by Keary Taylor
“Don’t come near her again!” Avian threatened, landing another blow as West swung back.
West took a swing at Avian, which he blocked with his forearm before landing another punch to West’s face.
“You have no idea who she really is!” West yelled. “She was never supposed to pick you! It was always me and her. Always!”
“That’s enough!” Elijah shouted as he sprang for the two. He shoved Avian off of West while West tried for another swing. Bill darted into the alley, pulling Avian away, holding his arms pinned behind his back.
“I mean it!” Avian screamed. “You touch her again and I will kill you!”
I couldn’t move, sitting immobile and stunned on the ground as I watched the mess I’d caused explode out of control.
What had I done?
What kind of an unfixable disaster had I created?
“All three of you back to the hospital, right now!” Elijah commanded, his eye wild and angry. “I will not have my own crew fighting amongst themselves!”
Avian jerked in Bill’s arms, trying to get back at West, who stared at him with death in his eyes.
“That’s enough!” I yelled, my ability to breathe returning.
“Cool it,” Bill said, jerking when Avian lurched for West.
“Back to the hospital,” Elijah growled again.
When Avian relaxed, Bill released him. Avian didn’t look away from West as he shrugged his shoulders, adjusting the rifle on his back. His jaw flexed along with his fists as he turned and walked down the alley.
West shoved Elijah off of him and walked away in the opposite direction.
“You three need to get your crap together,” Elijah snapped at me. “Your little love tiff is going to get someone killed.”
SIX
“Welcome back.”
I blinked, clearing the black, shifting lines from my vision.
The room hadn’t even come into focus before Dr. Beeson wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my arm. It ticked as it filled, squeezing my arm.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
My heart beat erratically. My breathing came in shallow gulps. There must have been something physical inside of me, rising up, attempting to choke me, trying to drown me from the inside out.
All the guilt, shock, shame, everything I’d felt earlier, came crushing in on me tenfold.
“I…” I stuttered, overcome at the rushing feeling going on within me.
“Take a deep breath,” Dr. Beeson said, his brows furrowing together. He pressed the stethoscope to my chest and listened to my heart crash against my rib cage. “Try to relax.”
I made a small O with my lips and focused on my breaths.
This was my fourth emotional adjustment. This one was supposed to take my emotional blockers down to less than fifty percent.
“You seem overwhelmed,” Dr. Beeson said, concern obvious in his voice. He lowered the stethoscope. “Your heart is racing and your blood pressure is up. Perhaps this was too big of a jump.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s okay. I need this.”
“Is there a specific reason why?” he asked.
I opened my eyes and pulled myself into a sitting position. It felt like all of my insides had swelled and everything was trying to push its way up my throat to suffocate me.
“I’m going to hurt West if he keeps relapsing like this and I stay so emotionally unsympathetic.” My vision blurred as I fixed my eyes on the floor. “Things are getting bad. I need to figure out how to deal with all this.”
“I don’t know that it has anything to do with your emotional blockers,” Dr. Beeson said, glancing up at me from my chart. “This would be emotionally trying on anyone.”
“Still,” I said, shaking my head. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. It made me feel slightly better, like maybe I wouldn’t crack open and fall to pieces right there on the table. “I know I should try and talk to him again, to explain why I didn’t choose him, but I know I’ll screw it up and make things worse. Besides, he’ll forget it all again soon.”
“If this adjustment seems like too much, I want you to tell me right away,” Dr. Beeson said, ignoring my last comment. What was he supposed to do? Give me relationship advice? “We have to be careful with this. We don’t want to fracture you mentally. We could cause some serious damage.”
“Serious damage,” I said, shaking my head, giving a humorless chuckle. “Only I could get seriously damaged from becoming like everyone else.”
“But you’re not like everyone else,” Dr. Beeson said, his voice lowering. “You are unique, Eve. You are special.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. Accepting who, or rather what, I was had become a daily battle.
Suddenly a smile cocked in the corner of his mouth. “I still can’t believe how much you look like your mother.”
“How well did you know her?” I asked, glad for the distraction.
Dr. Beeson sat back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “I only ever actually met her once. I was still in graduate school and was given the opportunity to tour the NovaTor facility. We ended up talking afterward. We met for dinner and ended up visiting for probably three hours.”
“What was she like?” I asked.
A sad look flashed across his face, knowing he had enjoyed an opportunity I had been robbed of.
“She was whip-smart,” he said, threading his fingers together in his lap. “Her attention to detail was impeccable. Her dedication to the development of TorBane was astounding. She was convinced it would save the world. She made me believe it would.”
I had to swallow hard at that. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. My mother had helped develop TorBane, the technology that would destroy the world in a matter of months once it was made available to the public. She had helped develop the technology that made me less than human.
“How long was that before I was born?” I asked.
Dr. Beeson paused for a moment before he responded, as if calculating the time.
“I would suspect she was pregnant with you at that time,” he said quietly. “She had said something about how she and her boyfriend had recently broken up.”
An ache in my chest swelled.
My father. Who was he? What did he look like? Was he still out there somewhere? Was there any chance he was alive?
The worst part was that I knew I would never find the answers to my question.
I would never even know his name.
“That’s enough for today,” Dr. Beeson said. He placed his hand on my back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought your mother up. Not when you’re like this.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered, even though I wasn’t sure it was.
“I’ll call Avian to take you home, away from the hospital,” he said, reaching for his radio. “I think it would be wise for you to have a few days to take it easy and adjust. Honestly, it sounds like you both could use some time away.”
“You’ll keep an eye on West for me?” I asked. Just saying West’s name brought up a hurricane inside of me. “He’s not in a good place right now.”
“Of course.”
Avian was not happy when he picked me up from Dr. Beeson’s office. The three of us had argued for twenty minutes. Avian was insisting I shouldn’t have to deal with being overwhelmed. I insisted that I was going to do something stupid if I didn’t continue with my adjustments.
They finally got tired of arguing with me. Avian drove us to the beach.
But while the night progressed, I knew that maybe I was wrong. As we ate, I could feel this sense of regret, dread, and guilt building up inside of me.
The weight of the world seemed to be settling on my shoulders. The wreck I’d caused pressed in on my throat. Avian’s reaction earlier had been because of my indecision.
Why couldn’t I handle this? Why couldn’t I be a normal person? Why was I so weak?
Avian was quiet and watched me
, never saying a word.
When we were done with our dinner, I exited the tent and walked toward the water.
I stood with my toes in the sand, the salty waves lapping at them. I watched as the early December clouds gathered, growing heavy and dark. Electricity fizzed through the air, giving a sense of urgency to the world around me. A storm was gathering.
The air, the energy around and in me, the sense of needing to do something more, reminded me of the night the Bane had burned our gardens in the mountains to ash.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I rubbed my hands over my skin. Winter was upon us, and while it didn’t have the bite and chill, or snow of old Eden, it was getting cooler. I’d soon be grateful for the warmth of the hospital, even though it would mean that I would be trapped within its walls for the next few months.
And I’d never be able to escape West there.
With the cities endless concrete walls, limitless broken roads, too many abandoned cars; I felt like a trapped animal.
For a moment I considered heading north. Far, far north. I’d seen maps before, knew that if I could travel far enough I’d find trees and forests again. Nature felt like home, in a way it was where I was born.
Somehow I didn’t think this concrete jungle would ever feel like home.
Maybe we’d survive, if Avian and I just took off. We could find somewhere remote enough to outlast the Bane. We could take supplies with us, hunt for food. Maybe I could be happy again, feel free.
Then maybe West could move on.
But that was insane. Winter was at our door, food would be scarce. Temperatures would make it difficult to survive.
And what about Gabriel? Royce? Victoria, and Brady, and Lin, and Tuck?
And West?
I couldn’t leave.
Home was wherever the people I cared about were. Home wasn’t a dot on the map.
The soft crunch of sand behind me let me know Avian had stepped out of the tent. I took a few quick, deep breaths in attempt to calm myself down. I was getting worked up, my emotions too close to the surface.
Avian stopped at my side, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He didn’t say anything, just stared out over the dark waters with his ever serious eyes.
I was grateful for Avian’s silence. From the way he stood, the way he angled himself towards me just slightly, the way he kept pressing his lips together, I knew he could tell this adjustment had been too much. But he also had the sense to know when I just needed him there, even if he didn’t say anything.
“What’s on the other side?” I asked quietly, squeezing myself tighter as the temperature dropped a few more degrees. “What’s across the water?”
“A whole lot of ocean, for a long ways,” he said as he watched the lightning that started out far from the coast. “You’ll start to see the curve of the Earth before you get to land. There are some scattered islands, but they’re small. Then eventually you’ll run into the Asian continent, Australia if you veer south.”
“Do you think the Bane have gotten as bad in those places as they are here?” I asked.
“It’s hard to imagine they haven’t,” he answered, his voice heavy and sad. “TorBane took hold worldwide within a few weeks.”
I nodded. The wind started to pick up, fanning my hair behind me, making my breath catch in my throat.
“Maybe there’s a place out there,” I said, my eyes glazing over. Everything went blurry as my focus turned internal. “A place where the infection didn’t travel to. One of those islands in a warm place. There’d be trees and sand, animals for hunting. It’d be safe.”
Avian’s arms wrapped around me from behind, his warmth sending a wave of goosebumps flashing across my skin.
“There is,” he said, his lips close to my ear as he rested his chin on my shoulder. “That place is in each of us. It’s what’s kept us all going the last six years.”
Something stung at the back of my eyes and I hated my human side for being weak. I couldn’t vocalize that for the last few weeks I had felt like that place was disappearing for me.
As soon as I thought it, I knew how terrible and selfish that was. We’d won here in New Eden. We’d defeated the Bane and we’d found safety. At least for now. I had no right to complain or to be unhappy. I was alive and so were the people I cared about.
A flash of light let us know that the storm was moving closer to land and the clap of thunder followed just one second later.
Avian took my hand in his and led me back to the tent.
SEVEN
I inhaled slowly, leveling my eyes along the sight. And exhaling, I squeezed the trigger.
The old cup lid I’d tacked up on the outside wall of the long forgotten about house exploded as I hit it dead center. I was having a good time with Avian’s gift.
“Perfect,” Avian said. I glanced over at him to find a wide smile on his face. He’d started smiling so much more since the Pulse went off. “Not that I’d expect anything less from you.”
“Weapons and shooting are easy,” I said as I refilled the magazine. “It’s people that are difficult. This is just calculation and a good eye.”
A can that lay discarded on the ground down the road jumped into the air as I hit it.
“I wonder if we could make an arrow with an explosive head,” I said as I watched Avian take aim with his new bow. “An arrow alone might not be enough to take down a Bane, but you make it explosive, and if you can embed it in their chest or something, and you’d take them out for sure.”
“Sounds like an afternoon of fun for Royce,” Avian said as he released the arrow.
It would be. There might not be any Bane around at the moment, but that didn’t keep Royce from making all kinds of new toys of mass destruction. As a former weapons specialist, he had the deranged creativity to create anything, if he could only get his hands on the resources.
“You hungry?” Avian asked, embedding yet another perfect shot. I still wasn’t used to seeing him handle weapons, and even more so, use them so accurately. Avian was a better shot than I was with a bow.
“Ugh,” I groaned. “I need to go hunting. I can’t stand any more of this canned and last-forever food they have here.”
Avian chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll admit, I miss our gardens so much it hurts some days. What I wouldn’t do for a few fresh tomatoes or a handful of strawberries.”
“Don’t remind me,” I growled, placing my Desert Eagle in the holster at my hip. “That’s cruel.”
Shouldering his bow, Avian took my hand in his and we slowly made our way back to the beach.
The wind had finally died out after raging all night. The tent had flapped and whipped around, the stakes were yanked out of the ground. The only thing that kept it from blowing away was the weight of our bodies.
Neither of us had gotten much sleep that night. But at least we weren’t caged up in the hospital.
By morning I was feeling better, or at least I didn’t feel like I was getting overwhelmed by everything going on inside of me.
Avian set to building a fire to cook our meager meal and I stashed our weapons beneath our cots. It was an impressive hoard of firepower I’d been building. I had another stockpile in the closest house that looked out over the water. The Bane were gone, for now, but that didn’t mean I let my guard down.
I stepped back outside and watched as Avian started cooking our meal.
“You were pretty aggressive with West yesterday,” I said, not wanting to talk about the event, but knowing it had to be addressed.
Avian grunted, but didn’t look up from the fire. His expression darkened.
“Want to tell me what that was about?” I asked. “I’ve never seen you like that.”
He sighed, placing a pan over the fire and dumping some kind of substance into it. When he was finished he stayed where he was, kneeling on one knee.
“I keep losing people,” he said, finally meeting my eye. “I lost all my commanding officers, my fellow soldiers. Then I had to shoot m
y own parents to save Sarah. Then Tye got infected. Given that one was my own fault.”
I shook my head, about to argue that he couldn’t have known Tye would get infected because of a request he made, but Avian plowed on. “And then Sarah dies of something I can’t cure.”
He ran a hand over his short hair, his mouth pulling downward in a frown. He shook his head and I noticed then that he was trembling just slightly. I crossed to kneel by him in the sand. I put a hand on either side of his face, drawing his eyes to mine.
“You’re all I have left, Eve,” he said, his voice husky and low. “I will do anything—anything—to keep something from happening to you. I’m tired of being the calm one who always fixes things. I’m not going to sit back and watch West hurt you.”
“I know,” I said quietly, searching his eyes. There was regret in them. I knew he wasn’t proud of what he’d done. But there was also desperation. I felt it too.
I pressed my lips to his. All the hurt and pain and confusion slowly melted away as his hand came up to my hair, pulling me closer.
“Avian, Eve,” a familiar voice called from up by the road. I turned to see Tuck walking up on the beach, an unfamiliar electric car parked on the road at the edge of the sand.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. No one other than Elijah and Gabriel had ever come to the tent.
“Royce sent me after you two,” Tuck said. The alarm in his eyes outweighed the embarrassed flush in his cheeks at catching us together. “Some new people showed up today.”
“How many?” Avian asked, his expression dark and serious again.
“Twenty,” Tuck said. “They’re well-armed and seem to know how to handle themselves.”
“Twenty?” I said, not hiding my shock. “Where did they come from?”
“That’s what’s got Royce and Gabriel so worried,” he said. “They won’t say. But they arrived by Coast Guard ship early this morning, just north of here. They’ve been asking a lot of questions but not answering any.”
“Okay,” I said, turning back to Avian. He gave a little nod, his eyes carrying a sad look, like he knew how much I didn’t want to go back into the city yet—that in reality—I wasn’t quite ready. “We’ll head out in just a minute.”