I gave a nod and allowed Avian to help me carry the three bags that had once been Sarah and I’s tent toward the pile that was his belongings and the medical supplies and tent.
“I don’t want you to be angry at me forever,” Avian said as we stood there, side by side. “You have no idea how many times I wanted to tell you, how many times I knew I should have told you. I’m sorry, Eve. It was wrong.
I gave another nod, as close as I could make myself get to accepting his apology at the moment. We then heard the sound of the wagon rumbling through the trees towards us.
There had been two horses kept in Eden, until about eight months ago. The older of the two had broken its leg and, unable to take care of the animal, Gabriel had to put him down. We managed with the smaller wagon with just one horse.
A woman by the name of Morgan and her husband Eli, drove the wagon and helped us to load our things into the small space. With everything that had to be hauled there was no room for anything else. Avian and I would be walking.
That was fine with me. I would have walked anyway.
Little was said as we finished loading. The couple told us that no signs of the hunters had been seen and that the new location for Eden was wonderful, located right next to a lake. Everyone was getting settled in just fine.
The wagon made good pace as we let them go ahead of us, and it didn’t take long before it was out of sight, leaving Avian and I alone.
“He knew who I was,” I suddenly said as we walked through the trees. “West, he knew me before I came here. His grandfather experimented on me. He’s the reason I can do the things I can do.”
“He told you this?” Avian asked, his brow furrowed.
I shook my head. “No, I found a notebook filled with the things he did to me. West said I had been at this facility for as long as he could remember. Possibly since I was a baby. He told me we used to play together as children sometimes.”
“I have a hard time imagining you playing anything,” Avian said. I noticed a smile was tugging on his lips.
“I can’t imagine I was very good at it.”
A chuckle suddenly broke from Avian’s chest. I couldn’t help smiling too.
We walked quietly for a while. I sensed how relaxed Avian was. I wondered how it felt. I never felt relaxed. My ears listened to the sounds of the woods around us, searching for any sign of alert. My eyes scanned the trees. I even smelled at the air, being alert for any scent of exhaust from an ATV or a helicopter.
I kept the handgun West had given back to me tucked into the back of my pants. I was ready to pull it out at any moment and unload it, grab Avian, and run for our lives.
Despite Avian’s relaxed stance, I had little doubt the bulky bag he had on his back contained the CDU. He wasn’t coming out into these woods unprepared either.
“Why did you ask Graye to get the necklace for me?” I asked, glancing over at his face.
Avian hesitated for a few moments. “I wanted you to have something special for your birthday,” he said as he looked at me briefly. I noted the way he stiffened slightly. “I thought you should have something a woman would normally have. I hoped you would like it.”
I looked away from him, fixing my eyes on the trail. I couldn’t think of anything that seemed less fit for me as a gift. I’d never owned any other piece of jewelry nor had I ever had the desire to own any.
“You shouldn’t have asked him to,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t worth it.”
“I know,” he answered me even more quietly.
Regret for my words seeped into me. Tye’s death had been hardest on Avian and I kept bringing it up. Now I was pointing it out that in a way it had been his fault he was dead.
Not really even knowing what I was doing, I reached over and took Avian’s hand in mine. He squeezed my fingers, his shoulder brushing mine.
“There are getting to be fewer of them you know,” Avian said after a few moments. “The Hunters. Right after the infection started and people stopped being people, there were thousands of them. It was all too easy for them to turn others. We didn’t understand what was happening at first. The base where I was stationed in what used to be Texas was flooded with them. I don’t know how I escaped. But as more and more people became infected, Fallen who used to be Hunters stopped hunting. There aren’t that many more of them left now.”
“They just stand there, you know,” I said as I recalled the haunting scene. “Like they’re waiting for something. Just standing there inside, watching the world crumble outside.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said, his brow furrowing. I then realized he wouldn’t have known. After rescuing Sarah, Avian had come here and he never left. We couldn’t afford for him to leave. He was too needed in Eden.
I was glad it wasn’t me. That would have felt too much like being a prisoner. I wasn’t the only one that felt like I had the weight of Eden resting on my shoulders. We wouldn’t have survived without Avian, just as they wouldn’t have survived without me.
“I was out of my mind,” Avian said, his voice tight as he looked down at his feet. “When you left. I didn’t know what happened to you, what was going to happen to you. You’re tough, but you’re not indestructible. If it hadn’t have been for Sarah I would have come after you.”
“You can’t do that,” I said as I furrowed my brows, looking back up at him. “They need you here.” And there I was, making him a prisoner of Eden again.
Avian slowed, pulling me to a stop with him, our hands still clasped together. “Don’t do that again, Eve. Don’t run off on me.”
I looked up into Avian’s face, surprised at the intensity that burned in his eyes. His face was closer than I had expected it to be. I took a sharp breath in as I recalled the feeling of West crushing his lips to mine. This was different though. This was Avian. He wouldn’t do it that way.
“I’ll do what I have to,” I finally managed to say. My heart was pounding in my chest in a way that was foreign to me. “I’ll protect them all till the day I don’t have any more fight in me.”
He continued to look at me for a long, intense moment. He brought his other hand and softly brushed a thumb across my cheek. My skin tingled as his hand went back to his side. He started walking back down the path, my hand still in his.
“Tell me what it was like, what it would have been like, if the world hadn’t fallen apart,” I said, moving on when I wasn’t sure how to handle Avian’s intensity or the intensity that was building up inside of me. “What would my life have been like right now, if I wasn’t a cybernetic human hybrid?”
That brought a sad little smile to his face. “Let’s see, it’s early May. You would have been a senior in high school. You’d be dying to get out of school. The last few months of your senior year are agony. All you want is for it to be over.
“Prom would probably be around this time. You would have had a dozen different guys ask you to go with them. You would have had your pick.”
“What’s prom?” I asked.
Avian chuckled. “It’s a dance. It’s probably the biggest event of the school year. Girls buy fancy dresses and guys wear tuxedos. People rent fancy cars and pick up their dates. Then they go to the dance and just have fun.”
The things Avian told me about seemed so foreign. It was like he was reading to me out of a fairy tale book and I barely even understood the terminology he used. I would never go to a prom.
“You might have had a boyfriend. The two of you would go out on special outings, just the two of you or with friends. You might try and sneak out of your parent’s house to try and see him. Boys always get girls into trouble.”
“I can’t imagine you getting me into trouble,” I said as I glanced over at him. “Is that how you were?”
Avian gave a little chuckle and looked at the ground. “I was the guy that couldn’t get up the nerve to ask the girl I wanted out. I would have stayed home by myself, burying my head in my latest health or medical book.