“Eve.” The tent was suddenly flooded with light as Avian opened the flap. “Leave her alone.” He waved me out.
“She looks like death,” I whispered as I followed him out into the light. “What is happening to her?”
Avian pursed his lips together, his eyes dropped to the ground. His hand rubbed over his short hair. I noticed he did this when he felt stressed or worried.
“She’s getting worse, isn’t she?” I asked.
It took a moment before Avian nodded his head. “She’s not having as many seizures but she’s sleeping the majority of the time. She’s woken up a total of maybe two hours in the last twenty-four. She can’t keep much of anything down.
“I don’t know what else to do for her,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Maybe if I were an actual doctor…”
“Hey,” I cut him off, giving him a sharp look. “Don’t talk like that. You’re an amazing doctor. Sometimes nature just can’t be fought.” I felt sick saying it but the need to make Avian think straight was more important.
He nodded his head, his eyes still on the ground.
“There’s West,” I said as I looked back toward the center of camp. “Come on. We’re supposed to meet again.”
Avian, West, Bill, and I all sat around the long dining table and smoothed the plans we had written out over its rough surface.
“If the scouts continue at the rate you have been going, we should gain at least a few more weeks worth of food supplies, maybe even another month,” Avian took control of the meeting again. It bothered me that he had not even asked Gabriel to join us. He knew as well as I did though, that it was pointless. Gabriel was gone for the time being. “We need a few more things that we’re going to have to go look for. We need more water containers. We’ll go through what we have quickly.
“We’re also going to need a way to transport a large amount of people. The supplies we will have to haul will fill the beds of the trucks. Bill, the trailer you and Graye brought back from the city will work. I’m hoping we can fix up the old one that was found rusting away by the lake. I’ve already got a few people working it.
“We also need a way to communicate with the second group. A way to leave signs the Fallen will not notice. Any ideas?”
No one jumped right away. “Think about it for a while, let us know if you come up with any ideas.
“The other issue. It will be invaluable if we can take the trucks with us the entire way. We’re going to have to look for gas stations, as far on the outskirts of towns we can find. We also run the risk that any fuel that will be left will have gone bad. It’s been nearly six years since any new fuel was brought in. It may very well destroy the engines if we put it in.”
“We don’t exactly have any other choice though, do we,” West piped in.
“Exactly,” Avian said as he looked up at West. “Bill has maps, we’ll carefully plan our route, try to avoid any Fallen, any big city areas.”
With this, Bill reached into his pack and pulled out a book that must have weighed a good ten pounds. He flipped it open somewhere near the middle and started scanning through pages.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, my eyes growing wide. I had only ever seen a map once before.
“Got it from a man who didn’t need it anymore,” he said, not looking up from the map. I knew what that meant. He’d taken it from a dead man.
“This is where we’re at,” Bill said as he pointed to a place on the map. As I studied it, I recognized the shape of the lake, the terrain of the mountains. “This is the closest city,” he drug his finger over the page. “We should find somewhere to get fuel on the outskirts here. It’s a small city so there is a chance there won’t even be any Hunters. They tend to flock to the larger ones. We could get out of there scott-free.”
“What about the groups?” I asked as I looked up at the faces around me. “Who is going to go when?”
Avian didn’t answer right away as he took all of us in, gauging the abilities of each of us. “Obviously you have to go in the first group, just in case we run into any problems with Fallen.” I nodded in agreement. It was a relief to not have him try and shelter me unnecessarily again. “I’m also going with the first group.”
“What about the rest of them?” I immediately protested. “What if they need you?”
“And what if the first group needs me?” he said as he looked at me sharply. “I can’t clone myself, Eve. I can’t be in both places. I’ll ask for a volunteer and train them in every way I can. There’s no other choice. I think it’s clear that the first group will be in the most danger, will be at the most risk. That’s where I feel I need to be.”
I heard the other implications in his voice from his last words. He also wanted to be there to watch me. Protect me, when it was I who was more capable of protecting him.
“If Eve is going with the first group, it would probably be best if Graye and myself went with the second group, to even things out more,” Bill said. “Gabriel can also go with us, since you’re going with the first group.” I was sure the same thing was running through everyone’s head: if Gabriel would ever be useful again
“That’s a good idea,” Avian nodded in agreement. “I suppose you can pick which group you want to go with,” he said to West, his jaw suddenly tightening up.
“I’m going in the first group,” he said without any hesitation. His eyes flicked up to mine. My stomach did a strange leap.
“Fine,” Avian said. “We’ll let the rest of Eden decide when they want to go, with some monitoring to make sure things are even.”
We disbanded with plans to scout for water containers and a time later that evening to meet with everyone in Eden to layout the plans. It was then that something occurred to me. If Avian was going with the first group, Sarah would have to come with us as well. From what I had just seen, I didn’t see any way she would be able to move. I didn’t think she would even be able to walk out of her own tent, much less survive the thousand miles or more that were ahead of us.
It was decided in which groups people would leave. Avian and Bill had monitored and made sure things would be even, that there was no one group that would be bigger than the other, that one group would not be left without someone to make sure everyone stayed fed or protected.
Something settled over Eden as our futures were laid out before us. Things were becoming more real, solid and tangible. People were starting to realize that this was actually going to happen. We were going to have to leave the place we had all called home. This had been their safe haven, the place they had fled the world to. And now we were leaving it behind.
The next morning, birds chirped annoyingly loud as I padded silently through the undergrowth. They were complaining about the heat as well. My eyes watched the lay of the land, images flashing through my mind.
As I stepped away from the trees I knew I had been going in the right direction. I was back at the cabin.
It felt like I was walking into a foreign land as I cautiously stepped through the front doors. The walls that surrounded me felt like a trap and I was the animal. I fought the urge to get back out into the open air. I felt half blind being in here.
The groan of floorboards sounded from one of the back rooms and I quickly crouched behind the dusty couch, my handgun held firmly in my clammy hands. As I heard steps approaching, I poked my head out from behind the couch. My eyes met a pair of worn brown boots.
“What are you doing here?” I said as I stood. The barrel of West’s shotgun was immediately pointed at my chest.
“Geeze, Eve!” he snapped as he jumped. He immediately lowered the gun. “I could have shot you! I don’t think even you could recover from a blow like that.”