The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (63 page)

             
“That’s your own fault! That has nothing to do with me!”

             
“What part
of, 'If you hadn’t called me,’ didn’t you understand?!”

             
“So what, you’re mad that you saved me?”

             
“Yeah, I am. Because you know what, if I could go back in time, I would have saved them! I should have saved them over you!”

             
The words brought such a sting
that she was rendered silent. I wanted to cover my mouth after they came tumbling out. I wanted to take it back. But she jumped up and stormed out of the tent. After stomping past Brynna and James, who were still awake, she disappeared into the trees.

             
“Th
is is none of our concern.” Brynna told James.

             
“We can’t let her go storming off into the woods at night by herself.” James reasoned with her.

             
“Sure we can.” Brynna replied airily. To prove it, she laid down and closed her eyes. “She will be back when sh
e has had her tantrum. I would be angered substantially by such harsh, brutal words as well. A person stalking after me as I sought a quiet place to be angry would be the last thing I would want.”

             
“Just leave her! She can handle herself out there!” I snap
ped at both of them as I zipped up the tent.

             
“I’ll go get her if you don’t.” James said to Brynna.

             
“James, I sincerely doubt that you can handle the tumultuous emotions of an eighteen year old girl.”

             
“But
you
can. Please, will you go get her before she gets hurt?”

             
I was sure that him gently prodding her into doing the right thing was a common occurrence in their relationship. If there was one person who knew how complicated women could be, it was James. I wan
ted to talk to him like I had earlier. Even though he had dragged me into that conversation about Alice, I had felt slightly less angry after it was over. I doubted that Brynna could comfort Alice but I knew that James could talk me down.

             
But I didn’t wan
t to be talked down. I was right. No one would tell me otherwise.

             
“Fine.” Brynna sighed heavily.

             
In my fury, I had pulled the zipper of the tent roughly but still hadn’t closed the flap all the way. Through the open space I saw her roll on top of him and
lean down to kiss him quickly as he laid beneath her.

             
“Be safe. Holler if you need me.”

             
“I’ve got this. I can handle myself quite efficiently, Mr. Maxwell.”

             
“I know you can.” He reached up and moved her hair away from her face. “But just in case, right
?”

             
She kissed him again and crawled out of the sleeping bag. He watched her walk off into the darkness of the trees that surrounded our clearing.

             
“You’re wrong!” James called back to me from outside.

             
“I am not!”

             
I heard him chuckle softly to himself.

             
“Ah, the arrogance of youth.”

             
“Your little girlfriend is like, three years older than me. So I’m sure you see the arrogance of youth a lot.”

             
“I do. That doesn’t mean that I’m not bemused by it. Have a good night, Quinn.”

             
I knew that he wasn’t going to s
leep because Brynna was out in the woods. He wouldn’t allow his guard to drop until she was safely back with him. I should have felt the same protectiveness over Alice. But my feelings for her were evaporating quickly. I never could have foreseen such a ch
ange in our relationship. I had thought naively that we would be together forever. Now, I knew that the chances of that actually happening were almost nonexistent.

             
I knew exactly what my parents had known all along. Though it hadn’t been different college
choices, different life goals, or even outside hatred of interracial relationships that had torn us apart, we had still been torn apart. They had always known it would happen though they had never known that it would happen exactly the way it had.

             
“Well,
if you’re listening,” I thought, “I want you to know that you were right. You never could have known that we would end up here. But you did know that in the end, I wouldn’t love her anymore. So you were right. I just want you to know that.”

             
I sensed that
in some far off place unknown to the living, my parents felt no joy in response to my admittance of failure or even in my acknowledgment of their wisdom that had been so spot-on. It felt almost as though we had their approval finally but that it made no d
ifference now.

             
I felt that if they could change the course of events, they would not have spared themselves. They would have held Alice and me together. We needed each other now, they believed. We were all we had.

             
I turned over on my side and closed my e
yes, shutting out those beliefs I knew to be factual. I forced myself to view them as just rambling speculations.

             
But in the deepest part of my heart, I knew that they were communicating with me somehow. Just before I shut out their transparent voices, I
heard one last thing spoken by my father:

             
“…before it’s too late.”

Violet

             
Maura’s face tumbled around in my mind as I slept. The usual warmth that accompanied seeing her was absent, as though it had never existed to begin with. Now, all I felt was a
rolling nausea as I thought about her abandonment; she had chosen our father, who would never love her, over us, who always would.

             
Brynna would call it desperation. They had been young when they were in love. In fact, Maura, in her drunken state, once adm
itted to Brynna that he was the only man she had ever loved. I knew that wasn’t true. Maura had been married once before, to my father’s best friend, who was a good man. I remembered him so fondly as bringing us presents and telling us stories about his tr
ips overseas. While power had corrupted my father, it had never corrupted Michael. How Maura couldn’t love him was beyond my realm of understanding.

             
Maura lusted after my father with no shame in her actions. Long after he was married to my mother, she sti
ll carried a torch for him. It wasn’t a low-burning flame about to snuff out with one strong wind. It was a full-fledged inferno. I was beginning to see my father and Maura the way Brynna always had.

             
Perhaps that was unwise, to feel as Brynna felt. I knew
that through all the hatred and disdain, there was a tiny hurt inside of her that was the direct result of the way everything had played out. I had never been on the receiving end of Maura’s bitterness but Brynna certainly had.

             
Admitting that I was fasci
nated by my sister’s odd personality was easy. I spent plenty of time musing on it. I understood now that I was older exactly what had bred such animosity. Admitting that I pitied her, even slightly, was a hard pill to swallow. Brynna needed no one’s pity
and if she knew she had mine, it would infuriate her.

             
Penny was so easy to understand because she was young. Elijah was complicated in his own
right but since he had escaped much of the emotional storm by shutting himself in his room, he fared better than
Brynna. Her distrust and her anger were spun around endlessly in her always moving mind. The way she spoke and the way she embraced such iciness were her defense mechanisms.

             
I hadn’t understood that before. It took feeling the harsh sting of Maura’s aban
donment for me to understand. I couldn’t imagine the feeling amplified three-fold; Maura, my mother and my father had all cut off their love for Brynna at the same time. I couldn’t imagine that kind of pain.

             
I decided that if I saw her again, I would give
her and James my blessing. If she was able to trust him, then I absolutely should have been able to as well. Of course, I had heard some stories about him from the other survivors that were not complimentary. But if I asked about the allegations that were
made, I was sure that he’d be more than willing to explain himself.

             
I knew they had found their way back to each other, the same way I knew a lot of things. I just knew.

             
He made her happy. I saw her smile and laugh genuinely for the first time in so man
y endless years. When I was around, she tried to hide her happiness but I could always see it. If there was one thing she couldn’t keep hidden, it was the joy she felt when she was with James. She deserved that, especially after what had happened with Luci
en.

             
Elijah would see it differently. He would never approve of James. He would insist that in the end, James would only end up hurting her. She deserved sure, never-ending happiness. No gambling would be acceptable. It had to be
sure
.

             
I awoke from my sle
ep to see a shape looming over me. My heart skipped a beat and I opened my mouth to scream, only to find that the sound had been cut off as though someone was grasping my throat. My hand flew up to touch my neck; I didn't feel a hand wrapped around it.

             
“I
t’s me!” A familiar voice whispered and my fear calmed upon hearing it. I closed my eyes and reached up to touch his face; touching his distinct facial features was the only way I could be sure that what my hands felt matched the mental image I had of him
and the voice that had spoken.

             
Nick.

             
“It’s gone mad back at camp! I ran in here after you because it’s not safe there anymore!”

             
“How did you find us?” I whispered after sitting up. “We’ve been looking for Brynna all day and haven’t been able to find her
.”

             
“Remember when I told you that you smelled good? Well, somehow, I was able to follow your scent! I smelled it the minute I walked into the woods.”
             

             
“That’s crazy.” I whispered, “Can you smell Brynna?”

             
“I’ve never met her. I don’t know what she smells
like.”

             
“Oh.”

             
“Are you alright? Have you seen those people in here?”

             
“Not yet.” I shook my head even though he couldn't see me. “But I know they’re around. Can’t you feel them?”

             
“Yes. It’s like they’re all around us but I can’t see them, you know?”

             
“I
know.” I replied as I looked around into the endless darkness. The moon had moved further away from us, taking its natural lighting along. We wouldn’t be able to see until morning. For all we knew, the reason we could feel the natives lurking in the trees
was because they actually were surrounding us. They could attack at any minute and we’d have no time to prepare.

             
“It’s dangerous to be sleeping out here in the open.” Nick warned me delicately. It was as though he had read my thoughts. “They can see in
the dark.”

             
“I didn’t know that.”

             
“Yeah, they didn’t come to the campsite until later tonight. Your father made us put out our fires. It was the stupidest thing we could have done because we couldn’t see them. The moon was too far away to give us any ligh
t.”

             
“So they just attacked you in the dark?”

             
“Yeah, and they didn’t miss the people they were going after. They went right to them. They didn’t need any light to see, so they can see in the dark. That's what I think, anyway. There isn't another explanati
on for how they could see.”

             
I shuddered and pulled my dirt-covered sweater around me. The days were mild but the nights were freezing-cold on Pangea.