Eden (31 page)

“
I didn’t want to give
anyone false hope.”

“
You still should have
told us,” I said, looking back toward the caravan.  So Avian
and I had been right.  It wasn’t complete.  It was the
vital heart of it all that was missing.

We fell into silence again
after that.  As the quiet settled over us I felt that there
was something that West wanted to say, something was on his
mind.

“
What?” I simply
asked.

He took a breath to speak
then stopped.  His eyes glanced up once before falling back
down to his weapon in his hands.  “You still don’t know what
you want, do you?”

My eyes fell to the
ground.  “Why do you have to ask me that?  When you
already know the answer?  It doesn’t make it any easier on
me.”

“
Because I have to know,
Eve,” he said, desperation rising in his voice.  “Because my
head is all in the wrong places right now, not knowing and always
wondering what is going on.  What do I have to do to make you
sure that you should be with me?  What do I have to do to show
you how much you mean to me?”

I looked up, finding his
eyes on mine.  My stomach felt like it was doing strange
little spasms.  “Tell me,” I said quietly.  “I need to
hear it.”

My reply seemed to catch
West off guard, his eyes reflecting his sudden blank.

“
I watched you every day
for as long as I can remember,” he started.  “I wanted to help
you, to make them stop what they were doing.  I wanted you to
be a normal kid with me.  And then you were gone and I had no
idea where you were.  But the entire time, these last five
years, I never stopped hoping I would find you again.

“
And then I did.  You
were, are, the most incredible being I have ever met.  And
it’s not just because of the things my grandfather did to
you.  You’re strong all on your own.  You care about all
of them, even if you don’t really know what love even
means.

“
Eden is a wonderful place
but it wouldn’t be anywhere near the same without you.  I know
I don’t fit in there, that people still don’t fully trust me. 
But you’re there so it’s all okay.  When I’m with you, I feel
something I didn’t think it was still possible to feel in this
world.  I feel alive, like there is still hope in this
world.  Like maybe things will still be okay
someday.”

My eyes fell as West
finished, looking down at our hands where they rested side by
side.  I slipped my fingers into his, picking apart every
little thing I felt.

I didn’t get to analyze
for long because suddenly, everything went black.

*

I opened my eyes to the
washed out color of canvas, having to squint because of how light
it still was.  Two faces leaned over my field of vision, both
filled with concern and another emotion that surprised me. 
Fear.

“
What happened?” I asked
as I pulled myself up into a sitting position, shaking what felt
like fog from my brain.

West and Avian glanced at
each other and I became all the more concerned.  “What
happened?” I demanded again.

“
You… passed out,” West
said.  I noticed the sweat that suddenly beaded on his
forehead.  I glanced at Avian who just looked at the ground to
the side of me.  He couldn’t meet my eyes.

“
It’s pushing one hundred
degrees out there,” West said as he sat back on his heels. 
“You’re not used to the heat.”

“
And you are?” I
scoffed.  I didn’t believe West.  I hadn’t passed out
from the heat.  He was lying about it and Avian knew
it.

“
Just drop it, Eve,” West
said as he pulled himself to his feet.  “You’re obviously fine
now.” 

The conversation we had
just had came back to me with force.  I remembered what I had
been thinking about West’s words before I had “passed out”. 
He had said that I made him feel like there was still hope in the
world.  Like things were going to be okay.

As I looked back at Avian
I remembered what I had been thinking.  That that was how
Avian made
me
feel.

West avoided me the rest
of the day and Avian insisted I get some sleep before we left that
night.  He was covering up for West but I sensed he didn’t
want to be. 

Once everyone was asleep
on the trailer again that night I couldn’t hold it back any
longer.

“
What really happened to
me earlier?” I asked quietly.

Avian looked at me, his
eyes narrowed slightly. 

“
I didn’t really pass out,
did I?”

“
I didn’t see it,” he
finally said.  “West walked you back to the group but you
weren’t there.  Your eyes were totally blank and you wouldn’t
respond.  He said you two had been talking when you suddenly
just… froze up.”

“
Froze up?” I asked. 
Even as I did, I knew what he was talking about.  The way I
had blanked and then tripped the day before.  The way I had
felt like I was suddenly gone when I had nearly choked
West.

“
You weren’t there for a
while,” Avian said, his voice cool.  “It was like you were
empty all of the sudden.  Hollow.”

I swallowed hard, not
because of the dryness or the heat this time.  “Am I going to
turn into one of them?” my voice sounded hoarse.

“
I think if you were going
to you would have already,” Avian said, his voice suddenly
tight.  “There’s been plenty of time for you to change, plenty
of opportunity for you to be infected.  I think this is
something different.”

“
What then?”

“
I don’t know.”

The things that Avian
didn’t know frightened me.

TWENTY-SEVEN

As pressure built in the
air I felt uneasy.  It reminded me of the night the Hunters
had burned the gardens, the night our lives had been changed so
drastically.  The stars disappeared, plunging the night into a
darkness I had never known.  It was unnerving, feeling so
blind and yet so exposed.  There was nowhere to hide out
here.

We didn’t talk anymore
that night.  Every conversation just seemed to turn so ominous
and heavy.  It was almost nice to not think about
reality.

One nice thing about
traveling through the desert was that there were few towns that we
had to skirt around.  It slowed us down a great deal having to
drive around a city.  There was always the risk that we would
find Fallen on the outskirts unless we pressed further
out.

“
Pull over here,” Avian
said in a harsh whisper as we approached another gas station. 
“Kill the lights.”  Tuck did as he said
immediately.

Avian jumped off the
trailer, his rifle held at eye level.  I jumped off at the
same time, my own shotgun held firmly in hand.  His eyes never
left the glass front of the store as he stalked slowly towards
it.  I released my safety, gauging how many extra shells I had
in my pocket that I could easily grab if needed.

“
There’s two of them
inside,” Avian whispered.  At the same time he said that, I
caught sight of the gleam that came off their metallic parts. 
Their eyes stared back out at us, empty orbs.

“
Should we go to a
different gas station?” I breathed.

Avian shook his
head.  “We most likely wouldn’t make it to
another.”

“
Together?” I said
quietly.

“
On my count,” Avian
breathed.  “Three… two… one.”

The glass exploded into a
billion stars, followed by screams from those who were sleeping
unsuspecting on the trailer.  The next second, the two Fallen
had leapt through the remains of the glass, barreling straight
towards us.

Countless shots were fired
but only one of the two dropped.  By the time I had realized
what had happened it was too late to fire again.  My magazine
was emptied.

“
No!” I screamed as I
sprinted toward the Fallen who was barreling straight at
Avian.  “Get away from him!”  I leapt between the two of
them, slamming my body into the Fallen.

We hit the ground in a
tangled mess of arms, each trying to destroy the other.  It’s
steel cold hand wrapped around my throat, cutting off my air
supply.

“
Dis… dis…” I gasped for
air.  “Disengage!” I screamed out.  It stopped moving
immediately.

I clawed its hand away
from my throat, realizing then that as I had jumped to get between
the Fallen and Avian my handgun had fallen out of its
holster.  My hands beat at the frame that covered its neck and
lower face, exposing the gears and wire beneath.  I lost it
then, ripping and shredding everything I could get my fingers
around.  I didn’t even care as the volts of electricity the
infected body produced shocked me over and over again.

I sat back, straddling the
now still body, my breaths coming in shaking, gasping
swallows.  I glanced back over at Avian only to see him
surrounded by the rest of the group.  Their faces were a mix
of shock, awe, and fear.

Now they all finally knew
my secret. 

I looked back down at the
Fallen, my hand rising to my throat, and took a hard swallow. 
In its blank eyes, I saw everything I hated about myself.  All
the things that were wrong with me, all the things I couldn’t
remember but knew the truth about.  I spit in its face and
stood to walk back to the others.

“
Let’s gas up and get
going,” I said, unable to look anyone in the eye.  Especially
Avian.  My emotions were pulled in two directions as I
analyzed what he had just done.  He’d been willing to
sacrifice himself to keep the Fallen off of me.  Even though
he knew I didn’t need protection.

No one said anything as
Tuck and Avian pulled the truck around to the hand pump and filled
it.  They all got back on the trailer but I felt their eyes on
me as I stood at one corner of the building, pretending to be
watching the perimeter, even though I couldn’t see much of
anything.

“
Are you okay?” West asked
quietly from behind me.

“
I’m fine,” I said, my
voice rough.

“
Are you sure?” he
whispered.

“
I’m fine!” I said
harshly, turning to glare at him.  I looked at his defensive
face, anger suddenly filling me.  “You lied to me
again.”

“
Lied?” he asked, his
eyebrows furrowing.

“
I didn’t pass out
earlier.  Avian told me,” I said quietly, my eyes glancing
over to him.  “It was like I was suddenly one of them, wasn’t
it?”

West swallowed hard, his
eyes guarded as he looked back at me.  “It was the same way
you looked when you tried to choke me.”

I stared back at him, my
insides a running, stumbling mess.  “And why does it only seem
to happen when I’m around you?”

West just looked back at
me, hurt showing in his eyes.  He didn’t say anything, just
turned and walked back to the group.

Avian left a message and a
cairn at the gas station, warning the second group to take extra
caution.  I just hoped Bill and Graye kept a wary eye
out.  They were tough and smart but they could still be
infected.

No one slept the rest of
that night.  I knew they were all on edge after seeing the two
Fallen, but I suspected it was mostly because of me.  They
might not have understood what I was before, but now they knew a
few things for certain.  One- that I should start turning at
any moment, yet Avian wasn’t turning the CDU on me and didn’t seem
concerned.  Two- there was something different about me, that
I could take being shocked like that, could kill a Fallen with my
bare hands.  And three- that the Fallen listened to
me.

The pressure in the sky
kept building, turning the air muggy and heavy.  We stopped
two hours after we had gassed up, hiding ourselves in a cluster of
sickly looking trees.  Tents were set up, five of them, as a
precaution to the saturated sky.

Not five minutes after we
had everything set up, the sky finally broke.

I’d never seen rain like
that.

I kept the perimeter, Tuck
volunteering to keep watch with me.  I was soaked through
almost instantly and it was difficult to see far.  Small wisps
of steam rose from the sunbaked ground, heat and cool being smacked
together.

The world was doused in a
hazy color of gray as the sun fought to break through the heavy
clouds above us.  The rain continued to pour, soaking us in
more rain than I had ever seen fall at one time.  Small
streams started tracing lines in the desert, running to unseen
rivers.

A few hours into my
scouting Avian walked out, using a raincoat that had been smartly
packed to keep his head dry.  He walked over to me, giving me
shelter as well, and handed me two carrots.

“
I doubt we’re going to
see any of them in this,” Avian said, having to speak louder than
normal to talk over the noise of the rain pounding above our
heads.  “They don’t like the water too much.”

“
I’m not taking any
risks,” I said as I bit the end of one of the carrots off. 
“And what was that back there?  You know I can take care of
myself.”