“That must have been her graduation when she got her bachelor’s degree,” Avian explained. When I didn’t understand, he continued. “When she first finished college. People have multiple milestones when they’re at university. She must have been top of her class to get those,” he said, tapping the golden scarf.
“I wonder what happened to her parents,” I said, looking them over. “Dr. Beeson has always said that she didn’t have any family.”
“They must have passed away sometime between when this picture was taken and when you were born.”
I observed their faces. These were my grandmother and grandfather. My family. I thought about stories Sarah had told me, about her own grandparents. How they went fishing and hunting with their grandpa. How her grandma had tried to teach Sarah to sew.
My life could have turned out so differently if only a few things had changed.
I set that photo aside as well and opened the envelope.
Inside was a small stack of photographs. Every one of them featured two people: my mother and a young man.
His hair was a light brown, bordering on dirty blond. His eyes were gray. His features were strong and pronounced.
In some pictures they were kissing, in some they were simply smiling at the camera. In others they appeared to be in a school setting.
“Is that…?” Avian started to ask.
I nodded, my hands feeling stiff and half numb. “I think so.”
I laid the pictures on the floor and pulled out the books.
They were journals. Emma didn’t write often, but seemed to write when milestones happened, the first entry being when she graduated high school.
I scanned the pages, not reading them in detail. She started college immediately after she graduated, had a heavy school load. She worked a few shifts at a diner waiting tables for the first few years. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree, as depicted in the picture.
Nine months before graduation though, a boy’s name started popping up. Rider.
They had classes together. Chemistry, molecular biology. Other scientific studies. They started dating.
Then they’d break up.
Then they’d get back together.
Eventually, they both got jobs in their fields while going through graduate school. She started at NovaTor, he took a government job. It was family tradition apparently. All of his family had worked for the United States government for generations.
As they headed to their separate destinies, their relationship continued to decline.
But there was one weekend before they both had to return to their prestigious school. One weekend when they thought they could make things work again.
“Oh wow,” I said, flushing as I read. I turned the journal over in my lap and held it away from me. “This is embarrassing to read.”
Avian chuckled. “I guess most people don’t get to read about their conception.”
I cringed at Avian’s stark words as I hesitantly turned the journal back over.
As the weekend drew to a close, there was a fight. Emma recorded that it started as something trivial, but escalated into something bigger. The long distance was just too much. Their highs and lows in the past were stacking too heavy.
They finally called it quits. This time for real.
Emma returned to NovaTor and continued her work. She threw herself into it, working harder and longer hours than ever.
At first she thought she wasn’t feeling well simply for how hard she was pushing herself in the lab.
But then she finally took a test. And it came back positive.
She briefly considered telling Rider. But she had her career and he had his. As bad as it made her feel, she knew what this pregnancy was going to do to hers. It could possibly end it. If she told Rider, it would affect his career too. He had worked so hard for it, had so much pressure on him from his family to succeed. She couldn’t imagine how he could be happy about this.
So she kept it a secret. And a few months later, she found she carried not one child, but two.
In a moment of weakness and emotion, she tried calling the number she had for Rider. Someone else answered the phone—Rider’s brother.
“Holy…” I breathed. “Avian, look.”
I pointed to the end of one page. It only said the name once, and talked about him for only one sentence to say he answered the phone. But it was there, blazing from the page.
Royce.
“Avian, Royce is my uncle,” I breathed. The air in my chest caught, and the back of my eyes stung. Two moments later, my vision swam as moisture pooled in them. “It has to be him. My mom said Rider’s entire family worked for the government. Royce worked for the government as a weapons specialist for years!”
“Eve, you know what this means?” Avian said, looking over at me. He took one of my hands in his. “You have family. You’ve had family for the past five months. I mean…” a breathy laugh bubbled up from his chest. “No wonder you and him have had this bond. You’re blood family, Eve. You’re his niece.”
I covered my mouth with a hand and realized I was trembling. With my other hand, I grabbed one of the pictures from the floor. Rider was looking right at the camera. He had the same grey eyes as Royce. The same strong jaw. The same piercing look.
Royce and I had always gotten along. Sure, we’d had a few ups and downs, but I’d always known he supported me. And even though I didn’t throw the word around often, I loved Royce and did think of him as a father figure.
He was pretty damn close.
TWENTY
I didn’t say anything about my new discovery the next day. As Avian would have so nicely put it, I was still processing that information. Instead, Bill, West, and I kept watch again, not saying much of anything all day. No intruders came.
Dr. Evans helped Avian take care of Creed from afar, making sure the ingredients that went down her feeding tube were right, that they’d give her the best chance of surviving. They started gathering the supplies they would need to get her back to New Eden. And they gave her the last dosage of TorBane.
On our fifth day at NovaTor we were all stir crazy to get moving. This was our final day. We were giving TorBane twenty-four hours to settle into Creed’s system. Her vitals were good. She was still fragile and underdeveloped, but Dr. Evans said she was comparable to what a one month premature baby would be like instead of one that was over three months.
While Bill continued to watch for unwanted visitors, West and I started packing the solar van.
“These are the supplies we’ll need to finish off the transmitter,” Dr. Evans said, handing a box off to me. “Careful with them.”
I imagined if he had more flesh and hair on him, he might have raised an eyebrow at me and given me a “look.” Just like West often did.
I nodded and turned toward the stairs. West followed, oxygen tanks under his arms.
“We’re supposed to leave in the morning,” I said, my voice echoing off the walls.
“Yeah,” West said. His voice sounded dead.
“I’ll understand if you stay,” I said as I stepped out into the main floor. “If you have to go look for her.”
“Where am I supposed to even start?” West said, his voice harsh, even though I knew it wasn’t me he was mad at, for once. “I don’t know what I expected. I didn’t really think she’d be waiting here, but I…”
“I know,” I said as we walked into the garage. I pulled the back door to the solar tank open. “I think I kind of thought the same thing.”
West set the oxygen tanks in the fourth row of seats, the one Morgan had occupied on the way out. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said, leaning against the vehicle and crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t think I can decide that until we’re heading out tomorrow morning.”