Eden's Embers

by Helena Maeve

  It was a fool’s bargain, but it kept Alana company as her palms began to sweat, grip growing slippery. She first felt her knees quake after the first minute or so. By the time a dozen more had passed, her limbs were protesting the strain and every reach for the next rung came with a gasp. She dreaded looking down for fear of vertigo, but it was tilting her head back to see the summit that wound up making her feel dizzy.

  Siggy’s flashlight wobbled as she climbed. To Alana, it felt like the whole world was tipping over, dragging her with it. Harried breaths scarped her lungs raw. She hooked her arm through the nearest rung and gripped her own wrist as though that might be enough to anchor her in place.

  Something seized her ankle.

  Alana lurched, one foot slipping off the rung. Walker, she thought, frantic, a fraction of a second before she heard, “It’s me,” Jackson said. “It’s just me.”

  “Oh my God. You asshole!” It was hard to hold onto her anger as Jackson crept up the stepladder around Alana. She felt his hands grip the metal rungs on either side of her waist before she realized what he was up to. “Careful—”

  Jackson pressed his lips into her hair. “I’m fine. We’re both fine. Can you keep going?”

  “There’s another way?” Alana choked out, partway laughing. Other than death, that is, on which I’ll pass.

  “Sadly, no.” Jackson slid his hand over hers. “We’re almost there.”

  “Liar.” The accusation had barely passed her lips before a flood of light filled the well, spilling onto Alana from above. She squinted up, narrowing her eyes to slits, but the glow was blinding.

  Up above, Siggy had opened a hatchway. They were almost at ground level.

  That was all the incentive Alana needed to strain for the next rung and the one after that. The burn in her muscles never fully abated, but it became an afterthought. She had to get out, because Jackson was right behind her and if she slowed down, the walkers would grab him first.

  “Hurry,” Leona shouted from above. “Oh shit. Both of you, duck!”

  Alana only briefly glimpsed her swinging the rifle from her shoulder. She pressed her body to the wall. A rain of bullets spilled into the tunnel, narrowly missing her—and hopefully Jackson.

  A series of thumping sounds echoed from below, but Alana didn’t dare check if it was walkers.

  Leona eased off the trigger, yelling, “Still with us, Idaho?”

  “Yeah, you missed me again.” Jackson sounded slightly strangled, but all Alana registered was that he hadn’t fallen.

  She forced herself to keep climbing. There were only six rungs left. Five.

  “Give me your hand,” Leona said and between her and Siggy, they pulled Alana from the well like dead weight.

  She collapsed the minute she was out of their hands, sapped of all strength as she sprawled on the dusty tarmac. A faint breeze brushed her cheek—warm, but not too warm. Like heaven ought to be.

  Jackson fell beside her a moment later, panting for breath.

  “Oh, fuck,” she heard Leona say. “Idaho, I’m—”

  “Help me close the hatch,” Siggy interrupted, sounding no better rested than the rest of them.

  A heavy, grinding noise followed, then silence blanketed the street, its heavy cloak interspersed only with the rasp of Jackson’s husky grunts.

  “You were right,” Alana said, dragging herself up to sitting. “We’re f—” The words died on the tip of her tongue, fading like wisps of smoke, inconsequential.

  Jackson had made it out of the hatch, but he was clutching his side, trying to stem the crimson flood trickling between the gaps of his fingers.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Alana slid her hand between the dusty concrete and Jackson’s quivering flank and pressed her fingers up and in. She blocked out the howl that escaped his mouth, the sound of Siggy vomiting canned beans stew not too far away, because the alternative would cripple her.

  “The bullet came out,” she said, mostly to herself as she removed her fingers. “All right. That’s good. That’ll have to do for now.”

  “What are you talking about?” Leona cried. “He’s bleeding!”

  Alana had noticed, but one compress wasn’t going to be enough. “Give me your vest,” she told Finn. “Quickly now.” She didn’t shout, though hysteria was only a hair’s breadth away as she wound the cloth over itself twice and pressed it into place.

  Jackson made a sound halfway between a plea and a gasp, his lips parting to release a pained breath.

  “Your belt too,” Alana went on, using the strip of leather to secure the makeshift bandage in place. It would have to do until she could clean the wound and disinfect some needle and thread to sew it back up. “I’m going to need some help getting him up,” she said, and drew one of Jackson’s limp arms around her shoulders. She was going to keep it together until she got him to safety. Then, she could freak out. That was the plan.

  “I’ll do it,” Leona started.

  “No, let me.” Siggy pressed the rifle back into her hands. “You’re the better shot. Looks like we’ve got company.”

  The difference between running from walkers in Haven and running from them outside the city was that the outdoors allowed for the illusion of better odds.

  It took Alana a moment to grasp that those were human bodies she spotted ambling between one too many derelict buildings. Walkers were like sheep—if one went into Haven, the rest would follow. But the odds of every walker drawn by the report of Jackson’s grenades penetrating into the city were slim at best. Some would remain on the surface, their flesh picked at by flies and vermin.

  “Have they seen us?” she asked, more out of academic curiosity than any desire to know. Jackson was sweating profusely as he tried to stand, but even with Siggy’s help, it was a real struggle getting him upright.

  Leona grimaced. “If they haven’t yet, they will. We need to get him to the boat.”

  “What boat?” Siggy asked, but her query went unanswered. There was no time and within a few hundred feet she would see for herself.

  When Jackson had showed Alana the boat yesterday, her first reaction had been disappointment. It didn’t look like much—a dinghy with an ancient engine that, per Leona’s admission, malfunctioned two tries out of every three. The same expression of dismay flashed across Siggy’s face as Ophelyn came into view.

  “What happened?” he asked, glancing warily at Jackson’s pale, sweat-slicked face.

  “Leona,” Jackson replied, doing his best approximation of a smile. “Shot me.”

  A wet cough spilled from his lungs, but Alana didn’t stop to check for blood. The bullet should’ve entered too low to compromise his breathing. She clung to that hope as they settled him into the dinghy. The boat bobbed slightly, weighted by the three people. Alana tried not to think of it transporting seven. She had a feeling that Jackson hadn’t thought to test it.

  “When I said I knew you were up to something, I admit I was hoping for something a little more promising,” Siggy muttered bleakly. “You couldn’t pack some supplies?”

  “Have…a little faith,” Jackson said, slurring.

  “You’ve picked a sweet time to find religion,” Ophelyn goaded, crouching at the back of the dinghy and seizing in one meaty fist the cord that would start the engine. “Leona, you coming?”

  “Just about,” she said and emptied her clip into the nearing press of lumbering, soulless bodies coming at them. The dinghy wavered, water sloshing over the sides as she bounded off the dock. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  Ophelyn pulled the cord.

  Nothing happened.

  He pulled it again.

  Above, the strangely atonal groaning was filtering through louder and louder. Alana scented decay and spoiled meat, knew it was the walkers.

  “Ophelyn!” Leona shouted.

  “It’s not working!” he yelled back, increasingly frantic.

  A gray face peered quizzically at them from the edge of the dock, blinking its empty s
ockets as if it could still see. Alana saw it extend its arms and did the only thing she could.

  She threw herself over Jackson’s limp body, her scream lost to the sudden, rapturous roar of the motor.

  * * * *

  Alana stumbled from the dinghy already shouting orders. “I need needle and thread. Any spirits you’ve got, bring them out.”

  Ophelyn got Leona over the edge and bolted into the depths of the boat. Alana only saw him go out of the corner of her eye. She had more urgent things to worry about—like ridding Jackson of his shirt and slapping his cheeks until he turned one of his trademark scowls on her.

  “Still with me?” Alana breathed, cupping his cheek.

  “S’getting hard to remember why…”

  “Hold that thought.”

  “Alana—” Ophelyn tossed her a flask. He had a small sewing kit, likely stolen from some town or other. “Will this work?”

  “”It’ll have to.” She flashed him a nervous smile. “I’ve never actually done this before.”

  “There’s nothing to it,” said Leona, blonde wisps of hair stuck to her forehead. “Just think of him as your favorite skirt.”

  Jackson gasped out a laugh, making to press a hand to his belly. “Ow—”

  “No laughing,” Alana admonished, seizing his wrist. ”Hold him down,” she told Ophelyn, because he was nearest and because he looked as though he could subdue Jackson if he lashed out.

  Leona straddled his legs at the knee. “Just like old times,” she huffed. “Only slightly less fun for you, I think. You okay there?”

  Alana nodded without looking up. Her hands were shaking, but not too much. Later, she would make a point to polish whatever liquor was left in the flask when she was finished with Jackson. But that was later. She soaked her hands in the foul-smelling concoction, her eyes watering a little as the fumes rose, burning the inside of her nostrils.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Maity’s brew,” Finn said from his makeshift sickbed by the nearest bulkhead. He looked a little white.

  Alana would attend to him later. First, she needed to sew Jackson back together. Just like my favorite skirt. It was that easy. “Thank you, Mai,” she breathed and released the buckle of Leona’s belt. Instantly the acute pressure around Jackson’s belly released and, with it, a crimson flood. Agony made its anticipated return.

  Jackson suffered it in silence—at least until Alana splashed moonshine into the wound. He thrashed so violently he nearly bucked Leona’s hold on his legs. She resisted, as did Ophelyn.

  Both of them were looking to Alana to finish this, but they promptly glanced away as she performed the first stitch.

  * * * *

  Scrubbing the blood from under her fingernails was a more time-consuming operation than Alana recalled. She had turned the soapy water pink with her efforts and yet her hands were still stained, the blood just wouldn’t come off—

  “You need any help?” Siggy asked, watching her warily. Was that what apprehension looked like on a face like hers?

  Alana didn’t dare believe it. She didn’t particularly trust her eyes anymore. “You don’t have any vinegar on you by any chance?”

  Siggy shook her head. “Think there’s some of Mai’s hooch left, if you’re interested.”

  It might have done the trick, but Alana thought better of it. “I already smell like an alehouse.” She still had the flask, the dregs hers to imbibe if she wanted to, but couldn’t work up the nerve to gulp it all down. What if she fell asleep and they were attacked? How or by whom she couldn’t say. Walkers couldn’t swim any more than they knew how to climb walls or use machinery. They opened doors by using their bodies as battering rams.

  The water was the safest place Jackson could’ve taken them. It was just unfortunate that he had taken a bullet for his efforts.

  “You did good back there,” Siggy offered, jerking her head to the back of the boat. It wasn’t that big, but even with seven souls aboard there were corners one could still find a modicum of privacy.

  Alana had picked the stern because that was where she’d found an empty bucket. The water was fetched straight from the source. It smelled only faintly of salt and algae.

  “We’ll see,” she demurred. ”Jackson’s still out.”

  “Isn’t that what he needs?” Siggy wondered. For reasons unknown, she chose to make her way over to Alana’s side.

  Alana hitched up her shoulders, damp fingertips dripping saltwater onto her bare legs.

  “He’s strong,” Siggy insisted. “He’ll be all right.”

  “Maity was strong too,” Alana mused.

  Siggy nodded. “And she paid the price for being my father’s favorite. She’s not the first.”

  “Jackson’s brother.” It wasn’t a question. Whatever secrets had survived the fall of the city were meaningless now. Haven had fallen. “I’m sorry about your father,” Alana said, dredging up the sentiment from deep down in the pit of her stomach.

  “Thanks.” Siggy ducked her head, resting her chin on her bent knees. “Maybe he got out somehow.”

  “Maybe…” Why spoil the illusion? Alana didn’t know even a fraction of Haven’s hidden passages. Someone who had lived there for decades might be better equipped to survive an invasion.

  Siggy turned to face her after a while. “Ophelyn told me it was your idea to destroy Haven…”

  Did she expect Alana to deny it? Tough luck. “Yes,” Alana said.

  Around them, only the creaking of the sailboat and the timid lapping of waves against the hull could be heard. It was almost peaceful out here. Hard to imagine that just a few miles east there were flesh-eating creatures in the streets and people running for their lives.

  Siggy was quiet for a long moment, as if weighing Alana’s answer against some abstract standard of truth. “Was it revenge?” she wondered at length, and Alana met her gaze. Siggy looked very tired—very aged too, the purplish shadows under her eyes looking more like bruises than the mottled marks on her neck.

  “I don’t know,” Alana said. “Does it matter?” She had lost her home to drifters. She had helped destroy theirs to save Finn. It was an even trade.

  “Not really. It’s just… We’re all foundlings now.”

  Alana huffed out a laugh. “I’ve been one for a while. You can’t claim credit for that, I’m afraid.” There was no strength left in her for mirth. She gave up the pretense. “But the rest,” she said. “The rest still hurts.”

  She didn’t ask Siggy her motives for abandoning her people, for helping them. She’d done it to survive. Alana understood that impetus as well as she understood the fear that had gripped hold of her when Jackson had collapsed. It was everything and nothing to do with being his thrall.

  “What will we do?” Siggy wondered. She didn’t seem to be expecting an answer.

  “We live.” What else was there?

  Siggy said nothing, but her silence was loud with doubt.

  “I should check on him,” Alana sighed, and didn’t think it necessary to specify whom she meant. She couldn’t say if Siggy heard. She didn’t react and her gaze was foggy, lost in the middle distance.

  Alana climbed slowly to her feet, still searching for her sea legs, and pressed the flask into Siggy’s hands. She looked as though she needed it more.

  The steps that led into the belly of the boat were narrow and rickety, but they held her weight well enough as she made her way below. She found Ophelyn sitting on the floor of Jackson’s cabin, peering idly at a heavily creased paper map.

  He looked up when she entered. “Still hasn’t moved.”

  “No, I didn’t think he had.” But sitting with him seemed like the least Alana could do. She dragged her damp palms over her thighs. “That enough to give you an idea of where we’re headed next?”

  Ophelyn seemed dubious. “I’ve never put much thought to navigation. I figure we could follow the coast for a while, see where it takes us… See if there are any settlements we haven’t hit
yet.”

  “So we can hit them now?” Alana asked pointedly.

  “Well, not now… When Jackson gets better and Finn can use both of his hands. Hard to shoot a bow otherwise.” Ophelyn shrugged. “It’s what we do.”

  It was all they knew and for decades they’d had nothing to aspire to that didn’t somehow involve violence or bloodshed.

  It ends here, Alana thought, shaking her head.

  Ophelyn frowned. “How do you expect us to survive otherwise? We’re seven people.”

  “At least two of whom are decent with bow and arrow, one who’s a skilled mechanic and one who’s a healer.”

  “And a thrall,” Ophelyn recalled. Not cruelly, but with the confidence of a man who knew nothing else. The crease between his thick brows spoke of confusion, not derision. Alana didn’t think he had it in him to be deliberately spiteful.

  She watched his frown deepen as she shook her head again. “No more thralls, no more pillaging and stealing people from their homes… That’s done. The laws of Haven—to say nothing of its history—no longer bind us. We can go anywhere we please…”

  “And anywhere is just as barren and mutt-infested as every other part of the world.”

  “You’ve seen the whole world?” Alana asked, arching a brow.

  Ophelyn didn’t answer and the clenching of his jaw spoke of how little he enjoyed being argued with. But he was a good man and he must’ve known she had a point.

  At length, he sighed, flipping the map around so she could see the strange names of harbors and cities that had prospered in the Old World.

  “Where to?”

  Alana knelt, joints creaking, and rested her hands on the dusty floorboards. If she didn’t look, it was like the faint half-moons of dried blood under her nails weren’t even there. “I have no idea.” For once, the thought didn’t scare her.

  * * * *

  She had no memory of going to sleep, but after casting the die of their next destination with Ophelyn and suffering Leona’s cooking, Alana must have dozed off. She remembered that they had all agreed, in the aftermath of that first, disastrous attempt, that Leona’s skills were better suited to violence than stewing fish—and Leona seemed happy with the conclusion. Afterward, Alana had returned to Jackson’s cabin and pinned her back against the cot.