Read Autumn in the City of Lights for Free Online

disturb him, though.”  Grey eyed Rissi, and she nodded.
    Grey showed us to the ICU. I wasn’t prepared for what we found. Monitors surrounded him, and so many lines and tubes were connected to him, including one down his throat.
    “Oh, Grey,” I said, looking at Ben, who was black and blue.
    “He’ll be like this for a while. Even after he wakes, he’ll be attached to various monitors and aids until we’re sure he can function without them.”
    I nodded, watching Rissi. She was holding Ben’s thumb, which seemed to be the only part of him that was unmarked.
    Hours later, as the sun was setting, Connie spoke up. “I think it’s time to head back. We can take turns sitting with Ben, but there’s no sense in us all being here the whole time.”
    “I can take the night watch,” Shad offered. “I don’t have patrol duty tonight.”
    “I’ll come and relieve you in the morning,” I said. Then we quickly made a plan so that Ben would never be alone, and the rest of us left.
    We were quiet as we rode home through the gathering darkness, each immersed in our own thoughts. Connie rode her dapple-gray horse, Coach, her huge purse hooked over the saddle. Rissi, despite numerous riding lessons since we arrived in Hoover, still clutched her pony’s saddle horn awkwardly.
    I watched her out of the corner of my eye. Gone was the excitable little girl with dirty hands and feet I’d met a year and a half ago. She still had the same big brown eyes that had stared at me through the grate back at The Water Tower. Her hair was still unruly as ever, but had lengthened so it fell in a chocolaty, shimmering mass halfway down her slender back. In another few years, she’d be a stunning teenage girl. And sometime in the future, she’d fall in love and marry. I just hoped Ben would be able to walk her down the aisle when the time came.
    When we turned onto the tree-lined lane where our house was, the horses’ hooves went almost silent on the dirt and weeds concealing the concrete evidence of an era of human history gone forever. I looked up at the street sign as we passed by. When we moved in, Ben had repainted it to say “Hoover Hollow” because the street housed most of the Hoover Settlement people who came with us back to California.
    The ancient, knobby trees arced over the street, creating darkness within the pitch black of night. I wasn’t frightened. Wildflowers and tall grasses bearded the disappearing curbs and sidewalks, and the wind sighed through the trees, their great gnarled branches creaking quietly.
    The house we chose was a large Tudor with peaked roofs and dark shutters. A behemoth sycamore towered over the front lawn, keeping the house in perpetual shade. Rissi once said it looked like it was out of a fairy tale, and I agreed with her. It had three bedrooms upstairs, where Rissi, Ben, and I slept; an enormous master suite on the ground level for Connie and Daniel; and a finished basement apartment, which Shad took over. There was a massive fireplace in the living room, and the long table in the kitchen sat at least twelve people. There were a couple acres behind the house with a stable and a guesthouse, where Grey lived.
    Daniel was waiting for us when we turned onto the grassed-over bricks of the driveway. He followed us to the stable and helped remove the saddles, brush down the horses and get them ready for the night. Snicket’s stall was in the back, and as I fed her a carrot, I thought I heard Connie and Daniel quietly arguing in Coach’s stall.
    “We were fine,” she murmured. “Everything is okay.”
    I peeked over the boards between the stalls. Daniel faced me, but his eyes were on Connie. His face was pinched with worry, but he looked a little angry, too. After yesterday, he was probably worried because she, and the rest of us, had been out after dark. He knew I didn’t carry a gun, and Connie flat out refused to carry one. I felt sheepish thinking how, even after yesterday, I still took our