“…Fallen hidden… shots fired everywhere…” the voice continued to crackle in and out. “…Royce and West… Avian… didn’t see it…”
“Who was it?” I suddenly said, louder than I should have. “Who got infected?”
They all suddenly looked up at me, every single pair of eyes. “I’m not sure,” Dr. Beeson finally answered me.
I looked at the woman who had been speaking. “I couldn’t tell either,” she said quietly. No one seemed to notice how the receiver had gone dead again.
It was pure instinct that forced my legs to work. I sprinted out the front glass door into the dark night.
In that moment I finally knew.
I knew which one I would grieve over. A piece of me would be missing forever if he was gone. A part of me would break. But I would make it through.
And I knew which one of them I couldn’t live without, couldn’t take another single breath if he were to be taken away from me.
In that moment I finally understood what love meant.
Sarah had been right all along. A single moment was all it had taken.
The wind whipped through my singed hair, my cybernetic legs pumping me faster than I’d ever moved before. I didn’t need to know which direction to head; I could hear them with my enhanced ears.
Shouts and screams of agony rose into the night air as I closed in on a block from them. Shots were fired and flashes of light pinpointed their exact location. As I rounded the corner, I raised my rifle, firing two shots at the pair of Fallen who rushed the struggling group from behind. They dropped to the ground in a heap. One of Royce’s men raised his own gun. For a moment I thought he was pointing at me, until the Hunter I hadn’t noticed creeping up on me from behind dropped to the ground.
I didn’t even remember feeling my feet slap the pavement as I ran toward him, my eyes never leaving his face. In that moment, every memory I had of him, every second we had spent together, flashed through my mind.
The rest of the group struggled to keep moving, hampered by injuries, their wounded men, and the figure that was losing so much blood that they carried. I didn’t miss the fear in their eyes as they looked at him.
I ran past West’s infected, bleeding body, straight into Avian’s blood soaked arms. I threw my arms around his shoulders, crushing him into myself, pressing my lips to his with a heat that burned me from the inside out. Avian’s assault rifle fell to the ground with a clatter as he wrapped one arm around my waist, bringing his other hand up behind my neck. Everything about his lips, his breathing, the way his body melted into mine left me craving more.
There was no Fallen world around us as I kissed Avian and he took my breath away. There was no infection, there were no cybernetics. There was no running, no fighting, no violence or death. There was only Avian and there was only me.
And the explosion that came from within me.
I’d never felt the heat from Avian that West had given me but I realized then that it had been because I wouldn’t allow myself to seek it out until I was sure it was Avian that I wanted and needed.
Now I was sure.
West may have made me feel alive but he didn’t have the gravitational pull that Avian did. Avian was my world, my universe. He was everything worth living, fighting, and dying for.
“I love you,” I whispered against his lips as Avian consumed me, body and soul. “It’s you. It’s always been you.” And I realized then that it was true. I had always loved Avian, it was always him. I just hadn’t realized it until now.
I felt the tears as they rolled down Avian’s cheek, his lips still moving with mine. “I love you, Eve. More than anything in this world.”
“We’ve got to get out of here!” a man screamed. As I looked back, I realized the majority of the group had continued back to the hospital. Even as he said it, I raised my rifle and fired at the two Fallen who sprinted down the street after us. They dropped with a clatter.
Taking Avian’s hand in mine, I half dragged him back to the hospital with me. I realized then that there was blood oozing out of his left arm in two different places and in one spot in his right thigh.
The lobby was a shifting mess of chaos as everyone got back inside just as the sky started to lighten. People ran everywhere, more than one life on the edge of being lost. Avian and I spotted a group of men in white coats hauling West’s twitching body into the elevator. We dashed for the stairs as it closed, taking them two at a time. Avian stumbled behind me, blood dripping onto the steel stairs as we ascended.
We followed the shouting as we got to the blue floor, down to the extraction room. A doctor ran past us, back to the stairs. As we stepped into the room, it all finally hit me.
West was really infected.
“How long ago?” I asked quietly, squeezing Avian’s hand all the tighter.
“Just over an hour ago, I think,” he forced the words out. “They kept coming at us as we tried to make our way back.”
I squeezed my eyes closed as a group of men and women forced West’s twitching body into the terrible chair, clamping his wrists and ankles secure. He stilled for just a moment as he caught sight of me. “Eve!” he screamed, his eyes wide, terrified and confused.
It was then that I noticed the metallic veins that were growing in his left eye.
West gave a blood-curdling scream, squeezing his eyes closed as his chest surged forward, his body held back by the bands around his wrists. A pair of doctors rushed back into the room and I watched horrified as they injected something into West’s neck. He was instantly still.
I couldn’t look anymore as I turned into Avian and buried my face in his chest. I heard the doctors fussing around, bandaging his wounds with gloved hands, trying their best to stop West’s bleeding.
The hum of electricity alerted everyone that the Extractor was being powered up. Avian took two steps away from it, pulling me with him. My entire system was riddled with cybernetics. If I got too close to that device, it would shred me to bits.
They continued to work on and around West, the hum of the device growing louder and louder by the moment.
Avian suddenly stumbled, his skin pale and clammy looking. I realized then that there was a pool of blood at his feet. “Eve, I…” he didn’t finish as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
In a strange way I felt relief as I slung Avian across my shoulders and dashed back down the hallway. Earlier I might have felt torn, not knowing who I wanted to stay with, who was more important to me. But now I finally knew where I needed to be.
Avian was totally limp as I took the stairs two at a time, too impatient to wait out the slow elevator ride down. The sound of my feet against the tile echoed off the walls as I ran toward the medical wing.
“Help!” I shouted as I neared.
As I stepped into the hall, I stopped, taking the scene before me in.
Avian and West weren’t the only ones who had been shot. Men and women were everywhere, most of the floor covered with a slick sheet of red. People rushed everywhere, panicked.
“Help him!” I shouted to no one in particular. Not a single eye turned in my direction. More blood continued to drip from Avian’s wounds. “He needs help!” I shouted at the closest person in white. He paid no attention to me.
“Please,” I said to a woman who rushed past me, reaching out for her arm. She barely glanced at me and shook her head. “I already have three patients.”
Anger surged in my system and for the briefest moment, the room shifted with lines of black.
I drew my handgun and fired two shots into the ceiling.
Every eye in the room turned to me and every single body froze.
I lowered the gun and leveled it on a woman in those strange starched green clothes. “If you let him die I will not hesitate to kill you.”