Текст книги "The Variables"

Автор книги: Shelbi Wescott

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The captain warned them it would be an intense landing. He said it as a throwaway comment, with the same intonation he had used to declare the cruising altitude. Yet when he brought the plane down on to the stretch of Maine coastline, the crazy, bumpy descent made her confident that her fate was sealed. Every movie or TV show with a plane crash ran on repeat in her head. This was how those scenes looked: overhead compartments popping open, people bracing for impact, excessive bouncing and shaking.

Lucy would never have a chance to live out her actions in Cass’s tarot cards. She would die right here in a fiery ball of twisted metal and burning flesh. Everything in her line of vision blurred as the plane shook and rattled and approached the long stretch of beach and the short stretch of a temporary runway with acceleration, not a decrease of speed.

“He trained for this,” her father reminded her. “You’re okay.”

But Lucy was not okay.

The wheels touched down, but only briefly before the plane shot up again, and then jerked back down. Lucy held on to the seat in front of her and braced for impact. An intense whoosh passed through the cabin and Lucy looked out the window to her right—she realized the ocean was right outside, swirling by in a blur.

When the plane came to a stop, those sitting in the emergency rows yanked open the doors and deployed the bright yellow slides. With her anxiety climbing, Lucy felt like she wanted to hit something, but she had spent the entire plane ride sitting next to a snoring Galen, and hitting him seemed mean-spirited.

“Okay, Kings,” Maxine called in her take-charge voice. “Let’s all stay together. Big kids help the little kids off the plane.” Big kids help the little kids. The motto of their family—it was always Ethan, Lucy, and Galen assuming responsibility for Malcolm, Monroe, and Harper. Galen let the twins slip ahead of him as they made a beeline for the slide. Lucy looked for Harper, but her mother was already holding tight to the girl’s hand. Ethan was busy with Teddy, packing up his acquired belongings: a toy car, a stuffed hippopotamus, and a collection of books. Blair had packed every toy, blanket, stuffed animal she had procured for him. Of everyone on the plane, Teddy had the most things. Allison lurked behind Ethan, grabbing the extra bags and looking altogether useless.

“You coming with me?” Cass asked and Lucy nodded, relieved to have the companionship. “I’ll wait for you.” Cass waited her turn in the line of people disembarking the plane, and then swung down on to the inflated slide, holding her bag in her lap as she went.

Lucy hesitated at the door and felt the push of the people behind her. She realized too late that she had picked a bad day to wear a dress, and yet she jumped, sliding down until she reached the sandy bottom. Slipping off her shoes, Lucy stood and wiggled her toes. Sand. The sand was cold and wet against her foot, the grains rubbed in between her toes. Tucking her bag into her body, Lucy looked up.

Looming in front of her, to the left of the plane, was an amusement park. An abandoned Ferris wheel sat unmoving, its carriages drifting back and forth in the wind. A steel rollercoaster peeked above a red and white circus tent. The strong gusts of coastal wind whipped through the tent and pieces of it flapped angrily against the sides. Lucy walked forward, drawn to the park by some invisible string, her mouth agape. A giant collection of swings danced and creaked from a carousel. Nothing looked gloomier than the paint-chipped clowns and empty carnival game stands; stuffed animals dangling ownerless for the rest of time. Lucy took another step toward the park, and kept her eyes trained on the motionless rides. In the not too distant past, this was a place of laughter and mirth.

It reminded Lucy of an old friend from elementary school whose family moved away quite suddenly. Maxine took Lucy over to their apartment to check on them and they found the apartment abandoned and trashed. In one of the back bedrooms, a place where Lucy had played with her friend for hours, they found a half-empty toy box. Inside: a half-dressed Barbie doll that had undergone a haircut. Lucy remembered playing Barbies with her friend, but seeing that doll—alone, dirty, left behind—made Lucy sad. It wasn’t right to have to leave without your toys; it wasn’t right to abandon something that had once been so well loved.

The carnival made her sad for the same reasons.

Lucy heard Cass whistle. She turned. No more than a hundred yards in front of the plane was a pier. It jutted out into the water, waves lapped against its barnacled posts. She gulped. Had their pilot not stopped the plane exactly on that stretch of runway, they would have run right into the raised platform, splintering the wood and sending the whole jetty crashing into the ocean. Lucy’s eyes were on the pier and the amusement park in her periphery when she followed Cass’s gaze.

It was not the pier or the towering rollercoasters that attracted her attention.

No, Cass had wandered down the beach, away from the disembarking travelers, and she was looking outward into the ocean. As the waves rolled in, the sun passing by overhead, Lucy caught a glimpse of a tower out at sea. It rose and then disappeared. Its top was present for a second, then gone. Occasionally she could see other little mounds, which looked like glass rocks in the distance, but after peering further, she realized the mounds were connected to the middle area. Little dots of white twinkles shone brightly from the tower, lit up like a Christmas tree and acting as a beacon to the weary travelers.

“Is that Kymberlin?” Lucy asked when she reached Cass on the beach. She realized that this must have been how Dorothy felt when she first spied the glimmering beauty of the Emerald City. Huck’s crowning achievement was majestic.

Cass nodded, her eyes wide.

Lucy held her shoes behind her back and stood on her tiptoes to see. Then she walked forward, absorbing the distinguishing details of this city on the sea. It had a mirage quality to it: a dreamlike appearance. It was as if it could have been tangible or a hallucination, all at once.

“It doesn’t look real,” Lucy said. “It’s so...futuristic. How could anyone not notice this thing cropping up in their backyard?”

“It’s real,” Cass answered. Then she turned to Lucy, “People believe what you tell them. Conspiracy theorists are shot down as wackos. If the news tells you it’s a scientific station to study wave energy, then you don’t wonder why the military is involved. Why boats that got close were lost at sea...”

“No way,” Lucy shook her head. “I didn’t hear about any of that.”

Cass shrugged. “Of course not.”

“It’s not that far away.”

Cass turned and shook her head, her braids drifting across her back. “It’s very far away. The land gives the illusion that it’s closer than it is. But don’t be fooled, Lucy. Huck might want comfort for his handpicked population, but he certainly doesn’t want them capable of leaving the Islands.” Then, without saying anything else, she turned and left Lucy alone on the beach.

From the distance, Lucy could hear the chop chop chop of a helicopter approaching. She scanned the sky and noticed several small black dots drifting toward the beach, their trajectory aimed straight at the medium sized plane marooned on the white stretch of sand. People began to gather and point, excited murmurs carried on the wind, but Lucy kept her eyes focused forward on the lights in the distance.

Everyone else from Lucy’s plane had stayed close to the landing site, and she could hear her mother calling for her to come back, but Lucy tuned her out and tried to focus on the sound of the waves. She let the roar of the ocean pour over her as she looked out at the tower of Kymberlin: her new home.

They had been the fourth plane to arrive. A caravan of helicopters transported them from the beach to Kymberlin. And when the helicopters landed them atop the north tower, they traveled down a glass elevator straight into the middle of a welcome party. Lucy was hyper-aware of everything; she wanted to take it all in so she could tell Grant later. The helipad had a singular entrance and exit, and the elevator went from the exposed roof straight down into a common area without stopping. It was visible and public. All of it. Every piece, every corner of Kymberlin was glass and windows and dangling crystal chandeliers.

When Lucy and her family exited the elevator, cheers erupted and several people rushed forward to welcome them home. Music pumped out into the open foyer and men in white suits raced around serving small plates of appetizers. Lucy stumbled backward and clutched her bag in front of her as a man passed by with food. She saw her mother look over to her father with a huge smile on her face, and he beamed at her, puffed up with pride.

The waiters were bringing them food they hadn’t had in a long time: caviar, aged cheeses, fresh fruit, and champagne. The music and the energy were warm and inviting, and even Lucy felt her defenses melting. It was a party. A party for the new arrivals. The light and the smiling faces caused Lucy to feel like she had arrived at some exotic resort—maybe the last two months had been a dream, maybe she awoke and her family was on their Seychelles vacation after all.

Then Lucy saw Teddy clutching Ethan’s hand, his face scanning everyone who walked by in hopes of spotting his mother, and her heart sank. Amidst the party atmosphere, they could not escape the reality of their situation. They were here because others weren’t. They were here on the backs of the dead. And there was Teddy, searching among the survivors for a face he would never find. It had been stupid for Ethan to give the boy a shred of hope.

Not long after, the nanny and Ethan engaged in a tense verbal battle that ended with Allison carting Teddy away, struggling under the wiggling child and the burden of their baggage. Ethan, his body rigid with anger, watched the child disappear through the crowd. Lucy wished she had words of comfort to offer him. She wished he would stop being so angry with her.

Lucy wandered away from her family and tried to get a better feel for Kymberlin’s layout. She walked to the center of the common room and realized that it wrapped all the way around in a loop and the middle of the loop was hollow. The center of the tower was equipped with four elevators that ran vertically up the levels. She peered down and saw that the structure itself was comprised of twenty or more stories, each with its own open layout; some of the levels were labeled as shops, and one entire floor was a library, but Lucy couldn’t see beyond the first few floors down.

It reminded Lucy of a mall in downtown Portland; it was built straight up, maneuverable by a series of escalators, and if you stood on the top level and looked down, the shoppers moving around below appeared tiny and indistinguishable; little blobs of bustling people. She had heard about a man plummeting to his death off the top floor of the mall when she was very little, and the story stuck with her. Every time her mother took her to the mall, she would travel up the climbing escalators with a real and terrible sense of her own mortality.

Lucy realized with a growing pit in her stomach that it would not take much for someone to stand atop the guardrail and plunge down through the center of the tower of Kymberlin. The thought made Lucy queasy. She leaned and tried to see what lay at the bottom, but she felt a firm hand on her back before she could get a glance. She yelped and jumped back, afraid of reprimand and frightened by the sudden appearance of someone so close to her.

She turned and saw Cass’s dad standing next to her.

“It’s a long fall,” Claude told her, but without the warning tone she was anticipating.

“What’s at the bottom?” she asked.

“Like the floor of a glass-bottomed boat. Like you are walking on water.”

Lucy nodded. “It’s...”

“A stunning piece of architecture, yes.”

She saw the twinkle in Claude’s eye and she nodded again. “It reminds me of this mall back home.”

Claude flinched and drew a sharp breath through his teeth. The reference had offended him, and Lucy blushed. Comparing his masterpiece to a shopping mall.

“I always thought of it more as a piece of art.” He looked up and scanned the crowd and then put a hand on Lucy’s back, pushing her toward the growing party. “Go, enjoy. There’s plenty of time to stare off into the abyss. It’s a welcome party for you, is it not?”

She walked away from Claude, leaving him standing near the railing, and he watched her walk back toward her family. She surveyed the other people milling around with wan, tired smiles plastered on their faces. As more people arrived, everyone showed an exuberance of warmth and glee.

A man walked by carrying a platter with bubbling champagne, and Lucy swiped one swiftly. She sucked it down and deposited the empty glass on a nearby table. A different man walked by and Lucy swiped a second glass. But it was the third glass that drew Maxine’s attention, like she had a beacon in place for her daughter’s misbehavior. She stormed over, her eyes honed in on the glass in Lucy’s hand. Under her mother’s watchful stare, Lucy made a gallant show of grabbing a fourth glass and gulping the bubbly liquid down before Maxine took a swipe. She drank half the glass before her mother wrestled the alcohol away from her.

“Excuse me,” Maxine hissed. “Let’s not meddle with poor choices today.” She had Harper by the hand, and the child pulled her toward a chocolate fountain. “I’m serious,” she added, as if her tone hadn’t conveyed enough conviction. Then in a show of mental fortitude, Maxine, without breaking eye contact, finished Lucy’s glass of champagne and handed her daughter back the empty flute.

“Ha!” Lucy guffawed, a smooth and warm sensation spreading from her chest to her arms. She pointed at her mother, a wiggly index finger, and felt a surge of confidence. “We’re here. It’s a party...for us.” She hiccupped. And smiled. “Just because I did that doesn’t mean I’m drunk.”

“Remember that you live with me,” Maxine said, and she stumbled a few more feet at Harper’s behest. “Wise choices,” she reiterated before turning her back, shooting her daughter a scornful stare.

Lucy watched a tall member of the wait staff waltz by her, and she eyed another glass of champagne, but she let it disappear into the crowd. Standing tall, Lucy watched the crowd ebb and flow; there were faces that she recognized mixed with faces that she didn’t. The elevator dinged, the glass doors opened, and the crowd cheered as more people disembarked. Their hair was ratted and their clothes dingy, but each wore a smile as they walked out through the throngs of Kymberlin residents.

A young man, tall and blond, with a slender build and a high forehead, raised his glass in a toast, and those who had gathered clinked their glasses together in a salute. It was then Lucy noticed Huck and Gordy, huddled together near the edge of the room, watching the people with satisfied smiles. Huck leaned over and whispered something to his son, and Gordy nodded in the affirmative. Then the older man disappeared—slipping out through the partiers relatively unnoticed.

Lucy spun and tried to focus her eyes. Leading outward from the tower were four long sky bridges expanding out over the ocean. Those bridges connected to the mounds Lucy had spotted from the shore. They were enclosed and made of glass; as she watched Huck walk down the bridge, it looked as though he walked on nothing at all. Like walking on water, Claude had said. Like walking on air, Lucy thought.

She felt a nudge and turned, expecting to see one of her brothers, but it was Cass who stood holding a champagne flute in her hand, her other hand draped over her waist. She looked at Lucy expectantly, her eyebrows raised.

“Hello there my little Lark,” Cass said. “So? Thoughts?”

Lucy hiccupped. She frowned. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Cass laughed. She threw her head back and giggled. “Really? Already? We’ve only just arrived.”

“It’s just all the,” she hiccupped again, “bubbles.”

“Of course.” Cass laughed again and put a hand on Lucy’s bicep. “The bubbles. Of course.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “You ready to ditch this place? See my place?”

Lucy turned. “You have your own place?”

Cass nodded. “Bein sûr, ami.”

“Then why do I have to live with my parents?” Lucy asked with a hiccup. She wondered where Grant would live, since he didn’t have parents. Maybe he’d have roommates again. She hoped that he would also have his own place and that she could join him; she let her thoughts linger on how good it would feel to have a place of their own, just the two of them. Then she shook the thought away. She’d have to get him here first, and then she could spend time dreaming of hours alone in his apartment with an ocean view.

“You get your own apartment at twenty-two. The rules of Huck. It’s an arbitrary number...one that happens to benefit me.” She held her glass in one hand and grabbed Lucy’s hand with the other, pulling her toward one of the sky bridges. With one last look behind them, they left the crowd and journeyed onward, venturing along the enclosed walkway. The ocean floated by underneath their feet.

“It’s all glass,” Lucy said breathlessly. She watched her feet glide forward, suspended high above the waves. “It makes me feel...”

“Like you’re flying?”

“No.” She stopped and rested her hand along the transparent wall—nothing but horizon on either side.

“This way,” Cass said and she motioned for Lucy to follow. They tripped along, reaching the end and finding themselves in a small lobby with six doors. Each door opened to a different descending staircase. Cass pushed on door number five, and then they clomped down the stairs. The walls of the stairwell were transparent as well. Lucy looked up and stifled a shocked gasp. She could see several other people moving in adjacent stairwells across the way.

“We’re in the ocean,” Lucy said as she followed Cass downward. They paused on a landing and the water licked the wall beside them. Tiny collections of seaweed and foam pushed against the glass. She half-expected to see a shark fin swim by. “On the ocean. In the ocean. We’re on the ocean. In the ocean.”

With a laugh, Cass nodded. “Oh my darling, Lucy. Will you be okay?”

“The world is gone, all the people are gone, and we’re here on the ocean. An island...an island in the ocean.”

“He wants the earth to heal,” Cass replied. “So, he took the people from the earth and sent them to sea.” She opened the door and pushed it wide. In front of them was a long hallway, similar to the design of the System. As Lucy followed Cass, she felt like she was walking in a hallway of a moving hotel; the floor underneath her swayed. She blinked and took a gulp of cold air.

“Is it moving?” Lucy asked.

“Darling, that’s the champagne,” Cass said. She reached a door and pointed with a wide smile. “Look.” Her name, Cassandra Salvant, was written in a flowery script and engraved into a brass nameplate. She reached into her pocket and produced a silver key. Slipping the key into the lock and then turning the knob, Cass swung the door open. They walked inside.

The lights of the apartment were on a motion sensor and they engaged, filling the room with a low, warm, glow. The far wall was glass, like the sky bridge and the stairwell. Outside, the horizon was growing darker as the sun set out of their sight. Lucy walked forward and stared at the endless expanse of water just beyond the wall. The wall itself was a giant window—Lucy felt like she could just walk straight through and step into the ocean, like nothing would stop her.

“I feel so...exposed,” Lucy said. She looked at the rest of the room. A kitchen and a sunken living room with a sofa, a credenza against the shared wall, and a bookshelf filled with Cass’s favorites. To the left of the kitchen, in a small nook, was a queen-sized bed. It was covered in a tan comforter and bright orange pillows. There were cut flowers on a two-person kitchen table and Cass let her fingers slide over the petals. Real flowers. She leaned to inhale their sweet aroma.

“I’m going to change,” Cass announced, and she slid her shirt off over her head and tossed it on to her bed.

Lucy put her bag down on the floor and walked to the glass wall in front of her. She could see Cass’s reflection to her side, slipping out of her pants and going through a small dresser for suitable replacements. She pulled out black sweats and a black hoodie, and laughed. Lucy turned.

Cass held the clothing out and dangled them. An emblem was stitched on the right thigh. It had intertwining circles with ivy growing around them and in big block letters across the top: Kymberlin.

“We’ve been issued matching sweatpants?” Lucy asked incredulously and she started to walk toward Cass, to inspect the clothes closer, but she stopped. Visible across Cass’s right side was a dark, purple bruise. Even against her already dark skin, the discoloration was striking. Across her abdomen and up her arms were deep scratches: four long lines etched from her breasts to her stomach.

Cass followed Lucy’s gaze and bit her lip. “Don’t—”

“You never showed me.”

“He cracked a rib. Punched me so many times in the side...like he knew it would hurt the most. Hunter did.” She said his name forcefully. “Hunter,” she said again as if she wanted to lay claim to it. “The other one scratched me...touched me...”

“The other one?” Lucy paused. Hunter’s name had been the only one that ever came up—Cass had never mentioned a second attacker.

“No,” Cass said and she put her hand up. “He knows he was spared. His friend paid the cost for their actions...I couldn’t...”

“Cass!” Lucy rushed forward and hugged her friend with a spontaneous burst of emotion. “I’m so sorry.” She stepped back and tried not to cry.

Cass squeezed her friend’s shoulder and then blew her a kiss with her free hand. “Thank you, but I am fine. Really. I mean…I’ll be fine…it will all be fine.”

“Why did they do it?” Lucy asked. “Why did they hurt you?”

It took a long time for Cass to reply. But when she did, her voice was smooth and calm. “Because they could not hurt the people they were truly mad at,” Cass noted with a nod. She tugged the sweatshirt on over her body and pulled the pants up over her legs; emblem-clad and comfortable, she leaned backward on her bed and stared upward at the ceiling. “All of this, all of it...it’s beautiful.”

Lucy stayed quiet. She looked out the window again, the ocean slipped into the darkness of the evening—the area outside the window nothing more than a black abyss.

“You don’t agree?” Cass asked.

And Lucy sat down on the edge of the bed next to her friend. “It’s beautiful,” she agreed. “It’s a beautiful disaster.”

Lucy left Cass alone in her new apartment and traveled back down the hallway, up the stairwell, across the sky bridge, and back into the welcome party. The effects of her drinking had already started to wane and her head pounded with the threat of a full-scale headache. She scanned the circles of people but did not recognize anyone from her family. A raucous group toward the main elevator to the helipad attempted to cajole her participation in a getting-to-know-your-neighbors game, but Lucy declined and scooted her way to a table against the wall where a woman whose nametag read Miao sat under a sign that read “Ask me about your new home!”

“Good evening,” Miao said. “May I help you find your apartment?” She nodded toward a binder.

“I’m Lucy King,” Lucy said. “I think my family might have already left...”

“Of course, Lucy.” Miao smiled. She didn’t even glance down at her binder. “You are in the executive suites. Sky Bridge 2, landing 4. You’ll find your family’s nameplate on the western side. Would you like me to page a guide?” She put her hand on the table near a small walkie-talkie.

Lucy shook her head, mumbled a thank you, and ducked through the crowd again. She followed Miao’s instructions—floating along Sky Bridge 2, venturing down the steps to the fourth landing—and then scanning the nameplates, she found her family’s new home. The hallway looked identical to Cass’s, but when Lucy knocked on the door and was let in by a sulking Galen, she realized that all apartments on Kymberlin were not created equal.

Theirs was a three-story collection of rooms, with open metal winding staircases leading from one area to another. Like the other apartments, the far wall was all glass and looked out over the ocean. However, they were further up, above sea level, the water licking below them and disappearing out of sight.

From the second story, Lucy could hear Ethan’s voice gaining momentum and intensity. She looked to Galen who mouthed fighting before he slipped down the metal staircase to the lower level. Angling her body just below the exposed loft of their third floor, Lucy tried to listen, but she couldn’t hear everything. So, instead, she walked steadily up the stairs, until she could see her mother, father, and Ethan huddled in an open area. Their voices carried down to her, and she listened to every word.

“Mom, you’re wrong about this. Dead wrong. And I’m not fighting with you. He belongs with me and that’s final. If you’re unwilling to go to battle for me and Teddy, then I’m done.” Ethan paced along the room. He looked at the floor, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans.

“This is not up for debate,” Scott told his son. “If you think we have any power here, you are wrong. Blair has Teddy. And that’s final.”

“That child belongs with me,” Ethan snapped. “How could you just let him go to her without a fight? How could you just hand him over like he was someone’s lost dog? That child is mine. And he will be mine. Or...”

“Or what?” Scott asked, exasperated. “I’ve used every last token of goodwill and favors.”

“Furthermore,” Maxine interjected, “you have no more claim to him than Blair. Let’s not split hairs here, Ethan. That child is an orphan and if Blair can offer him a warm home...”

“Teddy is my responsibility.”

“Well, Ethan,” Maxine replied, “that’s great that you’ve decided to suddenly step up and assume some sort of misguided quest for fatherhood, but where were you when Teddy was having night terrors or wetting the bed? Where were you when he wanted you and you wouldn’t say a damn word? I’m sorry, son, but we don’t think Teddy is best with you. You’re just a kid yourself—”

“This is ridiculous...Blair isn’t even here! She’s hired a nanny to watch Teddy. She’s calling him Theo. Can’t you even see? Can’t you even understand?”

“Could you stop? Remember what you’re up against. Huck will win this battle, and you would be wise to let him,” his father added.

Ethan stopped pacing. He hung his head. Lucy rested against the railing.

When he finally straightened up to look at his parents, Lucy could see the defiance in his shoulders and the heavy rise and fall of anger rolling up and down his back. Under his breath, he hissed out an angry expletive and turned toward the staircase. He walked out of the loft and to the stairs and worked his way down the spiral steps: his good leg, his prosthetic leg, his good leg, his prosthetic leg. When he saw Lucy, his nostrils flared and he pushed his mouth tight.

“Move,” he demanded.

“What can I do?” Lucy asked. Her mouth was dry and her words caught in her throat. “I’m sorry. I’ll do anything.”

Ethan scoffed. “Maybe that’s the one thing you should stop. Just stop trying to do anything to help. Because if you haven’t figured it out yet, you’re not helping anybody.” His words stung, and Lucy bit her lip to hold back the tears. He slid past her and stormed out of the house, and slammed the door behind him.

Lucy looked up and saw her parents staring at her with interest.

“Taking up eavesdropping as one of your party tricks?” Maxine asked with disdain.

“Stop, Maxine,” Scott chastised. He looked down at Lucy softly. “We were worried you wouldn’t find your way.”

Moving up another rung, Lucy wiped her eyes. “Where do I sleep?” she asked in a quiet voice. She was grateful for her father’s tenderness.

Maxine pointed to her left. Lucy followed her mother’s directions and walked the rest of the way up the stairs. Off of the loft, there was a small bedroom with a twin bed and a chest of drawers. She was certain if she opened the drawers she would find her own pair of Kymberlin-issued sweatpants, but she was too tired and logy to see for herself. She collapsed onto her bed and sat there for a long time pondering her brother’s words. Then she shut the door to block out her parents, who were still speaking in hushed tones. Achy and weepy, Lucy’s hand went to her neck and she felt around for Salem’s cross. When she found her neck bare, she realized with a mixture of sadness and relief that Grant had the necklace around his own neck now. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what he was doing back at the System without her. All of the inhabitants, except for those bound for Copia, had left. It must be strange underground with the empty halls, the barren apartments, she thought.

Then she groaned and slapped her palm against her forehead.

Her bag.

She had left it at Cass’s apartment.

Her letter from Grant—the one she was supposed to read her first night away from him—was stranded. She put her sandals back on and walked back out into the loft, past her parents.

“Where do you think you’re going?” her mother asked, moving between Lucy and the staircase.

“To Cass’s. I left my stuff there.”

“Get it in the morning,” Maxine told her and she pointed back toward Lucy’s new room.

“No,” Lucy said. Her voice shook and she was worried that she would burst into tears at any moment. “Grant gave me a letter to read my first night. I have to read it. I can’t leave it until the morning. I promised I would read it.”

Her mother rolled her eyes, but she stepped to the side. “Goodness, Lucy Larkspur. Please be quick.”