The Long Fall of Night: The Long Fall of Night Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

and backpack. Thankfully, he had his keys and wallet with him.
    They flagged a cab in silence, and Elliot directed the driver to his street. “So, uh…,” Elliot tried, wanting to break the awkward quiet between them. “What happens when we get to your sister’s?”
    Ash stared out the passenger window, his elbow propped on the door, the back of his hand pressed to his lips as they crawled in bumper to bumper traffic toward Greenwich Village. Elliot was beginning to think Ash was ignoring him when he finally spoke in a gravelly voice.
    “I try to convince her to go to our Uncle Marvin’s house.”
    “Where’s that?”
    “Hoodsport, Washington.”
    Elliot looked over sharply. “As in Washington State?”
    Ash grunted an affirmative.
    “How are you getting there?” Elliot asked, pretty sure he knew the answer.
    “However I can.” Ash finally looked at him, his expression stoic in the flash of passing headlights. “I don’t suppose you’d let me take your car.”
    Elliot pursed his lips. He wanted to say no. It was one thing, going upstate, but a ride coast to coast? Even as he felt the pull to give in to please Ash, he didn’t want to be that easy.
    “It depends on what happens when I reach my parents.”
    The corner of Ash’s mouth tipped up. “Okay. Are you calling from your apartment?”
    “Duh, power’s out. I can’t.”
    “Duh, landlines might work. Phone companies have generators and a phone on a landline doesn’t need power as long as it’s not a cordless. Basic survival for a hurricane or earthquake.”
    “Oh,” Elliot said, feeling stupid. “I didn’t know that.” Well, that answered one question. With his cell dead—which made him twitchy, since he was without his music until they reached his apartment and his iPod—he figured he’d just borrow a phone when they got in an area where coverage resumed. Now, all he needed was a payphone. Not that he knew where one was, and it wasn’t like he could google.
    Ash shook his head and clucked his tongue. “So you can call from your house, right?”
    “No,” he said as the cab turned, finally, onto his street. “I only have my cell. Which is dead.”
    “Rookie move,” Ash teased, tempering it with a smile.
    Elliot wondered if he’d ever stop feeling like an idiot with a schoolboy crush around Ash.
    They pulled up to his building on Mercer. He lived at the edge of the NYU campus in an area few students could afford. He and Ash studied almost exclusively at his place—more than studied, actually—so the jitters he would have felt bringing anyone else to his apartment weren’t there, for which he was grateful. Most people seeing his apartment would think his family’s wealth, not his merit, had gotten him where he was. He was of those Davenports. If Ash knew, he never acted like it mattered.
    The cab pulled to a stop at the building entrance, and Ash shouldered open his door to exit while Elliot paid the cabbie. Julian, the paunchy, middle-aged doorman, held the door for them and lit the way with a flashlight.
    “Good evening, gentlemen. Have any trouble?”
    “No, Julian. Have you any idea where I might find an operating payphone?”
    Julian considered. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m not sure, and without power, I can’t have Tabitha run a search.” Tabitha was the front desk girl on overnights. “I know there’s one at the New York Public Library.”
    Ash snorted. “Yeah, we’ve seen The Day After Tomorrow, too. So have the rest of the people scrambling to make phone calls in this city.” Ash strode to the door marked Stairs. Elliot gave Julian an apologetic shrug and followed.
    “Here,” Julian said, holding up his flashlight. “Take this.” Elliot started to refuse, but Julian wouldn’t hear of it. “We’ve got one for all the tenants until power comes back. Wouldn’t want anyone injured using the stairs in the dark.”
    “Thank you, Julian,” Elliot said, surprised by how much the gesture warmed him.
    “Yes, thank