My entire body tensed when all the outsiders looked at us for a long moment. There was indecision in their eyes, like they weren’t sure if they should do as they were told, or stay and fight.
I didn’t relax though when they started following in a careful line behind Nick out the door. I glanced over at Avian once before I followed along the line. He just nodded.
One by one, we walked down the hall, descended the stairs, and out the front doors.
We stopped outside the hospital, and waited for orders.
Margaret’s form appeared in the door. Followed by Royce.
He had a gun pressed square to the back of her head.
“What’s going on?” an outsider yelled. Half of them stepped forward.
I pressed the barrel of my shotgun to a man’s chest and shook my head. “I suggest you don’t move.”
“The lot of you will leave this city immediately!” Royce shouted so all would hear him. “You will head out now or I will shoot her right here.”
A shot rang out. Royce darted to the left, rolling on the ground as Margaret dashed forward.
I turned, my barrel scanning the crowd around me.
Margaret and a few of her men had turned down the road and were sprinting west.
I took off after them, my shotgun leveled.
There was a decision to make in that moment. Did I shoot them dead and become a murderer but keep them from possibly murdering us? Or did I show mercy and risk them flooding our city with Bane?
They cut around a corner, killing the choice.
“Eve!” I heard Avian shout from behind me.
I turned just briefly enough to see him knock a man unconscious with the butt of his shotgun and take off after me.
“I got this!” I bellowed, kicking up my speed.
I turned the corner and faltered for just a moment. Margaret was in sight. But her men were gone.
Something embedded itself into my side and every muscle in my body locked up. Air froze in my lungs, and black lines flickered across my vision. I hit the ground like a freshly cut tree. Across the street and just around the corner, I could see Avian, his fist connecting with another man’s jaw.
I rolled as I hit the ground, my vision turning up to the cloudy sky. A man’s face entered my field of vision. He had something in his hands and everything in me wanted to fight back as he covered my head with it.
But then everything shut down.
TEN
The ground was moving and it made my stomach sick.
A quick tug upward, and then a stomach dropping downward motion. Repeat.
Over and over I bobbed.
I was on water.
My eyes felt like sandpaper as I tried to pull them open. Everything was black and blur. And I couldn’t find my body. I was aware that it was still there, but it may as well have been dead. Nothing could move.
I could however hear feet shuffling. They sounded like they were behind a door maybe. Muffled.
Air couldn’t move past my dead lips, couldn’t cry out for answers. Or help.
Suddenly, there were voices.
“You really think this doctor of yours can fix me?”
Something inside of me died when I recognized that voice.
West.
“He was the best heart surgeon there was on the West Coast before the Evolution.”
And instantly I was full of fire and wrath.
That was the girl he’d been talking to in the dining area.
“I just hope this wasn’t a mistake,” he said, his voice growing quieter. “Cause I’m a dead man if he can’t take that scrap out.”
The pieces of the puzzle started sliding into place with only a few words.
I calculated in my head the amount of time West had. I got the sense we’d left New Eden and were headed back to wherever these people were from. I couldn’t gauge how long we’d been traveling. But it had been just over a week from the time West came out of Extraction to the time before I got knocked out.
West only had about five days. Seven if he was really lucky.
He really was a dead man if this supposed doctor couldn’t fix him.
Had my harshness toward him really driven him to do this? To betray his family and look for an elusive fix?
But I also had to consider why I was here, drugged and bound. I couldn’t imagine anyone else would have given away my secret. Had West traded it for the surgery? Had they tricked it out of him? Had he let it slip?
“Don’t look so down,” the female voice said. “You made the right choice.”
“I know I needed away from her,” West’s voice grew quieter. “But I just feel weird about leaving everyone. About leaving her. I searched for her for five years, and now I’m just walking away.”
“You made the right choice,” she said again, her words starting to slur in my ears.
Shadows started climbing in my brain, heavy and thick. I tried to keep them out, to find a door to close to them. But they were fog and mist and they crept in through all the cracks in my head.
There was light dancing behind my eyelids. It was dull and gray. But it was light.
“A little too effective,” a voice said. “Wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes ma’am,” another responded, shame and fear in it.
“See if you can rouse her.” The voice was female.
Something hard and cold whipped my head sharply to the left. But the rest of my body held firmly in place.
My eyes flashed open.
The outsiders were gathered around me, Margaret at the forefront of them all. Alistar stood at her side and another man with a gun stood just to the side of me. It was him that had just woken me with the butt end of his rifle.
I was bound to what looked like a moving-dolly with heavy chains. I tried jerking my arms, but didn’t move an inch. I wasn’t going anywhere.
We were all on a boat. A very large boat. We were bobbing just twenty yards from the shore.
And sitting right on that shore was a massive, towering city.
“This doesn’t exactly look like the Redwoods,” I growled as my eyes met Margaret’s.
“We lied,” she said, that grin creeping across her face. “Welcome to Seattle.”
“What about New Eden?” I asked, red hot coals building in me.
“Fine, for the most part,” she said, her expression going dark. “Once we realized what a valuable asset you were, we decided to take what we could and cut our losses. We don’t have the Pulse, but I’m sure you’ll provide some very interesting, very valuable information.”
“I don’t know anything about how to build the Pulse,” I said through gritted teeth. “And I’m not telling you anything.”
“That’s not exactly what we’re after,” she said with that wicked grin of hers. “And talking wasn’t the method I had in mind to obtain it.”
“Where’s West?” I demanded, again trying to jerk out of my bonds.
“He and some of the others headed for shore just before dawn on the speed boat,” she answered. “He’s safe.”
“What did you promise him?”
“We’ll honor our promise,” she said, lifting her chin just a bit, as if I had insulted her integrity. “He provided valuable information, even if he didn’t realize he was giving it and what we intended to do with it.”
“You tricked it out of him,” I said, hatred spewing from my every word.
The grin spread on her face and there was a manic look in her eyes. “The poor boy was so starved for some female attention. Tara was so attentive and such a good listener. She was so willing to hear all about the emotionally broken girl who picked another man over him.”
“He doesn’t know you’ve taken me, does he?” I said, my voice growing quieter.
“We thought it best with his…condition, if he remained cooperative and calm. You wouldn’t want him making any rash decisions, would you? We just might not be able to help him if he becomes unpleasant. And you might not have picked him, but I am sure you still don’t want him Evolving.”