Eden (33 page)

West didn’t seem to have
anything to say in response to that.

“
Don’t think you’ve won
this,” Avian said quietly. 

“
I know I haven’t!” West
nearly shouted, his voice cracking.  “I see every look she
gives you, like you’re the center of her entire world.  She
trusts you so much I can’t even comprehend it!  I hate every
time I see her slip her hand into yours, the way she looks more
human and more at home than I have ever seen her than when she’s
with you.

“
But I know the way
I
make her feel when she
is with
me
. 
I’ve never seen that intensity between the two of you.  I make
her feel alive in a way you haven’t.”

“
Not yet,” Avian said
quietly.

I couldn’t take anymore
then.  This had to end between them, right now, even if I
hadn’t made my final decision. 

I got to my feet and
stepped out of the tent and was around it the next second
later.

“
Stop it!” I yelled louder
than I had meant to.  “Stop it, both of you!”

Their faces filled with
surprise and mixes of shame and embarrassment, knowing they had
been caught and overheard.

“
I am not some
prize
,” I said through
clenched teeth.  “This is not a war to be won.  I know
I’ve made a mess of things and I intend to clean it up.  But I
can’t do it, knowing that at any moment things are going to explode
between the two of you.  So grow up and get back to what
you’re supposed to be doing.  Protecting Eden.”

Before either of them
could respond, I walked off.

I felt like my blood was
boiling.  What was their problem?  Was I nothing more
than a prize?  When had this become a competition between
them?

Maybe I wouldn’t pick
either of them just to teach them a lesson.

If only it could be that
easy.

The rest of the day passed
painfully slow.  There was so little to do and I could only
pace our twenty yard perimeter so many times.  We all sat
around, awkward silences running rampant, just waiting for the sun
to fall into the west.

But in the reliability of
nature it finally did.  We loaded up onto the trailer and kept
along our route.

I watched Morgan as she
started falling asleep in the cabin of the truck.  What a
terrifying thing, to have this other life growing inside of you,
knowing it counted on you for every little thing.  She had to
be so careful, to not do anything to upset the balance of its
growth.  And she was now all the more tied to Eli.  They
had created a brand new life between them.  That was pretty
amazing.

Could I be so tied to
someone?  Not in the way of having children together, I was
almost positive that it was not possible for me to have children at
all, what with my partially steel interior.  But that kind of
a connection.  Could I handle being so close to someone, to
let them into my life like that?

I glanced down at West,
supposedly asleep.  I tried to imagine a life with him, of
committing myself to him.  Would it be a lifetime of feeling
alive, of living in the fire we created?  Or would it turn out
to be a life filled with distrust?  Of constant arguments
where I couldn’t hardly stand to look at him?  And was Avian
right?  Was I going to be putting everyone at risk by being
with him?  What if being with West meant that I lost
myself?

I let my eyes quickly
glance to Avian where he sat poised with his rifle at the front of
the trailer.  What about a life with Avian?  Would life
be so different?  We would share a tent, never have another
awkward moment of wondering who to sit by at nights, at
dinner.  But how would things change?  How could Avian
make me feel?  Being with him like that?

I didn’t think I could
find out unless I was certain it was him that I was going to
choose.  I couldn’t do that to him.

My chest suddenly ached
for Sarah.  I wanted to talk to her, to tell her every little
thing I was feeling and let her analyze them all for me.  I
wanted someone to help me figure this out.

It was then that I missed
our old way of life as well.  I wanted the days of simple
scouting back, days of tracking through the woods with my team of
Bill and Graye.  I missed going on raids, when it was always
dangerous but still possible to go into the city.  I missed
having the sweat roll down my back as I helped the others pull the
weeds in the garden that was overflowing with our
harvest. 

You never realize what
you’ve got until it’s gone.

Thankfully, nothing
happened that night.  We gassed up in a small town that looked
like it had been dying before the Fall even happened.  Avian
poured two more of the blue bottles into the tank and we drove
another hour before stopping in more desert for the day.

I didn’t let anyone know
but I was panicked that day.  Avian told everyone that we only
had maybe two more days of traveling until we got to our
destination.  That should have been a relief but I still had
no idea what my decision was going to be.  I need more
time.  But I also had to decide, now.

I pretended to sleep that
day but didn’t.  I stared up at the tan canvas above my head,
my mind empty, my eyes seeing nothing.  It was nice to have a
few hours to clear my head of all the confusion.

We left that night with a
mix of anticipation, both nervous and excited.  We were all
ready to get to our new home but for most, the unexpected and
unknown was frightening.  What would we be finding?

I didn’t like that I had
so many questions lately with no answers.

TWENTY-NINE

Everyone had just started
falling asleep when Avian’s attention perked up.  He stood in
his place on the trailer, his eyes narrowing at something ahead of
us.

“
What is it?” I asked
quietly in an attempt to not wake anyone.  I took the safety
off my shotgun.

“
Stop the truck,” Avian
told Tuck.  As he did, Avian hopped out, myself in close
pursuit.  He walked up to an old road sign and only then did I
notice that there was something different about this
one. 

“
What are those?” I asked
as I looked closely at the white dots beneath the words leading to
somewhere that now meant nothing.

“
Morse code,” Avian
whispered as he ran his fingers over the dots.

“
What does it say?” I said
as my eyes swept the area again.  No threats in this desert
forsaken place.

Avian shook his head, his
eyes frustrated looking.  “I don’t know.  I hadn’t
learned it yet in my training.”

Without hesitation I
walked back over to the trailer.  “Wake up!” I said
loudly.  A few bodies stirred.  “Come on.  Wake
up.”

Some of them eyed the gun
in my hands warily, others simply rubbed the sleep out of their
eyes.  “Does anyone know how to read Morse code?”

West yawned as he raised
his hand.  “Come on,” I said, waving him toward the
sign.  “Sorry to wake everyone.  You can go back to sleep
now.”

I heard a few grumbles as
we walked toward the sign.  Most of them lay back down but a
few of them watched what we were doing with curiosity.  I
didn’t blame them.  I would want to know what was going on
too.

“
You know Morse code?”
Avian asked as we walked up.

“
My grandpa thought it was
a fun game when I was little,” West said as he rubbed his eyes
again.  “That’s a scientist’s version of fun for
you.”

“
What does it say?” Avian
asked as he looked back at the sign.  “This isn’t the regular
paint that was used for signs.  It’s too irregular and the
paint doesn’t look that worn.  This was put there in the last
few years.  After the infection.”

West squinted through the
dark to read the sign.  As he did, he stepped around it,
looked at the back, then looked at the edge of it.  “It just
says ‘look underneath’.”

Avian furrowed his brow at
West, then looked back at the sign.  That was when we all saw
the slightly bent form of the metal sign in the bottom right
corner.

With a hefty tug, the
three loose screws at the top of the sign were ripped out and I let
the metal sign fall to the ground with a thud in the
dust.

Our eyes grew wide as we
took in what had been hidden under the old road sign.  Words
were crammed onto the wood board beneath, and detailed but
obviously hand drawn map spread over most of it.  There had
unquestionably been people here, trying to leave a message for
anyone who might find it.

“
Holy…” both Avian and
West breathed.

“
Where is the map
leading?” I asked, my eyes following the hand drawn
lines.

“
Right to the middle of
one of the biggest cities there was before everything fell apart,”
Avian said quietly.

If you’re reading this,
congratulations on surviving.  To be brief, there is a group
of us, hiding in the city.  We have unlimited supplies of
food, water, other necessities.  We also have electricity and
can offer you protection.  A life.  If you can reach
us.  Here is the map to our location.  Travel only at
night and travel silently.  Good luck.

Below that, in another
person’s handwriting was written:
May the
force be with you.

“
Do you think it’s a
trap?” I asked as I reread everything.

Avian chuckled as his eyes
trailed over the words.  “I don’t think so.  A Fallen
would never write that last line.”

“
What does that even
mean?” I asked. 
May the force be
with you.
  It sounded like gibberish
to me.

Avian chuckled
again.  “It was a line from a very famous movie.”  When
he saw my confusion at the word movie he just shook his head and
laughed again.  “Never mind.  Just know that it is a very
human thing to say.”

“
How is that even
possible?” West asked, fully awake now.  “For a group of
people to be living in a city?”

“
I can’t imagine anyone is
that careful,” I said quietly.

“
But if they were…” West
said wistfully.  “Can you even imagine?  Having actual
electricity, living indoors?”

“
No,” I said, furrowing my
brow at him.  “I can’t imagine what it would be like.  It
would be too dangerous.  Avian said that was one of the
biggest cities.  It is going to be flooded with Fallen. 
We couldn’t even get fifty miles outside the perimeter.”

“
But they must have a way
of getting people in if they’ve left this message,” West
continued.  “They said to travel at night and to travel
silently.  Why would they have us walk into a death
trap?”

“
This could have been left
a few years ago,” I said, my voice rising.  “They could all be
infected by now, dead.  There could be no one left in the city
anymore.”

“
But if there are
people
there…” Avian
said, his voice sounding wishful.  “They could have access
to
anything
if
they can get around that city.”

“
You can’t be serious
about this?” I demanded as I turned my eyes on him.  “We
cannot take this risk.  We have a mission to complete. 
Find a new,
safe
location for Eden and settle.  Lead the others to
us.”

“
We could change our
course,” Avian said as he walked back to the truck.  He
grabbed Bill’s maps out of the trailer and walked back to us. 
He opened it up and quickly found our location.  “We were
going here,” he said as he pointed to a place that was due south of
our current location.  “We could get there by dawn if we can
get the truck to drive fast enough.  But we could go here,” he
said as he drug his finger across the page to a place that was due
west of our location.  “Frankly it will be a nicer
location.  We’ll have access to more water, there will be more
natural resources.  And it is close to the ocean so there will
also be more options for fishing.  Temperatures shouldn’t be
much different.”

“
But it is surrounded by
cities,” I observed as I read the names around the textured green
space Avian had his finger on.

Avian nodded his
head.  “But it is less than sixty miles from where these other
people are supposedly hiding out.  We could go to this new
location, even if it is only temporary, hide out and send a
scouting party to check things out.”

“
This is suicide, Avian,”
I said as I shook my head.  “A city that size?  We don’t
have a chance of even getting to the outskirts.”

“
But if there are people
there…” Avian said again.  “Eve, we’ve already lost so many
people this last year.  As far as we knew, we were the only
ones left.  But if there are more of them out there…  We
have to stick together, to keep humanity alive.”

I looked up at Avian,
searching his eyes.  There was hope burning there, but I was
surprised at another thing I felt coming from him.  A total
lack of fear.  I realized then just how much we had all
underestimated Avian.