Page 69 of Light

I don’t make him elaborate on that. He doesn’t have to. Something tells me the kid is well acquainted with the portal to nowhere, and not just from one attempt to clear it. “Good,” I say instead. “Because I’ll need a third lieutenant to make this exodus happen as fast as possible.”

“Then I’m your solid.”

Beneath my hands, the boulders of his shoulders emulate his determined expression.

“Out-fucking-standing.” I issue my approval with my tighter grip, though end the move with half a wince. “But there is just one thing…”

“Huh?” Eighty retorts. “What?”

I turn the wince into a steady stare so he knows how serious I am now. “What’s your real name, Eighty?”

He grins. It’s radiant. The light spreads across his entire face. “It’s Kainalu,” he offers. “I’m an islander. Well, I was.” An uncomfortable shrug. “But my friends call me Kain.” And another. “You can just do that if you want.”

“Yeah, that’s cool.”

No, it’s way fucking better. It’s like a message in the sky from the universe itself—and the big hulk up there somewhere, joining Mitch, Tyce, and Dad to look out for me in all these amazing ways. I flash a quick glance upward, giving the original Kane my heartfelt gratitude, before focusing on the one I can actually save this time.

“Hey, Kain?”

“Yeah?”

I lock down his stare with an extra strong dose of conviction. “They’re going to be calling you that again. Very soon.”

I finish it with a full smile of my own, which explodes into a dazzled laugh as the kid switches up his light yet again. No. He’s turning it up. His eyes turn into gold and white rocket flames that rise through his irises and then stretch up over his forehead. Once the energy reaches his hairline, every stiff strand on his head ignites into a sight similar to a nuclear-charged fiber optic, transforming his whole head into a bursting firework. I don’t share the comparison with him, though. Something tells me he’d prefer something like “charging bull of brightness” instead of “pretty pretty boom boom.”

But even if the guy insisted I call him Lord High Ruler of Light, I wouldn’t care. Nothing can change the fulfillment he deals to my spirit with his victorious haka pose and his I’m-all-in grin. “Ready to do this when you are, Lightning Man.”

“Lead the way, Hundred-Watt Hedgehog.”

His gaze narrows. “You know if you weren’t saving my ass, I might have to kick yours, right?”

I snicker softly. “Yeah, man. I know.”

“Then you also know that I’m probably going to steal that as the name of my new band, right?”

The elation of my heart scoots aside a little, welcoming the completion of my soul.

“I’m counting on it, kid.”

Chapter Five

Emma

“Uno!”

Lux’s exuberant shout is followed by giggles in stereo. The sound has Lydia, Angie, and me trading huge grins and soft chuckles over our lunch plates, ordered from Lux’s favorite Italian place up in Hollywood. Normally, we all go and enjoy a meal inside the restaurant, where Lux joins the waiters in singing Italian love ballads, but it’s been only three days since Mis and Ira got their first-ever exposure to the world beyond their underground prison, and it’s been clear we’ll have to go slow in their introduction to everything outside the strictures of Faline Garand’s rule.

Three days.

In which I feel like I’ve been to hell and back three dozen times.

Every time, one of those precious girls returns there too—in the horrors that have been fused into their minds and spirits.

Some of the incidents, we can predict—nightmares at two a.m., screams from passing sirens, duck-and-cover drills when we turn on the TV—but others are surprises that go from amusing to wrenching. I’ll forever treasure the experience of singing them their first lullaby, despite how my gut churned as they clutched their stuffed animals like refugees with life rings. And it’ll be tough to forget the trial-and-error process of discovering foods that won’t send them into agonized screams. In the end, I distilled the freak-out factor to two main points. If it’s in a bowl and remotely resembles gruel, it’s on the blacklist. So popsicles, yes. But ice cream? A hard no. Same with french fries versus potato soup and a plate of pasta versus a bowl of SpaghettiOs.

And that leads back to the joy of now. Lux never met a plate of Miceli’s rigatoni that he didn’t like, proved by his hands-on approach with the stuff in this whimsical moment. I look down the dining table in time to watch my imp of a kid raising all ten fingers, dripping with sauce-drenched tubes, crooning a self-composed song about his “pasta paintbrushes.”

As Ira and Mis laugh harder, clapping at his antics, I park my head in a hand and quietly groan. “You’re not helping,” I chastise Lydia and Angie, who join them. Lux, cranked by all the motivation, swirls his hands in and out of each other. “Great,” I grumble. “He’s got choreography now.”