by Keary Taylor
I had to find Margaret. If I could find Margaret, maybe I could keep this from turning into a death match. I could convince her to call off her people.
Because I had no doubt that Margaret was here.
Tristan was right. They had staged my escape. They’d wanted me to get back to New Eden and quickly.
Because when they didn’t find the answer to curing TorBane, they planted their beacon inside of my head and waited for me to return. And then they set it off.
Looking one last time back at my family, I set off down the street.
TWENTY-FIVE
Margaret would be waiting somewhere she could see all the action. I just had to find her vantage point.
I checked the street level, anywhere she would be able to see from. But she wasn’t a stupid woman and being out on the road would be too obvious. She was hiding inside a building.
I was just about to duck inside one when a familiar voice called my name.
I turned left and found West jogging up to my side. His entire body was bruised.
“We’re going to kill each other off out there,” he said, his eyes wild and fearful. He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of view of the battle.
I hadn’t considered how I would react to West when I came face to face with him again after what he’d done, after what Avian had done. Especially since Addie had turned my humanity down.
I should have expected the hatred and the burning that consumed me.
And he saw it all there in my face.
“I am so sorry,” he said, his eyes filling with regret. “I never meant to betray you. I was hurt and I was angry and I was pissed. But I didn’t mean to tell them about you. I thought you were safe back here with Avian when I went with them. I couldn’t stay here anymore. I didn’t think it would matter if I told them what you were capable of. I wasn’t all that sure I’d ever see you again.”
I wasn’t even breathing as I listened to West apologize. The back of my eyes burned and my throat felt as if it had totally closed off.
“Yell at me,” he said, his eyes desperate. “Hit me. Do whatever it takes to make you feel better. I think it will make me feel a bit better if you break a couple bones or knock me unconscious.”
From past experience, I knew I was unpredictable when my emotions got away with me around West.
So I did the only smart, reasonable thing I could do in that moment.
I turned and walked away.
“Holy shit,” West breathed as I took two steps away from him.
And the way he said it, the way the very air changed around us with his words, made me freeze in place.
I turned to look back at him and found his face stark white. His eyes had reddened and moisture pooled in them.
“What?” I demanded, my tone unsure.
He held a hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes closed for a moment. A tear streaked down his cheek.
“I have something important to do right now, so if you have something to say, you’d better say it quick.”
West finally opened his eyes, wide and disbelieving.
“Now, West!” I demanded, debating just running into the building to complete my task. We could talk later, if we lived through the day.
“You know all those stories I told you? About how we used to play together when we were kids? The notes I left you?” he asked in a shaky voice.
“Is this important right now, West?” I said, my tone dripping acid.
He nodded his head.
“Fine, yes.”
He paused for a moment. He took a deep, quivering breath. “None of them were true.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my brow furrowing.
“It was your sister, Eve,” he said, more tears streaking down his cheeks. His eyes rose to the heavens and he shook his head. “It was your identical twin sister that I did all that stuff with. Not you.”
I tried to ask what? but the words stuck in my mouth like it had been filled with cotton. My thoughts swirled. I’d seen myself talking to me in those fractured memories and nightmares in Seattle. I’d been crazy, they’d broken my mind. This couldn’t be true.
“That tattoo on the back of your head?” he said, his voice shaking nearly beyond control now. “The roman numeral two? You were Eve Two. Your sister was Eve one.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, my insides quickly going numb. “No. That can’t be…”
West nodded his head. “We hated each other as kids, Eve. Some people just don’t get along. You and I, we couldn’t stand to be around one another. It…it kind of explains a lot about us now.” His brow furrowed, as if reevaluating every moment we had spent together.
“You lied to me,” I said, my voice very controlled and very quiet. “Again? About something like this?”
Tears started leaking down West’s face again and he gave a slight shake of his head. “I thought you were her, Eve one. Because Eve Two was supposed to be dead. My father was supposed to dispose of her. Because she had been compromised. Because she killed over fifty people. Because Eve Two did this!” He pulled on the collar of his shirt, exposing the claw marks on his neck.
“That was supposed to be me?” I breathed, not believing a word he said.
West nodded, coming one step closer.
“I never said anything about the twin sister because she was supposed to be dead. You didn’t remember anything, and I thought that was for the best. What was the good of bringing up a sister who had tried to kill me and was supposed to be dead? I was going to let the past stay dead.”
I punched West in the face. Hard enough he collapsed to the ground.
“I can’t take any more of your secrets,” I said, my voice shaking with rage. “I hate you West Evans, and if we all live through this day, I never want to see you again.”
And I left him there on the ground. I slipped inside the building and let the door close behind me.
The interior of the building shifted with lines of black. My hands shook and my stomach rolled in an emotional hurricane.
There was coughing somewhere above me and a quick shh. I shut out my personal garbage and took the stairs two at a time.
I was catching a break for the first time in what felt like a very long time. I’d found them in the first building I tried.
Hushed voices came from behind a closed door. Slipping my handgun from my belt, I leaned against the door.
“Do you really think it will work?” a young voice whispered. “Do you really think it can kill them?”
“I don’t know baby,” a motherly voice said. “We can only hope so.”
I pushed the door open, my gun poised ahead of me.
Margaret stood by a large window, overlooking the fight below her.
“I should shoot you right now,” I said loudly. Every eye turned on me, including Margaret’s There were muffled screams and whimpers.
“Then why don’t you?” Margaret asked. There was just the faintest trace of fear in her eyes. But not enough. Not enough to classify her as human in my eyes any longer.
“Because I need to know how far that thing you planted in my head is going to reach.”
Margaret didn’t answer for a moment and I saw her gaze shift to those around her. I noticed then that they were mostly women, children, and elderly.
“Not here,” she said in a hiss and stepped toward me. She held her hands up when I didn’t lower the weapon and stopped. Her eyes slipped down to the little girl on the floor just to the side of me who was crying and had her face buried in her mother’s shoulder.
“Out in the hall,” I said, waving her out with the gun.
The two of us stepped outside the door and I closed it behind us. We walked halfway down the hall for privacy.
“Why?” I asked simply.
“Do you not remember what things were like in Seattle?” Margaret asked with narrowed eyes. “We had to leave or we were all going to get infected. The Underground has been totally compromised. And soon it is going to be
the entire world and we will be eradicated.”
Margaret actually had no idea how true her words were. She had no way of knowing the sweeps the Hunters were conducting.
“Just so you know,” I said, my tone turning icy. “You’ve condemned us all to infection.”
“I don’t understand your pride with this Pulse thing. You have to use it!”
“We would be happy to,” I said, my teeth clenched so tight they might have broken if I were fully human. “If it hadn’t been damaged in the earthquake.”
Margaret paused, her expression paling. “What earthquake?”
“The one we had just a few days ago. The one that dropped a concrete pillar on the Pulse, making it unusable. And our head scientist, the one who developed it, the only one who can fix it, is sick.”
“I didn’t know,” she said. She was trying to pitch her voice to be non-caring, but she was failing.
“We’re all dead now, thanks to you,” I said. I grabbed her wrist and started pulling her down the stairs.
Maybe it was shock or guilt or some other unknown conscious that I didn’t know she possessed, but Margaret let me drag her out of the building without a fight.
Shots rang out and shouts rose into the air. There were three bodies lying in front of the hospital now. I couldn’t look at their faces just then to see if it had been any of ours that had fallen.
West was nowhere to be seen.
“Call your men off,” I growled in Margaret’s ear. “Or I swear I will kill you right here.” I pressed the barrel of my handgun into her ribs.
Margaret shifted uncomfortably, her arm going nowhere under my steel grip. She cleared her throat.
“Cease fire!” Margaret yelled, her voice startlingly loud and filled with authority. “Members of the Underground will assemble. Now!”
Instantly the shots died out and slowly the soldiers, New Eden and foreign alike, gathered before the hospital.
“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Royce growled, pointing a finger at Margaret. He approached her, fast. For a moment I was afraid he was going to plow her right over, but he stopped just an inch from her face, his finger pressed to her chest. He was covered in blood and grime.
Avian suddenly came jogging through the crowd, followed by Raj. I resisted the urge to rush at him and pull him into my arms. But now wasn’t the time.
“I do believe we have some talking to do.” She couldn’t hide the quake in her voice or the fear in her eyes.
“I should just have Eve shoot you right now,” he seethed.
“Trust me,” I said, my jaw clenched tight. “It took everything I had in me not to.”
“Elijah,” Royce barked, turning. Elijah limped forward. There was a shirt tied tightly around his calf, no doubt stopping up a bullet wound. “Watch her people. I swear, if any of them makes a wrong move, shoot them.”
Protests were shouted and firearms were raised again.
“You will do as he says!” Margaret bellowed and instantly the contention died. “You will stand down until I come out. You will wait for my word.”
Eyes shifted and fingers remained poised on their triggers. But they did lower their weapons. Elijah and his team quickly surrounded the Undergrounders.
“Move,” Royce commanded.
Avian stepped forward as if to follow us and Royce immediately threw up a hand. “Now isn’t the time to be the protective boyfriend,” he said, his voice quiet so the entire crowd wouldn’t hear him. “I released you because you’re needed out here. This right now is between the three of us.”
Avian met my eyes and for a moment there was pain and panic there. I could only nod and try to assure him that somehow, everything was going to be okay.
There was a loud, large crowd just inside the hospital doors. Guards, including Tristan, stood armed and ready with the masses behind them.
“Move!” Royce bellowed as we made our way through the crowd toward the stairs. The tension inside of me built as we ascended.
How much time did we have before we were all dead?
As soon as Royce closed the door to his office he turned and shoved Margaret back into a chair. Her eyes grew wide with fear as she fell back.
Good.
“What have you done?” he growled. He placed his hands on each of the arm rests, his face again coming within an inch of hers.
“If you weren’t going to use that Pulse on your own, we thought we’d force you to see reason,” she started explaining in a shaky breath. “It was all too easy to plant false information and stage a supposed escape. We knew you’d listen to one of your own soldiers. You would never suspect she was in fact the beacon.”
Royce slapped Margaret across the face. The sound was sharp and startling. Margaret jerked to the side, her hair whipping across her face.
“How far is that beacon going to reach?” he demanded.
Margaret faced forward again, her mouth slightly agape, her eyes not quite meeting Royce’s. Her hand rose to her cheek gingerly. “We had no certain way to test it. But we estimated it would reach at least five-hundred-miles.”
Royce was silent for a moment. I had little doubt he was calculating the size of the cities within that five-hundred-mile radius.
“There is about to be over a million Bane flooding into this city. We were in the middle of an evacuation but there is no way we will get everyone out in time. And we have no way to defend ourselves,” Royce said. “What do you have to say about that?”
We heard a shot fired, followed by another.
Royce swore and we both sprinted for the stairwell.
“Do you have any idea how much time we have before they start arriving?” Royce asked as we ran.
I shook my head, tightening my grip on my handgun, wishing I had more firepower. “We were clear for at least seventy five miles. Three hours?”
Royce swore again as we sprinted through the lobby and back out the front doors. There was the faint sound of glass shattering.
The crowd had disbanded again and the fighting resumed.
Elijah lay on the ground, pressing fingers into a bleeding wound in his chest.
Avian had another man pinned beneath him and his fist connected with the man’s face. Even West was in the brawl at this point, scuffling in the dirt, his hands wrapped around a soldier’s throat.
Down the street another shot was fired.
A woman from the Underground tried rushing the entrance to the hospital. I threw myself at her, knocking her to the ground. We rolled to the ground and she hitched the barrel of her gun up into my stomach.
My breath caught in my throat and I froze on top of her.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, my voice breathy. “We are about to be invaded. We don’t have time for all this fighting.”
“You’re one to talk,” she spat. “After you just murdered Margaret?”
“What?”
The woman shoved me off of her and pointed somewhere just behind me.
There was broken glass everywhere. And in the middle of it was Margaret.
She was dead. There was no question about it. Her right arm was bent back underneath her at an impossible angle. Her neck was cocked sharply to the left, broken. There were huge chunks of glass embedded into her skin and blood poured from her lifeless body.
“She jumped,” I said, my voice horrified and disgusted. I’d heard glass shatter just before Royce and I had gotten back outside.
Royce told her how she’d killed everyone, and she jumped to her death.
“Don’t lie to me,” the woman said, her voice harsh and emotional. She wedged the barrel of her gun back between my ribs.
“No,” I insisted, meeting her brown eyes again. “I promise you, that wasn’t us.”
The woman’s features hardened and she shook her head as she cocked the trigger.
I spun quickly, grabbing her wrist as I did. With a quick flip of my own hand, I pulled the gun from her grasp and completed the spin to turn and point both my
own firearm and hers at her chest.
“I will not fire unless I have to,” I said quietly. “But right now I am not your enemy. There are about to be hundreds of thousands of Bane flooding this city and I am your only shot at staying alive and human.”
And then I knew exactly what I had to do.
Throwing the gun out of her reach, I turned east.
There was a wide open desert out there where no people would get hurt. A wide open desert big enough to hold the enemy that would soon be arriving.
I scanned the fighting crowd for Avian but he was nowhere in sight.
There would be no time for a goodbye.
I dashed around the side of the hospital and dropped down into the garage. I hopped on an oversized ATV. It would get me through the mountains, over the rough terrain, and it would do it quickly.
The engine growled to life and I shot out of the garage.
The crowd parted as I ripped down the street. Members of New Eden shouted after me as I moved. But Royce, Gabriel, and Avian were nowhere in sight.
Spotting Bill, I slowed momentarily. He caught sight of me and I waved him over. He rushed the ATV and hopped on, grabbing onto the cargo rack.
“You’re going to head them off, aren’t you?” he asked, his eyes serious and dark.
“There’s no other way,” I said. “We’re all dead if I don’t do something.”
Bill nodded, glancing back at the fighting crowd. They had barely paused when I barreled through them. “Hopefully there are still some of us left to save.”
And then West shot through the crowd, stumbling over debris. He stopped next to the ATV, his hands braced on his knees for a moment as he caught his breath.
“I’m sorry I lied, again, Eve,” he said, looking up at me with regret on his face. He straightened and pulled something from the cargo pocket of his pants and extended it towards me.
His grandfather’s notebook.
“The truth is in there,” he said. “You’re going to hate me for hiding it, but it’s there.”
In that moment, there wasn’t anything to say. I took the notebook and looked back at the fighting masses, my heart hurting.
“Tell Royce to figure something out,” I said. “And tell Addie to be ready with the wireless transmission system. I’ll keep them away for as long as I can. But in case I can’t keep them all out of the city, continue with the evacuation plan. Head into the water. You’ll be safe there. At least for a while.”