Chapter Twenty-Six – Lucy

 

I hugged myself in the elevator as I looked up at the little digital readout, the number slowly ticking up by one each time we passed another floor. The elevator continued to lift us higher into the heavens over Shamrock, wheeling us higher and higher on its winch system. She was on nearly the top floor, high enough up in the medical tower that Carter and I had both agreed that the stair-step sprint was a little ridiculous. Even for us.

Only five more to go, then we’d be at Amber’s floor. I sucked in a sharp breath as I turned from the display and walked to the back of the elevator.

“You doing okay?” Carter asked. He was leaned against the back center of the elevator, his hands resting on the waist-high bar that extended around on all edges.

“Antsy,” I replied, chewing my lower lip for a second as I stopped next to him. “You trust Tabitha? To be able to help Amber, I mean.”

He nodded at first. Then he shrugged. “I trust her to do her best.”

I don’t know what it was. Maybe the stress of the last day finally becoming too much? Perhaps it could have been that I’d just been wound so tightly, and, now that we knew what was going on, I could finally relax a little. Drop this facade I’d been keeping up.

But my lower lip began to tremble, and I realized I was beginning to tear up.

“Hey,” Carter said, reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder.

I swallowed hard as I turned my face from his, made a token effort to brush his hand off. “I’ll be fine,” I said, the tears entering into my voice as I continued struggling to hold them back. “I’m fine.”

“It’s okay,” he said, leaning down to look into my eyes. “You know that, right? You’ve been strong this whole time, and seen more than enough to make anyone question their sanity.”

I sniffled and turned away. “It’s just been so damned hard. And to think, we still might not save her.”

“We’re going to try, though,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “Sometimes, that’s all we can do. Put our whole body, mind, and soul into the effort of it. And, yeah, you’re right, sometimes it doesn’t work. But a lot of times, it does. That’s why we keep going. Hear me?”

I nodded, wiped the heel of my hand across an eye. “Yeah. I just wish I could’ve done more. That I could’ve saved more.”

“More?” he asked, and I could hear the laughter in his voice. “You did more than I did. You broke this case wide open. I may have put in the last piece, but you assembled the rest of the puzzle.”

I turned back to him, smiling a little as I tilted my face up to his.

“Of course I know that. We make a pretty good team.”

Suddenly, I realized just how close we were standing to each other in the empty elevator. How big and welcoming his body seemed, especially this close, even with his ill-fitting clothes he’d borrowed. I broke our gaze, my eyes flickering down to his lips for a moment, and I wondered idly if they felt as soft as they looked. Or were they as hard and unyielding as the rest of his body?

No, something deep inside me told me they were soft. And that, for whatever reason, they’d match perfectly to mine.

We were leaning in to each other before I realized what was happening, and our arms were wrapping around each other, pulling us together as we seemed to melt into one being. I closed my eyes, enjoyed this moment I’d told myself wouldn’t happen. Enjoyed this flash in the pan of joy, before the hard work came again once that elevator door opened.

God, I was right. They were soft. So soft. Even his beard seemed less bristly than it looked as it brushed over my upper lip. And his arms were somehow even stronger than I’d imagined, holding me steady against his chest as my knees wobbled and melted, nearly knocking together as I went weak.

The elevator shuddered to a stop just before it let out a low, single-note tone, and the doors began to open, breaking us apart at the same time.

We were both breathing heavily, and my heart seemed to pound in my chest. More heavily than when, together, we’d run up the stairs to my office. More heavily, probably, than we would have been if we’d run all the flights up here.

Smiling, he reached down and grabbed my hand. “Come on,” he said in a husky voice as he gently squeezed. “Let’s get Amber.”

We turned to leave the elevator, only to see a small group of smirking hospital staff, two female doctors from the looks of their white coats, and two male nurses. One of the two doctors, an older-looking woman, swiftly looked down at the clipboard in front of her, tried to hide her expression.

Carter and I moved past them as we left. As we did, I swore I heard one of the doctors whisper, “Damn, girl! Good job!”

Blushing, I tried to hide my face as we turned right and headed down the hallway.

I always hated coming up here. Having to see the stricken faces of the ill, of the people who might have been spending their last few hours with their loved ones. Now, though, it just reminded me of Cassidy. Of the times we’d come up here together on one of his days off, after my own work day had ended, to see Amber and her mother.

I know it should have been sad. But, somehow, it wasn’t. Because I was here, I guess, partially in his memory. Following through on the promises he and I had both made through our actions on the 15th of November three years ago. That we’d try to protect this girl, try to ensure she had a good life.

“It’s down here on the left,” I said, fighting back the urge to grab his hand again, as we walked through the ward. We came to a stop in front of her room, a completely private one with no window from the hall. I pressed down the little lever handle and pushed the wide, heavy door open, stuck my head through the crack. “Amber?”

No response.

My breath quickened immediately, and the hair on my arms prickled. This wasn’t good. No, this was the worst possible outcome I could imagine. Phillip Winters and his bastard rats had gotten here first! They’d gotten to her before Carter and I could manage it, had somehow spirited her away!

“Amber?” I asked again, this time more loudly and with an edge of panic as I pushed open the door and went into her room, Carter following hot on my heels. “Hello?”

The room was empty. The linens on her hospital bed were thrown back, the sheets crumpled, the blanket half hanging off the bed, her pillows stacked haphazardly against the headboard. In my panicked state, it was like she’d disappeared in a rush, been swept off the face of the earth.

“Amber?” I called, this time more loudly, nearly shouting.

“Lucy, calm down—” he started to say.

“Amber!” I called again.

“Lucy?” came a faint, weak voice from the bathroom. “Lucy? What’re you doing here?”

“That’s what I was trying to say,” Carter said quietly. “She’s in the bathroom.”

I breathed out a sigh of relief as Amber flushed the toilet. “Sorry,” I replied, my shoulders immediately loosening as I slumped down onto the bed, slumped forward and cradled my face in my hands. “God, we actually made it in time. We actually did it. We got here first.”

Carter came over, put a hand on my back. “Now, we just need to get her out of here.”

Amber came out of the bathroom, a smile growing on her face as she looked back and forth between me and Carter. “What are you doing here, Lucy? You should’ve said you were going to come by—I would’ve made sure Mom was here.”

The disease, and its treatments, had stripped Amber of her youthful vitality long before age had had a chance to do the same. Her skin had an unhealthy pallor, and she wore a bright blue bandana tied over her bald head like a babushka. But, still, you could see that the disease hadn’t broken her spirit, and her eyes shone out of her face like two stars: twinkling, glittering.

“It’s a surprise,” I replied, getting up from the edge of the bed and going to her.

“Who’s this?” she asked as I embraced her frail form as tightly as I could without worrying about hurting her.

“This,” I said as I broke the hug, but kept my hands planted on her shoulders, “is Carter. And he’s taking us on a road trip to his cabin. Get you some fresh mountain air before it gets too cold.”

She looked me right in the eyes, blinked her big, dark eyes two times. Methodical, confused blinks, like I’d just slapped her in the face. “But I have a round of treatments tomorrow. Mom would kill me.”

“Honey,” I said, “Amber, sweetie, you gotta come with us. Okay?”

“What’re you—?”

“Amber,” I said. “Do you trust me to protect you?”

She nodded. “Yeah, Lucy, of course I do. You know that.”

“Hey, Amber?” Carter asked from the bed. “Do you have any clothes we can bring with us?”

“Over there,” she said, pointing to a small set of drawers in the corner. She pressed her lips together, narrowed her eyes as she turned to me. “What’s…what’s really going on here, Lucy? Is this about Cassidy or something?”

“Just…” I paused as I looked to Carter, to how he was already methodically packing up clothes for the young woman. How he’d found a job, no matter how small, and bent his back to it. Because he understood what it meant to have a mission. I turned back to Lucy. “Remember how you asked me yesterday? About whether I thought there was a heaven? If I thought there were actually angels?”

“Yeah,” she said, a strong current of uncertainty running through her words, “I remember.”

“Well,” I said with a nod, “I think there might be. Okay? I know this sounds crazy, but there are bigger things going on in the world than either of us understands. And, I don’t know why, but it’s dropped into our laps. Do you understand?”

Some kind of light deep inside of Lucy’s eyes seemed to, I don’t know, brighten. Seemed to truly come alive inside of her. She licked her dry and cracked lips, seemed to smile a little. “So it’s really real? What I saw was real?”

Hands still on her shoulders, I turned my head a little, giving her a sidelong glance. “Amber? Are you okay? What was real? What’s going on?”

She giggled as she looked down at the floor, brought her knuckle up to her mouth and bit down. “Remember the night of the fire? The tree lighting?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding a little.

She glanced towards Carter before leaning forward, close enough so she probably thought only I could hear. I knew better, of course. “I saw something that night,” she whispered. “A giant, burning bird that landed on the tree. I’ve never told anyone, though, because I knew they’d think I was cuckoo.”

I drew back, smiling a little as I gave her shoulders the tiniest amount of pressure.

“Was it real?” she asked, her eyes seeming to dance for joy in their sockets. “Was it really real?”

I nodded, smiling. “Yes, it was.” I nodded towards Carter, who’d bundled up some of Amber’s clothes and stacked them on her unmade hospital bed. “Honey, I’ll explain everything. But we’ve got to go. Now.”

“You gonna be up for that?” Carter asked. “Getting down there by yourself?”

“Yeah,” Amber replied with a nod. “I mean, I think so.” She reached up, grabbed hold of my arm. “As long as Lucy helps a little bit, here and there. You will, won’t you?”

“Of course I will,” I said, my lips pressed firmly together. “Now let’s get out of here.”