“Don’t worry about it,” West said, his lips hardening slightly. He stood and walked toward the ladder. “At least you aren’t running from me anymore.” Without saying another word, he climbed down.
I took a deep breath once I was alone, letting it out in a quivering whoosh, my eyes looking up to the stars again. My body hummed. I felt alive in the way I only seemed to when I did those types of things with West. And yet I felt sick. I couldn’t get Avian out of my head and I felt ashamed.
What was I doing? I had vowed to myself that I wasn’t going to let the two of them distract me. Yet here I was again, spending more time with Avian, aching for him in a very physically painful way, and kissing West.
I was going to get someone killed.
TWENTY
Bill and Graye headed off to the south while West and I headed east. Now that I had figured out I could be around West again without attacking him, I had agreed to let Gabriel put him back in our scouting group.
The sun beat down on us with an intensity that was beyond miserable. My entire body felt tender, a deep red building under my skin. Had I felt pain like the rest of everyone I was sure it would be beyond uncomfortable to move, much less go on an entire scouting operation.
West and I walked silently through the woods, eyes searching the tree line. Birds chirped in an annoying afternoon chat. Insects hummed. But there were no other sounds. No traces of any Fallen.
“Clear?” West whispered, clutching his rifle tightly in his hands.
“Clear,” I said as we finished sweeping around the perimeter of the gardens. West waited at the bottom while I scaled the biggest nearby tree. As I reached the top, I shook its branches with as much force as I possessed. The entire top half of the tree swayed.
One hundred yards away I saw a figure wave at me. They knew it was safe to come work.
I dropped down to the ground and straightened my pack. We had to be more careful than ever these days. The Fallen obviously knew where the gardens where, knew we would be nearby. It wouldn’t be too difficult for them to track us down here. That was why we scouted the area every morning first, before the small crew came to tend.
Not that there was much to tend anymore. The heat wave wasn’t letting up and everything was withering away. Soon there would be nothing left.
West and I set out to the north again, eyes constantly scanning the trees.
“What do you think is going to happen to us now?” West said quietly as we walked.
I didn’t answer for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts. “Eventually we’re going to have to move. Sooner than later.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s obvious. We have supplies for a while but winter is coming. We don’t have enough to last that long. We’re going to have to move where it’s warmer or we’re going to starve to death. We have natural resources here, animals to hunt, but it’s not going to be enough to sustain everyone through the winter.”
West was quiet for a while. “Have you talked to Gabriel about this? You’re right. But he’s going to have to be the one to initiate it.”
“I will,” I said as I readjusted my grip on the shotgun in my hands. “The problem is, how do we move that many people without being spotted by Fallen? How do we move that many supplies at once?”
“It might be safer to move in small groups,” he said quietly as his eyes jerked to the right. A squirrel scampered down a tree.
“Then again, it might not be. I don’t know,” I said as I briefly considered shooting the animal. I decided against it. With as little meat it would provide it wouldn’t be worth the ammunition. As if on cue, West’s stomach let out a rumbling growl. I chuckled.
“Okay, we’ve seriously got to bring back some food. I can’t take the starvation rations,” West said in exasperation.
“When we’re ready to head back we’ll look,” I said as I started the climb up the low hills that looked over Eden.
I was grateful we didn’t see anything the entire day. While it was boring to be walking endlessly through the woods, it was better than running into something we didn’t want to. As we started back in the direction of Eden, we kept our eyes peeled for anything to eat. I sensed there was something West wanted to talk to me about, but had been putting it off the entire day. Now he had to be quiet if he wanted to eat.
The woods were silent as we moved, as if sensing we were on the lookout to take something home with us. Something to the left caught West’s eye and he drew his bow and an arrow before I even caught sight of what he had seen. The arrow sliced through the air and the next second we heard a scream.
A human one.
We were both bolting through the trees without a second’s hesitation, my mind running through the possibilities of what we might find. Surely not Fallen, they didn’t feel pain and therefore would never scream. Could it be Bill? Graye? Everyone else knew better than to wander this far from Eden on their own.
He was slumped against a tree, clutching at his left shoulder. He had already broken off the shaft of the arrow. His eyes were squeezed shut in agony. He bit his lower lip to hold back the scream.
“Holy…” West breathed as the man came into view. I didn’t recognize him and I doubted West did either. “I thought it was a deer or something. What is he doing out here?”
We both dropped to the man’s side, his eyes flying open in delirious confusion.
“You’ve been shot with an arrow,” I said, my voice calm and even. “We have a doctor at our camp. I am going to have to pull the arrow out though or it will cause more damage as I move you.”
The man’s green eyes opened wide, searching the sky for things only he could see now.
“West, help me,” I said as I placed my hands on the base of the arrow that was still embedded into his chest. “This is going to hurt him.”
West shifted forward, placing his hands on the man’s shoulders, being careful to stay clear of the wound. In one swift movement, I yanked the rest of the arrow out. The man screamed so piercingly it made my brain rattle.
“We need something to stop the bleeding,” I said as I tried to recall what Avian would do in a situation like this. West slid off his pack and pulled his shirt off. It was damp with sweat but it would work. I pressed it into the wound and together we secured it with a length of rope from my pack. Another scream leapt from his throat as I picked him up, gathering him securely in my arms.
“What was he doing out here?” West asked as we jogged through the trees. We were still far from Eden. So much for getting food for tonight.
“On the run maybe?” I said as I glanced down at him. He’d had only the clothing on his back. I didn’t see any traces of provisions with him, no tent, no food.
It took us nearly an hour to get back to Eden. Even my arms weren’t strong enough to carry him by myself the entire trip and West had taken half the load. The man had turned a pasty white and he shivered violently, despite the blazing sun above us. He had also bled through West’s shirt. My left arm was covered in his blood.
Avian was in the medical tent when we sprinted into it. He set the notebook down and jumped to his feet. There was no hesitation in his actions. He knew how to handle a situation like this.
“Who is he?” Avian asked as he pulled on a pair of gloves and removed West’s bloodied shirt we had used as a bandage. He started cutting away the man’s own shirt. The man barely even whimpered as his wound was jostled. Until Avian began cleaning it.
“He was just in the woods. We didn’t realize it was a person,” I said as I moved out of Avian’s way.
“I thought he was a deer,” West said, his eyes looking tortured. “I couldn’t really see anything. Just saw something move.”