“You should go find out what happened,” he said, his eyes sad and serious. “See if we were too late.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, my brow furrowing. I didn’t like the idea of leaving him here like this alone.
“It’s just a couple of bullet holes,” he said with a small smile. “I’ve patched enough of them to know that I’ll survive.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said as I stood. I glanced back at him one last time before I walked out the door.
THIRTY-NINE
I argued with the guard for a good five minutes and finally convinced him that he could just follow me. I felt cold and stiff as I walked back to the stairs. A sense of dread saturated my system as I started the climb, having to fight back the urge to turn back. I didn’t know if I wanted to find out if he was going to pull out of it or not.
The blue floor was abuzz with activity as I entered the hall. People went in and out of the stairwell that led up to the Pulse, Dr. Beeson’s door was wide open, people coming and going. But most of the activity was coming from the Extraction room.
I held my arms around my midsection to keep myself from falling apart as I stepped into the room. It felt like everything inside of me was about to crack and fall apart, like I’d been filled with too many strong emotions and then someone had taken a sledgehammer to me. I just couldn’t contain anything more, good or bad.
A group of people surrounded West’s limp body. Bandages were wrapped around half of him but even I could tell the blood had stopped flowing. It seemed as if his wounds were already healing themselves.
Those who worked on West suddenly froze as they noticed me in the room. I squirmed under all their eyes, not knowing how to deal with their attention.
“Is it going to work on him?” I asked, my voice small sounding.
A man with flaming red hair glanced at the others before stepping away from the group towards me. He stuffed his gloved hands in the pockets of his lab coat as he stopped just a few feet away from me.
“The extraction process has begun but we are unsure of the exact time frame of how long it was between when he was touched and when he was brought in. Some are guessing it was only forty minutes, others thought it was an hour and a half.”
“And the magic time frame is an hour or less, right?”
“Exactly,” the man said, his eyes regretful looking. “Under such stressful circumstances, no one is sure how long it was. If it really was less than hour, he stands a good chance of recovering. If not…”
I nodded, understanding what his trailing thoughts meant. “How long until we know?”
The man glanced at West. “When it worked before, we didn’t see any results for over a week. Within a week and a half we started to see positive signs that he might recover.”
“So we just have to wait?”
He simply nodded.
I couldn’t take any more then. I turned and walked back down the hall without another look back. My breaths were coming in sobbing chokes before I reached the end of the hall. It felt like someone was trying to squeeze me from the inside out. As I stepped into the stairwell, I leaned against the cold cinderblock walls and slid to the floor. When the guard saw me, he stepped back out, his discomfort obvious. I heard him walk away.
It took me far too long to get myself back under control. The image of metallic veins sprouting in West’s eye kept playing over and over.
I used every ounce of strength I had to force myself off the floor and go back down the stairs.
As I walked numbly back into the medical wing, I caught a glimpse of another figure lying on a hospital bed in another room. In my panic of the previous hours, I hadn’t noticed that he was injured.
“Royce?” I said as I stepped into his room a few feet. “Are you alright?”
He just gave a shrug, brushing it off. “I’m fine. Just a few bullet holes. Nothing I haven’t lived through before.”
I just nodded, my brain trying to function again. Maybe I wanted Dr. Beeson to turn the emotional blockers back on. They felt so out of control right now.
“I really am sorry about your friend,” Royce said, his eyes studying my face. “He seemed like a good man. We all hope for the very best.”
I nodded again, my eyes glued to the floor but not really seeing anything. Even though no one had said it, I heard it in the tone of their voices. They might have been hopeful, but they didn’t expect a positive outcome.
“When do you plan on setting off the Pulse?” I changed the subject.
“With the Extractor running it takes a lot of power. It will be another day before the Pulse has generated enough power to go off.”
I nodded, stuffing my hands into my pockets.
“He tried saving West, you know,” Royce said quietly. “Avian. Everyone was firing at the Fallen who were flooding the platform. But Avian jumped in front of West while he was helping me repair the line. He probably would have died right then if not for Avian.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, imagining the horrific scene behind my eyelids. “If I’d been there they both would have been fine.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“He wouldn’t have gotten infected.”
“Maybe.”
I turned to leave when Royce spoke again. “Eve, if I ever hear about you firing a weapon in this hospital again I will have Dr. Beeson make you think you’re a three-year-old little girl for the rest of your life.”
I glanced back at him, a chuckle escaping my lips. “It won’t happen again, promise.”
He gave a twitch of a smile. Something started to beep on one of his medical devices, two doctors rushing in behind me. I took the opportunity to duck out.
Avian was asleep when I returned to his side, much to my disappointment. He did need his rest though. The doctors said they were giving him antibiotics to keep infection out but other than that there was little more they were going to have to do to him.
As I sat with Avian’s hand in mine, I thought about what was to come. If the Pulse really worked and we were able to freely roam, what would that mean for Avian and I, now that I had finally made my decision?
I imagined taking him hunting with me, intrigued by the total mystery of it. I’d never seen him out in the woods like that, free to do and go as he pleased. I had little doubt he would be good at it. Avian seemed to be good at everything.
Where would we live once we were let out of this place? What would it be like to live with Avian, the way Gabriel and Leah lived together, Morgan and Eli? The thought was strange yet exciting.
Three years ago I watched with everyone as Morgan and Eli stood before everyone, she dressed in a makeshift white dress. They spoke words to each other that I didn’t understand then. Now they made perfect sense. Would Avian and I ever speak words like that to each other? Would I ever wear a white dress like that?
Finally, after four hours of restless sitting, Royce limped into Avian’s room, accompanied by his regular armed men. The man with the broken nose was among them. He glared at me with blackened eyes.
“We’re getting everything prepped,” Royce said as he leaned on his crutches. “I thought you might want to come see before it goes off.”
I glanced from Avian’s still form and back to Royce. “We can have the doctors page you when he wakes up.”
I wasn’t sure what “page” meant but there was a big part of me that was itching to do something. This sulking, scared, unsure Eve was starting to get to me. “Alright.”
The doctors on duty gave me a small black box to carry around and they informed me that it would beep loudly when Avian woke up. I didn’t like leaving Avian’s side but I vowed I would return as soon as he was conscious again. Already feeling slightly more like myself, I followed Royce’s group to the blue floor and up the locked stairwell.