Second Heart: Bones of Eden

by Zaide Bishop

  “There, look!” There was an edge in Romeo’s voice. Something ragged and hateful that sent a chill up Tango’s spine. She turned and realized they’d been spotted, the Elikai now watching them like hungry feral dogs.

  “We’re going,” Charlie called back calmly. “We saw you, so we’re leaving. No harm done.”

  “Of course you are.” Romeo stalked toward them. Her brothers looked somewhat confused, but they fell in behind her with their spears and bows. “We all know how good Varekai are at running away when someone else is in trouble.”

  Whiskey’s shoulders hunched, her grip on her spear tightening. “Let’s not drag up the past when we’re all starving in the present. You’re wasting your energy, and I doubt you have all that much to spare.”

  Romeo had not stopped. She continued to pick her way across the stones, making for Whiskey. “That’s no surprise. The ‘right’ thing is always whatever works in your favor, isn’t it, Whiskey? When you’re fit, you’re all for war. When you want babies, you want to befriend the Elikai. When food is scarce, it’s better if you don’t share. Now you’re trying to grow spawn in your belly, there’s no violence in you at all. Everyone thinks you’re brave, but you’re just selfish.”

  “It wasn’t my decision!” There was a tremble in Whiskey. She was almost vibrating, though Tango couldn’t tell if it was rage or even fear. “Charlie is leader. Charlie told you to leave.”

  “Oh, you’re just helpless, aren’t you?” Romeo crooned, only a few yards away now. “Nothing is your fault.”

  The ex-Varekai lashed out suddenly, the tip of her spear slicing across Whiskey’s exposed belly. Whiskey leaped back, but not fast enough, and the sharpened stone drew a ragged, red line through her skin.

  Whiskey snarled, and all pretense of supplication vanished. She whipped her own spear around, cracking Romeo across the side of the head, then spinning it and slashing downward in a swipe that would have gutted Romeo from neck to groin if it had hit. Instead, the blow to the head had sent Romeo reeling, and she stumbled backward, avoiding the killing strike by pure chance.

  William lunged forward, blocking Whiskey’s third strike, and she whipped out a bone knife, slashing at his throat. That was the last clear view Tango got of them, as chaos erupted all around her, the Elikai rushing to William’s defense and the Varekai countering.

  Tango was frozen by both horror and indecisiveness. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

  “Help me!” Xícara was at her side, leaping in to try to drag Maria back and down. Tango followed his lead, grabbing Mike’s weapon before she could strike Nab and using it to deflect Sierra’s spear.

  “Stop!” Charlie’s voice rose over Whiskey’s yowls of fury. “Stop fighting!”

  The two tribes broke apart, but Whiskey still had her spear raised. At her feet, William was cowering, his body sheltering Romeo’s.

  The Varekai leaned over, glaring at them. “You tell Fox,” she growled. “You tell him you tried to kill his offspring and see how well that ends for you.”

  “Whiskey!” Charlie demanded, and Whiskey stepped away, joining their leader with her spear tip lowered.

  All of them were nursing cuts now, their skins patterned with streaks and splatters of blood. Xícara had a gash on his temple, and Tango stepped forward, tentatively brushing her fingers through his hair so she could see it better.

  He caught her hand and cupped it to his cheek. Their eyes locked, and she could feel his blood, sticky and warm, oozing across her fingertips as it ran down his face. Her cheeks burned; she had no idea what to say to him.

  “Tango.” It took her a moment to realize her sisters were all limping quickly away and that Sierra had stopped, uneasy, to wait for her.

  She held Xícara’s gaze a moment longer, until he released her hand, and she made her way across the rocks to her tribe, looking back over her shoulder to watch the Elikai leave. Xícara was doing the same, ignoring Maria, who was berating him for his intervention in the fight. She wanted to go after him, but it was an impossibility.

  As he vanished into the trees, any hope Tango had for peace vanished too.

  * * *

  The Elikai camp smelled wretched. Desperation had driven them to cook a dead pig they’d found, and the resulting soup had been shared by everyone. The illness took a day to appear, but when it did, it was crippling. Intense cramping made it difficult for the Elikai to walk very far, certainly not far enough to use the stand of trees at the bottom of the mountain, and the stink of raw sewerage contaminated the air, bringing flies in droves.

  Anything they ate went straight through them, and none of them could afford to be losing their fluids like they were. Almost the entire Elikai tribe lay around in their caves, too tired to move, even to bat away the flies. Or else they stretched out on the hillside in the rain, sopping wet, chilled, but away from the stink of sick bodies.

  It would not, Sugar realized, be starvation that killed them, but sickness. Dehydration and exhaustion would pick them all off, probably in a matter of days. The Elikai were at their end, and he didn’t even have the strength to keep checking which of his brothers were still breathing.

  Hunting was out of the question. It was all Sugar could do to drink freshwater and drag himself down the hill to the stinking stone alcove they had turned into a toilet. He found himself hating Tare, who would be the only Elikai left soon. Healthy and whole—a little thinner, perhaps, but content with his lover and his new tribe. The Varekai would probably start having babies soon, and Tare would have entire litters of new brothers to keep him company.

  It was unfair, because Sugar couldn’t think of anything he could have done differently to make things turn out better. He didn’t know about the megalania until it was too late. There had been no time to gather more food, and now there was none to be found.

  If Charlie had loved him more, would she have let him stay? Should he have begged her or promised her outrageous things? Even if he had, there still wouldn’t be enough food for everyone. Kai would still have died.

  Fox padded into the camp with half a dead snake slung over his shoulders. It was fresh. The blood had streaked one side of his body.

  Fox was the only one who had refused to eat the rotten pig stew. He was the only one still hunting, but it wasn’t doing them a lot of good when they couldn’t even keep down water.

  Sugar sat up, dragging himself out of the cave opening and unsteadily to his feet. “Where is the rest of it?”

  “What?” Fox looked at the snake carcass. It was as long as he was and probably almost as heavy.

  “The rest,” Sugar insisted. “Did you cut it in half because it was too heavy?”

  Fox paused, and Sugar could see him thinking. Calculating. Sugar’s head was already pounding, and the sight of Fox so obviously working on a lie infuriated him.

  “Fox! Where is it?” he demanded.

  “A crocodile took it.”

  “You’re lying. What did you do with it? Just tell me. I don’t have the energy to talk it out of you.”

  Fox was silent for a moment, then he laid the snake carcass on the ground and began to dress it. “Whiskey and I had a deal. I told you about it months ago. I promised her half my kills for the Elikai babies.”

  Sugar stared. This was worse than he could have imagined. “You’re giving the Varekai our food? Your brothers are dying, and you’re handing half your kills to Whiskey?”

  “Someone has to think ahead.”

  “Ahead!” He was just repeating Fox, but he was too outraged and fatigued to form his own words. “We’re dying! There isn’t going to be any tribe left to raise your miserable offspring in!”

  The other Elikai were starting to emerge, slipping out of the caves, gathering around them on the rocks. Sugar could sense their confusion and anger, and it was
only intensified by the buzzing of flies. Every shift and movement sent up a black wave that hummed and buzzed and settled on the same body or a different one.

  The Elikai were at their end, and still Fox had betrayed them.

  “Go,” Sugar said.

  Fox blinked. “Where?”

  “Who cares? You’re not one of us. You’re not an Elikai. Go and be with Whiskey. Or go and rot in the bottom of the bay. I don’t care. We don’t want to see you again.”

  “I’m the only one well enough to hunt,” Fox pointed out.

  “Lucky for you,” Sugar said coldly.

  Fox looked around, maybe seeking support from his other brothers, but there was none. The radiating anger was unanimous. He nodded, slowly gathering his spear and checking the water bottle on his hip.

  “Good luck, Sugar,” he said, and he padded away.

  Chapter Nine

  Eden—Before the World was Born

  “Charlie, help!” Whiskey came out of nowhere, sprinting between the rows of corn, kicking up clods of dirt and crashing down beside her, breath ragged in her throat. Charlie could see the pounding of her sister’s pulse in her throat, but even more alarming were the tears streaking her cheeks. She was far too pale, and fear made her eyes appear sunken and bruised.

  “What is it?” She put her hand on Whiskey’s shoulder to steady her.

  “Romeo and I snuck into the lab looking for Teacher Steve. We found her, but she attacked Romeo, and I... and I...”

  Charlie looked toward the wall. She couldn’t see the door through the plants, but she knew it was there. “How did you get in?”

  Whiskey held up a key card, and Charlie took it from her. “Come on.”

  “I can’t,” Whiskey whimpered, degenerating into helpless sobs.

  Charlie hesitated a moment, then sprinted back up the path between the plants. There wasn’t time to worry about Whiskey. She needed to get to Romeo.

  She slid the key through the lock and was surprised when the door popped open. It seemed too easy. All they’d needed to leave Eden was a key, all this time.

  She pushed the door open and stepped into the corridor, cursing under her breath when she realized Whiskey hadn’t told her where in the lab Romeo was. She jogged down the corridor, almost running, scanning the white floor for any traces of bare, dirty feet.

  There was a pounding, thumping sound from one of the testing rooms, and Charlie dashed to the door. She peered in through the glass, standing on tiptoes to make herself tall enough.

  She saw Teacher Steve, face battered and swollen. Her hands were around Romeo’s neck, and the Varekai’s face was red and purple. She was scratching deep furrows in the teacher’s arms, but it was making no difference.

  Charlie scrambled to the next door, pushing it open, then pausing. She’d never seen inside an observation room before. As she expected, there was a two-way mirror, but she hadn’t expected all the electrical and scientific equipment—bolted to the walls and stacked across the table in a sort of orderly chaos, both alien and intimidating.

  Computer screens showed waves of line and color, but when Charlie nudged the mouse, it turned into data—letters and numbers, few of which made sense.

  There was a loud rip from the other room as Teacher Steve tore away Romeo’s shirt, baring bruised skin.

  Charlie’s attention danced between the assault and the computer. She clicked icons, looking for anything familiar, searching for the words she had heard the teachers say when it was her in that testing room.

  “Initialize test sequence.”

  She opened the program, typed in some nonsense variables and hit “run.” An error message popped up: “Chamber not loaded.”

  She looked around, frantic, and found a tray of small glass vials. Each was labeled with numbers and letters. Inside, the fluid within ranged in color from a deep sapphire blue to a vibrant yellow.

  In the test room, Romeo was unconscious. She had been stripped of clothes and was sprawled across the table like a broken doll, blood oozing from a split lip.

  Teacher Steve shrugged off her lab coat, laying it across a chair and unbuckling her belt. Charlie jammed a blue-green vial into a chamber and flipped it shut. Green lights flickered across the control panel, and Charlie poked a flashing yellow button.

  On the computer screen, the word “Continue?” appeared.

  She moved back to the mouse, then hesitated. Teacher Steve had something Charlie had never seen before. A thick, pale fingerlike appendage, protruding from between her legs. Charlie clicked “okay.”

  There was a short alert beep and a loud click as the door locks engaged. Teacher Steve startled, dropping the appendage, which shriveled and almost vanished back into her trousers.

  “Hey!” she yelled. She pounded on the door. “Hey! What are you doing?”

  A fine mist started to trickle from the air vents.

  “Elaine?” Teacher Steve pounded on the one-way mirror. “Elaine! Is that you? Jesus Christ, open the door. Open the door! I wasn’t going to—”

  Blood was spurting out of the teacher’s eyes and nose, and she was cut off by her own screaming. She threw herself against the two-way mirror, which trembled and rattled. Charlie’s view was ruined by wide swathes of blood, streaked and splattered across the glass.

  Barely, she could make out Romeo, still unconscious on the table. A trickle of blood was dribbling out of one eye.

  Teacher Steve’s screams rose in pitch, higher and higher until she sounded like a boiling jug. Blood vessels were rupturing all over her. Her skin was turning red from internal hemorrhaging, and with a pop that coated the ceiling, her eyes simply splattered. She staggered around, eye sockets dripping slurry, vomiting great gouts of blood that coated the floor in waves.

  There was so much of it. It came and came, liter after liter, coating every surface until there was a great pool of it, perhaps an inch deep. Only then did Teacher Steve sink down, flopping face-first into her own insides.

  On the table, Romeo roused. She sat up, looking around with a dazed horror. Slowly, she eased herself off the table and picked a tentative path through the gore to the glass. She pressed her forehead to the mirror, cupping her hands around her face to see in.

  Charlie pressed the “speak” button on the microphone. “It’s me—Charlie. Hold up, I’ll try and unlock the door.”

  “What happened?”

  “Teacher Steve exploded a little bit.”

  She wiped the blood from the corners of her eyes. “It stinks.”

  Charlie pushed buttons and jabbed at the computer, which protested and flashed numerous warnings before the door would unlock. Finally the latch clicked, and Romeo pushed the door open, staggering drunkenly down the corridor and opening the door to the observation room. Behind her, a micro tsunami of blood was flooding the corridor.

  Charlie showed her the colored vials. “A while ago when I was in here, they left the microphone on. I could hear them talking about tests. They gas the chambers with these to see if we survive.”

  “Why?” Romeo looked baffled. Baffled, naked and very bloody.

  “I don’t know. We’re immune, though. Mostly.” She paused to wipe away the rest of the blood tears off her sister’s cheeks. “We need to find you a shirt or something.”

  Romeo shrugged. “It’s not that cold.”

  The sudden screaming of alarms startled them both.

  “What is that?” Romeo demanded.

  “I don’t know...”

  Down the corridor, they could hear the thunder of boots running toward them. Charlie grabbed Romeo and started to pull her into the corridor, thinking they could run back to Eden and hide. Perhaps if they got washed up quickly enough, the teachers would not know it had been them. However, the instant they stepped into the corridor, they s
aw them coming—not like teachers, in their white lab coats, but just as tall and wide. These women seemed to be wearing some sort of black armor and were armed with intimidating devices.

  “Freeze!” one yelled. Her voice was deep, like Teacher Steve. “Jesus Christ, is that all blood? Lockdown protocol. Radio Dr. Tamsin.”

  Charlie was jerked backward as Romeo dragged her into the observation room again.

  A voice barked at them from the corridor. “Surrender right now. Come out with your hands on your head.”

  Charlie crouched down, thinking hard. “Maybe we can get into the air vents.”

  “They’re right outside,” Romeo hissed back.

  “If we—” Charlie was cut off as one of the black-clad strangers swung into the open doorway. She was holding a black water pistol, and she swung the muzzle between them.

  “Don’t move.”

  Charlie stood up, holding out her hands to show she had nothing. “Teacher Steve—”

  There was a sharp report, a blast so loud that for a moment it seemed to absorb all other sound. Charlie felt a sharp pain in her chest, as if she’d been hit very hard in the ribs by the handle of a rake.

  She blinked at Romeo, deeply confused, and then the world faded away.

  * * *

  The air was still, and the rain was light and hazy. It seemed like the droplets were hanging in the air, suspended in the dense mist that formed this high on the mountain. The Varekai rarely hiked this far up. The landscape was treacherous, and Charlie had scaled cliff faces to get here, hanging precariously off rock ledges and spindly roots, venturing far beyond the hope of rescue, or even discovery, if something happened to her.

  Up this high, the mountain was often shrouded in low clouds and was largely inaccessible to the ungulates, even the nimble goats. Up here there were only snakes and birds, perhaps little monkeys, and countless rats.

  There would be fruits and plants that had not been ravaged by the cyclone. Charlie needed to find a bounty of some kind. She imaged an entire gully festooned with passion fruit or riddled with potatoes. Something she could tell all the Kai about. Something that could feed them through the season.