The Human (The Eden Trilogy) (23 page)

If she hadn’t died giving birth to me, the world might still be recognizable.  She might have stopped Dr. Evans from giving me TorBane, let me die the natural death I should have died, and TorBane might have just stayed a theory in a file.

But these thoughts weren’t going to change the past.  So I put them away.

Tucking the picture in my pocket, I rescued a few of Avian’s books and tucked them into my pack.

I took my time emptying the tent.  I broke into one of the houses that sat on the beach, storing my clothing, cot, pillow, sleeping things, Avian’s belongings, and eventually, the tent, inside.

I was doomed to live forever inside prison walls.

When I was finished, I stood with the tips of my boots in the water.  I closed my eyes, breathing the ocean air in.  Before me was freedom and peace.  At my back was the real world of destruction and endless, crushing work.

“Goodbye,” I whispered to the water as my eyes opened.  I knew that it would be a while before I would see it again.

Straddling the bike, I pointed it back in the direction of the hospital.

I wove between bodies that lay on the streets, all Hunters that had been outside when the Pulse had gone off.  It seemed unreal that that had only been three months ago.  So much had happened since then.

I was three blocks from the hospital when something caught my eye.

A movement.  Something darting behind a building.

I stopped the motorcycle on the side of the road and killed the engine.  I pulled my Desert Eagle from my back pocket.  Peeking around the corner, I slipped silently along the wall.

My handgun was held steady when I popped around the corner, only to find an empty alley.

Something hit my shoulder—dirt—and my eyes jumped up just in time to see a foot disappearing over the edge of the roof.

I scaled the fire escape, making sure my feet were silent as I did.  And just as I got onto the roof, I saw two figures jump off the side of the building.

I sprinted across the roof.  Bodies hit something solid with a clatter and a curse below me and then feet were running.

I looked over the side of the roof just as they disappeared around a corner.

Darting back to the fire escape, I slid down the ladder and ran back to the motorcycle.  I pushed it to close to eighty miles an hour in the three blocks I had left.

When I rounded the final corner, I saw a crowd of people in front of the main entrance of the hospital and stopped the bike on the grass there.

Elijah had his foot on the back of a man who was handcuffed and on his knees.  Graye held a gun to the man’s head.  Royce stood before him, his arms crossed over his chest.

“What’s going on?” I asked, joining them.

“Graye found him spying about fifteen minutes ago,” Elijah said.  “He’s not saying what he’s doing or where he’s from.”

“I highly suggest you start talking,” Royce said, squatting right in front of the man.  “You see, when I worked for the United States government developing weapons of war, I got a contract to develop a few nasty items for a more individual base of destruction.  You do not want me digging in my closet.  But I will if you don’t tell me what I want to hear.”

Fear shook the man’s body, but he was trying hard to keep his face blank.

“Is it ready?” he asked, his voice shaking slightly.

“Is what ready?” Royce asked, narrowing his eyes at him.

“The device.”

“What…the Pulse?”

The man nodded.

“You’re with them,” Royce said, his eyes growing even darker.  “Aren’t you?  You’re with that group from Seattle.”

Tristan stepped out of the hospital and hesitantly came to my side.  “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Apparently your old friends are back.”  I took a step forward.  “There were more of them just a few blocks from—”

My head must have split open for real this time.

A scream ripped from my throat and I collapsed to my hands and knees.  I was sure there had to be blood leaking from my ears and nose and eyes and mouth and every pore in my body.  My brain was dissolving into a trillion atoms being split and rearranged.

I opened my eyes to find a world washed in green, sequences of numbers flashing across my vision.

And I could feel them.  Hundreds of thousands of them.  Millions maybe.  Like a string was connected to me and ran to each and every one of them.

I could feel the Bane.

And the call that was going from me to them.

“Eve!” voices screamed.  My eyes searched for faces to attach the voices to.  But there was only green and numbers and the feeling that I was more Bane in that moment than I had ever been in my life.

The connections became stronger and stronger and I felt their dire need, their drive, their one reason for existence—to make the perfection spread.  To heal what was broken.  And what was broken was human DNA and tissue.  It was weak.  It aged.  It died.  It fractured.

We were strong.  We were perfect.  We were made to save.

And we had to spread.

We had to make the world perfect.

“Eve!” a voice called out to me again.

I blinked, trying to clear the numbers from my vision and the voices from my head.

We must spread.

We must perfect and heal the world.

“Eve!  This isn’t you!” the voice screamed again.

Another voice yelled.  And then a gun was fired.

I blinked again and my head jerked to the right as someone slapped me.  It felt like a fishing hook caught in my brain and the strings that bound me to the millions out there started breaking away.

“Eve!  Come on, you can pull out of this!”

Tristan.

“Tristan?” I moaned, the pain pulsing through my brain once again.  I opened my eyes, the numbers fading from my vision as the rest of the strings fell away.

“I’m right here,” he said.  His arms were around me and I was lying on his lap.  “Holy sh…  You were saying some pretty freaky stuff.”

And suddenly adrenaline burned through my veins.  I was on my feet and ready to attack the man we had captured when I froze.

There had to be fifteen of the people from the Underground surrounding us.  Guns were pulled everywhere.  Elijah’s team had assembled.  And there was a body in the middle of us all.

“You put the beacon in my head, didn’t you?” I growled at none of them in particular.  “It was never here and I was never the trigger.  You put it
in me
and sent me back!”

Most of them didn’t react in any way, but one of them had a tiny smile that tugged on his mouth.

I crossed the circle faster than I’d ever moved.  I yanked the shotgun from his hands and tossed it towards Tristan.  I grabbed the man’s shirt in my fist and pulled his face an inch from mine.

“You’ve just sentenced everyone to infection,” I hissed.

“That’s what the Pulse is for,” he said, his breath rancid.

“The Pulse is broken!” I bellowed, shoving him away from me, knocking him to the ground.  “And you set the beacon off two days early!”

“You put the beacon in one of our soldiers?!” Royce bellowed, rushing at one of the other men, knocking him to the ground, his fist crushing his cheekbone.  Within half a second everyone was yelling, fists flying.

I had just knocked one of the men out who rushed me when I saw movement from behind us.

There were more of them.

Another ten soldiers, men and women, rushed from behind other buildings, guns drawn.

This was about to turn into a blood bath.

We didn’t have to wait for the Bane to swarm the city in the next few hours.  We were going to kill each other off first.

Graye chased after two soldiers who fled down an alley.

Tristan stood with one of our soldiers, trying to keep them out of the hospital, guns drawn.

Elijah radioed for back up as he fought off another man.

I had to find Margaret.  If I could find Margaret, maybe I could keep this from turning into a death match.  I could convince her to call off her people.

Because I had no doubt that Margaret was here.

Tristan was right.  They had staged my escape.  They’d wanted me to get back to New Eden and quickly.

Because when they didn’t find the answer to curing TorBane, they planted their beacon inside of my head and waited for me to return.  And then they set it off.

Looking one last time back at my family, I set off down the street.

TWENTY-FIVE

Margaret would be waiting somewhere she could see all the action.  I just had to find her vantage point.

I checked the street level, anywhere she would be able to see from.  But she wasn’t a stupid woman and being out on the road would be too obvious.  She was hiding inside a building.

I was just about to duck inside one when a familiar voice called my name.

I turned left and found West jogging up to my side.  His entire body was bruised.

“We’re going to kill each other off out there,” he said, his eyes wild and fearful.  He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of view of the battle.

I hadn’t considered how I would react to West when I came face to face with him again after what he’d done, after what Avian had done.  Especially since Addie had turned my humanity down.

I should have expected the hatred and the burning that consumed me.

And he saw it all there in my face.

“I am so sorry,” he said, his eyes filling with regret.  “I never meant to betray you.  I was hurt and I was angry and I was pissed.  But I didn’t mean to tell them about you.  I thought you were safe back here with Avian when I went with them.  I couldn’t stay here anymore.  I didn’t think it would matter if I told them what you were capable of.  I wasn’t all that sure I’d ever see you again.”

I wasn’t even breathing as I listened to West apologize.  The back of my eyes burned and my throat felt as if it had totally closed off.

“Yell at me,” he said, his eyes desperate.  “Hit me.  Do whatever it takes to make you feel better.  I think it will make me feel a bit better if you break a couple bones or knock me unconscious.”

From past experience, I knew I was unpredictable when my emotions got away with me around West.

So I did the only smart, reasonable thing I could do in that moment.

I turned and walked away.

“Holy shit,” West breathed as I took two steps away from him.

And the way he said it, the way the very air changed around us with his words, made me freeze in place.

I turned to look back at him and found his face stark white.  His eyes had reddened and moisture pooled in them.

“What?” I demanded, my tone unsure.

He held a hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes closed for a moment.  A tear streaked down his cheek.

“I have something important to do right now, so if you have something to say, you’d better say it quick.”

West finally opened his eyes, wide and disbelieving.

“Now, West!” I demanded, debating just running into the building to complete my task.  We could talk later, if we lived through the day.

“You know all those stories I told you?  About how we used to play together when we were kids?  The notes I left you?” he asked in a shaky voice.

“Is this important
right now
, West?” I said, my tone dripping acid.

He nodded his head.

“Fine, yes.”

He paused for a moment.  He took a deep, quivering breath.  “None of them were true.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my brow furrowing. 

“It was your sister, Eve,” he said, more tears streaking down his cheeks.  His eyes rose to the heavens and he shook his head.  “It was your identical twin sister that I did all that stuff with.  Not you.”

I tried to ask
what?
but the words stuck in my mouth like it had been filled with cotton.  My thoughts swirled.  I’d seen myself talking to me in those fractured memories and nightmares in Seattle.  I’d been crazy, they’d broken my mind.  This couldn’t be true.

“That tattoo on the back of your head?” he said, his voice shaking nearly beyond control now.  “The roman numeral two?  You were Eve Two.  Your sister was Eve one.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, my insides quickly going numb.  “No.  That can’t be…”

West nodded his head.  “We hated each other as kids, Eve.  Some people just don’t get along.  You and I, we couldn’t stand to be around one another.  It…it kind of explains a lot about us now.”  His brow furrowed, as if reevaluating every moment we had spent together. 

“You lied to me,” I said, my voice very controlled and very quiet.  “Again?  About something like
this?
”

Tears started leaking down West’s face again and he gave a slight shake of his head.  “I thought you were her, Eve one.  Because Eve Two was supposed to be
dead
.  My father was supposed to dispose of her.  Because she had been compromised.  Because she killed over fifty people.  Because Eve Two did this!”  He pulled on the collar of his shirt, exposing the claw marks on his neck.

“That was supposed to be me?” I breathed, not believing a word he said.

West nodded, coming one step closer.

“I never said anything about the twin sister because she was supposed to be dead.  You didn’t remember anything, and I thought that was for the best.  What was the good of bringing up a sister who had tried to kill me and was supposed to be dead?  I was going to let the past
stay
dead.”

I punched West in the face.  Hard enough he collapsed to the ground.

“I can’t take any more of your secrets,” I said, my voice shaking with rage.  “I hate you West Evans, and if we all live through this day, I never want to see you again.”

And I left him there on the ground.  I slipped inside the building and let the door close behind me.

The interior of the building shifted with lines of black.  My hands shook and my stomach rolled in an emotional hurricane.

There was coughing somewhere above me and a quick
shh
.  I shut out my personal garbage and took the stairs two at a time.

I was catching a break for the first time in what felt like a very long time.  I’d found them in the first building I tried.

Hushed voices came from behind a closed door.  Slipping my handgun from my belt, I leaned against the door.

“Do you really think it will work?” a young voice whispered.  “Do you really think it can kill them?”

“I don’t know baby,” a motherly voice said.  “We can only hope so.”

I pushed the door open, my gun poised ahead of me. 

Margaret stood by a large window, overlooking the fight below her.

“I should shoot you right now,” I said loudly.  Every eye turned on me, including Margaret’s  There were muffled screams and whimpers.

“Then why don’t you?” Margaret asked.  There was just the faintest trace of fear in her eyes.  But not enough.  Not enough to classify her as human in my eyes any longer.

“Because I need to know how far that thing you planted in my head is going to reach.”

Margaret didn’t answer for a moment and I saw her gaze shift to those around her.  I noticed then that they were mostly women, children, and elderly.

“Not here,” she said in a hiss and stepped toward me.  She held her hands up when I didn’t lower the weapon and stopped.  Her eyes slipped down to the little girl on the floor just to the side of me who was crying and had her face buried in her mother’s shoulder.

“Out in the hall,” I said, waving her out with the gun.

The two of us stepped outside the door and I closed it behind us.  We walked halfway down the hall for privacy.

“Why?” I asked simply.

“Do you not remember what things were like in Seattle?” Margaret asked with narrowed eyes.  “We had to leave or we were all going to get infected.  The Underground has been totally compromised.  And soon it is going to be the entire world and we will be
eradicated
.”

Margaret actually had no idea how true her words were.  She had no way of knowing the sweeps the Hunters were conducting.

“Just so you know,” I said, my tone turning icy.  “You’ve condemned us all to infection.”

“I don’t understand your pride with this Pulse thing.  You have to use it!”

“We would be happy to,” I said, my teeth clenched so tight they might have broken if I were fully human.  “If it hadn’t been damaged in the earthquake.”

Margaret paused, her expression paling.  “What earthquake?”

“The one we had just a few days ago.  The one that dropped a concrete pillar on the Pulse, making it unusable.  And our head scientist, the one who developed it, the only one who can fix it, is sick.”

“I didn’t know,” she said.  She was trying to pitch her voice to be non-caring, but she was failing.

“We’re all dead now, thanks to you,” I said.  I grabbed her wrist and started pulling her down the stairs.

Maybe it was shock or guilt or some other unknown conscious that I didn’t know she possessed, but Margaret let me drag her out of the building without a fight.

Shots rang out and shouts rose into the air.  There were three bodies lying in front of the hospital now.  I couldn’t look at their faces just then to see if it had been any of ours that had fallen. 

West was nowhere to be seen.

“Call your men off,” I growled in Margaret’s ear.  “Or I swear I will kill you right here.”  I pressed the barrel of my handgun into her ribs.

Margaret shifted uncomfortably, her arm going nowhere under my steel grip.  She cleared her throat.

“Cease fire!” Margaret yelled, her voice startlingly loud and filled with authority.  “Members of the Underground will assemble.  Now!”

Instantly the shots died out and slowly the soldiers, New Eden and foreign alike, gathered before the hospital.

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Royce growled, pointing a finger at Margaret.  He approached her, fast.  For a moment I was afraid he was going to plow her right over, but he stopped just an inch from her face, his finger pressed to her chest.  He was covered in blood and grime.

Avian suddenly came jogging through the crowd, followed by Raj.  I resisted the urge to rush at him and pull him into my arms.  But now wasn’t the time.

“I do believe we have some talking to do.”  She couldn’t hide the quake in her voice or the fear in her eyes.

“I should just have Eve shoot you right now,” he seethed.

“Trust me,” I said, my jaw clenched tight.  “It took everything I had in me not to.”

“Elijah,” Royce barked, turning.  Elijah limped forward.  There was a shirt tied tightly around his calf, no doubt stopping up a bullet wound.  “Watch her people.  I swear, if any of them makes a wrong move, shoot them.”

Protests were shouted and firearms were raised again.

“You will do as he says!” Margaret bellowed and instantly the contention died.  “You will stand down until I come out.  You will wait for my word.”

Eyes shifted and fingers remained poised on their triggers.  But they did lower their weapons.  Elijah and his team quickly surrounded the Undergrounders.

“Move,” Royce commanded.

Avian stepped forward as if to follow us and Royce immediately threw up a hand.  “Now isn’t the time to be the protective boyfriend,” he said, his voice quiet so the entire crowd wouldn’t hear him.  “I released you because you’re needed out here.  This right now is between the three of us.”