Eden Box Set

by G. C. Julien

  I pull back from the door and glare at the wall beside me. New Eden? What’s she talking about? And who’s Gabriel? Is that him? The man Mavis and Perula were discussing? If so, why is she talking about us receiving help from him? My eyes dart from side to side across the white-paneled wall and my mind races.

  What’s going on?

  Why would we move?

  Everything is going so well here. If we move, history will repeat itself. Who knows how long we’ll be traveling? What if more people die? Why would Eve do this? Is this about resources? I heard someone say that’s why those women were sent outside of Eden. Apparently, Eve wants to start letting women go out to get things more often.

  Why isn’t that happening, then?

  Why does she suddenly want to leave? Is it the space? I close my eyes and picture every Division. All of the corridors, all of the long narrow stretches filled with dozens upon dozens of cells. In these cells, I see girls and women of all different ages. Aside from most of Division Seven, I can’t remember the last time I saw an empty cell.

  Are we running out of space?

  I’m about to press my ear against the door again when the sound of a box being kicked echoes behind me. My heart nearly jumps in my throat and I swing around with my fists up by my face the way a rat curls its little paws it’s grooming.

  I probably look like a complete moron.

  At first, all I see is a pair of legs on the floor, and I can’t tell who entered the storage space.

  “Lucy!” comes Nola’s voice.

  She crawls onto her hands and knees, gives me the stink-eye, then stands up. She must have tripped over a box. I’m about to laugh but realize I’m probably in trouble. I hold my breath, ready for her to rip my head off when she walks toward me with horrible posture and awkward footing.

  Is she trying to be sneaky?

  “What’re you doing here?” she asks, her voice a sharp whisper.

  “Why’re you whispering?” I whisper.

  “You tell me!” she whispers, and her eyes narrow on me.

  “Did you follow me?” I ask.

  She shifts her weight on one leg only and tilts her head to the side.

  “Yeah, I followed you,” she says as if this were obvious.

  “Why?” I mouth.

  She twirls a finger in front of her face as if drawing circles on mine from a distance. “I’ve been watching you,” she says. “You’ve been acting kinda funny… Lying to me about where you are. Skipping your lessons with Mavis and Perula. Just like my daughter… Adventurous. Then, I see you sneaking your way down toward the main entrance.” She crosses both arms over her chest. “I left the meeting to go to the bathroom when I saw you heading toward the main entrance! No one goes to the main entrance. And you looking over your shoulder every few seconds didn’t help your case.”

  She caught me. I feel like an idiot. What am I supposed to tell her? That I’ve been having doubts about Eve? I can’t do that. I don’t know where Nola stands. I don’t know which side she’s on. Heck, I don’t even know which side I’m on anymore. What am I even doing?

  “What’s on the other side?” she asks, wiggling that finger toward me again.

  “Preparation Room,” I say and avert my eyes to the floor’s carpet.

  Game over.

  “Prepa—” she steps quickly toward me and plops herself down like an excited toddler. Her thick legs almost squish mine, and she pushes me to the side with her butt then sticks her ear against the door.

  “What’re you doing?” I ask, but she scowls at me, which is a translation for, “Shut up.”

  Then, almost as if she only now realized she’s encouraging me, she pulls herself away from the door, stands up, and dusts off the bottom of her dress.

  She glares at me. “Why’re you listening in on what’s going on in there?”

  What am I supposed to answer? I sigh. I’ve lied to her too many times to keep lying. She’s treated me better than anyone in Eden—even better than Eve—and here I am, being dishonest with her.

  “Are you spying on Eve?” she asks. She looks more upset than I’ve ever seen her. Her mouth hangs open, and her forehead is full of bumpy wrinkles. Nola’s always nothing but smiles with me, it’s hard to take in.

  I swallow hard and my throat makes a toad-like sound. She turns on her heels and starts mumbling a bunch of nonsense.

  What’s she saying? I crane my neck, hoping to catch some of it. I hear the word Eve get tossed around a few times, and then the words promise and loyalty. She suddenly throws her arms over her head, and when they come back down, they slap hard against her thighs. “What am I supposed to tell Eve?”

  “What?” I blurt. “Why would you tell Eve?”

  Her eyes shift from side to side like I’ve caught her in a lie. Forget my sneaking around Eden, what’s she hiding from me?

  “Well?” I press. “Why would you want to get me in trouble?”

  She twirls her thumbs around each other. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  What’s she talking about? Something’s up; I can see it all over her face. She reminds me of a kid who’s caught taking cookies out of the cookie jar.

  She scoops her bangs out of her face and holds them flat on top of her head. I’ve noticed she does this when she’s thinking hard or when she’s stressed out. And every time she does, I see that weird scar over her right eyebrow. It looks like someone took a slab of metal and jabbed her right in the face. It’s square-shaped, and it’s a few millimeters deep. I try not to look at it. The last time I asked her where she got it, she started blubbering her daughter’s name, Gracey, and she disappeared for two days. I think she might’ve gotten it during the war trying to save her daughter’s life.

  She extends her hand palm up in my direction and her hair falls back in her face. “Well, if you hadn’t been running around with that friend of yours, Eve wouldn’t have asked me to keep an eye on you!”

  “Keep an eye—” I say, fuming. “Why would Eve—”

  “Hush!” Nola says. Her eyes look as big as those jawbreaker candies. She slaps a finger over her tight lips and makes her eyes go even bigger if that’s possible.

  “Okay, okay,” I mouth.

  She looks over her shoulder toward the storage room’s door, the one I came through, then shuffles her way to me and crouches down. “You can’t repeat a word of this to anyone.”

  “I won’t,” I say, but all I can think about is Emily. She’s the one who told me about this storage room in the first place. I shouldn’t have thought about Emily. Nola’s a lot like my mom when it comes to mindreading, and she looks at me like I have my thoughts printed out all over my face.

  With an inquisitive glare, she says, “Who else knows?”

  Am I supposed to try to lie to get out of this one? Emily made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. I can’t betray her like that.

  “N-no one,” I stutter.

  “Lucinda Cain,” she says, and the sound of my name feels like a punch in the stomach.

  “I can’t tell you,” I say. “I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “And I promised I’d tell Eve everything you’re up to,” she hisses.

  It’s so weird to see Nola like this. With her eyebrows low and flat, her droopy, upside-down smile, and her finger, which she keeps sticking in front of my nose, it’s almost like she’s a different person entirely.

  “So…” I say, rolling my eyes toward the ceiling. “Are you not gonna tell Eve about this?”

  She crosses her arms over her big boobs and leans back against the wall, a small pocket of air escaping her lungs. “You know I can’t do that.”

  My heart races. “Do what? Tell Eve, or keep this from her?”

  She turns to me, her red face inches away from mine, and wrinkles her nose. She looks like her head could pop off at any second.

  “What?” I ask.

  “The situation you put me in,” she says. “And I know Emily knows. It doesn’t take a genius to figure i
t out. For the record, I figured it out, so you don’t have to feel bad about breaking your promise.”

  Great. Emily won’t be happy about this. She won’t care how Nola found out; she’ll care that an adult knows what we’ve been up to.

  Nola lets out a sharp breath and slaps her knees. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  Without thinking, I throw my arms around her and drop my head on her shoulder. “Thanks, Nola!”

  She stiffens, but only for a second. She isn’t accustomed to me showing her affection. I think she’s a bit confused. She reaches an arm around me and pulls me in closer until my face squishes up into her neck.

  Although it’s a bit awkward, I don’t pull away. There’s something comforting about her warmth. And by the way she presses her lips against the top of my head, I think she’s feeling the same way.

  CHAPTER 15 – GABRIEL

  “Are you insane?” I ask, but I realize by the looks on their faces that I’m out of line.

  Eve raises her chin and walks toward me, her hips swaying like a wildcat on the verge of lunging at its prey. “Am I insane?” she repeats.

  Shit. I should’ve shut my mouth.

  “Am I insane?” she repeats again, this time, laughing.

  Okay, she has got to be insane.

  The two witch-looking women at the back start blabbering all kinds of nonsense. The curvier of the two, the one who’s sitting on the red couch, picking at its yellow buttons, keeps saying the weirdest things like, “Insane in the membrane,” and “The only cocklidolis here is him.” Then she points at me.

  Maybe they’re all insane.

  Her sister, who seems a lot more soft-spoken and delicate, walks toward Eve with her hands clasped in front of her. “Eve, we’re so sorry the tea didn’t have the effect you wanted.”

  Eve’s hateful eyes are aimed right at me, but then they soften so quickly it looks like a new soul has jumped into her body. She turns sideways and brushes her fingers through this woman’s long, tangled hair. “Oh, Perula,” she says. “Please, don’t apologize. You both did everything you could.”

  I glance over at Freyda, who stands as stiff as a statue, her gaze fixated on the wall. Eve obviously did something right with her. She’s acting like a soldier, like a shell ready to obey any command. I wish I’d get the chance to talk to her alone. I know there’s something in there. There’s a strong woman deep down inside.

  I clear my throat. “Sorry, Eve, I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

  She twirls on her heels until she’s facing me again, this time, with her head tilted to one side and a creepy smile on her lips. I say creepy because I can tell it’s fake. Why’s she even smiling at me? She hates my guts. I’d rather she be looking at me like she usually does. Full of contempt and disgust. This is so much more disturbing.

  “I understand,” she says quietly, and that smile doesn’t move. Then, she says, and much louder this time, “I’m sorry if I scared you at all, Gabriel. But my women do come first.”

  “Yeah, I get that—” I try, but she cuts me off.

  “If the women of Eden don’t trust me, who can they trust?”

  This is obviously all rhetorical, so I keep my mouth shut this time. She doesn’t give a damn what I think. She wants to look good in front of the women in this room.

  “Freyda,” she says, “take him back to the basement.”

  Without saying a word, Freyda gives Eve her usual obedient nod and tugs at the rope around my wrists.

  “What? Why?” I ask. The last thing I want to do is go back into some dark hole with cold cement flooring. I thought she agreed to let me take them to Area 82. Or at least, a few of them. Wasn’t that the plan? I even told her about the planes.

  “It’s only temporary,” she says. “I’ll come for you when it’s time.”

  Freyda pulls on the rope, and I don’t even have the chance to argue with her. She’s got a lot of muscle hiding underneath that long-sleeved shirt. I trip over my boot and the room shakes, but I catch my footing in time.

  We leave the weird back room we recently entered, and when we come back to the room with the stage (it looks like an auditorium or cinema room where prisoners used to get TV privileges), the metal-framed cushioned chairs are now empty and they’re all neatly placed in even rows.

  I wonder where all the women went. Back to their rooms? To do their chores? What do they even do around here? Does everyone work? If men ran this place, everyone would be trained for battle. But I can tell by the way Eve talks to her people that she’s not into that. She doesn’t want violence. I don’t think any of these women even remember what violence is. They look all brainwashed and overly happy.

  “How long’s she gonna keep me down there?” I ask Freyda, but she doesn’t answer. Her long ponytail sways from side to side with every step, and her equipment makes noise against her clothes.

  I remember that. Having so much equipment on me, making it nearly impossible to be stealthy. I try not to think back to my Black Marine days. Every time I do, it reminds me of the awful things I’ve seen, not only during the revolution but during my mission in North Korea. All of the beheadings, the innocent women and children hung at the border, and even the nonmilitary men being shot at for no reason at all.

  It was a huge massacre, thanks to President Price who couldn’t swallow his ego. It all started with childish threats between the two countries, until finally, North Korea launched a missile straight for Guam, destroying half the island. After that, everything went to shit.

  I see the same little girl almost every night in my sleep. As much as I try to forget her face, I can’t. Her hair was as black as coal that formed wings off her shoulders and her eyes looked like little almonds. But they were open, and her face was swollen and bulging over the noose around her neck. She was hung for trying to escape, and all I remember thinking was I hope one day soon, aliens invade planet Earth. I hope they kill us all. Human beings are too cruel of a species to deserve life.

  Well, that never happened. Instead, we went to war with our own country and destroyed ourselves.

  “This way,” Freyda says, and the yank around my wrists brings me back from my shitty past to my shitty reality.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  This can’t be America’s new reality.

  “He isn’t breathing!” the woman yells. She’s kneeling in the gravel, her greasy hair masking half her face. But what gets to me is the look in her eyes. It’s pure heartbreak. She keeps pulling her son tight into her arms and kissing his face. He looks like he’s five, maybe six years old, with blemish-free skin and little pink lips.

  I want to comfort her, but there’s nothing I can do. He’s dead. They’re all dead.

  I step my combat boot over a soldier’s body and cross the street. The only reason I’m not being attacked right now is because I took off all my gear. I’m wearing cargo pants and a white T-shirt. I kept my pistols around my ankles as a precaution, but no one can see them. Right now, I’m like everyone else: lost and confused.

  A thick smog floats throughout the city and dark figures appear every few minutes, searching the debris for what I can only assume are lost friends or family members. Every few minutes, a gun goes off, and I flinch.

  How could this happen?

  This is America.

  There’s nothing left.

  Aside from the people screaming and pleading, there’s no sound throughout the city. Cars are all over the place. Some are parked on the side of the street, but most are abandoned in the middle of roads, bumper to bumper, or crashed into each other, or crushed against electrical poles. Most of them are crumpled up at the front, their metal frames looking like nothing more than cheap plastic. Small electrical wires stick out from over some of their wheels. I’m assuming when the power went out, car engines stopped, but the cars kept rolling until they hit something. And in most cases, it was the car in front of them.

  But what surprises me most are the civilians. I don’t see men and women
fighting. They’re in a state of panic. It’s almost like now that all of the anger’s disappeared, everyone’s realizing how bad things got. A few feet away from me, in front of an old coffee shop that has only half its store intact, two dirt-stained bearded men scoop up an injured woman and rush her inside a building. Maybe they’re doctors or nurses. Either way, everyone’s trying to help each other now that the military isn’t involved.

  I don’t know how many of them survived, but if they did, there aren’t many left. Not with all of the weapons they were blindsided with. Grenades, nail guns, shovels, and all kinds of military-grade guns that I can only assume came from some underground resistance led by ex-military women.

  I stare inside the coffee shop. I used to come here with my mama when we’d visit downtown Washington. It didn’t happen often, but the few times that it did, I was in heaven. The clerk behind the counter always gave me a free peanut butter cookie. It was their thing, and it attracted a lot of parents with kids.

  The chairs, which used to be fire truck red, are now brown and black, and one of them is cut in half and its plastic back is completely melted. The smell of smoke fills my nostrils, and I turn around.

  An apartment building, several stories high, is on fire. Heavy black smoke comes rushing out through one of the apartment’s broken windows, and wild flames lick the exterior bricks.

  An explosion blasts nearby. I instinctively reach for my gun belt, but I remember my gun is at my ankle. I wish I had all my equipment, but the military isn’t exactly welcome after everything that’s happened.

  Something hard suddenly grabs my shoulder and spins me around.

  “H-h-have you seen her?” the man asks. His eyelids are pink and his lips are shiny with slobber. “My little girl. She ran out of our apartment and came looking for her mother. P-p-please. She’s this tall”—he places a hand by his waist—“has strawberry blond hair…”

  He stops talking when he realizes I’m staring at him. I want to help, but I haven’t seen anyone. I’m not looking for anyone, either. I don’t even know what I’m doing or where I’m going.

  “Please!” he shouts, and a glob of spit lands on my chin.