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

donned a pair of gloves before handling anything, setting up their test tubes and checking the nearby steam bath and ice tubs for the second part of the assignment. The room was quiet as everyone buckled down, their professor, Dr. Hunt, walking among the tables to observe.
    They set to work, mixing acetone with each unknown liquid before dropping chromic acid into test tubes and waiting for the reaction to turn blue-green. Ash timed the speed at which the reaction took place and indicated to Elliot which was aldehyde and which was ketone. It was a boring experiment, but in a way, Ash was grateful, given his concentration was so divided.
    Minute sounds of glass pipettes clacking against tubes and flasks lulled Ash as he found his element, forgetting bullies, over-eager partners, pressures with his grades and scholarships, or the fact that his roommates were jerks who kept stealing his laundry quarters. He swore Jared, who shared his bedroom was fucking his girlfriend in Ash’s bed to avoid washing his own sheets.
    All that fell away while they worked, though his earlier argumentative call with his sister Charlotte resurfaced. Charlotte hadn’t wanted to hear his admonitions.
    “Stop right there, Asher,” she’d said. “Even if I cared about whatever warning Uncle Marvin saw fit to scare you with, I don’t speak prepper. This code you two have worked out makes you sound like a grade-school kid with his first walkie-talkie. Riley even thinks you sound stupid, and he’s ten and worships you.”
    “Charlotte, just because Marvin lives the way he does doesn’t mean he’s crazy. One of these times, he’s gonna be right. What will you and Riley do when that happens?” he countered.
    “In case you’re forgetting, I grew up in the same family as you. I have several months’ worth of supplies, and a kid to think about. That’s what normal people who prepare for disasters do, Ash. Hunker down until the threat is past.”
    He rolled his eyes. “Lotta good those things will do when desperate neighbors break down your front door because all you have is a flimsy lock and no way to defend yourself.”
    She scoffed. “I am not building booby traps in my yard for my kid to trip when he comes home from school, and I will not have guns in this house.”
    It was a tired argument, one they never resolved. She thought Uncle Marvin was a crackpot, living in a bunker with contingency plans for several disaster scenarios, and she refused to believe he had a shred of credibility. To be fair, ninety-nine percent of the people who met Marvin agreed. Hell, Ash took most of what the man said with a grain of salt. But he knew not everything Marvin believed was as crazy as Charlotte said when she really ranted about their only living extended relative. The fact he wasn’t technically blood related didn’t diminish him in Ash’s eyes, but he always wondered if it made a difference to Charlotte.
    This time, however, there had been something in Marvin’s voice, a quiver of either anticipation of being validated or fear that one of his scenarios might actually come to pass. Either way, Ash was on higher alert than for any prior warning of Marvin’s.
    “Just be ready if I show up,” he told Charlotte.
    She blew a weary sigh. “Stay in the city, Ash. I can take care of myself.” Despite the tense conversation, they’d said their I love yous and promised to speak again in a few days. As much as they disagreed, they also understood the fragility of being human and how quickly life could change.
    Ash blinked out of his reverie with the burn in his biceps, wondering how much more remained of the fifteen minutes he was required to swirl the aldehyde in the flask.
    As if reading his mind, Elliot glanced at his watch and said, “Three more minutes, then you can stop.”
    Ash looked out the window, noting the darkness tempered by the bight lights of the city he called home, setting the night sky on fire. The rhythmic motion of his arm, the