“I’m not taking any risks,” I said as I bit the end of one of the carrots off. “And what was that back there? You know I can take care of myself.”
“I know,” he said as his eyes fell to the ground. “Just instinct, I guess.”
He stood there with me for a while, our eyes watching the rain as it fell, our feet getting soaked as it did.
“Did you say something to West?” he asked. “He’s acting kind of… put out.”
I swallowed my bite before answering. “I told him that I knew he had lied to me earlier. I also pointed out the fact that I only have these blackouts when I’m around him.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “The first time was when I choked him. It was like I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“And then when you tripped,” Avian said, his eyes staring out over the desert. “You two had been talking. I’ve never see you stumble before.”
I nodded again. “And then yesterday.”
“Why do you think that is?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said as I shook my head.
“I’m going to be honest here, all feelings aside, Eve. I’m worried about you being close to him. If being around him makes you lose control of yourself, it’s a danger to us all. We can’t afford to have you gone, to have you check-out, even if you don’t mean to. And we can’t afford to have you turn on us.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I defended as I glared at him.
“I know you wouldn’t,” Avian said as he looked at me. “But what if you don’t have a choice? I mean, you didn’t want to strangle West, did you?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I mean I was mad at him but I would never actually do that.”
“That’s what I mean. If you don’t have control over this it’s dangerous for us all for you to be around him.”
The rain picked up in intensity, if that was even possible. “He infuriates me,” I said quietly, feeling my frustration pick up inside of me. “I think he just likes to make me mad sometimes. And I don’t know that I can ever trust him. He keeps too many secrets.
“But he also…” I trailed off, instantly wishing I could erase my words.
“But he also woke something up inside of you,” Avian filled in for me, his voice quiet.
My eyes dropped to the ground and I nodded. “I won’t lie to you, Avian,” I whispered. “He did and I can’t say I regret the fact that he did.”
Avian’s hand came to my cheek, making me look at him. “I wish it had been me that had woken you up. I won’t say that I’m not jealous over what he makes you feel. But I’m glad you are feeling things. It gave me hope. You were finally seeing me as well.”
My chest swelled again at his words. My eyes dropped to his lips, remembering what it had felt like to press mine to his. The magnetic pull inside of me to lean just a little closer would have been impossible to fight if it hadn’t been for the movement I saw out of the corner of my eye.
“Stop right there!” I shouted as I took five steps forward, my shotgun level to my eyes.
Thirty yards away, two figures stopped in their tracks, their hands held up.
“Please,” a female voice called through the rain. “We just need something to eat. We’ve been lost in this desert for days.”
I walked toward them, gun in hand, Avian following me, his own handgun held steady. As the figures became clearer, I realized it was a man and a woman, looking to be in their late thirties.
“Please,” the man said. “We mean you no harm. We just need something to eat. If you can spare anything.”
“Where’d you come from?” Avian demanded, his gun pointed right at the man’s chest.
“Back from the southeast,” the man said. “We’ve been running for almost a year now.”
I glanced at Avian, unsure of what to do. Part of me felt they were harmless but trust wasn’t something to just give these days. He looked over at me as well and I knew what he was about to say.
“Come with us,” he said.
We walked behind them, their hands held behind their backs where we could see them. I looked down at their feet, their shoes were held together with strips of material and lengths of rope. Their clothes were torn and ragged looking.
We led them to one of the tents. Morgan and Eli were inside resting and jumped at the sight of the strangers. “Who are they?” Morgan’s husband demanded as he put himself between the newcomers and his wife.
“We’re about to find out,” Avian said as he walked back to the truck while I kept an eye on them. A minute later Avian walked back in, the CDU in hand.
“What are you going to do with that?” the woman asked, eyeing it warily.
“Just make sure you’re really human,” I said.
Avian made one swipe down the woman’s bare arm, water rolling off of her to the floor of the tent.
“What are you doing?” she jumped, huddling back into the man.
“This puts out an electrical current. Being this soaked will make it much more intense,” Avian explained as he met their eyes. With hesitancy, she let him wipe her arm more. The man tried drying his own arm.
They didn’t fight us as Avian touched the device to their still damp skin, which told us there that they were organic. Once sure they weren’t out to destroy us, we all sat, finally inside from the rain. Tuck had been notified I had gone inside and took over full watch.
“Why are you coming out here from the east?” Avian asked.
“Things are bad back east,” the woman started. “There is hardly anyone left. The Hunters have gotten so aggressive. It wasn’t safe anywhere. We had no choice but to come west.”
“It took us a year to figure out what was happening any way,” the man said, his eyes wild with recollection. “It’s amazing we stayed alive.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
The two of them exchanged a look, a million memories between them. “We were on a year long sailing study,” the man started. “That’s how we met. We were both working for the university, doing marine studies. There were six of us on the sailboat. We hadn’t been into port in nearly six months, hadn’t seen another human being beside the six of us in that long either.
“We came in for supplies only to find the ocean-side town abandoned. Or so we thought.”
“We went to look for food,” the woman said, her eyes haunted. “That’s when we saw them, sleeping in the buildings. It was dark but we saw them, hundreds of them. Just staring out at nothing. We didn’t know what had happened but we knew something was very wrong.”
“We split into groups,” the man said. “We hid ourselves as best we could. Got supplies at night. We did okay for a few years but they started pushing further and further into the country. We didn’t think it was safe anymore to stay. So we started walking.”
“That was a year ago,” the woman said hoarsely. “We’ve been running ever since.”
“But you’re still alive,” Avian said quietly. “That’s the part that really matters.”
“What are your names?” I asked, finally relaxing my shotgun.
“Tess,” the woman said. “And this is Van.”
“I’m Avian,” he said. “This is Eve, that’s Morgan and Eli.”
“Thank you for giving us shelter,” Van said as he put his arm around Tess. “We will be out of your way soon.”
“You’re welcome to travel with us,” Avian said. I stiffened at his hasty acceptance. “We are headed southwest before the winter comes. We plan to find somewhere safe and set up camp again. Ours was just destroyed. The rest of our group is coming later.”
“How many of you are there?” Tess asked.
“Here now, seventeen. There are another seventeen that will follow. With the two of you that will bring us up to thirty-six members of Eden.”