just down the street from my own, filled my mind.  “I should have trusted you.  I was so stupid.”

He touched my chin, bringing my face up to meet his.  “Sometimes you have to question things to find out what you truly believe in.”

“I know what I believe in now,” I assured him.

He smiled.  “I know,” he murmured.

“Why did you stop taking the E-Vitamin?”

He took my hands in his.  “Because I wanted to be with you.  Because it makes me feel closer to you.  By taking the E-Vitamin, I’m holding back part of myself.  It’s like I was planning on moving on after you grow old and leave this body, and that’s not what I want.  You are the most important thing to me, Autumn.  And I want to move through life
with
you, not just beside you while you experience it.”

Grey’s voice was earnest, and his eyes were wide with honesty.  “Besides, life is more precious when it’s not forever.”

He bent his head and touched his warm lips to mine.  Too many thoughts rushed through my head for me to focus.  Grey was going to start aging? 
Had
already started aging?  He had chosen to let his body age and eventually die so he could live a “normal” life with me?  Maybe everything could be normal again.

My heart spread open inside my chest, absorbing everything he said, and swelling with a love for a future now possible.  It felt like I had wings inside.  A bird’s wings, I thought, as I closed my eyes to kiss him back.

He slid his arms around me, holding me tight against him as he kissed me deeply.  All thoughts left my head, and I rose onto my tiptoes to wrap my arms around his neck.  He paused only to hastily whisper, “I love you,
Fòmhair
. I love you, I love you.”  Then pressed his lips to mine again.

Noise from the main part of the store startled us, and we broke apart.  Grey motioned for me to stay where I was, and he moved quietly to the door.  He silently cracked it open, and the noise became louder.  I heard Ben shouting angrily at someone.

“Ben,” I said, pushing past Grey.  Grey grabbed my arm, pulling me behind him and moving into the room cautiously.  A group was huddled around the door to the street.  I pushed through it and saw Ben crouched on the street, his knee in the back of a man lying unconscious in the dirt.  He was tying a rope tightly around the man’s hands.

“Is that Randy, the mechanic?” I asked, stepping closer to the unconscious lump.

“Been chasing this traitor through the hills all night,” Ben said.  “Lost him a while ago and just now saw him through the window, ducking in and out of shadows.  Probably trying to get back to town for something valuable before heading out to find what’s left of The Front.”

“How do you know he’s with The Front?” I asked.

“We’re pretty sure he’s the one who sabotaged the water main.”

I remembered seeing Randy that night Grey and I went to see the main for ourselves.  Something else clicked into place in my mind.  Hanson and Jones worked at the electric plant inside the dam.  The water main was right there next to it.  I looked at Grey and saw he realized the same thing.

I opened my mouth to voice this but heard horses come galloping down the street.  It was a regiment of Hoover Guards.

“It’s over, it’s all over,” one of them called out to us as the group reined in.  “Half of The Front went running back across the dam and fled into Arizona, and the other half has surrendered!”

“You can add this one to your collection of prisoners,” Ben said, nudging Randy with his foot.  “Have you seen Mayor Westland?”

The Guard who’d spoken before answered, his face grim.  “The mayor was murdered when The Front entered town.  I’m told he went down fighting.”

My heart dropped.  I’d interacted with the mayor more in the past few hours than I had since arriving in Hoover, and I’d quickly grown to like him.  I couldn’t believe he was dead.

Ben stood suddenly as a couple of the Guards moved forward to pick up Randy.  I couldn’t see Ben’s face, but his head was bowed.

I spotted Royal, one of the owners of Brothers’ General, toward the back of the group.  I was relieved to see him, even if he wasn’t one of my favorite people.  He’d sailed with Tess to Painter’s Cove.  He was slouched in his saddle and wore a look of defeat, even in victory.  I wove through the horses toward him with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

He shook his head as I approached and, as if he knew what I was going to ask, said, “I’m sorry, Autumn.  Tess didn’t make it.”

I stopped short, still several yards from Royal. I stared at him, begging him with my eyes to tell me it wasn’t true.  He stared back at me with tears welling in his own eyes.  “Manny’s gone, too.  They drowned.  I pulled them both from the water myself.”  His voice cracked with the last word.  Now Royal would be alone in his general store without his brother.

And Tess was gone.  How would we survive at the gardens without her?  She held everyone together and made the place so cheerful with her jokes and laughter.

Royal covered his face with one hand and began to shake quietly.  Grey’s hand touched my arm, and I turned instinctively into his embrace and allowed my face to crumple with anguish.  Why did people keep getting taken away from us?  Life was already so hard in this new world without the friends and family we had left disappearing.

Grey stroked my hair as he held me tight in his arms.  The release of energy brought on by the news kept me crying into Grey’s shirt for several minutes.  I felt weak and powerless.  Anything good we tried to do was immediately ruined.  It was no use to try to fix this world anymore.  Karl had seen to its damnation when he released his virus.  Maybe Grey would take me away to another world like Earth and Andros where we could be happy and hidden from Karl and the atrocity he committed here.

I looked up at Grey to ask him, but his eyes were far away, looking out over Lake Mead.  I wiped my nose and took a shuddering breath.  “Grey?”

“It’s my fault,” he said quietly.  “All the people that died here tonight.  It’s my fault Karl came here.”

I stared at him.  The breeze felt cold on my tear-streaked face.

“He found out who I was and started sending people up here to sabotage anything and everything I was a part of.  To make me feel like I didn’t belong, to separate me from the group, to make them not want me here.  The missing medicine on the trip to Las Vegas?  The broken radio?  They were messages to me.”

I pulled the neck of my shirt up over my face and wiped my cheeks free of tears.  Then I said sternly, “No, he needs the dam to hold LA.  He would have come here whether or not you were here.  You are part of the reason so many of us survived today.”

Grey looked at me suddenly, his eyes bright with understanding.  “This is much bigger than we ever thought it could be.  Karl said he was everywhere.”

A dawning realization broke across me as the implications slowly uncoiled into my mind.

“I need to check something.  Would you like to come with me?” Grey asked quietly.

I nodded.  He looked up and down the dark street.  It had emptied while he consoled me.  He led me around the corner between the buildings, pulled me close to him, and pressed my face into his chest.  A cold wind suddenly enveloped us, and chills broke out all over my body.  I gasped, the freezing air burning my throat and lungs.  I opened my eyes.

It was snowing.  Steel gray clouds hung low and still in the mid-morning sky.  We were high up, and the landscape below us was covered with buildings I didn’t recognize.  I stepped toward the metal railing in front of me and looked out over the city.  I looked back at Grey to ask where we were, and the words caught in my mouth at the sight behind him.  My head followed as my eyes trailed up the steel length of the tower reaching into the dark clouds, as if it were supporting the sky.  The Eiffel Tower.  The real Eiffel Tower, not the smaller replica in Las Vegas we’d just stood on yesterday.  We were in Paris.