There was something wrong with me and I wasn’t sure an adjustment from Dr. Beeson could fix it.
I needed away from the city, but the city was where I was needed.
Like Avian had said, I was never going to change. I would always do what was needed of me. I would protect my family. I would keep being Eve until being Eve killed me.
“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Gabriel assured me. He stood in the hatch, about to duck back inside.
“Okay,” I said, nodding.
We watched the tank drive away.
“Let’s find some dinner,” I said, not giving a moment for speeches that made me feel no better. I dropped Avian’s hand and headed into the trees.
He knew there was something wrong. Avian knew how to read me better than I knew how to read myself most of the time. But he also knew when I didn’t want to talk. When I just needed to go back to my old instincts and do what I was good at.
After being in the Redwoods, this forest seemed dehydrated and starved. These trees were small, more shrub like. They felt like sad impersonations.
A movement to the left caught my attention. There was a flash of orange and white. I crept behind a tree, peering around it.
A fox was eating something. Feathers. A bird.
Knowing my shotgun was going to riddle the body with buck shot, I opted for my knife instead. Well, Tristan’s knife. Tristan’s shotgun too.
I flicked my wrist and embedded the blade in the side of its neck. It gave a choked off howl before it collapsed to the ground.
Avian skinned it while I built a fire. My stomach actually started growling. It seemed like it had been ages since I’d had fresh meat.
I dared a glance at Avian while we ate. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk but Avian almost always was. So his silence was out of place.
He stared into the fire, his expression distant. His shoulders were shrugged up towards his ears. He picked at his meat absentmindedly.
I knew he was trying to think of a way to fix the problem that was me. He was turning the situation over and over in his head, trying to find a way to keep me from going crazy. But we were both needed in the city.
Avian spent too much time worrying about me.
“I haven’t forgotten about what you said the night of Victoria and Wix’s wedding, you know,” I said. I leaned over and bumped his shoulder with mine. “About wearing a white dress for you someday.”
He looked over at me, the spark instantly back in his eyes. “Oh yeah?”
“Don’t know how a girl could forget something like that.” It was incredible how the air instantly lightened around us, the pressure lifting off my chest. “Sarah told me about marriage proposals once. I don’t think you did it quite right.”
Avian smiled, one that lit up his whole face. “I never said that was a proposal. I can be a little more grand than that. I was just asking you a question that night.”
“You said, as we were looking at Victoria’s wedding dress, ‘would you wear one for me someday?’ Did that not count?” I was smiling now, too.
“No it does not,” Avian said as he leaned in closer, his nose only inches from mine. “Like I said, I can be a little more grand than that.”
“You’re going to build up expectations in my head, staying stuff like that,” I said as I breathed in his nearness. “Are you sure you’ll be able to live up to them?”
“Are you doubting me?” He brushed his lips against mine.
I met his eyes, that familiar hunger rising in my blood. His hand was hot on my cheek despite the cool around us. I was aware of every place his body touched mine. The way he breathed in and out touched a place in me that felt similar to the way my heart beat in my chest.
Then suddenly it felt like an arrow pierced me between the eyes.
I screamed out, crumpling into Avian’s lap.
“Eve!” he yelled, pulling me close into him.
I opened my eyes, a vivid green wash and numbers flashing across my vision. I pressed my hands in on either side of my head.
“Ahh!” I screamed, feeling like my brain was going to explode.
“Stay with me, Eve!” Avian called to me from somewhere outside the pain.
A sixty-two point one pulsed across my vision and then everything was dark.
TWENTY-ONE
A blinding light suddenly filled my vision and I reacted on instinct.
My fist connected with a jaw.
Someone swore and I was momentarily blind as I climbed to my feet.
“That’s probably the first time someone has ever punched you, isn’t it Addie?”
I blinked furiously, trying to clear the white lights blocking my vision. “Royce?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he said.
Finally the white started to fade from my vision, leaving only the dull pain behind my eyes. Addie, Dr. Beeson’s assistant, was pulling herself into a sitting position, cradling her reddened jaw. She gave me a disbelieving look. Royce laughed, shaking his head.
“That would indeed be the first time someone has ever punched me,” Addie said as she picked herself up off the ground, brushing dirt from her clothes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head once more. “Instinct, I guess. Where’s Dr. Beeson?”
“He’s been really sick,” Addie said. “Pneumonia. There’s been a bad case of the flu at the hospital.”
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.
Addie shrugged. “Sounds like it. It’s just going to take time. It seems like everyone is on the tail end of things.”
“Do you remember what happened this time?” Avian asked, turning back to me. He eased me down onto a fallen tree. When the world swayed to the left a bit, I didn’t fight him.
I shook my head. “Just pain all of the sudden. And then passing out. Just like before.”
“And this is the second time this has happened since you were released?” Addie asked.
Avian took a small, silver cylinder from her and crouched in front of me. He pressed a button on the bottom and a tiny beam of light erupted from it. He shone it in my eyes, using his thumb to open them wider.
“I did this same thing two days ago,” I said as I looked into the light.
“This isn’t at all like before,” Avian said as he stood, clicking the light off, and handing it back. “When she’d get emotionally overloaded and shut down. She was never in pain before.”
“Well, she’s not supposed to be feeling pain at all,” Addie said. I stiffened momentarily. I wasn’t particularly comfortable with her knowing all of my hybrid details. “Whatever is going on inside of her head must be pretty intense.”
“What were they after?” Royce asked, always direct. “What did Margaret want from you?”
“They seemed the most interested in the reason why I don’t spread the infection, why I can’t be infected,” I said, climbing to my feet as Royce pulled me upright. “I think they thought they might find a cure or something.”
“Did they find it?” he asked, his interest piqued.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
Royce nodded, his eyes drifting up to my new scars. “Bald is a good look on you,” he said. He tried to keep a straight face, but I saw it crack, just slightly.
“Not funny, Royce,” Avian scolded, glaring.
“Who says I’m joking?” he said, winking at me.
I just shook my head and lay back on the tree, blocking the sun with my hand. I felt out of sorts and violated. I was fifteen hundred miles away from the Underground and they were still torturing me somehow.