I half whispered a good-bye and bolted out of the tent.
My breathing came in hollow swallows as I walked across Eden to my tent. It took every ounce of control that I had not to turn back around and run back into Avian’s arms.
What was wrong with me? Where was this coming from?
I felt almost as if my body was shaking with the need to go back as I lay in my bed. I squeezed my eyes closed, forcing thoughts of Avian from my mind.
I expected to dream of Avian as I slept that afternoon. Instead I dreamt of West.
The glass felt smooth under my fingers, flowing perfectly, one molecule into another. How was it possible to make something so perfect and even? The glass warmed under my hand, a ghost of my flesh forming in fog as the heat of my body met the cool of its surface.
I realized then that the air around me was freezing.
Turning, my body chilled as my eyes scanned the cinder block walls. No outside light tricked in, only a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling cast a cold shadow on everything.
My chest felt tight as I searched for an escape. There wasn’t even a single door, just the window. A bed was pushed into one corner of the room. This was as good as a prison cell.
As I turned back to the window, a pair of earthy eyes stared back at me.
“West!” I screamed as I put my hands against the glass. “You’ve got to get me out of here!”
He stared at me, his lips set in a firm line. A single tear slipped down his cheek.
“West, please,” I said, slapping my palm against the cool surface. “Please let me out!”
“Please, grandpa,” he suddenly said, turning away from me. “Can we please let her out?”
I then noticed a shadowy figure behind West, standing in a doorway.
“But she may attack you again. You know she doesn’t trust you,” a gravelly voice said.
West turned back to me. Another tear rolled down his face. Slowly he raised a hand to the glass, our hands separated only by the window. “I know,” he whispered.
My eyes widened as I saw his expression harden, his eyes betraying the hurt I had caused him. I shook my head, taking a step away from the glass. I crawled up into the bed, tucking my knees under my chin.
“She’s not really human,” the shadowed voice said again. “If she were she would see what she is doing to you. She’d know she can trust you.”
West continued to stare at me with mixed emotions on his face. He brought both his hands up, pressing them to the glass as if he wished he could slip through it, and push me all the further away, all at the same time.
I saw him mouth my name but the rumble of a noise I couldn’t identify was rising quickly in my ears. For a moment I was worried the building might be collapsing on us, one floor of a building crashing down on the next. But the walls weren’t shaking, dust wasn’t falling from the ceiling. The noise continued to grow to a deafening point. It saturated every part of my body.
“Eve!” I saw him scream though the glass. And then everything was silent. The next second the window exploded into a billion stars of red death.
I jerked upright with a gasp. My hands wiped at my face, trying to brush away the shards of glass that weren’t really there.
I felt momentarily panicked when I realized everything was totally black. Had I not just been dreaming? Had I been blinded by something while I slept?
The panic ebbed away as I realized it was simply dark because of the muggy night. I leapt out of my bed as I realized that meant I was beyond late for my night watch. I pulled my pack on and jogged out of my tent.
Most all the fires had completely died out and there wasn’t a soul around as I crossed camp. Gripping the rungs, I scaled the ladder to the watchtower. I jumped violently when I was about to climb over the ledge and a head popped over. West looked at me with a slight smirk.
“Hope you enjoyed your beauty sleep,” he said as he extended a hand and pulled me up and over the edge.
“I don’t usually oversleep,” I said as I pulled the straps of my pack tighter, my eyes scanning the trees.
“You’ve been working yourself to death for the last month. And running on no food. If you were human you’d be collapsing from exhaustion more often.”
My stomach turned to stone as I recalled what the man from the dream had said. She’s not really human. West chuckled, but I couldn’t seem to force even a crack of a smile.
West took a seat on the bench, patting the seat next to him. I eyed him for a moment. I hadn’t been in close proximity of West for a long while now. The last time we had touched I could have easily killed him. He must have known his life was in danger. And yet he was asking me to sit by him. Maybe he still trusted me, even if I didn’t know if I could trust him.
I sat.
West turned his gaze to the dark night. I followed, looking into the endless star-peppered sky.
“Do you ever wonder if there is anyone else out there?” he asked quietly, his eyes never leaving the stars.
“No,” I answered honestly.
“I can’t imagine there isn’t,” he said. “All that space. We can’t be the only living things out there.
“Makes you feel kind of important though, if we are the only ones. All that beauty and it’s there for only our eyes.”
I looked over at West, watching him as he watched the heavens. His hair fell across his brown eyes, in need of a haircut. His shoulders were shrugged up to his ears as he leaned back. In that moment I saw something in West. Not the boy who always turned everything into a joke, always got to me in a bad way. But the boy who had to live with the knowledge that it was his family who had destroyed the world.
“I want to hate you, you know,” he said, though he still didn’t look at me. “For the way things have been between us these last few weeks. I want to hate you for attacking me like that, for taking the notebook. For all the ways I see you look at Avian. I want to hate you for all the ways you make me feel. For the way I feel every time I think about the times we kissed.”
I felt like a knotted mess as West finally stopped talking. “I don’t want you to hate me.”
“That’s the thing. I can’t. I don’t think I could ever hate you Eve.”
“I’m still just not sure I can trust you.”
West finally looked at me, his eyes almost empty looking. “That I can hate.”
I watched his face, the way his eyebrows knitted together, the way his cheeks seemed so stiff, the shape of his lips. My eyes froze there, remembering how they felt, how they tasted. Before I could reason with myself, I leaned forward, pressing mine to his.
West’s hand came to the back of my neck, pulling me closer to him. My hand knotted in his hair and I suddenly found myself settled into his lap, facing him. My pack dropped to the ground as West’s other hand circled around my waist.
“I want you to trust me, Eve,” he whispered as his lips trailed down to my neck.
“I want to trust you,” I said as I tilted my head back, my eyes closing.
His lips found mine again, causing fire to race through my blood. My heart hammered so hard I was sure West could feel it against his own chest. The intensity building up inside of me seemed to make my brain start and stop.
The image of Avian’s piercing blue eyes suddenly flashed through my head and I jerked away. I was on my feet the next second, pulling my pack back on.
“I’m sorry. I…” I struggled for words as I pressed my knuckles to my lips, shaking my head.