by J. R. Harber
He held them lightly, surprised by their weight in his hands. Eve gasped, and he bent to touch his lips to her nipple. He took it carefully in his mouth, and she moaned aloud, clutching at his shoulders. The sound sent a jolt of desire through him, and he sucked gently, growing harder as she mewed with pleasure.
Eve tugged at his waistband, and he let her undo his pants. She got up off his lap and pulled down her underwear, and he hurriedly stripped off the rest of his clothes. She came to his arms again, and the feeling of her bare skin naked against his almost brought him to his knees. Eve’s breath was shallow and hot against his neck.
She took his hand and went back to the bed, pulling him on top of her. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him, then reached down to guide him. He gasped for breath as he finally slipped inside her; she was wet and warm. As he thrust inside, he felt her tighten around him.
Eve cried out with pleasure as he moved back and forth inside of her, over and over, and finally Asa reached his breaking point. He shuddered as it took him, clinging to Eve with all his strength until he was breathless in her arms.
Neither of them spoke. Asa closed his eyes, not wanting the moment to end. She stroked his hair, and he kissed her breast as his fast-beating heart began to slow down. For a long time, they did not move.
“Eve,” Asa whispered at last, half hoping she was already asleep and would not hear him.
“Hmm?” She pulled back so she could look at him, her eyes alert.
He took in a deep breath, filling his lungs with her scent as if it would strengthen his memory of the night. “I wanted to say, I understand if you want to stay here,” he said. “I can’t ask you to leave your only family. I just want you to be happy—”
She cut him off. “I’m going with you.” Eve kissed his cheek, then his lips. “I want to be with you.”
Asa was taken aback for a moment; he had steeled himself for the opposite but had not prepared for what he wanted most. Eve’s smile faded.
“Is that not what you want?” she asked, and he nodded urgently.
“Yes, yes, of course that’s what I want. I want to be with you, Eve. Always.”
He hugged her fiercely, kissing her hair. He felt as if his chest might burst with joy and with the sheer overpowering reality of it all. Eve made a contented sound, settling sleepily into his embrace.
“We’ll live in a little house,” she said. “I’m tired of those giant buildings. We’ll have a house with no one above us or below.”
“That sounds nice,” Asa said cautiously. “And children?”
She nodded against his chest. “Yes. A boy and a girl, sister and brother, like you and Hannah, or me and Saul.”
Asa smiled. “So, the boy first.”
“Yes.” She laughed. “We’ve all gotten into some trouble, though. Maybe the girl should come first.”
“It’s decided, then.” Asa couldn’t stop smiling; his face felt as if it were about to split open. Life, all of it, with Eve. He kissed her forehead, and she sighed dreamily.
“Goodnight, Asa,” she whispered.
“Goodnight,” he answered, though he doubted he would ever sleep again.
“Good morning!” There was a sharp knock at the door. “Good morning!” called a young man. He sounded irritated, as if he had been trying for a while.
Asa blinked, disoriented. The room was dark, and the soft glow of the night-light provided just enough illumination for him to make out his surroundings. The knock came again.
“Uh, good morning!” Asa called. “Thank you!”
“Saul wants to see his sister,” the young man shouted through the door. Asa glanced at Eve, who pulled the sheet up over her head without opening her eyes.
“Can it wait?” Asa asked.
“Soon as possible.” No footsteps followed; the young man was clearly not going away until they came out.
“Okay,” Asa called. “Give us a few minutes, okay?” The boy outside the door didn’t reply. Asa nudged Eve. “Hey, I think we have to wake up,” he whispered, loath to disturb her.
“I heard,” she said, her voice muffled by the sheets.
She pulled them off her head and sat up. Asa stifled a laugh; her long hair was sticking out in every direction, still clinging with static to the sheets.
“What?” Eve asked, and he reached out to smooth her hair down.
“I just can’t believe you’re here,” he said. “That I’m here—that you’re coming home with me.” He was suddenly seized with the panicked notion that it had all been a dream. “Wait, you’re still coming with me, right?” he asked.
Eve laughed. “Yes, I’m coming with you.” She kissed him and hopped out of bed, dragging the sheets with her like a long, messy dress.
Asa grabbed a pillow and put it on his lap, suddenly self-conscious. Eve grinned.
“Get dressed,” she said. “Then we’ll go home.”
Saul was sitting at his desk when they entered. The boy who had escorted them downstairs closed the door, leaving the three of them alone. Saul turned, and his eyes flicked from Eve to Asa and back again.
“I instructed that you come alone,” he said curtly, but his face did not show anger.
“Saul,” Eve began, and he shook his head, cutting her off.
“No. I don’t understand, Eve. I can’t see why you would return to that … police state to be watched and controlled the rest of your life. To hide our beliefs, when you could openly worship if you stayed here with me. If you stayed you could be free, Eve, and you could be with me.”
He looked at her pleadingly, and she went to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning her head against his chest.
“I never believed I would see you again,” she said softly. “I never imagined. You’ve come back to life, Saul, my own miracle.”
“Then why won’t you stay?” he whispered. She stepped back from him, looking up at his face.
“Here I could be free,” she said. “Here I could worship openly, honor our history and our family and our beliefs. But, Saul, I want children.”
“You could have children here. He could stay here with you if he wanted to—he’s as free to choose as you are.”
Saul shot Asa a dark look, and he leaned back involuntary, then steadied himself. He pushed forward, knowing Saul wouldn’t like what he had to say.
“It’s me who doesn’t want to stay, Saul,” Eve said. “Me. If we had children here, how would they live? Underground all their lives? Or worse, snatched away? And if they survived, what kind of life would they have? Their only goal would be survival itself: all their days spent making food, creating shelter, seeking water, and purifying it. If we go back inside, they can do anything they wish.”
“But at what cost?” Saul looked appalled.
“I know the cost, maybe better than you do,” Eve snapped, then her face softened. “I am sorry. I love you. I don’t want to leave you, but I am going back.”
“How?” Saul demanded. “How will you go back? Do you think you can walk through walls or sneak by the drones unseen?”
Asa glanced at Eve, but she appeared unruffled.
“I hoped you would help us,” she said calmly.
“What makes you think I can help you?”
“You and I both know there’s nowhere on earth you couldn’t get in and out of if you really wanted to,” she said, and Saul shook his head, smiling in spite of himself.
“Are you trying to flatter me, little sister?” he asked.
“I know you have a way in,” Eve said with perfect confidence. He shot her a worried look.
“Did Daniel tell you something?”
“Daniel never told me anything. But I have eyes and a brain, and I know you can get in. Help us.”
Saul threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay. You’re right, I do have a way in.” His face turned stony, and Asa straightened his shoulders. “No one knows about it, though,” he said, lowering his voice. “No one can know about it. The safety of this c
ommunity and everyone who lives here depends on that.”
“We won’t tell anyone,” Eve said, and Asa nodded. Saul looked at him expectantly.
“We won’t,” Asa added, and Saul went on.
“There’s a tunnel. You’ll have to walk. It’s a long walk, but it will get you back inside, under the wall.”
They waited, but Saul said nothing more.
Eve cleared her throat. “I came here this morning to show you something.”
“You came because I told you to,” Saul muttered, barely audible. Eve ignored him. “What is it?” he asked in a normal tone, and Eve held out her backpack.
“Show me how to use this. Show me how to talk to you with it.”
“Eve, I told you, I don’t know. Daniel kept a lot of secrets, even from me.”
Eve smiled and held up the strip; Asa wondered briefly where she had been concealing it. “David said this would show me everything I needed to know,” she said. “All I want to know how to do is communicate with you, and with him if I need to. You can keep the computer. Just give me something that will let us talk to each other.”
Saul nodded and took the bag from her hand almost reverently. “I’ve got something that should work,” he said.
He looked from her to Asa and sighed, then went to his desk and opened a drawer that was jammed with wires and electronic parts.
If I organized things like that, the harvest would rot in the field while I was still untangling the plough, Asa thought, half-amused and half-annoyed.
Saul rummaged through the jumble of parts. “So, what’s it going to be like, this beautiful new life of yours?” he asked with a deliberate casualness, not looking up from the drawer.
“I thought we’d start by going back to my parents’,” Asa said carefully. “We’ve got to let them know that everything is all right now—that we’re safe. Rosewood’s a beautiful place. We might just stay there.” He glanced at Eve quickly. Her face was impassive, and he felt a pang of apprehension. Did I say the wrong thing?
“You’re going to live a simple life on the farm? Eve’s always been a city girl.” Saul pulled a long cord out of the tangle with concentration.
“Eve has always been unhappy,” Eve said. Saul looked up, dropping the cord. Eve shrugged uncomfortably under his sudden, attentive stare. “I just … I haven’t been happy in Horizon for a long time. Maybe Rosewood will be a nice place to start over.”
“What if it’s not?” Saul asked.
“Then we’ll go somewhere else,” Asa said firmly. “Right?” He smiled at Eve, and the tension left her face.
“Right,” she said.
“Got it,” Saul announced, pulling a smaller version of Daniel’s computer from a different drawer. “Eve, come here. I’ll show you how to talk to me once you’re back on the inside. You can even send pictures so Uncle Saul will feel like part of the family.” His voice was brittle, but he smiled at Eve, and she went over to him as the screen lit up.
Asa hesitated. “I’ll go make sure all our things are packed,” he said loudly, and Eve turned.
“Thank you, Asa.” She smiled brilliantly, and he grinned.
“Just come find me when you’re finished.” He left the room and bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. A lifetime of that smile.
An hour later, Asa was gazing at the ceiling, tracing every moment of the night before so that none of it would be lost. Eve hurried into the room.
“Are you ready?” she asked breathlessly, and he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“Yes.”
“Saul is going to drive us to the tunnel. It will take us to Horizon.”
“Horizon?” Asa frowned. “I guess I thought we’d go right back home. To Rosewood, I mean.”
Eve bit her lip. “I know. But we left our phones back in Daniel’s apartment. We should get them if we can—it might draw suspicion if we apply for new ones. There’s something else I need to get too, and … well, we have to test out what David said, don’t we?”
“He said he fixed our records,” Asa said with alarm.
“I know. But, well, we can’t know for sure until we test it—until we try to buy something or go somewhere with facial recognition, we won’t know for certain that whatever he did worked.”
Asa nodded grimly. “So, we have to go back to Horizon.”
“If we don’t test it, we’ll spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders, wondering if there’s a stalker lurking behind us,” Eve said softly.
Asa stood and touched her hair. She moved in to embrace him, and he closed his eyes, breathing in her scent.
“We’re not going to live like that,” Asa said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Saul drove the car in silence, but he did not seem angry—whatever had passed between him and Eve after Asa left them alone appeared to have resigned him to her departure. Asa sat in the back, looking out the window as the desert gave way to low, flat-leafed plant life again.
If we don’t test it, we’ll spend our lives looking over our shoulders. He had not considered that David might have failed in his attempt to clear their records, but now he could think of nothing else. If we risked all that for nothing …
He shoved the thought away. Eve was right; they had to check, but only to be certain. David had done all he could, and David could be trusted.
The sun was high when Saul stopped the car. Asa twisted in his seat, looking out the windows. They had been driving for the past hour on the bumpy remains of what appeared to be an old road, lined on either side by sheer rock. It stretched behind them and before them as far as Asa could see, with nothing to indicate that this place was different from any other. Saul got out, and Eve and Asa did the same, grabbing their bags to follow as he headed toward a jagged outcropping in the rock.
As they approached, Asa saw there was a pile of large rocks at the corner where the outcropping began. When they were beside the rockfall, Saul turned and studied their faces.
“Once you’re in the tunnel, it will be a day’s walk. You’ll be safe. No one knows about this except me and a few of my people, but if by some wild chance you see someone, tell them you’re my sister, Eve.”
Eve nodded, her face serious.
“Asa,” Saul said, “help me move these.”
Asa followed Saul’s lead as they carefully moved aside several of the large rocks in the pile, exposing a low passageway just high enough to crawl through.
“Saul,” Eve said, alarmed.
“It’s okay,” he interrupted. “It’s only that way for a few feet. Once you’re inside the main tunnel, you’ll be able to stand up and walk. Just turn left when you reach the end of this passage.”
Eve looked dismayed. “Are you sure this is the only way back inside?” she asked, and Saul nodded gravely.
“When the sky is full of eyes, the only safe place is underground,” he said.
“We’ll be okay,” Asa said quietly. “I’ll go first.”
Without waiting for an answer, he dropped to his knees and swung his pack around to the front so it would not scrub against the top of the rocky passage. He glanced back to see Eve embracing her brother. When she let go at last, Asa smiled at her, beckoned her to follow, and crawled farther into the darkness.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE CRAMPED TUNNEL SOON WIDENED INTO A cavern high enough for them to stand, and Asa crawled out into it with relief, then turned to Eve, offering her a hand as she got to her feet. She brushed her hands off on her skirt as Asa pulled off his backpack.
“Next time we do that, I’m wearing pants,” Eve remarked. She flicked on a small flashlight, and Asa saw that her knees were bleeding, her legs scraped and bruised from crawling exposed across the rock.
“I’m sorry,” Asa said, instantly contrite, and rummaged in his bag until he found a clean undershirt, which he handed to her. “Eve, I didn’t think—I’m so sorry.”
She took the shirt and dabbed at the cuts, wiping away the trickles
of blood. “What were you going to do, give me your pants?” she asked lightly. She handed the shirt back, now covered in fresh red blood and streaks of dirt. “I didn’t think of it until we were already in the tunnel,” she added. “Come on. We turn left, right?”
“Right,” Asa said. “I mean left—you’re right, we go left.” He swung on his backpack, uncertain why he had suddenly become as tongue-tied as if he had just met her.
She took his arm and kissed his cheek. “Asa,” she said. “We’re going home.”
He smiled, and his momentary disquiet melted away. “Do you have another flashlight?” he asked.
“No,” she said, sweeping it up and down the long, empty passage. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“Easy enough,” Asa said, and they started walking.
The passage was as deserted as Saul had promised, but as they went, they saw evidence of others who had come this way before. There were markings on the walls here and there, mostly symbols they could not read, but some people had etched their names into the rock, and some had left messages:
JUDAH CAME THIS WAY.
CONDEMN THE ABUSES OF THE STATE—REJECT AUTHORITARIAN RULE!
TARA LOVES CESAR
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!
Here and there, they saw nooks in the rock walls large enough for someone to sleep in, and when Eve swept her flashlight over them, they saw that some had small black boxes stashed inside. Opening one, Asa found preserved food rations, a first aid kit, and most preciously, a bottle of water. They left the water but paused long enough to disinfect the scrapes on Eve’s knees and bandage them.
“I feel like we should leave something,” Eve said.
Asa shrugged. “We’re not going much farther, right?” He took his own travel rations from his bag and tucked them inside the box before sealing it shut.