by G. C. Julien
“No, you’re not,” I say. I’m not trying to be mean, but rules are rules, and Eve’s made it clear that our old life is behind us, and we’re not to speak of men. She says they’re not worth talking about because all they do is bring pain and destruction.
She could be right, I think, watching Emily’s face. Her eyes are fixed on the floor, and her posture is slouched. It looks like she’s about to cry.
I slide over to her end of the bed and put an arm around her shoulder. I’m not sure how to comfort her about her dad, especially since I never knew mine and everything I’ve ever heard about men is that they’re monsters.
“Why do you miss him?” I ask, confused about how anyone could miss a male figure after the things I’ve heard.
Her dark, wet eyes roll up at me.
“He was so nice, Lucy.”
I’m not sure whether to believe her or not. A man being nice? It sounds like she’s imagining her past or making stuff up because she isn’t happy here.
“I know what people say about men, but my dad wasn’t like that,” she whispers. “He used to take me to the park all the time. I’d sit on his shoulders, and he’d run around pretending to be a horse. Whenever I got sick, he’d make me chicken soup and brush my hair back and kiss me on the forehead.”
Her eyes are filling with tears and her chin is popping out because she’s pouting so much.
“What about your mom?” I ask. “Where is she?”
She shakes her head. “My mom left us when I was five. It was my dad who took care of me.”
A man raising a child on his own? I suddenly remember a few of my friends in third grade, and their dads, who would pick them up from school or bring them to soccer. They didn’t look like monsters. They looked like people. I’d forgotten about that until now.
“They’re not all bad,” Emily says, her voice cracking. “I was only seven when they took him away from me.” Her quivering voice turns into a sob, and she throws both hands over her face.
“Who did?” I ask. “Who took him away? What happened?”
But a loud alarm suddenly goes off throughout all of Eden and I block my ears. Although I’ve only ever been told about this alarm, I know what to do. I jump off my bed and quickly close the gate to my room.
Lucy – Flashback
“Oh, come here, sweetheart,” Grandma says, her fingers dancing in front of my face. I hate it when she does that. Her nails are long, and I’m scared she’ll poke me in the eyeballs.
She squeezes her arms around me like I’m a pet or something and kisses my forehead and pinches my cheeks. I’m embarrassed.
“You’re growing every day,” she says.
Her mouth is stretched so wide she looks like a bug with her blond hair and her bright red lipstick. Grandma likes to dye her hair a lot. I wish she wouldn’t. She looks better with her red hair, same as Mom and me, but she keeps putting blond in it. It doesn’t suit her, especially because she’s old. Her eyes are green too, like Mom’s and mine, but hers look more brown than green most of the time. She has some wrinkles around her eyes and her hands always look dry.
I guess she isn’t that old. I shouldn’t say that. Mom tells me not to say that. She says it’s rude, and then she tells me Grandma isn’t old because Grandma doesn’t walk with a cane or anything. I think she’s fifty-something. But fifty sounds old to me. That’s way older than me.
I don’t know what to say to Grandma. I don’t remember the last time we came to her house. I think I was pretty young then. Might have been a baby. I don’t know.
It smells like perfume and chocolate-chip cookies. I don’t know if I like the smell, but I have a feeling I’m going to have to get used to it.
“Honey, I’m going to grab the rest of our things,” my mom says. “Stay here with Grandma, okay?”
She walks out the front door and to the jeep. My Grandma is talking about all the “crazy people” running around in the streets, but I’m not exactly listening. I’m too distracted by all the decorations in her house.
Crosses are everywhere. Even a big gold one around her neck. On her coffee table is a statue of Jesus with some fluffy sheep around him. It looks like they’re made with cotton balls. I wonder if she made them. She likes anything that has to do with Jesus.
I don’t get why she goes to church so much. She should stay here instead. Her house looks like a church.
She even has those weird long necklaces with all the beads or balls on them and with a big cross at the end of it. I think Mom told me they’re used for praying. I hope Grandma doesn’t think I’m going to start praying every day with her. It’s weird, and I don’t like it.
Whenever she comes over for a visit, she makes me pray before I eat. She says I should be thankful for my food, and I should thank God for giving it to me. She then prays, too, and asks God to bless the food.
Sometimes I think Grandma is crazy. Or else she’s just old. Not a lot of people talk about God, so when Grandma does, I get a little weird about it.
There’s a loud bang sound, and my mom is standing at the front door with a big suitcase in front of her feet. She rubs her forehead with her arm to dry her face because it’s raining, and then she smiles at me through the screen door.
“Almost done,” she says.
“Have you ever heard of…” my grandma starts, but I run toward my mom.
“I’ll help you!” I say, and I swing the screen door wide open.
Anything to get away from my grandma. I love her, but she talks too much.
I run outside and stand by my mom, waiting for her to give me something small I can take in. The rain is cold on my neck, but it feels nice. My mom’s reaching inside the trunk, and I don’t think she even knows I’m standing here.
She pulls hard on a suitcase, and when she stands up straight, she sees me beside her and lets out a little scream. It makes me laugh. It’s so funny when I scare my mom.
“I didn’t see you!” she says.
I’m still laughing, and I think I’m making her laugh, too.
“Here, you rascal,” she says, and she gives me a backpack.
I throw it over my shoulder, but I don’t leave her side.
“Mom?”
She’s still digging inside the trunk looking for something, and all I can see are her blue jeans. The rest of her is all mixed up with all the stuff we have.
“Yes, honey?” she says, and I can’t even tell where her head is anymore.
“Are we running away?” I ask.
She pulls out of the trunk and stands up tall. It’s like she’s surprised to hear me ask her that.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“Are we running from something? Is it from Jason?”
She leans toward me and puts her hands on her knees, so her face is close to mine.
“Yes, we are,” she says.
I’m shocked because, for the first time in a long time, she’s completely honest with me. “Jason’s a bad man, and he’s trying to hurt us. So, we need to get away awhile until it’s taken care of.”
Taken care of, I think. I know I should be thinking about police officers when she says this, but all I can think about is Aunty Eve and how she talked about “killing someone.”
CHAPTER 19 – EVE
Eve – Present Day
I march my way to the very front of Eden as women and children return to their rooms, locking themselves inside for safety. The intermittent alarm is bouncing off every wall and giving me a migraine. There are numerous alarms in Eden. This one, particularly, doesn’t signify an attack of any sort, which is a relief.
“Eve!”
It’s Freyda. She’s running down the main corridor to catch up to me. Her cheeks are pink and her lips look like rose petals—soft, silky, and a vivid red.
“What’s the meaning of this?” I ask. “Who sounded the alarm?”
“I did,” she says, and I’m taken aback.
If Freyda sounded the alarm, she had good reason to. I trust
her more than anyone.
“There are survivors standing outside the gate,” she says through rapid breathing. “They were shouting over the wall, and some women in one of the courtyards heard them.”
“And how do we know this isn’t a trap?” I ask, opening the locked door to the main entrance.
Freyda smirks. “There’s a guard tower beside the gate, and if you give me some time, I’ll check for myself.”
I open the front industrial door to the prison, revealing dry soil and yellow grass surrounding the exterior of the building. It looks nothing like the inside of Eden. Everything out here is dead—like the rest of the country, assumedly.
“When you give me the signal,” I say, “I’ll open the main gates.”
There is always a part of me that hesitates when new survivors find their way to my doorstep. The problem with allowing new women inside Eden is the risk of spreading contagious disease, which is why they’re immediately taken into the basement and held in isolation until Mavis and Perula can perform a full inspection—well, Mavis, Perula, and Lucy, now.
I grind my teeth at the thought of a child taking part in such matters.
I shake away these thoughts when Freyda whistles at me from the guard tower. Grimacing, she shields her eyes from the sun with one hand on her forehead. She makes a slicing motion across her neck with all four fingers, as if to say, “Don’t do it.”
My hand has been hovering over the door switch, so I step away and meet Freyda at the bottom of the guard tower.
“What is it?” I ask. “Who’s out there?”
Freyda places her hands on her gun belt like she always does when she means business. I can tell she used to be a police officer.
“There’s a woman and a teenager,” she says.
“So, what’s the problem?” I ask.
She makes both of her eyebrows bounce once, then gazes off into the dead grass. “The teenager’s a boy.”
Without another thought, I rush to the guard tower to see for myself. A boy? Is it finally happening? Am I finally being cornered into making a decision I’m not ready to make? What am I supposed to do? Let them die? But rules are rules, I remind myself—males are forbidden in Eden. My mind is running a mile a minute as I climb the cool, rusted ladder.
When I reach the top, I peer over the wall in time for the woman’s eyes to catch mine.
Her head thrown back, she pleads at the top of her lungs. “Please! Let us in! We haven’t eaten in days!”
But her begging isn’t what destroys me—it’s her.
I know her.
“Eve?” she shouts out.
She recognizes me. What am I supposed to do now? I pull back, the skin of my palms scraping against the concrete, and drop into a crouched position with my head in my hands and my eyes sealed tight as if this will somehow help me devise a plan.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mutter.
It’s Madelaine. Sweet Madelaine. I met her in one of the underground rebellion groups when I first started getting involved in the rebellion. She used to talk about her boy all the time—Kevin, I think his name was. He must be at least fourteen years old now because he was four or five when she spoke about him. He’s grown taller than her, but he looks like a replica of her: curly brown hair that almost looks red in the sun, eyes as dark as moist soil, and a tanned olive-like complexion.
What the fuck am I supposed to do? Madelaine won’t abandon her son, and if I deny them entry, they’ll both die.
“Eve!” she cries out again.
I can hear her pacing back and forth through the dry dirt.
She’s desperate.
I don’t know what to do, but what I do know is that I can’t let them sit out there to die. I stand up and give Freyda the go-ahead to open the gates. I can feel the vibrations in the ladder as the gates open, and I rush down to greet Madelaine at the front.
“Oh, Eve!” She throws her arms around my neck, and I stiffen.
“Madelaine, I can’t believe it,” I say, pulling back. “And who’s this?”
I don’t mean to grimace at him, but it’s instinctual. In my eyes, all men are scum, even if they’re young. It’s only a matter of time before he turns out like the rest of them.
“This is Zack, my boy,” she says.
Zack—not Kevin, I think.
“How old are you?” I ask him.
“Fifteen,” he says.
Madelaine nudges her son in the ribs.
“Fifteen, ma’am.”
“That’s better,” she says under her breath.
At least she’s teaching him manners, which is more than I can say about most mothers from my previous life.
“Come with me,” I say, turning toward the main building.
Freyda rushes to my side and leans in. “What’re you doing?” she hisses.
I give her a look, one strong enough to tell her to keep her mouth shut unless instructed otherwise, and she stares straight ahead as the gates behind us close.
“Right this way,” I tell them, opening the gate to the prison’s basement.
I have no idea what I’m doing. All I can hope is that with time, a decision will come to me, that after a good night’s rest, I’ll be better equipped to handle this situation.
“So, this is Eden?” Madelaine asks, her skeptical eyes scanning the prison walls. “I’ve heard so much about it, but I wasn’t sure it was true.”
“You’ll see it all soon enough,” I say.
I lead them to a holding cell, although upon first glance, you wouldn’t know it’s a holding cell. There’s a bookshelf in the corner and a nonfunctional TV hooked up to the wall. It looks like a basic entertainment room.
The light above is flickering, and I give Freyda a quick glance. She’ll have someone do the repair.
The moment they’re inside, I step back with Freyda and close the gate. A loud clunk sound echoes across the basement, and Madelaine swiftly turns around in a panic.
“Eve? What’re you doing?”
She rushes to the gate and wraps her fingers around the metal. “What’re you doing?” she repeats.
“It’s only temporary,” I say. “I’ll come back for you in the morning.”
I ignore her shouts and kicks against the metal gate as I exit the basement, then turn to Freyda and say, “Don’t tell anyone about this.”
Eve – Flashback
I scan the discolored brick walls—a soft pink that was assumedly once a vivid red. The white mortar in between the bricks has turned a urine yellow, and in some areas, pieces of it are missing.
“Come on, this way,” I hear.
“She’s coming,” someone else whispers.
Everyone is gathering at the far back of the room. The only reason I came here was because I didn’t want Mila coming alone. She’s been following some secret forum online ever since we located my mom at Glengarry Hospital with two gunshot wounds in her left thigh. One would think that finding their mother injured following a violent riot would be enough to deter them from following that same path, but Mila’s as hardheaded as my mom, if not more.
I glance over at my sister, who looks like a kid at a carnival. She’s inspecting every face, every décor, every light fixture. If she didn’t look so young, I’d tell her to stop because someone might think she’s an undercover cop trying to scope the place out.
I find it hard to believe that this place used to be a comedy club. A few stools are positioned at the bar where old wineglasses hang upside down, but for the most part, seating is unavailable.
At the back of the room, there’s a stage, and above it, an old lightbulb dangles on a wire. The light it casts makes the red brick look orange. Then, at the very center of the wood-paneled stage, an old corded microphone stands, covered in webs. How old is this place, anyway?
A middle-aged woman with dark golden skin and a long black braid hanging down her back brushes past the two of us, glancing back only briefly to apologize for the contact. There’s a certain presence about he
r that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Who is this woman, and why is she walking up on the stage?
Clad in a leather vest, she grabs the microphone, pulls the cobwebs off with her thumb and index finger, then tugs at the cord to locate its plug. When it comes slithering toward her, she changes her mind and pushes aside the microphone. She then claps two hands together and looks down at everyone, welcoming them with her lively smile.
I can’t believe my sister wanted to come to this place. These types of underground rebel groups only worsen the conflict. This isn’t some organization gathering to prepare for a peaceful rally—I can feel it in the atmosphere. The tension is so pronounced, the air is almost heavy; these women want to fight.
Women of all shapes and sizes and levels of femininity and masculinity fill the room. A short woman stands nearby, her arms as thick as a man’s, a black-inked tattoo covering her entire right shoulder. I can’t tell what it is, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a muscle car encased with vines. Her short, wet-looking blond hair sticks straight up, and I can see more gum than tooth as she smiles up at the woman onstage. But it seems this enthusiasm isn’t brought on by actual happiness—rather, she’s thrilled to be a part of something so important.
Mila pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, fixated on the woman with the long black braid. She looks just as entranced as everyone else in the room. I cock an eyebrow at her, but she’s too distracted to even notice. I can’t hear anything the woman is saying, but I don’t think it matters—it looks like she’s chatting with the women at the front of the crowd, like she’s catching up with old friends.
“You look new,” someone says.
The woman standing beside me has dark cocoa hair that encases her face like a helmet. She’s clad in a frilly beige tunic that looks like it was made in someone’s backyard, and her skin is the color of wet sand. The corners of her lips point up and she seems nice, but it almost looks like she’s assessing me—judging me.
“Yeah,” I say, hesitant. “This is my first time here.”