The Brightest Night (Origin 3)

“The exit is there,” he said, and I saw the sign for the road Daemon and Archer had mentioned earlier. It was cockeyed and rusted, probably days away from falling over. “All you Lite-Brites should dim down. A small herd of Luxen racing toward the meeting place isn’t going to set anyone at ease.”

One by one, the Luxen dimmed, and as the light receded, they had returned to their human forms.

Luc fell into step beside me as we made our way down the road. There were more cars here, and I doubted anything larger than a sedan could squeeze through.

“This is creepy,” Zoe murmured, looking up.

She was right, and even though I’d already seen the city at night, it was no less unsettling. The tall buildings blocked a lot of the moonlight, and Daemon and Luc turned their hands into Source-powered lanterns. This area of town had fared far worse than what I’d seen. Windows in nearby buildings were busted out. Several storefronts and offices carried scorch marks. A few of the cars had been turned upside down. Bullet holes were scattered along a few windows that remained.

Following Daemon, we hung a right and the intersection—

“Wow,” Emery murmured, stopping. “Look.”

Ahead of us, movement stirred around an area that must’ve been a park or some sort of green space. A deer stepped out, its antlers enormous. Hoofs clanged off the asphalt as it moseyed across the road. It wasn’t alone. An entire flock of them followed. Or were they called a herd?

Herd, answered Luc.

I smiled as I watched fawns amble after the adults, their legs not nearly as sturdy. Why am I not surprised you know that?

None of us spoke or moved until the last one had passed, disappearing from our sight.

“I bet Luc wishes they were llamas,” I said.

Daemon groaned.

“You have no idea, Peaches. I would’ve befriended one and led it back to Daemon’s house—”

“Dear God,” groaned Daemon.

Luc looked at me. “And then the others would miss it and they would come, too.”

I started to smile.

“Before Daemon knew it, he’d have a herd of llamas,” he went on, and Daemon started walking. “Kat would be thrilled.”

Laughing, I took his hand. “You’re so bizarre.”

“If wanting a herd of llamas makes me bizarre, then I lace up those shoes and rock it,” he replied.

“You say that now.” Grayson passed us. “Until the first one spits in your face.”

“I think llamas will see me as one of their own and wouldn’t dare think of doing that,” Luc reasoned.

I shook my head as we walked under the shadow of the tower. Talk of llamas ceased as we took a left. My heart started thumping as a parking lot came into view. Rusted-out cars were scattered throughout, windshields shattered. I imagined that the cars and their owners must’ve been here when the EMP was dropped, and there was something sad about seeing the cars, some of them so weathered I could no longer tell their colors, and how it showed what people were doing when their lives were irrevocably shattered.

We waited under the line of trees, hidden in the shadows. Luc and Daemon spoke to one another in low, hushed voices, and whatever they were talking—or arguing—about had Emery and Zoe grinning. Grayson stood a few feet from me, his gaze fixed ahead, like mine. I don’t know how long we stared at the letters GALL. At some point, the letters ERIA must’ve moved on to better things.

Like the ground.

I saw it first, the flash of yellow light. “There.”

“See it,” Luc confirmed, having been keeping an eye on the building. The light flashed two more times.

“That’s Nate. Can we somehow send a signal back?” I asked.

Luc stepped forward, lifting his hand. The Source ballooned out from his hand and then flickered out before coming back again. He did this once more.

I held my breath, hands balled tightly until the light flashed from within the mall once more.

“Okay.” I exhaled roughly. “He’s here. They’re here.”

“Remember,” Luc warned. “Stick together.”

Nodding, I pivoted and stepped off the curb, onto the pavement. Joined by the others, we rushed across the parking lot, reaching doors that had long since been torn away.

“Lovely,” Grayson murmured as we walked inside.

Zoe’s nose wrinkled. There was an odor that reminded me of the dankest, darkest basements. To the right was an entrance to one of the office towers, and at the left was a hotel. Glass crunched under our feet as we walked on. There was a lot of light coming from the center. I looked up and up to where moonlight streamed in through the enormous skylight. Entire sections of glass the size of a compact car were missing, exposing everything inside to whatever elements the last four years had dealt, which explained the thick, cloying musty scent.

Storefronts were unrecognizable. Signs broken on the floor. Silvery moonlight bounced off shards of glass still in the windows of some of the stores and shone a light on a thin layer of what appeared to be mold. It crept along the walls between stores and up to the second floor.