Eden (10 page)

Somehow we made it to the
edge of the city and back into the trees where the Fallen only
scouted when there was nothing better to do, which was apparently
the
only
thing
they did.  West wheezed as we ran further into the forest,
falling behind me several steps.

“
Holy…” he gasped. 
“Eve.”

I slowed and turned to him
as we stopped.  “What?”

“
Your shoulder,” he said,
his eyes filled with horror.

My stomach knotted
instantly and I almost didn’t dare look.  With all the
adrenaline coursing through my system I didn’t consider two very
important things that had just happened.

I looked down at my
shoulder and realized half my shirt had been burned away.  So
had my flesh.  The skin from the top of my right shoulder down
as far as I could see on my back was a charred, black, smoking
mess. 

“
Oh my ga… Eve,” West
said, his voice a horrified whisper that choked off.  “Are
you…?” I knew he was going to ask me if I was okay but it was
obvious I wasn’t.

And then it hit me. 
“I don’t feel anything.  I didn’t even know it was
there.”

West continued to look at
me with that horrified expression.  I could only stare back
for a moment. 

“
It touched you,” I could
barely even hear his words as they escaped his throat.

My blood froze in my veins
and it felt like all my internal organs had suddenly disappeared as
his words hit me.  A Fallen had touched me.  One touch
was all it took.  The Hunter had been all over me.

“
I have to go back to the
city,” I said as I locked eyes with him.  “You have to run,
West.  Don’t look back.”

I took two steps back
toward where we had come from when he grabbed my wrist.  “No,”
he growled and shook his head.  “No.”

“
I have to West,” I
hissed, almost angry with him.  He knew how the world was
now.  “I only have a few hours.  Then I’ll be trying to
kill you too.”

“
No,” he said again, his
jaw clenched as his eyes burned into mine.  I noticed there
was moisture brimming in them.  “I’m taking you with me. 
If you start to turn, I’ll shoot you myself and
run.” 

“
It’s not a question
of
if
, West,” I
said, my voice low and husky sounding.  I shook his hand off
and started back again. 

West grabbed my wrist
again, this time yanking me back toward him with much more
force.  His other hand encircled my waist pulling me against
his body.  “No,” he said again.

And then he crushed his
lips to mine.  I could have sworn I was back in the middle of
that explosion again in that moment.

I didn’t even realize for
several moments after that I was being drug through the forest
again, West’s hand securely around my wrist.  I couldn’t think
straight enough to resist.

Finally, I yanked the gun
from the belt of my pants and forced it into West’s other
hand.  “Here,” I said, my eyes daring him to fight me. 
“You’re going to need this soon.”

He didn’t say anything,
just tucked it into his own pants and continued to pull me through
the trees.

EIGHT

The chill of the morning
air shook West in an obvious way, his teeth chattering as we ran
through the forest.  His hand was still clenched around mine,
his fingers a frozen color of purple.  Our breath caused
clouds to bloom around us in a cruel reminder that summer was still
a few weeks off.

As we pounded our way
through the woods, I could only think one thing, over and
over.  What was happening?  Or more accurately:
what
wasn’t
happening?

We had run through the
entire day after I had been tackled by the Hunter, and had
continued through the night.  I kept waiting for the sensation
of my cells hardening, waiting for my vision to sharpen and for the
data to start flashing across my eyes, or something.  It
shouldn’t have taken more than two or three hours for the changes
to start.  It had now been just short of twenty-four and still
nothing had happened.

The terrain became
familiar and I felt both relief and panic.  Perhaps Avian
could give me some answers and I now had the medication Sarah
needed.  Yet I was infected now.  I couldn’t bring it
into Eden.  That was the very thing we had fought all these
years to keep out.

I was startled to see how
Eden had changed since the time I had left it.  There were
only a few tents left by this point and the place that was my home
looked deserted.  I then remembered that Gabriel had told
everyone to leave.

The few people who were
left looked busy packing and preparing to leave.  They stared
at West and I as we walked swiftly toward the medical
tent. 

“
Avian!”  I half
shouted before we were even inside the tent. 
“Avian!”

“
Eve!” I heard his excited
yet panicked shout as we burst into the tent.

I froze as I got inside,
my eyes seeing nothing but Avian, standing there looking back at
me.  All the years watching him work, the hours we had spent
by campfires, the feeling of his hand in mine, the sound of his
breathing rushed through my head.  Everything I was going to
lose by turning into a Fallen was standing in this tent.

“
Eve,” he finally
whispered as he closed the gap between us and wrapped me in his
arms.  His entire frame was trembling.  Softly, he
pressed his lips to my temple.

He took a step back,
placing his hands on my shoulders, and took a good look at
me.  That was when he realized what was under his right
hand.

“
Eve!” he nearly shouted
as he whipped his hand away.  “You’re fried!  How are you
not writhing in pain?”

Without waiting for me to
say anything, he grabbed me and maneuvered me onto the table. 
I then noticed Sarah wasn’t lying on it anymore.  What did
that mean?  Was I too late?

I felt a rock form in my
throat.  I couldn’t make myself ask about her.

“
I can’t feel it,” I said,
my voice sounding dead.  “I haven’t felt it since it
happened.  There was an explosion.”

“
It’s a good thing you
can’t feel it,” Avian said as he poured some water onto a
rag.  “Burns are some of the most painful injuries.  And
this would really, really hurt.”

Avian cut away the rest of
my charred shirt and I clung to the tattered pieces to keep myself
covered.  I stole a glance at West who stood in the doorway
and watched with fearful eyes.  Avian then started scrubbing
at my charred skin.

“
When did this happen?”
Avian asked, his voice oddly tight.

“
Yesterday morning,” West
answered before I could.

“
This looks a week old,”
Avian said quietly.  “It’s already started to
heal.”

I tried to swallow the
rock in my throat but it wouldn’t go down.  “A Hunter touched
me, Avian.  It was all over me.  It happened just after
the explosion.”

Avian suddenly froze as he
scrubbed.  He stopped breathing for a moment and I felt him
automatically withdraw his hand just slightly.

“
I haven’t changed. 
Nothing’s happened except that I can’t feel this,” I said as I
nodded my head toward my shoulder.

He paused for a while
longer before hesitantly placing the rag back to my shoulder and
slowly started scrubbing again.

“
What does this mean,
Avian?” I asked quietly.  “Why haven’t I changed?”

He didn’t say anything for
a little bit.  It nearly drove me insane.

“
I don’t know,” he said,
his voice tight again.

“
This doesn’t
happen.  They all Fall.”

And then a strange thing
happened.  I blacked out.

There were wires attached
to every exposed surface of my body.  And I was running. 
I’d been running forever it felt like.  The belt turned under
my feet, creating an endless four foot section of road.

“
Increase the speed,” a
voice said.  I didn’t like those voices.

The belt started spinning
faster under my small bare feet.  My pace picked up to match
so I didn’t fall.

“
Doesn’t she get tired?” a
young voice asked.

“
That’s what we’re trying
to find out,” the voice I knew answered.

I turned my head toward
the window where they watched me from.  A pair of curious
brown eyes stared back at me.

I opened my eyes, only to
squint them back to nearly closed.  Light streamed in,
momentarily blinding me.  My left shoulder felt stiff, and as
I reached a hand to it, I found it covered in layers of
bandages.  I was also wearing a shirt that I recognized as
Avian’s.

“
Try not to move too
much,” a voice said kindly.

Ignoring the voice, I
pulled myself into a sitting position.  I blinked my eyes
several times, willing them to focus.

I was still on the medical
table but now there was not just the three of us inside but Gabriel
as well.  I wondered when he had come back.

“
What happened?” I asked
as I rubbed my eyes.

“
You passed out from the
pain,” Avian said, his voice stiff again.

“
But I didn’t feel it,” I
said, my voice sounding a little more annoyed than I had meant it
to.  “I still don’t feel it.”

Avian and Gabriel
exchanged looks.  West just stared at me with a blank
expression.

“
We need to have a talk,
Eve,” Gabriel said as he looked at me.  “In
private.”

West seemed to realize
this last part was directed at him.  “I’m not leaving her,” he
said, his voice stubborn.

“
I’m not giving you a
choice,” Gabriel said, his eyes hard.  I then heard someone
shift position outside and recognized Bill’s shadow through the
wall of the tent.

“
Go,” I said quietly to
West, looking into his earthy eyes.  “I can take care of
myself.”

He gave me a hard
look.  I could tell he didn’t like this but after a moment he
walked out.  I saw Bill walk away with him.

Once I was sure West was
out of earshot I looked back at Avian and Gabriel.  “What is
happening to me?” I asked, my eyes daring them to not answer
me.  “I can’t feel the pain.  I didn’t
change.”

“
You still feel the pain,”
Avian said, swallowing hard on the rock that seemed to have moved
into his own throat.  “Your brain just doesn’t tell you it’s
feeling it.  That’s why you passed out this morning. 
Your body couldn’t handle the pain.”

“
But I didn’t feel the
pain,” I insisted, not that the statement made me feel any
better.

The two of them exchanged
looks again.  That was really starting to annoy me.

“
What do you know?” I
snapped.  “What aren’t you two telling me?”

Avian bit his lower lip,
his eyes dropping to the floor.  Gabriel took this as an
indicator to take the lead.  “When you came to us, we knew
right away that something was different about you Eve.  You
shouldn’t have survived out there on your own.  You were only
a thirteen-year-old girl for heaven’s sake.

“
We didn’t know what it
was.  We watched you for weeks, looking for any signs that you
were a Fallen, sent to spy on us.  It’s difficult to tell
sometimes.  We kept the CDU with us at all times, ready to use
it should you show any indicator that you might turn on
us.

“
You were nearly as strong
as any of the grown men.  You never got tired.  You were
so blasted tough and solid.  And yet you lived among us. 
You didn’t turn against us.”

My heart pounded as I
listened to Gabriel.  I recalled everything he was saying,
remembered the way the two of them had hovered over me at all times
when I was a younger.  I had thought they were trying to
protect me.  They had just been protecting themselves
though.  They had been ready to short me out at any
moment.

Apparently there had been
reason to.

And I was still too
strong, still too fast.  And apparently my brain didn’t
register pain.

“
What the hell am I?” I
said in a raged hiss.

“
We don’t know,” Avian
finally said as he looked up.  “You’re human but part of you
is cybernetic.  You’ve been enhanced in a way we’ve never even
heard of before.

“
That’s why you didn’t
change when the Hunter touched you.  You’re already part
Fallen.”

My breathing increased as
my eyes dropped to the floor.  It suddenly rushed up at me as
I fell off the table and landed roughly on my hands and
knees.  Avian jumped to help me up but I pushed him
away.

“
No,” I said as I shook my
head and stumbled to my feet.  “Get away from me!”

I bolted out of the tent
and stumbled through what was left of Eden without seeing or caring
where I was going.