by Keary Taylor
“…anyone there? Please come in…” a voice crackled through the system.
“Yes, we’re here!” a woman said as she took the handheld piece that was attached to the system. “Is everything okay?”
“People shot…” the voice cut out. “…at least four dead… Get the Extractor powered up!”
Everyone seemed to freeze as those last words filled the room. I felt my blood run cold.
“Who’s been infected?” the woman asked, her voice sounding dead.
“…Fallen hidden… shots fired everywhere…” the voice continued to crackle in and out. “…Royce and West… Avian… didn’t see it…”
“Who was it?” I suddenly said, louder than I should have. “Who got infected?”
They all suddenly looked up at me, every single pair of eyes. “I’m not sure,” Dr. Beeson finally answered me.
I looked at the woman who had been speaking. “I couldn’t tell either,” she said quietly. No one seemed to notice how the receiver had gone dead again.
It was pure instinct that forced my legs to work. I sprinted out the front glass door into the dark night.
In that moment I finally knew.
I knew which one I would grieve over. A piece of me would be missing forever if he was gone. A part of me would break. But I would make it through.
And I knew which one of them I couldn’t live without, couldn’t take another single breath if he were to be taken away from me.
In that moment I finally understood what love meant.
Sarah had been right all along. A single moment was all it had taken.
The wind whipped through my singed hair, my cybernetic legs pumping me faster than I’d ever moved before. I didn’t need to know which direction to head; I could hear them with my enhanced ears.
Shouts and screams of agony rose into the night air as I closed in on a block from them. Shots were fired and flashes of light pinpointed their exact location. As I rounded the corner, I raised my rifle, firing two shots at the pair of Fallen who rushed the struggling group from behind. They dropped to the ground in a heap. One of Royce’s men raised his own gun. For a moment I thought he was pointing at me, until the Hunter I hadn’t noticed creeping up on me from behind dropped to the ground.
I didn’t even remember feeling my feet slap the pavement as I ran toward him, my eyes never leaving his face. In that moment, every memory I had of him, every second we had spent together, flashed through my mind.
The rest of the group struggled to keep moving, hampered by injuries, their wounded men, and the figure that was losing so much blood that they carried. I didn’t miss the fear in their eyes as they looked at him.
I ran past West’s infected, bleeding body, straight into Avian’s blood soaked arms. I threw my arms around his shoulders, crushing him into myself, pressing my lips to his with a heat that burned me from the inside out. Avian’s assault rifle fell to the ground with a clatter as he wrapped one arm around my waist, bringing his other hand up behind my neck. Everything about his lips, his breathing, the way his body melted into mine left me craving more.
There was no Fallen world around us as I kissed Avian and he took my breath away. There was no infection, there were no cybernetics. There was no running, no fighting, no violence or death. There was only Avian and there was only me.
And the explosion that came from within me.
I’d never felt the heat from Avian that West had given me but I realized then that it had been because I wouldn’t allow myself to seek it out until I was sure it was Avian that I wanted and needed.
Now I was sure.
West may have made me feel alive but he didn’t have the gravitational pull that Avian did. Avian was my world, my universe. He was everything worth living, fighting, and dying for.
“I love you,” I whispered against his lips as Avian consumed me, body and soul. “It’s you. It’s always been you.” And I realized then that it was true. I had always loved Avian, it was always him. I just hadn’t realized it until now.
I felt the tears as they rolled down Avian’s cheek, his lips still moving with mine. “I love you, Eve. More than anything in this world.”
“We’ve got to get out of here!” a man screamed. As I looked back, I realized the majority of the group had continued back to the hospital. Even as he said it, I raised my rifle and fired at the two Fallen who sprinted down the street after us. They dropped with a clatter.
Taking Avian’s hand in mine, I half dragged him back to the hospital with me. I realized then that there was blood oozing out of his left arm in two different places and in one spot in his right thigh.
The lobby was a shifting mess of chaos as everyone got back inside just as the sky started to lighten. People ran everywhere, more than one life on the edge of being lost. Avian and I spotted a group of men in white coats hauling West’s twitching body into the elevator. We dashed for the stairs as it closed, taking them two at a time. Avian stumbled behind me, blood dripping onto the steel stairs as we ascended.
We followed the shouting as we got to the blue floor, down to the extraction room. A doctor ran past us, back to the stairs. As we stepped into the room, it all finally hit me.
West was really infected.
“How long ago?” I asked quietly, squeezing Avian’s hand all the tighter.
“Just over an hour ago, I think,” he forced the words out. “They kept coming at us as we tried to make our way back.”
I squeezed my eyes closed as a group of men and women forced West’s twitching body into the terrible chair, clamping his wrists and ankles secure. He stilled for just a moment as he caught sight of me. “Eve!” he screamed, his eyes wide, terrified and confused.
It was then that I noticed the metallic veins that were growing in his left eye.
West gave a blood-curdling scream, squeezing his eyes closed as his chest surged forward, his body held back by the bands around his wrists. A pair of doctors rushed back into the room and I watched horrified as they injected something into West’s neck. He was instantly still.
I couldn’t look anymore as I turned into Avian and buried my face in his chest. I heard the doctors fussing around, bandaging his wounds with gloved hands, trying their best to stop West’s bleeding.
The hum of electricity alerted everyone that the Extractor was being powered up. Avian took two steps away from it, pulling me with him. My entire system was riddled with cybernetics. If I got too close to that device, it would shred me to bits.
They continued to work on and around West, the hum of the device growing louder and louder by the moment.
Avian suddenly stumbled, his skin pale and clammy looking. I realized then that there was a pool of blood at his feet. “Eve, I…” he didn’t finish as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
In a strange way I felt relief as I slung Avian across my shoulders and dashed back down the hallway. Earlier I might have felt torn, not knowing who I wanted to stay with, who was more important to me. But now I finally knew where I needed to be.
Avian was totally limp as I took the stairs two at a time, too impatient to wait out the slow elevator ride down. The sound of my feet against the tile echoed off the walls as I ran toward the medical wing.
“Help!” I shouted as I neared.
As I stepped into the hall, I stopped, taking the scene before me in.
Avian and West weren’t the only ones who had been shot. Men and women were everywhere, most of the floor covered with a slick sheet of red. People rushed everywhere, panicked.
“Help him!” I shouted to no one in particular. Not a single eye turned in my direction. More blood continued to drip from Avian’s wounds. “He needs help!” I shouted at the closest person in white. He paid no attention to me.
“Please,” I said to a woman who rushed past me, reaching out for her arm. She barely glanced at me and shook her head. “I already have three patients.”
Anger surged in my system and for the briefest moment, the room
shifted with lines of black.
I drew my handgun and fired two shots into the ceiling.
Every eye in the room turned to me and every single body froze.
I lowered the gun and leveled it on a woman in those strange starched green clothes. “If you let him die I will not hesitate to kill you.”
She swallowed hard, her eyes twice their normal size. She gave one nod and pointed me towards a room.
There was already a blood covered man in one of the beds but I didn’t really care as I laid Avian’s limp form in the empty one. The young woman followed me in, her hands shaking.
“He’s been shot,” I said, my voice calm and even.
She simply nodded and lifted Avian’s bleeding arm. “There’s no exit wound. The bullets are still inside. It could be a while before I can get the instruments to get them out.”
“It can’t wait that long,” I said as I shook my head at her. “He’s already lost too much blood. Can you sew him up? You’re a doctor, right?”
She shook her head. “I’m a nurse but I know how to suture.”
I grabbed a pair of gloves out of one of the boxes on the wall and pulled them on. “We’re getting them out now.”
The nurse watched me wide eyed as I dug my fingers into Avian’s flesh and felt for the bullets. I wondered if her face was just like that all the time. Either that or I had really shaken her up. I guess I had pointed a gun at her.
The bullets gave a small ping as I dropped them in the sink. The nurse set to stitching his skin closed while I fished the bullet out of his thigh. I gave a hard swallow as I dropped the last bloody bullet in the sink.
Once she was done with the stitches she left the room for a moment and came back with a bag of blood. “He needs a transfusion,” she said as she punctured Avian’s skin and the blood started mixing with his own. I didn’t like the idea of some stranger’s blood mixing with his.
The soldier in the bed next to us limped out of the room, eyeing me as he walked by. “I would have done the same thing if it had been my wife bleeding to death,” he said as he met my eyes. I managed to give him a half smile as he walked out the door.
“This shouldn’t take too long,” the nurse said as she peeled off her gloves and threw them in the trash. “He could start coming around any time now. I’ll be back to check on him in a while.”
“Thank you,” I said as she started for the door. I reached out and lightly touched her arm. She flinched. “I’m sorry about earlier.” She merely gave a short nod and walked out the door.
Just as I was about to sit on the edge of Avian’s bed, three heavily armed men walked into the room.
“You need to come with us,” one of them said. His eyes were hard, his brow drawn together.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said as I glared back at him.
“You’ve been deemed a security threat,” he said as he took another step toward me. “You fired two shots in the middle of a crowded room, threatened a nurse. You need to be secured.”
“I’m not leaving him,” my voice was cold and hard.
The three of them took another step, their hands twitching on their firearms.
“I suggest you don’t come any closer if you like your nose the way it looks,” I warned, balling my fingers.
He merely gave a cocky little smile and took another step forward.
A scream of pain leapt from his throat as my cybernetic-boned fist met his face, my other hand chopping at his throat. One of the men behind him raised his firearm, leveling it at my face. In the same movement I spun, knocking it out of his hands with my heel. The third man turned and ran out into the hall.
“I told you I’m not leaving,” I said calmly as I extended a hand to the man who I had just broken his nose. He simply glared at me and got to his feet on his own, holding his bleeding nose. “You can take these,” I said as I handed over my firearms. “But I’m not leaving.”
He took my weapons, looking surprised at my cooperation. “We’ll be keeping watch over you. Isaac, you take the first shift. Watch her like a hawk.”
Isaac looked at the first man hard, looking like he might want to hit him too.
“I won’t bite,” I said as I turned and walked back to Avian’s side. The first man left in a hurry, the second stationed himself outside the door.
Not many things scared me but seeing Avian laying there like that did. Now that I finally understood who it was that I needed, was I going to lose him? Was I to only get a few glorious but horror filled minutes now that I had finally made my choice? I might be losing both of them at the same time. Maybe this was my punishment for taking so long to figure my feelings out. For doing what I had done to them.
2,634 seconds later, Avian’s eyes blinked open, a haze covering his gaze. I jumped back to his bed, after pacing back and forth for what felt like eternity. I balanced on the edge of the mattress as I took his hand in mine, pressing my lips to the back of his hand. He blinked several times before he turned his head and his eyes found mine.
“Hi,” I said quietly, kissing his still clammy skin.
“Hi,” he said back, the life coming back into his eyes.
I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his, coals growing in my chest, the heat rising with every passing moment. I pressed my forehead against his, biting my lower lip.
“I was worried I might lose you there for a while,” I said, closing my eyes. “You lost a lot of blood. I thought you were going to die.”
“So I didn’t just imagine everything that happened?” he asked. “West being infected? You telling me that you loved me?”
I shook my head as I kept his intense gaze. “Are you sure?” he asked very quietly.
“Without a doubt,” I said as I pressed my lips to his again briefly. Here was everything that was home.
“When did you finally decide?”
I thought back to that horrid but enlightening moment, a hard knot forming in my stomach. “When we heard over the radio that someone had been infected. I realized then that there was only one person I couldn’t survive loosing. I’ve lost Tye, Sarah, everyone in my past that I can’t even remember. But I realized then that I couldn’t live through losing you. You’re everything I have that’s worth living for.”
“But what about West?” he asked, his question hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to hear the answer.
“He will always be a part of me,” I said, searching inside of me for the answers. “He’s the only connection to my past that I have. But while West woke up something inside of me, I realized what I was feeling for him wasn’t love. He made me feel alive, but he doesn’t make me feel…” I struggled for the right words. “I don’t crave being around him like I do you. I don’t know how to exist without you. You’re a part of me in a way that I can’t explain. I just don’t feel the same about him.”
Avian brought his hand up behind my neck, bringing my lips to his again for just a moment. “I love you, Eve. I promise I always will.”
“I love you,” I breathed, relishing in the warmth that radiated into every corner of my body. I’d said love and I finally understood what it meant.
“Eve,” he said as his eyes drifted to the doorway. “Why is there an armed guard standing just outside the door?”
I glanced in that direction, seeing Isaac standing there with his back turned to us but his automatic weapon in obvious sight. “I may have used a little more force than needed to get someone to help you,” I said, not quite meeting his eyes.
“You didn’t hurt anyone did you?” he said with a hint of a sigh.
“There’s just a couple of new bullet holes in their ceiling…”
Avian suddenly chuckled. He brought my hand up to his lips, pressing a brief kiss there. “That’s my Eve.”
I gave him a small smile, everything inside of me loving hearing him call me “his”.
“Have you heard anything yet?” Avian asked as he lay back on his pillow.
I shook my head as
I sat back, my hands falling into my lap. “I haven’t left you since you collapsed upstairs.”
“You should go find out what happened,” he said, his eyes sad and serious. “See if we were too late.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, my brow furrowing. I didn’t like the idea of leaving him here like this alone.
“It’s just a couple of bullet holes,” he said with a small smile. “I’ve patched enough of them to know that I’ll survive.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said as I stood. I glanced back at him one last time before I walked out the door.
THIRTY-NINE
I argued with the guard for a good five minutes and finally convinced him that he could just follow me. I felt cold and stiff as I walked back to the stairs. A sense of dread saturated my system as I started the climb, having to fight back the urge to turn back. I didn’t know if I wanted to find out if he was going to pull out of it or not.
The blue floor was abuzz with activity as I entered the hall. People went in and out of the stairwell that led up to the Pulse, Dr. Beeson’s door was wide open, people coming and going. But most of the activity was coming from the Extraction room.
I held my arms around my midsection to keep myself from falling apart as I stepped into the room. It felt like everything inside of me was about to crack and fall apart, like I’d been filled with too many strong emotions and then someone had taken a sledgehammer to me. I just couldn’t contain anything more, good or bad.
A group of people surrounded West’s limp body. Bandages were wrapped around half of him but even I could tell the blood had stopped flowing. It seemed as if his wounds were already healing themselves.
Those who worked on West suddenly froze as they noticed me in the room. I squirmed under all their eyes, not knowing how to deal with their attention.
“Is it going to work on him?” I asked, my voice small sounding.
A man with flaming red hair glanced at the others before stepping away from the group towards me. He stuffed his gloved hands in the pockets of his lab coat as he stopped just a few feet away from me.
“The extraction process has begun but we are unsure of the exact time frame of how long it was between when he was touched and when he was brought in. Some are guessing it was only forty minutes, others thought it was an hour and a half.”