“How did you end up in Seattle then?” I asked, folding my arms on the table and leaning forward.
“My dad went out on a hunting trip one day, looking for some food for us. I was seventeen then. I was supposed to watch our camp because there had been marauders in the area. Dad never came back.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, truly meaning it.
Tristan gave a little nod with a tight-lipped smile in appreciation. “There was this man, Stanley, who found me. He didn’t say much, but he said I could come with him, that he’d try his best to keep the both of us safe. Eventually we ended up at the Underground. Eventually he ended up getting infected.”
I shook my head. “There are so few of us left.”
“Eve?” a voice called from behind. I turned to see Lin rushing across the room.
She collided with me as she skidded across the tile floor, engulfing me in a hug. “I heard you were back. Are you okay?” She backed away slightly, her eyes instantly going to my shaven head and the scars there.
“I don’t know about okay,” I said. “But I’m back.”
“Your hair,” she said, her face falling. “You always had the most beautiful hair. That doesn’t hurt, does it?” She gingerly touched the scars.
“I’m a freak, remember?” I teased her with serious eyes.
“Ah, yes, no pain,” she said. “And who is this?”
“Lin, this is Tristan,” I said, turning back to him. “Tristan, this is my…friend, Lin.”
And suddenly I felt like I had taken advantage of Lin. I knew she would have called me a friend without a second thought. I sometimes needed to remember people were people, not just tools for survival.
“Nice to meet you, Lin,” Tristan said, extending a hand toward her. He held a mischievous smile on his face.
“And you too,” Lin said. Lin smiled a lot, but this one was different.
I’d never been a matchmaker before.
I had to hope then that we’d all live long enough for them to get to know each other.
TWENTY-FOUR
The plan was this:
In forty-eight hours the vast majority of New Eden would evacuate the hospital. They would pack their necessities and head for the harbors and everyone would take off into the water. Special teams would pack as much food and provisions as possible in those forty-eight. They would all have roughly eight hours to get to safety.
I would stay at the hospital as well as a handful of the scientists while they repaired the Pulse. We would have the wireless transmission system on full blast and would keep the hospital on lock down, just how they’d all survived before the Pulse went off. Royce would stay with us and Gabriel would go with everyone else to the water.
And we’d work as fast and furious as we could to rid the city once again of the Bane that were about to be called out.
Because no one saw a solution to stopping the beacon.
While everyone else prepared for evacuation, I had a few personal issues to take care of.
Despite the panic that was sweeping the hospital and city about having to evacuate, there was endless talk.
People didn’t know what to think about Avian’s actions.
Some called for his immediate exile from New Eden. Violence against our own couldn’t be tolerated. Could Avian be trusted anymore? What other ways would he lash out violently in the future?
Nick was still alive, but he only had a fifty-fifty chance of making it.
West had recovered from his injuries and had been released to prepare for evacuation. I made sure to avoid him. At this point it seemed best.
But I had to talk to Avian.
The floor was silent when I stepped out from the stairway. The lights on this floor flickered, air rushed through the vents, giving the feeling there where whispering ghosts whispering. Waiting to tell you their secrets.
I moved silently through the hall, finding it empty. Glancing around the corner, I spotted Raj, slumped on the floor. I could faintly hear his snore.
There was a supply closet just to the left of where he slept. I grabbed an electrical cord that was lying on the floor next to me and silently crept forward.
In one swift movement, I yanked his rifle from his hands and threw it down the hall. With my other hand, I grasped the front of his shirt and hauled him up and into the closet. He gave a startled, half-asleep yell, but he was too disoriented to fight back. I stuffed him into the closet and pulled the door closed. I wound one end of the chord around the handle and then wound the other end around a door handle across the hall.
The door to the closet jerked, but the cord held, locking Raj inside.
“Eve!” he yelled, his voice faint through the solid door. “Don’t do this! These are Royce’s orders!”
“I just need to talk to him,” I said, though probably not loud enough for him to hear me.
I turned to the door he’d been guarding. It looked like any normal hospital room, but it locked from the outside. I wondered if Royce had ordered it special made for Avian or if he’d thought to have a prison room before everything went down.
“Avian?” I called, knocking on the door.
“Eve?” he responded. I heard his feet shuffled across the floor. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice rough. I’d tried to rehearse what I would say to him when I faced him once more, but nothing had come. “I’m coming in. Stand back from the door.”
He shuffled away and I set my own shotgun down for a moment. Coiling my right leg back, I landed a solid blow next to the door handle. The wood split but not enough to open the door. On the third kick, it caved and flew open.
Avian stood in the middle of the room. He had dark circles under his eyes and his entire countenance seemed darker.
But the grief and pain on his face showed me that he was still Avian.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the words cracking.
“I know,” I said. But I didn’t move farther into the room.
“I don’t know what came over me,” he said. His eyes dropping to the floor. He shook his head. I’d never seen his hair so long. He was probably going on a month without a shave. “I just kept thinking about how you could have died when they had you cut open and how we were all going to get infected because of what he’d done. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
“I know,” I said, the words sticking in my throat.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me for what I did, Eve,” he said, his gaze finally rising to meet mine. “I don’t expect you to love a monster.”
“We’re all monsters in some way or another.”
Avian held my eyes for a long time and moisture brimmed in his. He gave a small nod.
“What is Royce planning to do with you?” I asked as I slid my hands into my pockets. I couldn’t make myself move into the room.
“I don’t think he has time to figure that out with the impending evacuation,” he said. “But I’m not going to be one of the evacuees.”
My throat felt tight and the words I tried to say couldn’t move up my throat.
“Eve,” he breathed and took two steps forward.
“Promise me you’ll never do something like that again,” I forced out, my words louder and more broken sounding than I had intended them to be. “Promise me you will never hurt one of us, ever again. Because that man back there, I don’t know who he was.”
Avian froze, and his face became all the whiter. He swallowed hard. “It was unforgivable. I don’t know who that man was either. And I promise, you will never, ever, see him again.”
I nodded, trying to push the knot in my throat down. “Good. Because I need you right now. Always.”