And it was barely midnight.
Another shot was fired and Creed burst into hysterical cries. Avian adjusted his hold on her, placing her against his chest and increasing the depth of his bounce. He did manage to drag my eyes away from the door for a moment.
But they snapped back when three more shots were fired. Two people shouted and then I heard the tank fire.
Creed wailed harder.
Lin put her hands over her ears and twitched into a ball for a moment as another blast went off.
“It sounds awful out there,” she said. She looked up, slowly relaxing back into a sitting position. Her expression showed her fear openly. Tristan was out there.
The shooting ceased, but Creed didn’t stop crying. Avian patted her back and spoke soothing words to her. She continued to scream.
Springing to my feet, I crossed the lobby and took her from Avian. He looked up at me with slightly surprised eyes but handed her over, her blankets coming unwrapped from her tiny body. I don’t think he thought anything could pull me from my anxious zoning in.
I had worn a low cut shirt that day, exposing much of my chest. It was loose fitting and comfortable. Creed’s wrinkly cheek met the skin of my chest and her cries calmed to a small whimper. She kicked one of her feet and turned her head so the opposite cheek touched me. She calmed. Her left fist came up to her mouth and she started sucking it happily.
“Wow,” Lin said, standing and walking over to us. “You sure have the magic baby touch.” She reached out to brush her finger against Creed’s other cheek. Creed twitched against the unexpected touch and pushed her face into my chest.
“Eve’s always been the one who could calm Creed down,” Avian said, looking at the both of us with love radiating off of him. I actually managed to smile a bit. “I think she somehow understands that they are alike.”
“Once you two are married, you’ll have a proper little family here,” Lin said, placing her hand on Creed’s back. It covered it completely.
“I don’t know about that,” I said, resting my cheek on the top of her head carefully. I spotted one of the families from the Underground watching me. Their eyes were wary, but not hostile. Things between the two colonies were still uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t really call them tense any longer. “I will always be here for her, but I don’t know that I can be her mother.”
“Well,” Lin said, her voice growing quiet. “She’ll never be lacking for love.”
“Never,” Avian and I both said at the same time.
THIRTY-TWO
My eyes slid open to see the light gray tiles of the ceiling above me and instantly everything felt different.
Every breath I’d taken the last nineteen years, every gunshot I’d fired, every seed I’d planted, and every scrape that had drawn blood led up to this single day.
The day everyone thought I would save the world.
I sat up and looked around the lobby. Sometime during the sixth longest night of my life, I’d fallen asleep. I lay on the floor, my jacket wadded up under my head. I spotted Avian sleeping in a chair not far away. His head was tipped back, his mouth slightly open. Creed lay on his chest, fast asleep as well.
Lin was asleep on the floor, not far from me. Her cheek rested on her stack of bridal magazines. Her neck was kinked, causing her to snore softly.
Just as I was quietly climbing to my feet, the steel doors burst open and people stumbled through them. Graye and Tristan supported one of our soldiers, Lex. He coughed violently and there were bruise marks already forming around his throat.
I didn’t even have to ask what happened as the three of them dashed for the stairs and headed for the blue floor.
A woman I knew to be Lex’s wife came running down the hall, a young boy on her hip.
“Lex?” she cried frantically. “No, this can’t be happening. Not now!” She scrambled up the stairs after her husband.
But Jeb was already in the Extractor. In a race to get the cybernetic scraps out of him before I killed all of TorBane off.
Avian and Lin had been startled awake by this point and Creed started crying again. I took her from Avian as he asked the returning soldiers what happened.
“There were probably fifty of them,” Bill said. A heavy sheen of sweat covered his skin and there was a gash above his right eye. He wasn’t the only one who looked injured. “They started throwing explosives at our line. Most everyone made it okay, but three of them broke through the perimeter. Lex was attacked in the process. They got him.”
“There’s already someone in the Extractor,” I stated.
Bill nodded, his face grim.
“It’s early,” Avian said. “He hasn’t been infected long. If we get the Nova set off soon enough, there’s a chance he might survive the TorBane in his system being killed off.”
I nodded, but knew the chances were very slim.
“Is the perimeter contained?” I asked, my brows furrowing together as I held Creed a little tighter to my chest.
Bill’s eyes fell and he shook his head. “Graye and Royce ordered everyone back inside the hospital. Dr. Beeson’s turning the wireless transmission system on full blast.”
“How many of them are coming would you guess?” Avian asked as a second wave of soldiers came in before the steel doors slid closed again.
“There will be hundreds of them outside our doors by noon,” he said. “At least.”
I looked and saw Vee walking towards us slowly. West had an arm draped over her shoulders and he limped heavily. Avian and I rushed over.
“I’ll be…” West trailed off, his face exhausted and slightly delirious sounding. “Fine. I’ll be just fine, before anyone freaks out.”
“He’s been cut,” Vee said. I saw something stirring behind her eyes. Panic. Fear. Her emotions were begging to be let loose. “A window exploded when one of the grenades went off and he was caught by the shrapnel.”
Avian bent and pulled up West’s shredded and bloodied pant leg. His calf down to his ankle was a ragged mess. There were large chunks of glass embedded into his skin.
“Let’s get you to the medical wing,” Avian said, looping West’s other arm around his shoulders. We slowly made our way down the hall.
“This is it,” West huffed as he attempted to walk. He left a solid trail of blood on the floor behind him. “If this doesn’t work today, we really are done for. That isn’t exactly a Bane sweep out there, but they’re coming faster than we can wipe them out.”
“They’re being smart about their attacks too,” Vee said. “They’re using vehicles, trying to sneak around us. Using weapons.”
We stepped into a room and Avian eased West down onto a bed. West leaned back and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He hissed in pain as Avian cut away the rest of his pant leg. “This isn’t like before,” he said, looking up at the ceiling while Avian started picking shards of glass from his leg. “When Royce and everyone holed up inside the hospital. They’re too Evolved now for steel doors to keep them out. They’ll come at us with bombs and go straight through the concrete walls.”
So this was the point where we couldn’t fight them off anymore.
It was time to kill them off or be killed.
“Vee,” Avian said as he pulled the last of the glass from West’s leg. “Can you hand me a suture kit from that drawer?”
She turned and rummaged through the drawer. Avian set to cleaning the wound with alcohol. West screamed, his entire body locking up.
Creed screamed too, and I stepped out into the hall. Royce and Lin came hurrying down it.
“We need you, now,” Royce said. Behind him stood Bill, Elijah, who limped along, and Tristan. Lin rushed forward and took Creed.