Eden (46 page)

“
This shouldn’t take too
long,” the nurse said as she peeled off her gloves and threw them
in the trash.  “He could start coming around any time
now.  I’ll be back to check on him in a while.”

“
Thank you,” I said as she
started for the door.  I reached out and lightly touched her
arm.  She flinched.  “I’m sorry about earlier.”  She
merely gave a short nod and walked out the door.

Just as I was about to sit
on the edge of Avian’s bed, three heavily armed men walked into the
room.

“
You need to come with
us,” one of them said.  His eyes were hard, his brow drawn
together.

“
I’m not going anywhere,”
I said as I glared back at him.

“
You’ve been deemed a
security threat,” he said as he took another step toward me. 
“You fired two shots in the middle of a crowded room, threatened a
nurse.  You need to be secured.”

“
I’m not leaving him,” my
voice was cold and hard.

The three of them took
another step, their hands twitching on their firearms.

“
I suggest you don’t come
any closer if you like your nose the way it looks,” I warned,
balling my fingers.

He merely gave a cocky
little smile and took another step forward.

A scream of pain leapt
from his throat as my cybernetic-boned fist met his face, my other
hand chopping at his throat.  One of the men behind him raised
his firearm, leveling it at my face.  In the same movement I
spun, knocking it out of his hands with my heel.  The third
man turned and ran out into the hall.

“
I told you I’m not
leaving,” I said calmly as I extended a hand to the man who I had
just broken his nose.  He simply glared at me and got to his
feet on his own, holding his bleeding nose.  “You can take
these,” I said as I handed over my firearms.  “But I’m not
leaving.”

He took my weapons,
looking surprised at my cooperation.  “We’ll be keeping watch
over you.  Isaac, you take the first shift.  Watch her
like a hawk.”

Isaac looked at the first
man hard, looking like he might want to hit him too.

“
I won’t bite,” I said as
I turned and walked back to Avian’s side.  The first man left
in a hurry, the second stationed himself outside the
door.

Not many things scared me
but seeing Avian laying there like that did.  Now that I
finally understood who it was that I needed, was I going to lose
him?  Was I to only get a few glorious but horror filled
minutes now that I had finally made my choice?  I might be
losing both of them at the same time.  Maybe this was my
punishment for taking so long to figure my feelings out.  For
doing what I had done to them.

2,634 seconds later,
Avian’s eyes blinked open, a haze covering his gaze.  I jumped
back to his bed, after pacing back and forth for what felt like
eternity.  I balanced on the edge of the mattress as I took
his hand in mine, pressing my lips to the back of his hand. 
He blinked several times before he turned his head and his eyes
found mine.

 “
Hi,” I said
quietly, kissing his still clammy skin.

“
Hi,” he said back, the
life coming back into his eyes.

I leaned forward, pressing
my lips to his, coals growing in my chest, the heat rising with
every passing moment.  I pressed my forehead against his,
biting my lower lip.

“
I was worried I might
lose you there for a while,” I said, closing my eyes.  “You
lost a lot of blood.  I thought you were going to
die.”

“
So I didn’t just imagine
everything that happened?” he asked.  “West being
infected?  You telling me that you loved me?”

I shook my head as I kept
his intense gaze.  “Are you sure?” he asked very
quietly.

“
Without a doubt,” I said
as I pressed my lips to his again briefly.  Here was
everything that was home.

“
When did you finally
decide?”

I thought back to that
horrid but enlightening moment, a hard knot forming in my
stomach.  “When we heard over the radio that someone had been
infected.  I realized then that there was only one person I
couldn’t survive loosing.  I’ve lost Tye, Sarah, everyone in
my past that I can’t even remember.  But I realized then that
I couldn’t live through losing you.  You’re everything I have
that’s worth living for.”

“
But what about West?” he
asked, his question hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure if he really
wanted to hear the answer.

“
He will always be a part
of me,” I said, searching inside of me for the answers.  “He’s
the only connection to my past that I have.  But while West
woke up something inside of me, I realized what I was feeling for
him wasn’t love.  He made me feel alive, but he doesn’t make
me feel…” I struggled for the right words.  “I don’t crave
being around him like I do you.  I don’t know how to exist
without you.  You’re a part of me in a way that I can’t
explain.  I just don’t feel the same about
him.” 

Avian brought his hand up
behind my neck, bringing my lips to his again for just a
moment.  “I love you, Eve.  I promise I always
will.”

“
I love
you
,” I breathed,
relishing in the warmth that radiated into every corner of my
body.  I’d said
love
and I finally understood what it
meant.

“
Eve,” he said as his eyes
drifted to the doorway.  “Why is there an armed guard standing
just outside the door?”

I glanced in that
direction, seeing Isaac standing there with his back turned to us
but his automatic weapon in obvious sight.  “I may have used a
little more force than needed to get someone to help you,” I said,
not quite meeting his eyes.

“
You didn’t hurt anyone
did you?” he said with a hint of a sigh.

“
There’s just a couple of
new bullet holes in their ceiling…”

Avian suddenly
chuckled.  He brought my hand up to his lips, pressing a brief
kiss there.  “That’s my Eve.”

I gave him a small smile,
everything inside of me loving hearing him call me
“his”.

“
Have you heard anything
yet?” Avian asked as he lay back on his pillow.

I shook my head as I sat
back, my hands falling into my lap.  “I haven’t left you since
you collapsed upstairs.”

“
You should go find out
what happened,” he said, his eyes sad and serious.  “See if we
were too late.”

“
Are you sure?” I asked,
my brow furrowing.  I didn’t like the idea of leaving him here
like this alone.

“
It’s just a couple of
bullet holes,” he said with a small smile.  “I’ve patched
enough of them to know that I’ll survive.”

“
I’ll be back as soon as I
can,” I said as I stood.  I glanced back at him one last time
before I walked out the door.

THIRTY-NINE

I argued with the guard
for a good five minutes and finally convinced him that he could
just follow me.  I felt cold and stiff as I walked back to the
stairs.  A sense of dread saturated my system as I started the
climb, having to fight back the urge to turn back.  I didn’t
know if I wanted to find out if he was going to pull out of it or
not.

The blue floor was abuzz
with activity as I entered the hall.  People went in and out
of the stairwell that led up to the Pulse, Dr. Beeson’s door was
wide open, people coming and going.  But most of the activity
was coming from the Extraction room.

I held my arms around my
midsection to keep myself from falling apart as I stepped into the
room.  It felt like everything inside of me was about to crack
and fall apart, like I’d been filled with too many strong emotions
and then someone had taken a sledgehammer to me.  I just
couldn’t contain anything more, good or bad.

A group of people
surrounded West’s limp body.  Bandages were wrapped around
half of him but even I could tell the blood had stopped
flowing.  It seemed as if his wounds were already healing
themselves.

Those who worked on West
suddenly froze as they noticed me in the room.  I squirmed
under all their eyes, not knowing how to deal with their
attention.

“
Is it going to work on
him?” I asked, my voice small sounding.

A man with flaming red
hair glanced at the others before stepping away from the group
towards me.  He stuffed his gloved hands in the pockets of his
lab coat as he stopped just a few feet away from me.

“
The extraction process
has begun but we are unsure of the exact time frame of how long it
was between when he was touched and when he was brought in. 
Some are guessing it was only forty minutes, others thought it was
an hour and a half.”

“
And the magic time frame
is an hour or less, right?”

“
Exactly,” the man said,
his eyes regretful looking.  “Under such stressful
circumstances, no one is sure how long it was.  If it really
was less than hour, he stands a good chance of recovering.  If
not…”

I nodded, understanding
what his trailing thoughts meant.  “How long until we
know?”

The man glanced at
West.  “When it worked before, we didn’t see any results for
over a week.  Within a week and a half we started to see
positive signs that he might recover.”

“
So we just have to
wait?”

He simply
nodded.

I couldn’t take any more
then.  I turned and walked back down the hall without another
look back.  My breaths were coming in sobbing chokes before I
reached the end of the hall.  It felt like someone was trying
to squeeze me from the inside out.  As I stepped into the
stairwell, I leaned against the cold cinderblock walls and slid to
the floor.  When the guard saw me, he stepped back out, his
discomfort obvious.  I heard him walk away.

It took me far too long to
get myself back under control.  The image of metallic veins
sprouting in West’s eye kept playing over and
over. 

I used every ounce of
strength I had to force myself off the floor and go back down the
stairs.

As I walked numbly back
into the medical wing, I caught a glimpse of another figure lying
on a hospital bed in another room.  In my panic of the
previous hours, I hadn’t noticed that he was injured.

“
Royce?” I said as I
stepped into his room a few feet.  “Are you
alright?”

He just gave a shrug,
brushing it off.  “I’m fine.  Just a few bullet
holes.  Nothing I haven’t lived through before.”

I just nodded, my brain
trying to function again.  Maybe I wanted Dr. Beeson to turn
the emotional blockers back on.  They felt so out of control
right now.

“
I really am sorry about
your friend,” Royce said, his eyes studying my face.  “He
seemed like a good man.  We all hope for the very
best.”

I nodded again, my eyes
glued to the floor but not really seeing anything.  Even
though no one had said it, I heard it in the tone of their
voices.  They might have been hopeful, but they didn’t expect
a positive outcome.

“
When do you plan on
setting off the Pulse?” I changed the subject.

“
With the Extractor
running it takes a lot of power.  It will be another day
before the Pulse has generated enough power to go off.”

I nodded, stuffing my
hands into my pockets.

“
He tried saving West, you
know,” Royce said quietly.  “Avian.  Everyone was firing
at the Fallen who were flooding the platform.  But Avian
jumped in front of West while he was helping me repair the
line.  He probably would have died right then if not for
Avian.”

I squeezed my eyes closed,
imagining the horrific scene behind my eyelids.  “If I’d been
there they both would have been fine.”

“
You can’t be sure of
that.”

“
He wouldn’t have gotten
infected.”

“
Maybe.”

I turned to leave when
Royce spoke again.  “Eve, if I ever hear about you firing a
weapon in this hospital again I will have Dr. Beeson make you think
you’re a three-year-old little girl for the rest of your
life.”

I glanced back at him, a
chuckle escaping my lips.  “It won’t happen again,
promise.”

He gave a twitch of a
smile.  Something started to beep on one of his medical
devices, two doctors rushing in behind me.  I took the
opportunity to duck out.

Avian was asleep when I
returned to his side, much to my disappointment.  He did need
his rest though.  The doctors said they were giving him
antibiotics to keep infection out but other than that there was
little more they were going to have to do to him. 

As I sat with Avian’s hand
in mine, I thought about what was to come.  If the Pulse
really worked and we were able to freely roam, what would that mean
for Avian and I, now that I had finally made my
decision?

I imagined taking him
hunting with me, intrigued by the total mystery of it.  I’d
never seen him out in the woods like that, free to do and go as he
pleased.  I had little doubt he would be good at it. 
Avian seemed to be good at everything.