The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (49 page)

             
“That doesn't mean that she's not like him. It just
means that she's brave. We don't know anything else about her besides that.”

             
“You're just saying all of this to make me change my mind about helping her. I know that you believe the same thing I believe. After last night...” Alice's voice was trembling no
w as the memory of the attack on us took over her. “I was right there when she attacked that guy. You should have seen the way she took him down.” She laughed slightly as she remembered it. “It was
amazing
. He was after her brother. I would pray for whatev
er came over her to come over me if it was you that was about to get eaten. They ripped people apart, Quinn. One of their people, a woman...” She grimaced slightly, “She ripped into this guy and there was so much blood...”

             
“Hey...” I stood up and embraced
her, “Let's not think about this right now.”

             
“They're going to come back. Someone at the top let it slip that they're going to take ten of us every night until we leave. We have nowhere to go so they'll just keep coming back until there's no one left. Th
ey'll kill us all.”

             
“So what do you think we should do?”

             
“I told you what I think we should do. We need to help Brynna! Don't ask me how I know that's what we're supposed to do. I just know. The same thing came over us when that thing broke into the hous
e. We could see in the dark, we could communicate without words. Don't you see? We're
mutating
!”

             
“Mutating?” I asked her as though the word had been spoken in a language I had never learned.

             
“I've told you this before. Our bodies are doing what they need
to do in order for us to survive. We're getting faster, stronger, and smarter. We're learning to fight off threats, almost like how animals do. That's my theory, anyway. I think it's pretty reasonable.”

             
“It
is
reasonable.” I sat down on my sleeping bag,
pondering what she had just said only to realize that it made absolutely perfect sense. “That would explain
everything!
”

             
“It has a magical element to it, though, doesn't it?” She sat down next to me. “It's not completely biological.” She paused and looked
thoughtful for a minute. “There's something
miraculous
about it. It's not just science, you know?”

             
“I guess.”

             
“Daniel Olivier is afraid of her. He's not mutating the way that some of us are. We'll be next, once he realizes it's happening to more than
just her. You know, I've heard his other kids are doing it, too.”

             
“Yeah, I heard someone saying that the other day. So what is he going to do? Hand them all over to their leader?”

             
“I know he will. He thinks they're sick. He thinks they're infected with s
omething. But you and I both know from what happened to us while we were still on Earth that it's not a sickness. It's a response to a threat, right?”

             
“Yes.”

             
“Quinn, I know this is what we're supposed to do. We have to get her out. We have to help her es
cape. It has a significance to it that I don't really understand yet. But then, maybe I'm not supposed to understand right now. Maybe we're just supposed to take a leap of faith.”

             
There was that word again: Faith. It was still a challenging idea for me, e
ven after everything we had overcome since that psychic dream. However little I believed in the divine significance of our escape and continued survival, I did believe in Alice. I also knew that wherever she went, I was going to follow. So if she believed
that we needed to save Brynna, then we were going to do it. We were going to fight together, for better or worse.

             
“Alright,” I nodded and looked up at her, “Do you have a plan?”

             
“I have the beginning of a plan. We need to get her brother alone. He's the
closest to her, from what I've seen. So he'll be the one that will want to help her.”

             
“How are we going to get him alone?”

             
“We live in tents, Quinn,” She laughed, “Breaking in isn't exactly difficult, is it?”

XXX

             
It was three hours until nightfall. Thu
s, it was three hours until the natives returned for their dinner. We had three hours to escape the campsite. Suddenly, the two-day rush to the launch site didn't seem as time-sensitive as it had in the moment.

             
Alice led the way over to Elijah Olivier's t
ent. The woman with the dark red hair who had accompanied them was sitting behind it, her face in her hands, sobbing. Somehow, I knew not to sympathize with her.

             
I gripped the zipper of the tent in a shaking hand and began to pull it delicately. Inside, t
here was only silence. For all we knew, he wasn't even there. Perhaps that was for the best; we would sneak in, close the tent and signal for him to be quiet when he returned. Then, we would explain to him what we were trying to do as quietly as possible.

             
When the tent was opened enough that I could see in, I saw that Elijah was inside and looking right at us. Like idiots, we ducked from his view but by then it was too late. He ripped the zipper down and pulled us both inside with a strength and rage that
stunned us both into terrified silence.

             
“What do you want?” He hissed at us with a fistful of our shirts clenched tightly in his fists.

             
“Calm down, man,” I whispered as I held up my hands in surrender, “We want to help your sister!”
             
He released us and t
urned back to whatever it was that he had been silently working on. Alice and I looked at each other in horror when he pulled out a gun and began loading it with bullets. We were not worried that he would shoot us. We were worried that he would shoot his w
ay through anyone that stood in the way of the path to his sister. A massacre of his father's people would not spell peace for the rest of us. We would all suffer for it.

             
“Listen to me,” Alice reached out to grasp his wrist but he shook her off, “Elijah?
That's your name, isn't it?”

             
“That's me. Elijah
Olivier
. That name is becoming quite the stigma around here, isn't it?”

             
“It is,” I replied honestly and Alice cast me a scathing look, “Sorry.”

             
“Don't apologize. I'm not deaf. I hear what people are saying
. They're right, though. That's the sad thing.”

             
“You can't do anything completely insane, okay?” Alice reasoned quietly. “Going in there all
guns blazing is completely insane!”

             
“Well, he wants to sell my sister off to those freaks that came in here and k
illed ten of us. I'll kill every last one of them before that happens. I'll kill my own dad before I let him hand her over to that guy, whoever the hell he is.”

             
Alice looked like she wanted to argue his point but instead, she forged ahead with detailing o
ur plan.

             
“You're going to need help. We're going to help you break in. I had another dream last night. She's at the bottom of the ship. I saw the number three. Does that mean anything to you?”

             
“There are storage compartments down there that are numbered.
I don't need you two to go with me. You've just helped me more than I could ever thank you enough for.”

             
He loaded the clip into the gun quietly.

             
“Have you ever even shot a gun?” Alice demanded crossly.

             
“Nope. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to
figure it out. Point and pull the trigger, right?”

             
“You're angry. You have every right to be.” I jumped in to aid Alice's quest of calming him down. “But if you get yourself killed, you're doing her no good. Do you think he'll tell them not to kill you?
If you go in there, shooting the place up, do you think he'll tell them to bring you in alive?”

             
“I don't care what he does to me.”

             
“If you get yourself killed, you won't be able to save her!” Alice whispered in frantic irritation. “We'll go with you. We'
ll help you fight them off.”
             
“Are you telling me that you two can fight the same way she did the other day?”

             
“We can.” Alice answered, “There was this thing on earth. It was sitting outside of our window at night. And when I let it into the house, it tri
ed to kill us. We fought it off. I shot it and killed it. It was my...” She stopped, closing her eyes for a minute to steady herself, “Let's just say that we both know what it is to lose someone. We also know that there's nothing wrong with Brynna. She doe
sn't deserve to be handed over to them. Whatever it is that’s happening isn’t just happening to her.”

             
“I know that because it's happening to me.” Elijah looked up at us, his eyes burning, “My first plan was to show him how my eyes turn red every time I lo
ok at his face. Then, I can only hope that I would have grown fangs and been able to take him out the way Brynna took down the native that was after me.”

             
“What he's done to her and to everyone else is awful. But he's still your dad, Elijah.” Alice tried t
o reason with him, “If he is meant to die, it shouldn't be you killing him.”

             
His expression darkened as he looked up at her.

             
“If he's looking to hurt my sister, then it's my
job
to kill him.”

             
“We aren't going to kill anybody,” I chimed in again, “We're
going to go fight some people and we'll win because they're not changing over the way we are. We're going to get her out of there before the natives come back tonight. We're going to leave camp. It's not safe here anymore.”

             
“Is there anywhere that's safe?
” Elijah stared into the lantern that was burning away in the corner of his tent. “It doesn't matter. Anywhere is better than here. Brynna and I won't leave my sisters. My sisters won't let us leave Maura behind.”

             
“Is Maura that woman outside?” I asked. M
y tone displayed my distaste for her. I had never spoken a word to her but still, I didn't like her. More importantly, I didn't want to be responsible for her.

             
“Yeah. I don't trust her anymore.” He put the gun in his back pocket. “I was considering joinin
g the Marines for awhile. Doesn't every kid dream about that?”

             
“I know I did.” I smiled slightly despite the situation. I didn't quite see how his aspirations to join the military had anything to do with the situation. But the memory of being a little boy
and pretending trees were helicopters that I was jumping out of and play-fighting with my dad like we were in combat brought a flicker of joy to me that I hadn't been expecting.

             
They were memories I had long since forgotten.

             
“This is kind of like that.
Like a bad-ass mission, you know? Breaking in, fighting through
people, rescuing someone. God, if she heard me say, 'rescue…' Brynna doesn't need to be rescued. She's never needed me to protect her but she has always let me think that she does.” I watched
as tears rushed into his eyes. He assumed we weren't paying enough attention to see him swipe them away. “I'm not rescuing her now, either. I'm helping her save herself. She wouldn't have it any other way.” He cleared his throat and looked at us. “Before w
e do this, what are you names?”

             
We told him.

             
“Alright, Quinn and Alice. I don't know why you're so ready to do this with me. But you said you know that it's what you're supposed to do. I understand that and I'm not going to question it.”

             
“Good, because
we're running out of time.” Alice told him as we crawled out of his tent. “There's no time for questioning anything. Let's do this.”