I probably should have let it drop, pretended I’d been joking about the mark or even just let him walk away as he had already started to do, but I couldn’t. It was so important to me that Lucas believe. Because if he believed, then he’d know I wasn’t crazy and it would all be okay.
I stopped by his apartment after work Tuesday. I still hadn’t heard from him. He’d met my eyes briefly after class on Monday, pointing to his watch as he headed for the door, gone before I made it to the front of the room.
The uncertainty of us made me almost physically shaky.
“I have an idea, Lucas.” I said after he let me in and I heard his perfunctory excuses about why he hadn’t called. “Let’s go away this weekend. Really away.”
He stared at me, a sheaf of papers still in his hand, making sure I knew he was busy. “What did you have in mind?”
“How about a weekend in the Big Apple?”
“New York City?”
I nodded. “You said you’ve always wanted to go and so have I. I found a good flight, reasonable too. We could go Friday after you’re done with classes, come back late Sunday.”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“I already talked to Doug and he said it’d be no problem.” That wasn’t exactly what he’d said, but it was my first request off since I’d started. He wasn’t happy about it being a weekend, but how could he refuse? I’d cleared it with Drea too, though she’d been hesitant, said she’d thought maybe we could go shopping or something. Another time, I told her.
I could see Lucas trying to decide and it gave me hope.
“C’mon, Lucas,” I said in my best carefree, fun-girl voice. “We’ll see a show, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square …” Maybe a doomed person or two.
Finally, he relaxed. Even smiled a little. “Yeah, okay, Cassandra. You know what? That’s a great idea. Let’s do it.”
I stayed over that night, and it was almost like it had been before. We read, we talked, we made dinner. I should have left it there, but I was so determined to prove it to him by then that there was no room for other options. Nothing else mattered.
Friday was perfect: cloudless blue skies, Lucas and I holding hands on the airplane. As worldly as he seemed, Lucas had never been to the East Coast and, though normally a little jaded, even he couldn’t contain his excitement.
“Look!” he said as we approached. “There’s the Statue of Liberty!”
I could just make out a tiny figure on a dot of an island in murky waters. The city itself was like nothing I’d ever imagined, much less seen. Huge buildings rose, seemingly out of the water, impossibly anchored on a narrow strip of land. I’d read that over eight million people lived there, a hundred times the population of Bering. More than enough to find the one I was looking for.
Our Times Square hotel was nothing special, but the surroundings more than made up for it. It was dizzying, the people and cars and lights and the sheer walls of skyscrapers rising everywhere I looked so that it seemed as if I’d fallen to the bottom of a cereal box, closed in on nearly every side. I didn’t see anyone with the mark, though if there was ever a time I might have passed one and not noticed, it was then. Lucas and I barely spoke, transfixed by everything happening on the streets outside. It wasn’t the awful silence of the prior weekend, but something comfortable, shared.
We had a jam-packed agenda the next day: Liberty Island, Grand Central Terminal, the Empire State Building, Broadway. I don’t even remember what else. We started at the TKTS booth in Times Square, then ventured into the subway, deciphering the map and MetroCard system to get to the Empire State Building. The view from the observation deck was not unlike that which we’d had from the airplane, only this time, we were also balanced precariously on that little strip of land. On top of one of its biggest buildings, no less.
It was hard to grasp the scope of the city—one block equal to the entire downtown of Ashville or Bering. I couldn’t imagine how people lived here. Walking the streets, I could pick out the natives by their head-down rush and the almost uniformly focused expression on their faces, everyone wrapped up in their own business, oblivious to everything else.
After the Empire State Building, we went to Grand Central, its massive Great Hall unexpectedly hushed and soothing. Lucas was looking at constellations on the turquoise ceiling while I scanned the crowd. I almost missed her, saw just a flash as she hurried down a side corridor. I grabbed Lucas’s arm and started walking fast.
He tried to wiggle free. “Cass! What are you doing?”
“Hurry!” I said. “This way.”
“Where are you going?”
I didn’t answer, nearly dragging him around the corner where she’d gone. I did a visual sweep, seeing the glow just as she disappeared down an escalator.
I yanked him that way. “C’mon!”
He didn’t budge. “What’s going on?”
I could tell by his expression that he knew. “I saw one, Lucas. Come with me now or we’re going to miss her.”
“Cassie …” But I wasn’t listening. Nothing mattered but keeping up with her so I could show him.
“Come on!” I ran toward the escalator, not turning to see if he followed.
She was waiting on the train platform. It should have been next to impossible to find one girl among the throngs of people, but the mark made her easy to pick out. Lucas caught up to me, panting a little. “Cassandra …”
“Shh. There she is.” I led him through the turnstile, onto the platform, keeping her close.
She was young, somewhere around Lucas’s age, slightly overweight, and dressed in slouchy, nondescript black.
The lights of the train crept ominously along the tunnel wall, coming into view shockingly bright and fast. I saw her inch forward and, for a second, was sure she was going to jump, but then the cars pounded into the station, stopped, and their doors slid open to dump one wave of people and usher another aboard.
“Let’s go.” I pulled Lucas with me.
We sat on the opposite side of the car from her. When I was sure she was fully in my sight, I turned to him. He was angry. No matter, I thought. As soon as he saw how this ended, he’d understand. Still, I didn’t want to fight him the whole way.
“I know you’re upset, Lucas,” I said, “but this is a chance to see …” He wasn’t listening, couldn’t hear me past his anger. I tried to find something that would resonate with him. “Think of it as testing a hypothesis. Right now, you think I’m off my rocker. Humor me. Test your theory to see if you’re right or if, maybe, there’s actually something to what I’m telling you.”