They could have been trooping through these trees for two weeks now.
It might be a few more weeks before they came back to the tank. And I didn’t have that kind of time to wait.
I slept on the hard road that night, again ever grateful that I didn’t feel pain. I tried not shiver the entire time.
In the morning I hiked through the woods. The sun came out and melted the snow.
Again I found no one.
I slept on the road again. Fear started creeping up in my stomach. What if they couldn’t get back to the tank? What if they’d been injured? What if the Bane really were out in these woods? We’d been driven out of our own mountains because they’d pressed so far into the wilderness before.
When morning came, a thought occurred to me. I’d called Bane I hadn’t meant to call before. Why couldn’t I do it again? If there was a chance there were Bane in this forest, I could do the one thing I could to protect whoever from New Eden might be out there.
I focused all my thoughts, channeled my energy or whatever I thought would help, into calling the Bane to me.
Today I would wait at the tank.
I stood just in front of it, my shotgun ready. And I waited.
The first one came an hour after I started the call. It came out of the woods twenty yards south of the tank onto the road. It headed directly up the road toward me, its dead eyes fixed on me.
It took only two shells to kill it. It dropped in the middle of the road.
Another came out of the woods, right in front of me, three hours later. He was so close before I saw him emerge from the woods that it only took one shot to take him down.
As the time continued to pass, my stomach started to growl, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten anything in more than twenty-four hours.
I’d just taken off my pack and was digging through it for one of the cans of soup when I heard shots being fired.
“Avian!” I bellowed, instantly sprinting through the trees toward the sounds.
“Eve?” I heard him yell, probably two hundred yards away.
Seven more shots were fired, shouts rose into the air, and then they ceased.
“Avian!” I screamed again. I was rocketing through the trees at this point.
And suddenly he came into view. Fifty yards away through the trees. He was running in my direction too.
His step faltered when his eyes found me. Horror filled his face.
But he crushed me into his chest when we finally collided.
“What the hell did they do to you?” he growled into the curve of my neck. I looked up into his eyes to see them burning with hatred. He inspected my hairline and the still fresh scar I knew was there.
“I’m okay,” I said, shaking my head, then laying my cheek on his chest and squeezing him tighter. Avian’s hand hesitantly came to the back of my head as he embraced me.
“Eve?” I heard Gabriel’s voice a ways away. I turned from Avian to see who else had come to find me.
Gabriel, Bill, and Tuck came towards us through the woods.
There were two Bane lying dead in a heap, their bodies riddled with bullet holes.
“They didn’t try to hurt anyone, did they?” I asked, looking back at Avian.
“No,” Avian shook his head. “They were just marching through the trees. That’s what caught our attention. They walked right past us and didn’t even acknowledge we were there. We followed them but didn’t dare let them get any closer to the tank.”
“It was me,” I said, my voice lowered. Gabriel, Bill, and Tuck stopped at our sides. “They were heading here because of me.”
“What do you mean?” Gabriel asked.
“I was waiting for you all to come back to the tank,” I said, looking each of them over for damage. They all looked fine. “I’ve been waiting for two days. But…something’s changed. The people who took me? They did something to me.”
Avian swore under his breath. “What’d they do?” His eyes were pained.
For some reason I felt ashamed for what had happened. I was too strong to let them do something like this to me. “They were trying to figure out the reason why I can’t be infected. I think they thought they could find a cure. I don’t know if they found what they were looking for, but they did something else while they were in there. And I don’t think they realized they did it.”
“What is it, Eve?” Avian asked, his voice low.
“You know how I could control the Bane before?” I asked, looking around to Gabriel, Bill, and Tuck. “Just one or two of them?”
They each nodded.
“It’s exponentially stronger now,” I said, my eyes growing dark. “I was trying to call any Bane that might be in the forest, to keep them away from you until I could find you.”
“But you were so far away,” Tuck said, his eyes narrowing at me. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I told them about how I had only thought of the supplies I needed to survive, and how the next morning the Bane had collected them for me.
“This changes things,” Bill said. “I’m not exactly sure how, but it changes things.”
I nodded in agreement.
“One more thing,” I said, looking back at Avian. “Those people who invaded New Eden. They’re not here. Someone helped me escape, but West is still in Seattle.”
“You’ve been in Seattle all this time?” Avian gaped, anger blazing in his eyes again. He shook his head, his fists balling.
“What about West?” Gabriel asked. “Did he turn? He’s supposed to have gone back in for Extraction by now.”
“They said they’d help him,” I said. “They promised their doctor would get the scrap out of his heart and that he’d be TorBane-free. They told me the surgery worked. The man who helped me get out, he said he would bring West as soon as he was well enough to travel.”
“Do you trust them?” Bill asked. “Do you trust them that they won’t kill him once they realize you’re gone?”
“Them, no,” I said shaking my head. “The man who helped me, yes. He said he’d protect West until then.”
“This is his fault, isn’t it?” Avian growled. His expression darkened. “He told them about you, didn’t he?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head, pushing my emotions down. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m back. I’m okay.”
“Oh, it matters,” he hissed.
“Avian,” Gabriel chided. “You’ve got to get over this anger towards him. It’s not going to do anyone any good.”
“West could have gotten her killed, Gabriel!” Avian shouted. “Look at her!”
“But like she said,” Gabriel spoke, his voice rising slightly. “She’s back now.”
Avian gave a big sigh, his body slumping as the fight went out of him. He wrapped his arms around me again, crushing me into his chest. Suddenly Gabriel wrapped his arms around the two of us and I was sandwiched in the middle.
“I was worried you were gone to us,” Gabriel said in his rough voice. “You’ve made it through too much to be taken out by humans.”
“I’m okay,” I said again. But I wasn’t really sure it was true.
“Any idea what this is?” Bill asked and his finger lightly touched the back of my scalp.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ve got a roman numeral two tattooed to the back of your head,” Bill said. Avian turned me so he could inspect it himself.
“That’s not fresh,” Avian said. “That’s old ink.”
“Who knows,” I said, shaking my head and turning around again. I took one of Avian’s hands and one of Gabriel’s. “I just want to go home now.”