Chapter 14: Don't Decide Alone

Lucas read the text twice and pulled the door open.

Luke was still on the landing, sitting against the wall with his head back.

"Noah's gone to the court," Lucas said. "Alone."

Luke was on his feet before he finished.

"Then I'm coming with you."

"The window at the end of your stairwell is going grey."

Luke looked at it, and Lucas watched him understand.

"Dawn is twenty minutes off. You'd burn before we crossed the river." Lucas stepped back from the door. "Come in."

Luke crossed the sill, and the whole room seemed to ease around him.

"Pull the mattress against the window," Lucas said. "Sleep. Don't follow me."

"Lucas."

"That's an order. I'm not leaving you where the sun can find you. You said I was in charge."

Luke's jaw worked.

"Go," he said finally. "Bring him back."

Back at the dorm, the van's windows were painted black for late drives, and Thomas was waiting on the top step with a blanket over his head.

He climbed into the back without a word and curled up on the floor.

Lucas drove.

The bridge came up grey and empty, and the river lay flat and grey under it.

"I fell asleep," Thomas said from the dark behind him. "I knew he was going to do something stupid. I felt it. I should have sat in the doorway."

"You didn't decide alone either. You called me."

"Is that a rule?"

"It's the third one."

Thomas laughed, and the laugh broke in the middle.

The opera house stood on the far bank with its windows boarded and its stone steps worn hollow.

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