Eden (7 page)

“
Brady, stay here!”
Victoria said, her voice slightly alarmed sounding.

I paused, feeling awkward
just walking away, but not knowing what to say to this person I
didn’t know.

“
I’m sorry if he startled
you,” she said apologetically as she grabbed Brady’s hand and
pulled him back to her side.  “He’s restless after sitting
still.  We’ve been running so long, he’s not sure what to do
with himself now.”

“
He’s an active boy,” I
tried to make conversation.  “He needs that to be a
survivor.”

Victoria only gave a
nod.  “He’s a good man you know,” she said, her voice dropping
a bit.  “I mean West.  We wouldn’t have survived out
there without him.”

I stiffened as West was
brought up.  Was my hesitancy about him so obvious? 
Feeling the awkwardness double, I gave a nod and continued on to my
tent.

That night, after the rest
of the bear had been retrieved and the rest of the food had been
cleared away, the stars started to wink into the sky.  I sat
beside the fire in front of my tent, staring into the flames. 
The heat warmed my skin, but the night air hadn’t chilled me. 
I rarely felt cold.

I had avoided Avian all
day.  I didn’t know how I was going to react to him when I had
to face him.  What he had asked Graye to do was stupid. 
I didn’t need the necklace.  It was just a silly little
thing.  It wasn’t going to help me survive, or anyone
else.  Why had he bothered?

My chest tightened as I
thought of Tye.  He often joined me in my solitude, if he
would leave his post.  We shared that.  Neither of us
liked having to take time away from our duties.  There were
nights we would both sit here, staring into the flames in silence,
wishing we could be scouting the woods, or keeping watch in the
tower.  Now he was gone, nothing but a pile of ashes thrown
into the wind.

The ground crunched as
someone walked toward me.  I didn’t look up from the flames,
not really caring who it was that joined me.  We sat in the
darkening silence, two people lost in their own minds.

“
Did you know that the
Hunters are the only ones that do anything?”  Somehow I wasn’t
surprised when it was West’s voice that spoke quietly through the
dark.  I glanced up.  His silhouette faced the flames,
earthy eyes watching the fire.  “I saw them once.  The
rest of the Fallen.  Just standing there, lined up inside the
crumbling buildings.  Like they were waiting for
something.”

A shiver worked its way
from my stomach out as I heard his words.  “Waiting for
what?”

“
I don’t know,” he said
quietly.

It was a terrifying
thought, one I couldn’t dwell on.  “She said you saved them,”
I said to the flames. 

He didn’t say
anything.

“
I’m sorry I’ve been so
cold to you.  I don’t trust people easily.”

He was quiet for a few
moments.  He shifted positions, sitting forward, his forearms
resting on his knees.  “He’s her son, you know. 
Brady.”

I wasn’t completely
surprised by this.  Part of me had assumed he was but when I
thought of how old Brady was and how young Victoria looked, the
numbers didn’t add up.

“
Victoria was fifteen when
she was raped.  A man forced himself on her just after she
escaped the city.  She joined our camp when Brady was only
fourteen months old.  He’s four now and she’s only
nineteen.  She’s only a few months older than I
am.”

I shook my head, disgust
filling my stomach. 

“
Does she mean anything to
you?”  My blunt question startled even me.  I didn’t know
where it had come from.

West glanced over at me
for the briefest moment, his brow furrowed.  “Victoria is a
good person.  But she’s just someone who needed help.  I
couldn’t not help her.”

My eyes remained glued to
the flames, I couldn’t think of anything to say.  Conversation
was something I wasn’t good at.  I was good at most of the
things I did but talking wasn’t one of them. 

I noticed West check
something in the inside pocket of his jacket, securing it like it
was something precious.

West kept secrets. 
Secrets could be dangerous but weren’t we each entitled to
them?

SIX

The next morning started
in a rush of panic.  I was woken in the early hours of the
morning to the sound of Sarah’s wheezing coughs.  I tried to
ignore it at first as I stared up at the black ceiling of the
tent.  As the sound of her coughing intensified I rolled onto
my side to face her.

“
Sarah, are you alright?”
I asked quietly through the dark.

She didn’t answer me but
her coughing had paused.  It took me two full seconds before I
realized what had happened, why she was suddenly so deathly
quiet.  She had stopped breathing.

“
Sarah!” I said in a
panicked whisper.  I was out of my bed and across the tent in
less than a second.  Through the dim morning light I could see
that Sarah’s skin was covered in sweat and her eyes looked sunken,
her lips the wrong color.  Without another second’s
hesitation, I scooped her up in my arms and barreled out the door
of the tent.

The sound of my footsteps
fell flat against the sides of the silent tents as I ran through
Eden.  A thick fog had settled around us, lessening my
visibility.  I could have made my way through camp blindfolded
though. 

Sarah’s head jostled
around as I ran with her in my arms.  Her eyes slid partially
open.  They were rolled into the back of her head, looking
frighteningly gray.  She still wasn’t breathing and her lips
were turning an ugly shade of purple.

“
Avian!” I cried as I
neared his tent.  “Avian!  Wake up!”

I didn’t even hesitate as
I plowed through the flaps of the tent and stumbled inside. 
My arms shook as Sarah’s body limply lay in my arms.  “Avian,
wake up!”

He jerked up from his cot
on the ground, his eyes wide but unfocused with sleep.  “What…
Eve…?”

“
Sarah!” I cried,
frustrated that he didn’t understand what was going on
already.  “She’s not breathing!”

This seemed to finally
shake the sleep from his brain as he jumped to his feet, taking
Sarah from my arms and laying her on his cot.  He held his
fingers to her neck, sitting quiet for a moment.

“
She was coughing and then
all the sudden she stopped breathing,” I explained as I watched him
put his ear to her chest.

“
Run to the medical tent,
grab my kit,” he said, his eyes wide with fear and
adrenaline.

I didn’t hesitate as I
dashed out of the tent and sprinted for the infirmary.  People
were poking their heads out of their tents, wondering what was
going on, what all the shouting was about.  I ignored them and
slipped inside the white tent.  It only took me a moment to
find the black, hard-sided kit.  It frightened me that he
needed it.  He only used the items within it when things were
really bad.

It took me all of ten
seconds to get back to Avian’s tent.  By this point a few
people were standing outside, confusion and sleep filling their
faces.

When I stepped back
inside, I found Avian doing chest compressions and breathing air
into Sarah’s mouth.  I handed the kit to him and stepped
back.  Seeing people like this made me want to run away. 
It was never a good thing when someone had to see Avian.

He opened the kit and took
a syringe out.  He pulled the cap off and plunged the needle
into her chest.  Sitting back on his heels, he watched
her.

A few seconds later, Sarah
took a gasping breath, her eyes opening wide with panic.  They
tried to focus on what she was seeing but instead they just rolled
back into her head before she fell back against the bed.  I
could tell she was unconscious but she was still breathing and the
color was quickly coming back to her face.

Avian sat back on his
heels, his fist pressed into his pursed lips.  It frightened
me to look into his eyes.  Avian was always so calm when it
came to things like this.  He always knew what to do.  I
hadn’t seen him look like this since he had to end Tye’s
life.

“
What’s wrong with her?” I
asked, my throat feeling tight.

He just shook his head,
not saying anything for agonizing seconds.  I wondered if he
didn’t dare speak yet.  There were emotions just under the
surface that were threatening to explode.

The flap of Avian’s tent
was opened and in stepped Gabriel, West silently following behind
him.

“
Sarah’s sick,” I said
hoarsely, saving Avian from having to speak.  “She stopped
breathing but Avian helped her.”

Gabriel gave a simple nod,
his eyes fixed on Sarah.  My eyes slid to West, his own
meeting mine.  They were reserved but I was surprised at the
concern that I saw there. 

“
Are you okay?” he asked
quietly as Gabriel ducked out of the tent.

“
Me?” I questioned. 
“I’m fine.  Why?”

West just shook his head,
then looked to Avian.  “Is there anything I can do to help?”
he asked, his voice sincere.

Avian gave a sniff,
finally seeming to jerk out of his state of shock.  “You can
help me move her to the medical tent.”

Each of them grabbed an
end of the blanket Sarah was lying on, and being very careful not
to jostle her, carried her from one tent to the other.  By
this time, most people had woken up.  They watched with fear
as she was transported to the medical tent.  I knew what they
were all thinking.  We had just lost someone.  We
couldn’t deal with that again, not so soon after.

The men laid Sarah softly
on the examination table though I didn’t think it was
necessary.  Sarah was still completely out.  She wouldn’t
feel anything.  I helped Avian place pillows around her in a
vain attempt to make her more comfortable.

“
Eve,” I was slightly
startled when I heard Graye’s voice from the entrance.  “We
need to be leaving for scouting duty.  We’re already
late.”

I looked from his face to
Sarah’s still form.  I wasn’t one to shirk my duties,
ever.  But how could I leave her right now?

“
I’ll go in her place,”
West spoke up.  “I still haven’t been assigned an official
scouting party.”  I then realized he had been watching my
face.  His eyes connected with mine for a brief moment. 
I couldn’t make the words “thank you” form on my lips for some
reason, but I hoped he felt my gratitude anyway.

Graye nodded once, and
West followed him silently.

Avian had grabbed an array
of well used but meticulously cared for medical equipment.  He
placed an instrument on her chest and was listening.  Next he
pressed his fingers to her wrist, checking it to the one watch that
existed in Eden.  He wrote a few notes down.

“
What’s wrong with her
Avian?” I asked again, standing along the edge of the tent, unsure
of what to do with myself.

“
I think she had some kind
of allergic reaction.  The pollen is really bad this time of
year.  She just wasn’t able to handle it.”

“
That sure seemed a lot
worse than just an allergy attack.”

Avian couldn’t quite meet
my eyes as he pursed his lips and gave the tiniest of
nods.

“
Is she going to be
okay?”

He didn’t answer right
away.  His hesitation made my stomach clench.  “We’ll
have to keep her indoors, probably for a few weeks till the air
clears.  It would help if it would rain.  There isn’t
going to be much I can do for her.”

“
But if she stops
breathing again, you have more of those shots?”

“
It was just adrenaline,”
he said as he sat on one of the stumps we used as seats.  “I
have two more now.”

I couldn’t decide if two
sounded like a lot or nothing at all.  Avian used those shots
for several things.  Terrif’s heart had stopped once and
Avian’s shots had got it started again.  But what if something
like that happened again?  We’d be down to only one. 
What if Sarah stopped breathing again?  What if it happened
more than once?

“
I’m going to go get us
some food,” I said suddenly, ducking out of the tent without saying
anything else.  I didn’t like the feeling that was flooding
through me as all the questions I didn’t have any answers to ran
though my head.

The scent of freshly baked
bread wafted through the air as I made my way to the ovens. 
Half a dozen other people were flocked around the kitchen.  A
few women handed out the rolls.  Another man was scooping a
steaming mush into bowls and handing them to people.

As I stepped up to take
Avian and I’s portions, everyone’s eyes grew a little
wider. 

“
Eve, is she okay? 
Is Sarah alright?  What did Avian say?”  I was bombarded
with their questions.  It didn’t take long for news to travel
in Eden.

“
Avian thinks it was an
allergy attack.  She stopped breathing for a minute this
morning.  That’s all I know.”