Escape from Eden (36 page)

“Liar,” he said. “You’re not okay.”

“No, I’m not,” I said as I got to my feet again. “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay.”

He looked out over the pavilion. “Me neither.”

A few men I didn’t recognize lay on the floor, injured, but the ones who had survived had fled. Now, from high on the stage, I picked out some of the faces of the dead. Juanita’s mother. Mama’s cottage mate, Jin Sang. Two children would be motherless. I glanced around. More than two.

I saw Edgar in the distance and a flood of people behind him, rushing toward the pavilion. Each wore green-and-brown camouflage clothing, and they were armed with guns. Some, though, held white boxes with red crosses painted on the side.

They’d come. Too late.

When Edgar reached the entrance of the pavilion, he stopped cold. “Dear God,” he said, and I looked out again at the bodies.

Bloodied weapons littered the floor. Bridgette and Dina, shock in their wide eyes, picked their way to Aliyah, who had slid down the post and sat sobbing in her hands. Then members of the network swooped in behind Edgar and immediately began tending to the wounded, as if they’d expected to find the Flock dead or injured.

Edgar made his way around the perimeter of the pavilion and caught sight of us onstage. He climbed the steps.

“We tried to get here sooner,” he said as he approached, “but we got lost in the tunnels.” He shook his head. “What in God’s name happened?”

I couldn’t think about it. I didn’t want to relive it. Not now, not ever.

“In God’s name … ” Gabriel repeated. He took Edgar aside and explained what he could in a low voice. I tried not to listen.

When a helicopter swooped overhead, I ducked, even though we were covered by the roof of the pavilion. I must have said something because suddenly Gabriel was at my side, Edgar rushing over behind him.

“It’s ours,” Edgar said. “We’re bringing medics in to airlift out the wounded.”

Immediately, my thoughts went to Juanita.

“Aliyah!” I called.

She lifted her face from her hands and looked up at me. Dina sat next to her, her arm wrapped around Aliyah’s shoulders, rocking gently. Bridgette stood above them, staring down at her own hands as if she’d never seen them before.

“Juanita?” was all I needed to say.

“She’s okay,” Aliyah said in a shaky voice. “I found Nurse Ivy lying on the ground outside our cottage a few minutes ago.” Her haunted gaze drifted around the pavilion. “She looks dead. So I ran here to find you and …”

Juanita wasn’t dead. But so many others were. I glanced down at the Reverend’s body, bloated and still. A sick sense of relief hit me, relief at the lifeless way his arms sprawled out at his sides, how his leg twisted up next to him in a freakish angle. He was dead and couldn’t hurt us anymore.

Screams sounded through Edenton. At first, it sounded like the squeals of the children in the play yard, but the screams became piercing. Panicked.

“The schoolhouse,” I said to Gabriel, then turned to Edgar. “The schoolhouse! The Reverend sent the children to the schoolhouse.”

I bolted down the stage steps two at a time, pain jolting through me with every step. Just as quickly as the screams rose up in the silence, they stopped. When I got to the doors of the schoolhouse, Gabriel was already there. He rammed his shoulder against the double doors, but they were locked. He tried to kick them open, but they held firm.

“Wait,” I said to him and listened at the doors for a moment before yelling, “Mama! What’s happening?”

No answer.

“Mama!” I said, pounding on the door.

Edgar came up beside me. “Stand back,” he said, pulling out his gun. “Get away from the doors,” he called loudly. “I have a gun! Get the children away!”

Still, there was no sound on the other side.

Edgar shot the lock at a downward angle. Wood splintered into the air, and the lock dropped away. He pried the doors apart, dashing in first, gun pointed ahead of him. And froze. Gabriel and I followed, and the room came into view.

Grizz stood at the far end of the schoolhouse, holding his gun. The children huddled together in front of him, Mama shielding as many as she could with her body, including Max, but there were too many to protect.

“Eugene!” Edgar called.

Grizz, with a shocked stare, turned and met his brother’s eyes. A wave of recognition passed between them. Then Grizz looked back at the children and aimed his gun.

“Eugene, stop,” Edgar said. “This isn’t you.”

“This isn’t me?” Grizz asked, eyes glittering with tears. “You don’t know me anymore.”

“I know you wouldn’t do this.”

Edgar motioned to the children. Max, arms curled around Mama’s leg, silently sobbed. I couldn’t stand to watch Max cry.

“I’m going to the nursery after I’m done here,” Grizz said, and hiccupped a sad laugh. “The nursery. The Reverend wants me to shoot the babies.”

“The Reverend is dead,” I said. “He doesn’t give orders anymore.”

Grizz laughed again, but this time the brimming tears in his eyes spilled down his face. “You think the Reverend gives the orders?” He kept the gun focused on the children.

“Who gives the orders, Eugene?” Edgar asked.

“Will you stop calling me that?” Grizz yelled at his brother.

“Then who?”

“Thaddeus, okay? Thaddeus gives the orders.” His eyes flicked to Edgar. “The Reverend is a joke! He’s done whatever Thaddeus told him to do for years!” Grizz squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. “Why are you here? You abandoned me,” Grizz said to Edgar.

“They sent us to different foster homes,” Edgar said, keeping his gun trained on Grizz. “How could we stay together?”

Grizz began to weep openly, gun still focused on the children. The kids stood motionless, staring at his gun.

“Thaddeus told me I had to kill them,” he sobbed, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt.

Edgar approached him slowly. “Eugene—”

“My name is Grizz!”

“I’ll never call you that,” Edgar said. “I’d never call you a name not given to you by our mother.”

I saw Grizz buckle at that, like he’d been punched in the stomach. But he straightened his back once the emotion faded. And aimed his gun again.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Gabriel said to Grizz. “Your brother is here. Your brother! He’s here in Edenton to take you home. And you’re following Thaddeus’s orders? What’s the point now?”

“It’s what I do. Follow orders.”

Was that what Grizz had become? Nothing more than an attack dog for Thaddeus, acting at his command?

“When was the last time you saw your brother?” I asked Grizz softly.

Grizz paused, genuinely thinking about the question. “Almost ten years ago.”

“Ten years,” Gabriel said, coming around to face Grizz and the gun. “I haven’t seen my own brother for about that long. But my brother is dead. Yours is alive, well, and right here.”

Grizz nodded, once. “Out of the way, Gabriel.”

But Gabriel didn’t move.

I glanced at the children. Some looked confused and lost. Others wept. And Max, so little for his age, would remember this moment forever. Whether he wanted to or not.

“What about my brother, Grizz?” I asked in a whisper, eyes fixed on Max. “Don’t take him away from me.”

Max looked up and called my name, as if he’d just realized I was there. Mama mumbled what sounded like a prayer with her eyes squeezed shut. Her arms were stretched wide across the children she protected behind her.

“Dammit, Grizz!” Gabriel yelled. “You have a brother! He’s right here. Standing beside you.” His eyes flicked to Edgar and back to Grizz. “Granted, he has a gun pointed at you, but still, he’s here, because of you. You know what I’d give to have my brother back?”

“Grizz, please,” I pleaded. “Please don’t take my family away from me. You’ve protected us for so long. Whenever I saw you, Grizz, I felt safe. Don’t turn against us. We’ve always trusted you. These kids are innocent. They haven’t done anything to go against the Reverend–or Thaddeus.” I paused a moment, then whispered, “Please.”

Very slowly, Grizz lowered the gun.

Gabriel swiped it from his hands.

Seconds later, Mama and Max were in my arms.

The fading sunlight peeked its way through the frosted window of my room. I traced the glass with my finger, wanting to wipe away the opaque film, but it was permanent. Bitter, icy air seeped through the casement, causing my skin to lift into tiny bumps, even though I wore a fleece sweatshirt. I’d never felt this kind of cold before.

“Hello,” Dr. Haarland said in her sharp Eastern European accent. I turned from the window and saw her standing in the doorway. Her unnaturally red hair was pulled away from her face, so unlike the picture on her ID badge hanging from her neck. Below the Elysian Peak Hospital insignia, her photo showed her hair loose and flowing over her shoulders in blond waves.

Her icy eyes flicked to the small, untouched tray of pills next to my bed. “No sleep for you, I see.”

“No,” I said. “I’m feeling better, though.”

I’d been refusing drugs since the network had morphed the pavilion into a makeshift first-aid center. Even when they’d loaded us on busses to transport us to the airstrip near Edenton, I didn’t take my meds for the bumpy ride.

“What about sleeping?” she said as she walked into the room. She grazed her finger over the screen in her hand and it flared to life. “Any issues?”

I shook my head, even though I couldn’t sleep, and perched on the wide windowsill. A chilly draft hit the back of my neck. I reached back and took my hair out of its ponytail, letting the thick brown strands block the cold air.

“I’d like to take a look at the wound on the side of your neck.” She placed her flat computer on my bed. It was like the one Edgar used to control the telescope, only bigger. “May I?”

I said “Yes” and she peeled away the bandage. She gave a curt nod.

“Dinner service is ending soon,” she said after replacing the tape on my neck. “Will you be joining the others in the cafeteria or taking it in your room?”

Since arriving two days ago, I’d eaten meals in my room, feeling too jumpy to leave. They’d put me in a small, comfortable room with a soft bed but no view. I couldn’t complain. We were all someplace safe, out of Edenton, being taken care of by a devoted team of doctors and nurses.

“I’ll go to the cafeteria,” I said.

“Very well, I’ll let the nurses’ station know,” Dr. Haarland said.

With a smile on her fuchsia lips she left my room. The door drifted closed behind her.

I washed my face and pulled my hair back. Then I stepped out into a hallway that was long and artificially bright. My soft-soled slippers made no sound on the tiled floor. My room was at the far end of the hall that had become the women’s wing. I’d ventured out only once, to find Juanita, but was told she was in another part of the hospital for more critically injured patients. Mama had come to see me, as had Aliyah.

Gabriel hadn’t, though.

I found Aliyah’s room a few doors down from mine and knocked. There was no answer.

“Aliyah is in therapy,” a nurse said as she passed. She looked down at the little device in her hand. “She’ll be through in about forty-five minutes if you’d like to come back.”

I nodded and thanked her, trying to remember what injuries Aliyah sustained. I couldn’t recall any physical ones.

By the time I’d made my way to the cafeteria on the first floor, many people were finished with dinner, draining out through the double swinging doors. It was hard not to spot Freddie, who stood at least a head taller than the others. Bridgette was latched onto his arm, her head leaning on his bicep. Dina, still Bridgette’s shadow, smiled at me as I passed and I returned her smile, happy to see someone without a dazed look in her eyes.

Windows lined one side of the cafeteria. The bottom half of the glass was opaque, like the window in my room. An indigo sky was visible through the clear glass top, touched by wispy lavender clouds. Round tables were scattered over the polished concrete floor. Uniformed hospital workers arranged chairs neatly.

Mama sat at one of those tables, with Max. When she saw me, she stood. Despite all we’d been through, the smile that lit her face caused my heart to expand a little in my chest.

“Hi, Mia,” Max said, shoveling chocolate pudding into his mouth. Two empty bowls sat next to him on the table, both swirled inside with smudges of chocolate.

Mama took my hand and led me to the seat next to her. “I’m so happy to see you down here,” she said.

I was glad to see her, too. My resentment had faded over the past few days, and I was left with a simple, uncomplicated love for Mama. “I needed to get out for a while.”

She gave me a small smile and took my hand. “Good. Do you want me to get you some food?”

I said, “I can get it.”

“No, no. You sit.” Her gaze lifted above my head to the far corner of the cafeteria. “There’s someone who has been waiting to talk to you.”

I followed her line of sight. Gabriel sat at a table in a darkened corner of the room. His parents sat on the opposite side of the table, his mother smiling fondly at him. The left side of her face was bandaged. I’d heard his parents had survived the Flock’s fight by escaping the pavilion, but not before searching the crowd for Gabriel. His mother had been knocked unconscious and Gabriel’s dad had dragged her out of the pavilion.

They spoke quietly. Mama raised her hand, catching Gabriel’s mom’s attention. His mom touched Gabriel’s arm and he looked up at her in pleasant confusion. She tilted her head at me. When our eyes met across the room, I watched Gabriel’s expression change. The curious smile on his face shifted to something harder.

“Are you sure he wants to talk?” I asked Mama. “He doesn’t look very happy to see me.”

Mama stood. “I’m sure. Come on, Max.” She held out her hand to my little brother. “I’ll get you some more pudding.”

Max lifted the bowl to his mouth and licked the inside.

With the exception of the workers straightening chairs, we were the only ones in the big room. Gabriel’s parents seemed to get some kind of hint from Mama, because they left the cafeteria, too.