“Avian cleared him this morning,” Gabriel said quietly.
I clenched my jaw and just shook my head. I couldn’t believe this. I had gone on every raid in the last two years. I didn’t like being left out.
“I’m going hunting,” I said through clenched teeth. I didn’t wait for a response as I headed toward the armory.
The door banged against the wall as I shoved it open. I jumped as West whipped around to look at me.
“What are you doing in here?” I nearly shouted.
“I just got off scouting duty,” he said defensively. “Just putting my stuff away.”
I shook my head and squeezed my eyes closed for a moment. “Sorry I snapped at you. Grab your bow, we’re going hunting.”
“Really?” he said, his voice hitching up a notch with excitement.
“Yeah, come on,” I said, irritated again as I grabbed my bow. The emotions I wasn’t supposed to have were all over the place today.
We headed out east, towards the higher mountains. We’d been on enough scouting and hunting trips together now to know how each other moved. We listened and watched as a team.
What I didn’t expect was West’s cool and easy silence. He never once asked me what was the matter, why I was so angry, or even about how I had been avoiding him. We were just two soldiers, two hunters.
We paused as we came to the edge of the trees. A rock cliff jutted out in front of us, dropping down far enough we couldn’t see the bottom. Perched on the edge was the fattest wild turkey I had ever seen.
I gave West one glare which he returned with a smile that said, Fine, this one’s yours.
I drew an arrow and sent it slicing through the air. It embedded itself in the turkey’s fat neck.
“Well, that couldn’t have been easier,” West said as he stood from our hiding spot.
“Hey, you won’t be complaining when your stomach is full tonight,” I shot back as I walked forward and pulled the arrow out of the bird. I wiped it clean on a mossy tree trunk.
“Well it isn’t a bear,” he joked as he handed me a length of rope.
I just rolled my eyes at him as we tied it by its legs to the back of my pack. We set out again on a trail heading south without another word.
Being so far away from Eden, we didn’t try for anything bigger than birds and rabbits. As we felt the temperature drop slightly as the sun started to think about going down, we took a break on a rock outcropping that overlooked a valley.
I closed my eyes and breathed the summer scented air in. “I almost wish I could just stay out here for a few nights, away from everything.”
“Why don’t you?” West asked as he leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows.
“You know why. I have jobs, duties. They need me.” I took a sigh. “I just wish…”
“That you could have a break,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He knew he’d filled in the blank.
“Yeah,” I said as I let my breath out, opening my eyes to the view before me. “It’s all just so…”
“Exhausting?” This time he didn’t seem so sure.
“I guess,” I said as I looked down at my hands in my lap. The hand that had been eaten away from the barbs was covered in more rippled scar tissue. “It’s a lot of pressure I suppose. Not that I’ve really known any different.”
“You’re pretty amazing,” he said after a few moments of quiet. “You know that?”
“Just ‘cause your grandfather made me that way.”
“No, you’re amazing. Eve. The human part of you. You’ll never stop fighting for them. You always put them before yourself.”
And he was right. As much as I liked being with West, as good and alive as he made me feel, I would keep him pushed away so something like the incident with Graye would never happen again.
“They may be all that’s left,” I said quietly. “I’ve got to keep them alive. We’re already an endangered species.”
“Just don’t forget who you are in the process,” he said as he looked out over the trees.
“This is who I am. I’ve never been anyone else.”
“Well, maybe you need to find something that’s just for you.”
I considered this. What else was there to do besides what I already was doing? What else was I passionate about? As I glanced back over at West, a weird feeling settled into my stomach. I wanted to ponder that maybe West or Avian could be what was just for me, but I couldn’t. I’d already decided that. That was too dangerous. “Maybe,” was all I could say in an attempt to steer my thoughts in a different direction. “We’d better get going. I’ve got night watch tonight.”
“You mean every night?” he said as we stood and started down a deer trail.
“Every night,” I agreed with him.
“No one will do a better job.”
“Exactly.”
I couldn’t look at Avian for the next five days. I knew if I did I would explode on him, and there was a part of me that was human enough to not want to do that.
Eden got a big surprise that fifth day though. Graye and Bill returned. In a truck and a flatbed trailer. Full of non-perishables, clothing, shoes, tents, and other supplies.
We came running out of our tents in the early hours of the morning, alarmed by the noise the truck created. It was a sound a lot of people couldn’t remember hearing and for some of us, a sound we had never heard outside of the city. Half of us came running out with guns, ready to mow down a Hunter on an ATV. Graye had jumped out, arms waving.
We all pitched in, helping to unload the supplies, shipping off the clothing and shoes to Victoria, sending the food to the kitchen help, and sorting everything else out where it needed to go. Once all the work was done, the two of them pulled Gabriel, Avian, and I into a tent.
“Something is happening out there,” Graye said. It was only then that I noticed the slightly panicked look in his eyes. “Hunters were coming out of everywhere. I don’t know, I mean, maybe they were just being more aggressive. We had to take the truck, just to help keep them off of us!”
“Slow down, Graye,” Gabriel said, holding a hand up to him. “Were there actually more Hunters? We thought there were getting to be fewer of them.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. They were just everywhere. We couldn’t seem to hide from them.”
“They’re getting more aggressive,” Bill said, his voice low. “We used most of our ammo keeping them off of us.”
“We have four bullets left!” Graye said with a fearful sounding chuckle. “It’s a good thing we got the truck to start or we wouldn’t have gotten out of there.”
“If they’re getting so much more aggressive, is it going to be possible to go back again?” Avian asked, keeping his voice down.
Neither of them said anything for a moment. They exchanged looks and I knew their answer before either spoke.
“If it keeps going like this, there’s no way,” Bill answered.
“I don’t know how we made it out of there, much less with all the supplies we got,” Graye said as he rubbed his hands together.
“Do we move again?” I asked as I looked at Gabriel.
“It’s likely they’re getting more aggressive everywhere,” Avian said when Gabriel seemed at a loss for an answer. “West said it’s designed to spread. There isn’t much of any one left to spread it to. It’s desperate. Any other cities will probably be the same way. And besides, we have the gardens here. We’d be smarter to stay put.”
I swallowed hard as another thought occurred to me. If the Hunters were getting so desperate, they were likely to keep pressing further and further into the country and outskirts looking for what was left of the human race.
Something within told me our dangerous world would soon become much more dangerous.