Eden (41 page)

“
Nothing back or down
there needs to be easily accessed,” I said as I pulled the openings
closed, shifting there uncomfortably.

Avian opened a cupboard
and grabbed another gown and handed it to me.  I pulled it on
backwards, only feeling slightly more comfortable.  “I think
they washed your clothes and put them back in your room,” he said
as his eyes settled on mine again.

I nodded, looking around
for my pack.  I found it sitting on the counter by the
door.

“
I didn’t think you’d be
happy if they took that,” Avian said as he grabbed it and handed it
over to me.  “I hid it from them so they wouldn’t try and
sterilize it as well.”

“
Thanks,” I said, forming
a small smile as I pulled it on.  I felt myself relax just a
bit. 

“
You’re welcome,” he said,
his lips still in a slight smile as his eyes fixed on me.  I
felt all those strange emotions building up inside of me
again.

“
I need to do something
today, tonight, whatever it is right now.  I can’t tell with
no windows open in this place.”

“
We’ll talk to Royce, I’m
sure there’s something you could help with.”

“
I need to get
out
,” I clarified as I
walked to the door and opened it.  “The air tastes weird in
here.  Everyone else has already breathed it.  I need to
get outside.”

Avian asked me a million
questions as we walked down the hall, trying to assess my physical
health.  He held his fingers to my neck for a while, timing my
pulse to the watch on his wrist.  His eyes studied me as we
left the elevator and I started back toward my room.

“
I’m not going to be able
to talk you into resting anymore, am I?” he asked as he leaned
against the door frame of my room.

“
You would be correct,” I
said as I gave him a smile and closed the door.

I found my clothes clean
and folded on the counter in my room.  It felt like a relief
to pull them on.  I could think of nothing more uncomfortable
to wear than a hospital gown.  Someone must have wanted to
torture patients.  I cinched my pack tight to my back and
Avian followed me to the main floor to search out Royce.

Ten minutes later I was
outside in the dark night, walking the streets with a man who had
not spoken one word to me.  That was just fine with me. 
I was just glad to be outside.

It was unnerving, seeing
all the eyes and faces inside the buildings.  I expected them
to burst through the glass at any moment and tackle us to the
ground.

It was a relief to be
outside but it wasn’t the same as being back home, or even being in
the desert.  I still felt so small, so closed in. 
Buildings rose all around us, closing us in.  I felt like they
were blinding me.

Two hours after I had been
allowed to join the others on patrol, the sound of the tanks echoed
off the buildings around us.  I followed them to the back of
the hospital where they parked.  Two armed guards jumped out
of the top hatches first and one by one, my family members started
climbing out of the tanks.  All fifteen of them were
there.  West climbed out last, joining me as we watched the
others go in through a back door to the hospital. 

“
Are you feeling okay
now?” West said as he walked with me around the perimeter of the
building again.

“
Better,” I replied
simply.  It was the truth, if only a little bit.  I vowed
to myself I wasn’t going to go into shock again.  “What did
the others say when you arrived?”

“
They were surprised,
that’s for sure,” West said with a chuckle.  “Tess and Van
were really freaked out.  She actually ran when she saw
us.  But we told them what we’d found.  It didn’t take
too much convincing to get them to come with us.  I think they
all liked the idea of running water and toilets.”

“
They are certainly nice,
in their own way.”  It took everything I had in me not to
run.

“
I can’t wait till
everyone gets here,” West said as he stared at the stars above
us.  “It will be nice to have everyone back together
again.”

I just gave a nod.  I
didn’t like awkward moments.  How was one supposed to remedy
it? 

“
Time to get inside, you
two,” one of the scouts said as we rounded to the front of the
hospital.  “It’s almost dawn.”

Neither of us said
anything as we walked through the front sliding glass doors. 
As the last of the scouts came inside, the steel doors closed over
the glass ones and we were once again caged in.  Before I had
to face West anymore, I ducked away, escaping into my
room.

THIRTY-FOUR

The next day I rambled
around the halls, half checking on the members of our group, half
just aimlessly wandering as I felt lost in my thoughts.

With the revelation of the
fact that there was a very good chance West was my brother it
seemed like my choice should have been made very obvious now. 
If West really was my brother obviously I couldn’t pick him. 
I wouldn’t want to pick him.  And even if the paternity test
came back negative, would I ever look at West the same?  Could
I ever kiss him again without thinking about it all?

It should have been so
easy to finally choose Avian.  I had wanted to pick and now my
other possibility had been essentially taken out.  But it all
seemed so unfair.  This was too abrupt.  There were too
many other things going on.  It felt impossible to seriously
consider my emotional feelings, anything romantic or involving
love.

I still wasn’t ready to
decide if anything I was feeling was love.

It was difficult to adjust
to the schedule they kept at the hospital.  We slept during
the middle of the day, woke around eight at night, had breakfast,
and once it was dark outside the scouts went out on patrol. 
Lunch was served in the middle of the night and dinner was served a
an hour after dawn.  It felt so off, but only if you paid
attention to the actual times.  Night and day looked pretty
much the same in the hospital considering the windows were only
open when it was pitch dark outside.

I sat eating my breakfast
alone when Royce and a few of his other men approached me.  I
could tell from the looks on their faces that they had business on
their minds.

“
Do you have a few minutes
to talk, Eve?” he asked.  I could see a strange look of
excitement on their faces.

“
I was planning on going
out on patrol but I think I have a few minutes before they’re ready
to leave,” I said as I stood.  They followed me to the counter
where I returned my tray and we headed for the elevators. 
“What’s this about?”

“
I have one last thing to
show you,” he said, excitement in his tone.

We exited on the blue
floor, the lights glowing bright as ever.  I followed them
down the hall, to the very end.  A thick black door was
closed, heavier and stronger looking than all the other ones. 
Royce punched a few numbers into the keypad attached to the
handle.  It beeped twice and I heard it unlock before he
pushed it open.

Almost immediately inside
the door was a set of stairs.  All three of the men glanced
back at me before starting up them, making me feel a little
uneasy.

Even if they were planning
to take me to some secluded area of the hospital and try and attack
me, I was pretty sure I could take all of them if I had
to.

My eyes grew wide as we
got to the top of the stairs.  They opened onto the very top
floor of the hospital, one big room.  There were no walls or
ceiling, just windows.  It was almost as if we had just walked
out onto the roof of the building.

Dominating the center of
the room was a ring.  A fifteen foot ring, balanced on five
steel legs about four feet off the floor.  Inside the ring
were more rings, gears, mechanical devices I didn’t even have names
for.  But I knew what it was.  I’d already seen a smaller
version of it.

“
It’s a CDU,” I breathed
as I took it in.

A small smile crossed
Royce’s face as he looked at me and nodded.  “Yes it
is.”

“
It’s massive,” I said as
I started to circle it. 

“
It’s taken us a long time
to build it,” Royce said as he crossed his arms over his
chest.  “We not sure exactly how far the blast will reach but
we are certain it will at least clear the city.” 

“
Why haven’t you used it
yet?” I asked as I ran my hand along the smooth metal
surface.  I immediately withdrew my hand, remembering what it
would do when it was live.  It would kill me
immediately.

“
It’s not quite finished,”
he answered.  “It still needs a power source.”

I nodded as I stopped,
coming back around the gigantic ring.  “I suppose you can’t
just plug it into any normal outlet.”

“
The amount of power this
thing requires is astronomical,” Royce said, his eyes fixed on
me.  “Even directing all the power that runs to the hospital
wouldn’t be enough to charge this thing and set it off.  We
need to tap directly into the power plant that is three blocks from
here.”

“
Then why haven’t you done
it yet?” I asked, my brow knitting together.

He looked at me for a
moment before he replied.  “Because it is crawling with
Fallen.  Even at night.”

It took me a moment to
understand what he was saying.  The Fallen flocked to places
with power.  It made sense that a power plant would be
saturated with hundreds of Fallen.

“
You need me to go in,” I
said as I put everything together.  “I’m the only one that
can’t be infected.”

He simply nodded, his eyes
fixed on me.

I looked back at the
Pulse, thinking of what it could mean if it really did work. 
This entire city, and all the ones around it, clear up past the
forest we had hidden in for a short time, free of any Fallen. 
We could likely live the rest of our lives in peace.

“
If I set this off, what’s
to keep it from shorting me out and killing me?”

Royce adjusted his stance,
pushing his hands in his pockets.  “We’ve been working on
proofing the entire hospital for the last two years.  This
room was added a while ago, completely sealed off from the rest of
the building.  The glass is all going to blow, but the rest of
the hospital won’t be effected.  You’ll be perfectly safe
inside, along with all of our other electrical
equipment.”

“
And how do I get into the
plant without being torn apart, limb from limb?” I asked as I
stuffed my hands in my pockets as well.

“
Heavily armed,” he said,
a sly smile tugged on his face.

“
No,” a voice suddenly
said from behind us.  Both Avian and West stepped into the
room, looks of rage and fury on their faces.  “You can’t send
her right into a power plant.  She’ll never make it out
alive,” West said through clenched teeth.

“
You can’t ask this of
her,” Avian said, his eyes dark.

“
Apparently Lex forgot to
close the door behind us,” Royce said as he glared at one of the
armed men behind him.  The man just gave a shrug.

“
You realize what this
device will do for us?  For humanity?” Royce asked, turning
his eyes on Avian and West again.  “We will never have to
worry about the Fallen again.  We can live like normal people
again, start to rebuild.”

“
But not at the cost of
losing Eve,” Avian said, his hands forming fists.

“
We will not be sending
her in there naked.  A tank will drive her as close as
possible, our men will take out as many as they can without risking
infection.  She will be armed.”

“
No,” West said, shaking
his head.  “It’s too great of a risk.  There will be
hundreds of them there, maybe even thousands.”

The three of them stood
like that for a long moment, staring at each other with unrelenting
eyes.

“
I’ll do it,” I finally
spoke.  “When will everything be ready?”

“
Tomorrow,” Royce
said.

“
No, Eve!” West hissed at
the same time.

“
You can’t do this!” Avian
chimed in.

“
Yes, I can and I will!” I
nearly shouted back.  “Neither of you are in charge of
me.  I’m the only one that can do this and I am going to do
it.  For all of us.”

“
Wonderful,” Royce said as
he clapped a hand on my back.  “I’ll let them know and we will
get things prepared for tomorrow night.”

Avian looked at me with
cold eyes and I read a million words of shock, hurt, and betrayal
in them.  Without another word he turned and walked back down
the stairs.

“
You can’t do this Eve,”
West said, closing the gap between us.  He took my hands in
his, his brown eyes staring into my blue gray ones.  “You most
likely won’t walk out of this.  Don’t kill yourself to make
life a little easier for us.”

“
Maybe you’re
underestimating me,” I said quietly, slipping my hands out of
his.  “I
am
doing this.”