Eden (45 page)

“
I’ve spent the last four
hours, frozen and gone in my room.”

Dr. Beeson’s step faltered
as he looked at me, his face blanching white.

“
Someone
shut me down,” I said through clenched
teeth.

Remembrance seemed to
flash through his mind as his eyes widened suddenly.  “West
spent nearly an entire night with me, asking questions about the
wireless transmission system.”

“
He…” I nearly choked on
my words.  “West shut me down.”

“
I’m so sorry,” he said
quietly.  “Come with me.  They’re having problems with
the communication system for those who went out.  I’m going to
take a look at it and see if I can get it fixed.”

Numbly, I followed him
down the stairwell and into the frantic lobby.

It seemed that everyone
who lived in the hospital that hadn’t gone out on whatever mission
they had left on was gathered in the lobby.  A feeling of
tension rippled through everyone, setting my nerves on edge. 
Seeing Tuck by the front door, I joined him.

“
What are you doing here?”
he asked, his brow furrowing as he looked at me.  “I thought
you had gone with them.”

“
It wasn’t for a lack of
trying,” I said as I looked out into the dark and silent
night.  “What’s going on?”

“
Something pulled the
power line about five hours ago,” Tuck started to explain as he
looked outside as well.  “Royce’s men and a few others went
with him to go fix it.”

“
West and Avian went with
them, didn’t they?”  I suddenly felt hollow. 

Tuck simply nodded. 
“We lost communication with everyone about two hours ago
though.  They called for Dr. Beeson to try and fix it. 
We have no idea what’s going on out there.”

I turned to see Dr. Beeson
working with a handful of other people, their movements rushed and
frantic.  As I scanned the faces that anxiously watched them,
I took strength from those I knew.  Eli stood with Morgan,
their hands clasped together, one of her hands held over her still
flat stomach.  Van held Tess tight in his arms, her eyes
reddened as if she had been crying not long ago. 

A hard rock formed in my
throat.

A crackle suddenly sounded
from the device Dr. Beeson and the others worked on.

“…
anyone there? 
Please come in…” a voice crackled through the system.

“
Yes, we’re here!” a woman
said as she took the handheld piece that was attached to the
system.  “Is everything okay?”

“
People shot…” the voice
cut out.  “…at least four dead… Get the Extractor powered
up!”

Everyone seemed to freeze
as those last words filled the room.  I felt my blood run
cold.

“
Who’s been infected?” the
woman asked, her voice sounding dead.

“…
Fallen hidden… shots
fired everywhere…” the voice continued to crackle in and out. 
“…Royce and West…  Avian… didn’t see it…”

“
Who was it?” I suddenly
said, louder than I should have.  “Who got
infected?”

They all suddenly looked
up at me, every single pair of eyes.  “I’m not sure,” Dr.
Beeson finally answered me.

I looked at the woman who
had been speaking.  “I couldn’t tell either,” she said
quietly.  No one seemed to notice how the receiver had gone
dead again.

It was pure instinct that
forced my legs to work.  I sprinted out the front glass door
into the dark night.

In that moment I finally
knew.

I knew which one I would
grieve over.  A piece of me would be missing forever if he was
gone.  A part of me would break.  But I would make it
through.

And I knew which one of
them I couldn’t live without, couldn’t take another single breath
if he were to be taken away from me.

In that moment I finally
understood what love meant.

Sarah had been right all
along.  A single moment was all it had taken.

The wind whipped through
my singed hair, my cybernetic legs pumping me faster than I’d ever
moved before.  I didn’t need to know which direction to head;
I could hear them with my enhanced ears.

Shouts and screams of
agony rose into the night air as I closed in on a block from
them.  Shots were fired and flashes of light pinpointed their
exact location.  As I rounded the corner, I raised my rifle,
firing two shots at the pair of Fallen who rushed the struggling
group from behind.  They dropped to the ground in a
heap.  One of Royce’s men raised his own gun.  For a
moment I thought he was pointing at me, until the Hunter I hadn’t
noticed creeping up on me from behind dropped to the
ground.

I didn’t even remember
feeling my feet slap the pavement as I ran toward him, my eyes
never leaving his face.  In that moment, every memory I had of
him, every second we had spent together, flashed through my
mind. 

The rest of the group
struggled to keep moving, hampered by injuries, their wounded men,
and the figure that was losing so much blood that they
carried.  I didn’t miss the fear in their eyes as they looked
at him.

I ran past West’s
infected, bleeding body, straight into Avian’s blood soaked
arms.  I threw my arms around his shoulders, crushing him into
myself, pressing my lips to his with a heat that burned me from the
inside out.  Avian’s assault rifle fell to the ground with a
clatter as he wrapped one arm around my waist, bringing his other
hand up behind my neck.  Everything about his lips, his
breathing, the way his body melted into mine left me craving
more.

There was no Fallen world
around us as I kissed Avian and he took my breath away.  There
was no infection, there were no cybernetics.  There was no
running, no fighting, no violence or death.  There was only
Avian and there was only me.

And the explosion that
came from within me.

I’d never felt the heat
from Avian that West had given me but I realized then that it had
been because I wouldn’t allow myself to seek it out until I was
sure it was Avian that I wanted and needed.

Now I was sure.

West may have made me feel
alive but he didn’t have the gravitational pull that Avian
did.  Avian was my world, my universe.  He was everything
worth living, fighting, and dying for.

“
I love you,” I whispered
against his lips as Avian consumed me, body and soul.  “It’s
you.  It’s always been you.”  And I realized then that it
was true.  I had always loved Avian, it was always him. 
I just hadn’t realized it until now.

I felt the tears as they
rolled down Avian’s cheek, his lips still moving with mine. 
“I love you, Eve.  More than anything in this
world.”

 “
We’ve got to get
out of here!” a man screamed.  As I looked back, I realized
the majority of the group had continued back to the hospital. 
Even as he said it, I raised my rifle and fired at the two Fallen
who sprinted down the street after us.  They dropped with a
clatter.

Taking Avian’s hand in
mine, I half dragged him back to the hospital with me.  I
realized then that there was blood oozing out of his left arm in
two different places and in one spot in his right thigh.

The lobby was a shifting
mess of chaos as everyone got back inside just as the sky started
to lighten.  People ran everywhere, more than one life on the
edge of being lost.  Avian and I spotted a group of men in
white coats hauling West’s twitching body into the elevator. 
We dashed for the stairs as it closed, taking them two at a
time.  Avian stumbled behind me, blood dripping onto the steel
stairs as we ascended.

We followed the shouting
as we got to the blue floor, down to the extraction room.  A
doctor ran past us, back to the stairs.  As we stepped into
the room, it all finally hit me.

West was really
infected.

“
How long ago?” I asked
quietly, squeezing Avian’s hand all the tighter.

“
Just over an hour ago, I
think,” he forced the words out.  “They kept coming at us as
we tried to make our way back.”

I squeezed my eyes closed
as a group of men and women forced West’s twitching body into the
terrible chair, clamping his wrists and ankles secure.  He
stilled for just a moment as he caught sight of me.  “Eve!” he
screamed, his eyes wide, terrified and confused.

It was then that I noticed
the metallic veins that were growing in his left eye.

West gave a blood-curdling
scream, squeezing his eyes closed as his chest surged forward, his
body held back by the bands around his wrists.  A pair of
doctors rushed back into the room and I watched horrified as they
injected something into West’s neck.  He was instantly
still.

I couldn’t look anymore as
I turned into Avian and buried my face in his chest.  I heard
the doctors fussing around, bandaging his wounds with gloved hands,
trying their best to stop West’s bleeding.

The hum of electricity
alerted everyone that the Extractor was being powered up. 
Avian took two steps away from it, pulling me with him.  My
entire system was riddled with cybernetics.  If I got too
close to that device, it would shred me to bits.

They continued to work on
and around West, the hum of the device growing louder and louder by
the moment. 

Avian suddenly stumbled,
his skin pale and clammy looking.  I realized then that there
was a pool of blood at his feet.  “Eve, I…” he didn’t finish
as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

In a strange way I felt
relief as I slung Avian across my shoulders and dashed back down
the hallway.  Earlier I might have felt torn, not knowing who
I wanted to stay with, who was more important to me.  But now
I finally knew where I needed to be.

Avian was totally limp as
I took the stairs two at a time, too impatient to wait out the slow
elevator ride down.  The sound of my feet against the tile
echoed off the walls as I ran toward the medical wing.

“
Help!” I shouted as I
neared. 

As I stepped into the
hall, I stopped, taking the scene before me in.

Avian and West weren’t the
only ones who had been shot.  Men and women were everywhere,
most of the floor covered with a slick sheet of red.  People
rushed everywhere, panicked.

“
Help him!” I shouted to
no one in particular.  Not a single eye turned in my
direction.  More blood continued to drip from Avian’s
wounds.  “He needs help!” I shouted at the closest person in
white.  He paid no attention to me.

“
Please,” I said to a
woman who rushed past me, reaching out for her arm.  She
barely glanced at me and shook her head.  “I already have
three patients.”

Anger surged in my system
and for the briefest moment, the room shifted with lines of
black.

I drew my handgun and
fired two shots into the ceiling.

Every eye in the room
turned to me and every single body froze.

I lowered the gun and
leveled it on a woman in those strange starched green
clothes.  “If you let him die I will not hesitate to kill
you.”

She swallowed hard, her
eyes twice their normal size.  She gave one nod and pointed me
towards a room.

There was already a blood
covered man in one of the beds but I didn’t really care as I laid
Avian’s limp form in the empty one.  The young woman followed
me in, her hands shaking.

“
He’s been shot,” I said,
my voice calm and even.

She simply nodded and
lifted Avian’s bleeding arm.  “There’s no exit wound. 
The bullets are still inside.  It could be a while before I
can get the instruments to get them out.”

“
It can’t wait that long,”
I said as I shook my head at her.  “He’s already lost too much
blood.  Can you sew him up?  You’re a doctor,
right?”

She shook her head. 
“I’m a nurse but I know how to suture.”

I grabbed a pair of gloves
out of one of the boxes on the wall and pulled them on. 
“We’re getting them out now.”

The nurse watched me wide
eyed as I dug my fingers into Avian’s flesh and felt for the
bullets.  I wondered if her face was just like that all the
time.  Either that or I had really shaken her up.  I
guess I had pointed a gun at her.

The bullets gave a small
ping as I dropped them in the sink.  The nurse set to
stitching his skin closed while I fished the bullet out of his
thigh.  I gave a hard swallow as I dropped the last bloody
bullet in the sink.

Once she was done with the
stitches she left the room for a moment and came back with a bag of
blood.  “He needs a transfusion,” she said as she punctured
Avian’s skin and the blood started mixing with his own.  I
didn’t like the idea of some stranger’s blood mixing with
his.

The soldier in the bed
next to us limped out of the room, eyeing me as he walked by.
 “I would have done the same thing if it had been my wife
bleeding to death,” he said as he met my eyes.  I managed to
give him a half smile as he walked out the door.