Free Glow by Anya Monroe Page B

leaves her bones. “And yes, I mean, belong with the people here. They accept me for who I am. Not what I can do for them.”
    Basil snorts, and eyes me with concern. “Well, they’re expecting you to deliver them from a hard life. Everyone wants the resources The Light has, Nobleman. I mean, I get it, I was there. Now I know what it feels like to have clean blankets and a warm shower and fresh food. These people are looking at this opportunity to go as arriving at Utopia or something.” She shakes her head at me. 
    “If that’s all they want, Basil, they would have gone before. Why now?”
    “Because now your parents and Reagan -- all the leaders-- have gone rogue. They’re desperate. Besides, The Light won’t take boys over twelve years old. But your new plan and leadership is changing that. You’re offering them a free pass to paradise.”
    “Why are you telling me this, just to upset me?” I look at her, the girl I saved, risked my life for. She’s trying to kill my sudden sense of purpose, my reprieve from being a slave and finally thinking I have a shot at being the one in charge.
    “I’m not trying to upset you, Lukas. I read the book about your light and being a Rainbow Child. I accept it as truth. I just think it isn’t always about people believing. Sometimes people do things out of desperation.” As she finishes speaking, Colton comes over to us, smiling, as usual. His good mood kills the heavy tone, and I’m grateful.
    “Why so serious, Basil? This could be the night of your life, darling! Come, dance with me!” She laughs at him over the top bravado, but doesn’t protest when he grabs her around the waist and throws her over his shoulder.
    “I’m going to kill you, Colton!” she squeals. She’s hanging over Colton’s shoulder as he drags her off, but I catch her considering me as she goes. I look away, not wanting her to ruin my night. Because this is the night of my life, too.
     

26.
     
    Lucy
     
    Waking before the girls, I slip outside and am greeted by the brisk morning air. Birds chirp overhead, the weather boasting blue skies, and I breathe in deep at the sight around me. My parents would roll over in their graves if they saw this.
    I mean, if they were in graves.
    Still, it’s shocking to see the landscape that for so much of my life was blank, now littered with sleeping bodies, horses, the remains of a party. I don’t belong here.
    “Hey, Lucy,” Charlie says, brushing up behind me. He holds a mug of steaming tea toward me. I recognize the cup and the smell of the chamomile makes me want to vomit.
    “No, no, no. Get this away from me.” I shake my hands at him, and watch as he takes back the mug, tossing the contents into the dirt with a swift jerk of his hand.
    “So, I take it you really, really hate herbal tea?” he asks, a faint smile on his lips. He jokes, but his gaze is somewhere far away, and it’s clear something’s on his mind.
    “No it’s just….” I stop, stuck with the way everything ended, the way my story began. The tea Diane carried to the table, the lethal dose my dad wanted me to take. The happily ever after that ended in a massacre in the dining room twenty feet from where we now stand. I don’t know how to explain the ways in which my heart has been broken. “Tea brings up bad memories, Charlie. Thanks for the thought.”
    “Want to take a horseback ride? I think the rest of these crazy kids will sleep until noon. I take it you didn’t stay up and party last night?”
    “After that night with you at Headquarters I decided parties aren’t really my thing….”
    “What is your thing, Lucy?”
    “Charlie … no….” I say, as he tries to peer into my heart. I chose to close it up to everyone, I’m not going to let him crack it back open.
    “I know, Lucy. You made your choice. It was always about Lukas anyways, wasn’t it?”
    I avoid his question, and his gaze. “A horseback ride, you said?” I plaster a smile on my face, but my