by Keary Taylor
“Sorry,” I said as I handed it back to him and he powered it down.
Avian just chuckled as he stored it back in its box. He sat back down and looked at me with his intense blue eyes.
How was it possible for someone to be so good? We’d been so fortunate to have Avian in Eden. He’d given up his life in a way to keep us alive, tying himself to this one place, a constant prisoner. How had I been so lucky to have him come into my life? It could have been anyone who found me, some twisted man who could have taken advantage of a young girl who didn’t know who she was, didn’t know anything.
My chest felt tight as I looked back at him, a weird feeling forming in my stomach. I suddenly thought about the feeling of my hand in Avian’s, thought about how it felt to have our hearts beating to the same rhythm, the way it had felt when I kissed him. I wanted to do it all again. I needed it right then in a nearly painful way.
I half whispered a good-bye and bolted out of the tent.
My breathing came in hollow swallows as I walked across Eden to my tent. It took every ounce of control that I had not to turn back around and run back into Avian’s arms.
What was wrong with me? Where was this coming from?
I felt almost as if my body was shaking with the need to go back as I lay in my bed. I squeezed my eyes closed, forcing thoughts of Avian from my mind.
I expected to dream of Avian as I slept that afternoon. Instead I dreamt of West.
The glass felt smooth under my fingers, flowing perfectly, one molecule into another. How was it possible to make something so perfect and even? The glass warmed under my hand, a ghost of my flesh forming in fog as the heat of my body met the cool of its surface.
I realized then that the air around me was freezing.
Turning, my body chilled as my eyes scanned the cinder block walls. No outside light tricked in, only a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling cast a cold shadow on everything.
My chest felt tight as I searched for an escape. There wasn’t even a single door, just the window. A bed was pushed into one corner of the room. This was as good as a prison cell.
As I turned back to the window, a pair of earthy eyes stared back at me.
“West!” I screamed as I put my hands against the glass. “You’ve got to get me out of here!”
He stared at me, his lips set in a firm line. A single tear slipped down his cheek.
“West, please,” I said, slapping my palm against the cool surface. “Please let me out!”
“Please, grandpa,” he suddenly said, turning away from me. “Can we please let her out?”
I then noticed a shadowy figure behind West, standing in a doorway.
“But she may attack you again. You know she doesn’t trust you,” a gravelly voice said.
West turned back to me. Another tear rolled down his face. Slowly he raised a hand to the glass, our hands separated only by the window. “I know,” he whispered.
My eyes widened as I saw his expression harden, his eyes betraying the hurt I had caused him. I shook my head, taking a step away from the glass. I crawled up into the bed, tucking my knees under my chin.
“She’s not really human,” the shadowed voice said again. “If she were she would see what she is doing to you. She’d know she can trust you.”
West continued to stare at me with mixed emotions on his face. He brought both his hands up, pressing them to the glass as if he wished he could slip through it, and push me all the further away, all at the same time.
I saw him mouth my name but the rumble of a noise I couldn’t identify was rising quickly in my ears. For a moment I was worried the building might be collapsing on us, one floor of a building crashing down on the next. But the walls weren’t shaking, dust wasn’t falling from the ceiling. The noise continued to grow to a deafening point. It saturated every part of my body.
“Eve!” I saw him scream though the glass. And then everything was silent. The next second the window exploded into a billion stars of red death.
I jerked upright with a gasp. My hands wiped at my face, trying to brush away the shards of glass that weren’t really there.
I felt momentarily panicked when I realized everything was totally black. Had I not just been dreaming? Had I been blinded by something while I slept?
The panic ebbed away as I realized it was simply dark because of the muggy night. I leapt out of my bed as I realized that meant I was beyond late for my night watch. I pulled my pack on and jogged out of my tent.
Most all the fires had completely died out and there wasn’t a soul around as I crossed camp. Gripping the rungs, I scaled the ladder to the watchtower. I jumped violently when I was about to climb over the ledge and a head popped over. West looked at me with a slight smirk.
“Hope you enjoyed your beauty sleep,” he said as he extended a hand and pulled me up and over the edge.
“I don’t usually oversleep,” I said as I pulled the straps of my pack tighter, my eyes scanning the trees.
“You’ve been working yourself to death for the last month. And running on no food. If you were human you’d be collapsing from exhaustion more often.”
My stomach turned to stone as I recalled what the man from the dream had said. She’s not really human. West chuckled, but I couldn’t seem to force even a crack of a smile.
West took a seat on the bench, patting the seat next to him. I eyed him for a moment. I hadn’t been in close proximity of West for a long while now. The last time we had touched I could have easily killed him. He must have known his life was in danger. And yet he was asking me to sit by him. Maybe he still trusted me, even if I didn’t know if I could trust him.
I sat.
West turned his gaze to the dark night. I followed, looking into the endless star-peppered sky.
“Do you ever wonder if there is anyone else out there?” he asked quietly, his eyes never leaving the stars.
“No,” I answered honestly.
“I can’t imagine there isn’t,” he said. “All that space. We can’t be the only living things out there.
“Makes you feel kind of important though, if we are the only ones. All that beauty and it’s there for only our eyes.”
I looked over at West, watching him as he watched the heavens. His hair fell across his brown eyes, in need of a haircut. His shoulders were shrugged up to his ears as he leaned back. In that moment I saw something in West. Not the boy who always turned everything into a joke, always got to me in a bad way. But the boy who had to live with the knowledge that it was his family who had destroyed the world.
“I want to hate you, you know,” he said, though he still didn’t look at me. “For the way things have been between us these last few weeks. I want to hate you for attacking me like that, for taking the notebook. For all the ways I see you look at Avian. I want to hate you for all the ways you make me feel. For the way I feel every time I think about the times we kissed.”
I felt like a knotted mess as West finally stopped talking. “I don’t want you to hate me.”
“That’s the thing. I can’t. I don’t think I could ever hate you Eve.”
“I’m still just not sure I can trust you.”
West finally looked at me, his eyes almost empty looking. “That I can hate.”
I watched his face, the way his eyebrows knitted together, the way his cheeks seemed so stiff, the shape of his lips. My eyes froze there, remembering how they felt, how they tasted. Before I could reason with myself, I leaned forward, pressing mine to his.
West’s hand came to the back of my neck, pulling me closer to him. My hand knotted in his hair and I suddenly found myself settled into his lap, facing him. My pack dropped to the ground as West’s other hand circled around my waist.
“I want you to trust me, Eve,” he whispered as his lips trailed down to my neck.
“I want to trust you,” I said as I tilted my head back, my eyes closing.
His lips found mine again, causing fire to race through my blood.
My heart hammered so hard I was sure West could feel it against his own chest. The intensity building up inside of me seemed to make my brain start and stop.
The image of Avian’s piercing blue eyes suddenly flashed through my head and I jerked away. I was on my feet the next second, pulling my pack back on.
“I’m sorry. I…” I struggled for words as I pressed my knuckles to my lips, shaking my head.
“Don’t worry about it,” West said, his lips hardening slightly. He stood and walked toward the ladder. “At least you aren’t running from me anymore.” Without saying another word, he climbed down.
I took a deep breath once I was alone, letting it out in a quivering whoosh, my eyes looking up to the stars again. My body hummed. I felt alive in the way I only seemed to when I did those types of things with West. And yet I felt sick. I couldn’t get Avian out of my head and I felt ashamed.
What was I doing? I had vowed to myself that I wasn’t going to let the two of them distract me. Yet here I was again, spending more time with Avian, aching for him in a very physically painful way, and kissing West.
I was going to get someone killed.
TWENTY
Bill and Graye headed off to the south while West and I headed east. Now that I had figured out I could be around West again without attacking him, I had agreed to let Gabriel put him back in our scouting group.
The sun beat down on us with an intensity that was beyond miserable. My entire body felt tender, a deep red building under my skin. Had I felt pain like the rest of everyone I was sure it would be beyond uncomfortable to move, much less go on an entire scouting operation.
West and I walked silently through the woods, eyes searching the tree line. Birds chirped in an annoying afternoon chat. Insects hummed. But there were no other sounds. No traces of any Fallen.
“Clear?” West whispered, clutching his rifle tightly in his hands.
“Clear,” I said as we finished sweeping around the perimeter of the gardens. West waited at the bottom while I scaled the biggest nearby tree. As I reached the top, I shook its branches with as much force as I possessed. The entire top half of the tree swayed.
One hundred yards away I saw a figure wave at me. They knew it was safe to come work.
I dropped down to the ground and straightened my pack. We had to be more careful than ever these days. The Fallen obviously knew where the gardens where, knew we would be nearby. It wouldn’t be too difficult for them to track us down here. That was why we scouted the area every morning first, before the small crew came to tend.
Not that there was much to tend anymore. The heat wave wasn’t letting up and everything was withering away. Soon there would be nothing left.
West and I set out to the north again, eyes constantly scanning the trees.
“What do you think is going to happen to us now?” West said quietly as we walked.
I didn’t answer for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts. “Eventually we’re going to have to move. Sooner than later.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s obvious. We have supplies for a while but winter is coming. We don’t have enough to last that long. We’re going to have to move where it’s warmer or we’re going to starve to death. We have natural resources here, animals to hunt, but it’s not going to be enough to sustain everyone through the winter.”
West was quiet for a while. “Have you talked to Gabriel about this? You’re right. But he’s going to have to be the one to initiate it.”
“I will,” I said as I readjusted my grip on the shotgun in my hands. “The problem is, how do we move that many people without being spotted by Fallen? How do we move that many supplies at once?”
“It might be safer to move in small groups,” he said quietly as his eyes jerked to the right. A squirrel scampered down a tree.
“Then again, it might not be. I don’t know,” I said as I briefly considered shooting the animal. I decided against it. With as little meat it would provide it wouldn’t be worth the ammunition. As if on cue, West’s stomach let out a rumbling growl. I chuckled.
“Okay, we’ve seriously got to bring back some food. I can’t take the starvation rations,” West said in exasperation.
“When we’re ready to head back we’ll look,” I said as I started the climb up the low hills that looked over Eden.
I was grateful we didn’t see anything the entire day. While it was boring to be walking endlessly through the woods, it was better than running into something we didn’t want to. As we started back in the direction of Eden, we kept our eyes peeled for anything to eat. I sensed there was something West wanted to talk to me about, but had been putting it off the entire day. Now he had to be quiet if he wanted to eat.
The woods were silent as we moved, as if sensing we were on the lookout to take something home with us. Something to the left caught West’s eye and he drew his bow and an arrow before I even caught sight of what he had seen. The arrow sliced through the air and the next second we heard a scream.
A human one.
We were both bolting through the trees without a second’s hesitation, my mind running through the possibilities of what we might find. Surely not Fallen, they didn’t feel pain and therefore would never scream. Could it be Bill? Graye? Everyone else knew better than to wander this far from Eden on their own.
He was slumped against a tree, clutching at his left shoulder. He had already broken off the shaft of the arrow. His eyes were squeezed shut in agony. He bit his lower lip to hold back the scream.
“Holy…” West breathed as the man came into view. I didn’t recognize him and I doubted West did either. “I thought it was a deer or something. What is he doing out here?”
We both dropped to the man’s side, his eyes flying open in delirious confusion.
“You’ve been shot with an arrow,” I said, my voice calm and even. “We have a doctor at our camp. I am going to have to pull the arrow out though or it will cause more damage as I move you.”
The man’s green eyes opened wide, searching the sky for things only he could see now.
“West, help me,” I said as I placed my hands on the base of the arrow that was still embedded into his chest. “This is going to hurt him.”
West shifted forward, placing his hands on the man’s shoulders, being careful to stay clear of the wound. In one swift movement, I yanked the rest of the arrow out. The man screamed so piercingly it made my brain rattle.
“We need something to stop the bleeding,” I said as I tried to recall what Avian would do in a situation like this. West slid off his pack and pulled his shirt off. It was damp with sweat but it would work. I pressed it into the wound and together we secured it with a length of rope from my pack. Another scream leapt from his throat as I picked him up, gathering him securely in my arms.
“What was he doing out here?” West asked as we jogged through the trees. We were still far from Eden. So much for getting food for tonight.
“On the run maybe?” I said as I glanced down at him. He’d had only the clothing on his back. I didn’t see any traces of provisions with him, no tent, no food.
It took us nearly an hour to get back to Eden. Even my arms weren’t strong enough to carry him by myself the entire trip and West had taken half the load. The man had turned a pasty white and he shivered violently, despite the blazing sun above us. He had also bled through West’s shirt. My left arm was covered in his blood.
Avian was in the medical tent when we sprinted into it. He set the notebook down and jumped to his feet. There was no hesitation in his actions. He knew how to handle a situation like this.
“Who is he?” Avian asked as he pulled on a pair of gloves and removed West’s bloodied shirt we had used as a bandage. He started cutting away the man’s own shirt. The man barely even whimpered as his wound was jostled. Until Avian began cleaning it.
“He was just in the woods. We didn’t realize it was a person,” I said as I moved out of Avian’s way.
&nb
sp; “I thought he was a deer,” West said, his eyes looking tortured. “I couldn’t really see anything. Just saw something move.”
“Where’d he come from?” Avian asked. He threaded a needle. I watched with wide eyes as he started sewing the man back up.
“We don’t know,” West said quietly. “Is he going to be okay?”
“The wound is dangerously close to his heart. There are a lot of major blood vessels in that area. I can’t repair the internal damage so there’s a risk that even if the bleeding stops on the outside, it may not stop on the inside.”
West’s face blanched white.
The man opened his eyes, rolling around in his head. “My wife,” he said. His voice was rough sounding and then I noticed the tears rolling back toward his ears. “My son. They found us. I… was out. They got them. …had to run.”
We all looked up at each other. Avian dropped what he was doing and opened the box that contained the CDU. Less than thirty seconds later he had it charged up and calibrated. The man jerked away as it was pressed to his bare arm. His eyes continued to roll around in his head.
Organic but dying quickly.
“Where did you come from?” I asked, leaning over him so he could look me in the eye. His own eyes remained unfocused.
“He may not be able to speak right now,” Avian said as he cut the threads of the stitches. “His body is going into shock.”
“Where did you come from?” I asked again.
“E… east,” he barely managed to whisper. “Been running since… day before yesterday.” He then started coughing violently. Red splatters coated his lips.
“His lung has been punctured,” Avian said in despair as he sat back and rubbed his hand over his stubbled hair.
“He’s not going to make it,” I said quietly, looking back down at the man. Avian shook his head.
“I killed him,” West whispered, backing up to sit on a stump.
“You didn’t know,” I said, glancing at him. “You were trying to feed us, keep us alive.”