Gabriel pursed his lips and gave a small nod. “That’s it then. No more going back into the city. We can’t afford to lose anyone else. We should be alright, the gardens are doing just fine, and we even have a little bit of the stores from last year left over.”
I felt an itch inside of me as we disbanded. It felt like we needed to do something. I didn’t like the feeling that we were just sitting and waiting around to be attacked. But what were we supposed to do? There were billions of Fallen out there. How were we supposed to take a stand against them?
SEVENTEEN
I woke up the next afternoon with a plan.
They were going for an all or nothing wipe out. The Fallen wanted to take us all. We had to fight back. There had always been a part of me that remembered they were all human, but we all knew being infected made you as good as dead. You didn’t come back after you were infected. We were going to have to use the same approach they were using themselves.
We had to get rid of them all.
“Avian?” I called before I even entered the medical tent. I found him washing out a handful of bloody rags in a basin of sharp smelling water. I swallowed hard, knowing we wouldn’t be able to go after more bleach. Just one more thing that had become so precious. “What happened?” I asked.
“Brady,” he said with a sigh. “He fell out of a tree and split his forehead open. I stitched it up.”
“Is he okay?” I was surprised at the small pain that formed in my chest.
“He’ll have a nice scar all his life, but he’ll be okay.” Avian wrung out a rag and set it out to dry on the table. He looked up at me expectantly, waiting for me to say whatever I found important enough to say to break my silent treatment toward him.
I paced around the tent, trying to gather my thoughts into a question, or just a statement, or something.
“The CDU, it shorts out anything cybernetic,” I said as I continued to pace.
Avian paused, as if questioning what was going through my mind. “Yes.”
“There’s got to be designs for it somewhere,” I said as I rubbed my cheek, continuing to pace. “If we could get those designs we could figure out a way to make it bigger. There’s got to be a way to make a pulse that would destroy anything cybernetic within a certain range. Someone has to have designed something like this when everything started.”
Avian turned to face me, his face suddenly tired looking. “It’s not that simple, Eve. For starters, where would we even look for plans like that? We wouldn’t even know where to start. And then there’s the matter of getting into the city. It might be possible if we could have free reign of the right city for about a week, but that’s not going to happen.
“And then there’s the materials to even build it. And none of us here would know how to build it. None of us has the right know-how.”
I stopped my pacing and stared at Avian, feeling hollow again. “What are we supposed to do then? Just wait here for them to come get us? What happens when a dozen Hunters come? Thirty, forty, or fifty of them? I can’t fight them all off. We can’t fight them!”
Avian took a step toward me and placed his hands on my arms. “Calm down, Eve. Take a deep breath.”
I then realized my breaths had been coming in short, shallow gasps. My head was spinning and my heart was pounding. “What’s wrong with me?” Black spots were forming on the edges of my vision.
“Breathe, Eve,” Avian said as he placed his hands on my cheeks, looking into my eyes. I forced myself to focus on the intense blueness of his as I took deep breaths in and out. Slowly, the dizziness in my head ebbed away. “Better?”
I bit my lower lip, closed my eyes, and nodded my head. “Something’s wrong with me. Maybe I’m sick.”
Avian chuckled. “You’re not sick. It’s just emotion. It’s normal.”
“I don’t like it,” I said. Not even realizing what I was doing, I leaned into Avian’s chest and wrapped my arms around his waist. His arms came around my shoulders, his chin resting on the top of my head. It didn’t take long for my heartbeat to match the rhythm of Avian’s. I wanted to stay there forever and just forget everything that felt so out of control. Everything was safe here.
“Why did you tell Gabriel to send the raid without me?” And just like that, I had broken the peace I had found.
He didn’t say anything for a minute. He pressed his lips to the top of my head before he spoke. “Because I didn’t think I’d survive the few days of not knowing what was happening to you.”
I didn’t say anything in response. My insides were pulling me everywhere. Part of me wanted to yell at Avian and tell him he should know I could take care of myself. Another part of me felt all soft and mushy. That part felt weird. I buried my face in Avian’s chest, breathing his scent in.
“We won’t ever give up, Eve,” he said quietly in my ear. “I’ll never give up. As long as you’re still here, I’ll keep fighting ‘til they destroy my system.”
I pressed my cheek harder to his chest, listening to his heart thump. “I won’t either. Until they blow me up or something.”
He gave a chuckle, sending crazy vibrations through his chest.
“I need to go talk to West,” I said, taking a step away, breaking the bubble of comfort. “I have to look through that notebook. There were all kinds of notes in it. Maybe there will be something that will help us figure out a way to win this.”
Avian’s face fell at the mention of West, but he made a good effort to give a small smile. “It couldn’t hurt.”
My eyes met his again and not thinking about what I was doing, I placed my hand on his cheek, feeling stubble forming there already. My eyes searched his, wanting to give him promises, not even knowing what they meant. Wanting to give promises I knew I would never be able to keep.
And so I didn’t say anything. I simply stepped outside of the tent into the blinding light of mid-summer.
Summer had a way of bringing everyone in Eden to life. Everyone bustled around, going about their duties with a smile on their face. In the summer people seemed to feel safer, knowing there was plenty of food and that we wouldn’t freeze to death. The excitement and contentment in the air was almost electric.
I understood then why people kept secrets so often. What if I were to suddenly announce to everyone that we could no longer go on raids? That we could expect at any time to have the Fallen come down on us? It was better sometimes not to know.
I’d still rather know though.
Was this the conflict of right and wrong I had heard so much about?
I found West by the lake. He stood in only a pair of pants, washing out the few clothes he possessed. He looked up at me, his shaggy hair flopping across his forehead as he did.
“I want to look at that notebook again,” I said, coming to a stop ten feet away from him, stuffing my hands in my pockets.
“Well, hi, Eve. I’m doing great this beautiful afternoon. How are you?” he said with a chuckle.
“Great,” I said shortly. “I’d like to look at the notebook again.”
His expression stiffened as he looked back at me. I tried to decipher what was going through his head. He looked uncomfortable, but I couldn’t be sure. “Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“Kinda’.”
“I think I have a right to look at it as much as I like, considering most of it is about me,” I said, feeling an itch of annoyance build in my chest.
“Only about a third of it,” he said sarcastically as he stepped out of the water, wringing a shirt out.
“Why does everything have to turn into a joke with you?” I asked, my tone sharp.
“Geesh, Eve,” he said as he narrowed his eyes at me. “Wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?”