Eden (18 page)

I worked my hand into my
pocket, the metal rods sizzling my skin as it shocked me over and
over.  My arm felt ridged as they forced the muscles in it to
clench up.  With every ounce of strength I had, I forced my
arm to move.  I jammed the rods into the Hunters eye with
everything I had.

Even though I knew it
couldn’t feel pain, the Hunter jerked away, its hands reaching up
to its injured eye.  It was just enough for me to wiggle my
hand free and pull my handgun out and blast its head
open.

At the same time, another
shot was fired from behind me, hitting the Hunter square in the
chest.

I fell back to the ground,
my breath coming in sharp gasps.  The Hunter collapsed to the
earth with a sharp hiss of electric death, its form falling
still.  I stared up at the sky as it turned blood red and
tried to steady my breathing.

“
Eve!” West yelled as he
half fell to my side.  “Are you alright?”

I was about to say yes
when I raised my hand to look at it, the one I had grabbed the rods
with.  The skin of my fingers had been burned away, muscle,
bone, and metallic parts gleaming in the fading light.

“
Holy…” I breathed as I
took it in.  There was the proof.  It was more than just
the chip that was cybernetic about me.

“
Come on,” West said as he
yanked me to my feet.  “We’ve got to get Graye to Avian. 
Whatever those things were, they burned some nice sized holes into
his chest.”

I stumbled to my feet and
back toward Graye.  The Hunter had had a clear shot at
him.  I then realized Graye was in my area of patrol.  He
had been looking for me when he had been shot.  I should have
seen the Hunter coming.  Instead I had been up a tree, getting
close and personal with West.

Graye’s form was limp as I
picked him up and slung him across my shoulders.  I didn’t
miss the baffled look that filled West’s face as he watched
me.  We were both running through the forest moments later,
desperation propelling us faster and faster.

“
Avian!” West started
shouting as we reached the edge of the tents. 
“Avian!”

We barreled into the
clearing and ran straight for the medical tent.  Avian burst
out of his tent, stepping aside when he saw my load, and followed
us in.

“
A Hunter shot him with
these electric rods,” I explained as I laid Graye’s still form on
the table.  “They hurt.”

Avian grabbed a piece of
medical equipment and pressed it to Graye’s chest, listening to the
other end.  “He’s still breathing but his heart beat is
erratic.  How long where they in him?”  Avian started
compressions to Graye’s chest.

“
Not more than fifteen
seconds.  I wasn’t far away,” I paced the small space of the
tent, passing West as he stood in one corner, watching Graye as
Avian worked on him.

“
The Hunter?” Avian huffed
as he worked on Graye.  He stopped and listened to Graye’s
chest again.

“
I killed it,” I said
through clenched teeth.  “I don’t know if there are any more
though.”

“
You’ve got to get back
out there,” Avian said as he ripped away the remains of Graye’s
shirt, exposing the burned flesh underneath.  “You’ve got to
check.”

“
Come on,” I said to West,
stepping out of the tent.  Gabriel and Bill came running up to
us just as we exited.

“
Is Graye with you?” Bill
asked as he stopped before us.  “I couldn’t find
him.”

“
A Hunter shot him,” I
said, feeling anxiety, knowing we were wasting time.  “Avian’s
taking care of him.  We’ve got to go check for more of them
though.”

Bill nodded and the three
of us ran back into the trees without another word to Gabriel or
anyone else.

“
How much ammo do you
have?” I asked Bill as we jogged through the trees.

“
Two mags and a
pocketful,” Bill answered as his eyes scanned the trees.

“
West?” I asked as I
checked the chamber of my own hand gun, replacing the bullet I had
used on the Hunter.

“
Full mag,” he replied as
he checked it.  “Nothing extra though.”

“
Here.”  I shoved a
handful of bullets into his hand, pulling them out of my
pocket.

I pressed faster back to
where I had found Graye and the Hunter, West and Bill quickly
falling behind me.  I smelled at the air.  The scent of
the Hunter I had killed wafted through the air, undetectable to
anyone but me, I was sure.  I quickly passed its body,
following the path it had created through the grass and
undergrowth. 

I ran another half mile
before I saw it.

I froze beneath a low
tree, jumping behind it as it came into view.  My ears
searched for any hints of an attack.  When I found none, I
turned my eyes back to the mechanical beast before me.

I’d never seen a
helicopter so close before.  It looked like an oversized
mechanical bug, its blades still and less threatening
looking.  It was hard to believe the machine could be so
silent.  It was a piece of raw, powerful destruction when it
was flying.

But if there was a
helicopter here, that meant there was more than one Hunter. 
They always flew in pairs.

By this point Bill and
West had finally caught up to me, huffing as they came to my
side.

“
A chopper?” Bill said as
he crouched at my side, a gun in one hand, his finger on the
trigger.  “Then there’s another one out there.”

We each scanned the trees,
our senses strained and ready to spring. 

“
Stay close,” I said as I
started west, heading in the opposite direction we had just come
from.  “If you can’t shoot it, run.  Let me take care of
it.”

They followed silently as
we came to the other side of the helicopter.  A clear trail
led in the exact opposite direction the other had gone.  They
had split up to cover more ground.  The Fallen didn’t bother
to cover up their trails.  They had nothing to be afraid of,
no one to hide from.

We followed the trail for
two miles, seeing no traces of the Hunter other than his
footsteps. 

“
You think it doubled
back?” Bill whispered, his gun still raised, finger on the trigger,
the same as West and I.

“
We would have seen it by
now,” I said quietly in response.  And just as soon as I said
it the trail ended.  The small patches of grass that had been
smashed by its weight suddenly disappeared.  I glanced up, my
eyes searching.

“
It went up,” I said, my
eyes tracing the path it had taken through the trees.  There
wasn’t much to see.  “It could be anywhere now.”

“
Maybe we should split
up,” West said, his breathing betraying his nerves.

“
Bad idea,” I said
quietly.  “They can’t infect me.  You wander on your own
and what’s going to be your barrier?”

“
I’d prefer it not have to
be you,” he said quietly.

As I registered West’s
words I also heard the snap come from behind us.  “Get down!”
I screamed as I whipped around, pushing both Bill and West to the
ground.  Half a second later the Hunter fired, the bullet
grazing the side of my thigh.  I stumbled, half falling on top
of Bill.

I had just gotten back to
my feet when it started sprinting towards us.  Every muscle in
my body flexed as I sprang and hurtled myself at the
Hunter.

We crashed to the ground,
a mere ten feet from Bill and West.  I clung to its shoulder
with one hand, beating at the back of its head with the butt of my
gun with the other.  With one hand, it reached back, grabbed
me by the back of my neck, and slammed me to the ground.

My hands flung out,
grabbing its ankle as it started toward the others, and dropped it
to the ground.  It turned its empty eyes on me, coiling its
leg for a crushing kick to my face I barely managed to avoid. 
Two shots were suddenly fired, both barely missing the Hunter and
myself.

Undeterred by my efforts,
it turned its focus back to West and Bill. 

“
No!” I screamed as I
leapt back up and jumped onto its back.  “Get away from
them!”

And then something I
couldn’t explain happened.  The Hunter froze, me still
clinging to its frame, and then took two steps back.  And then
it stood there, staring out at nothing.  Before it could do
anything else, I scrambled off its back, drew my gun again and
blasted a hole in the back of its head.  It collapsed to the
ground in a heap.

And then I buckled, caving
in on my right leg.  It didn’t hurt, but apparently it wasn’t
going to hold my weight anymore.

West and Bill were
instantly at my side.  “How’d you do that?” Bill
demanded.  “It listened to you.”

“
What are you talking
about?” I huffed as they each grabbed one of my arms and helped me
to my feet, supporting my weight for me.

“
You told it to get away
from us,” West filled in for Bill.  “And then it stopped and
backed away.”

Adrenaline was still
pumping through my system, making everything seem like a blur in my
head.  “Why would it listen to me?”

“
Maybe because you’re
partly like them,” West said as we scrambled through the
trees. 

“
Whatever just happened,
let’s just get out of here,” Bill said as his eyes stared intently
at the path we had just come down.  “We’ve got to get you to
Avian.”

FIFTEEN

I limped out of the
medical tent, cursing under my breath.

There wasn’t much Avian
could do for my leg.  I had tried to tell Bill and West
that.  He had simply wrapped the wound and sent me out,
turning his attention back to Graye.  He was still unconscious
and Avian was having to pound on his heart every so often to keep
it beating normally.

“
Eve,” West called as I
headed in the direction of my tent.  “Are you
alright?”

“
Leave me alone, West,” I
said as I shook my head.  I refused to look at him as I kept
on my path.

“
What?” he asked, his
voice sounding taken aback.  “What did I do?”

I just shook my head, my
jaw clenching together.  Something boiled under my skin. 
He’d better do as I said or he was going to be the victim of an
explosion.

“
Eve,” he said as he
followed me, his voice becoming more insistent.  “Eve! 
Look at me!”

“
Seriously West, leave me
alone.”

His hand grabbed my wrist,
pulling me to a stop.  I whipped around to face him, my hand
rising, the cybernetic parts gleaming in the light.  I barely
registered the shock in West’s face before I stopped myself. 
I’d been about to connect my fist with his jaw.

“
What’s going on, Eve?” he
asked, his brow furrowing, his eyes searching mine.  “What did
I do?”

That’s when I finally
erupted.

“
I can’t be around you
like this!” I cried, not even looking around to make sure no one
else was listening.  “Yes, you make me feel things, but you
also distract me so much I can’t even do my job!  It was my
fault Graye got hurt.  He was looking for me and where was
I?  Up a tree kissing you!  He could have been
killed!  If I had been five seconds later getting to him, he
would have been infected!

“
I can’t do this,
West.  I can’t keep getting distracted.  I can’t feel
things that the rest of you are supposed to feel.  People will
get killed if I do.”

He stared at me, hurt and
anger creeping into his eyes.  When he didn’t say anything, I
looked away.  A few people had stopped what they were doing to
watch us.  My stomach dropped out as I realized Avian had
stepped out of his tent and was watching our heated
scene.

“
That goes for you too,
Avian,” I said just loud enough he would be able to hear. 
Looking back at the rest of the people who had been watching, I
felt my skin boil again.  “What are you all looking at?” I
snapped.  Before anyone could say anything, I took off in the
direction of my tent.

I shut it all off and kept
away from everyone.

After talking to Gabriel,
I got myself on scouting duty every day, trading out my gardening
hours.  He didn’t fight me like I had expected but then again,
he had heard my outburst and he knew what I had said was
true.  I couldn’t afford to be distracted. 

I also took over all of
Graye’s night watch duties.  Without Gabriel’s knowledge, I
took over everyone else’s as well.  There were two
reasons.  One, it made it possible to avoid Avian and West
even more, and two, I didn’t really trust anyone to guard as well
as I could.  Given recent events, we had to be more careful
than ever. 

Between scouting duty in
the morning and watch at night, I simply slept the rest of the
time.  I blocked out the noise and light around me and shut
myself down.  It wasn’t hard, with everything I was doing I
was actually feeling exhausted.  I was finally finding my
limits.

Gabriel had thought about
moving Eden again after what had happened with Graye but Avian and
I had talked him out of it.  It was the only time I let myself
be around him since that ugly day.  It was obvious the Hunters
were getting more aggressive.  There wasn’t far for us to go
without getting too far away from water and the gardens.  We
were just going to have to fight them off if they continued to
come.  Plus, we were never going to find a better location
than the one we were already at.