Eden's Promise (6 page)

“Vicky thinks it might be a stroke.”

“Jesus.” They had no resources on the island to deal with something like that. On the mainland, either, come to that.

“She wants my sister. She wants Kelly here.”

Defeat dragged through him. He’d known Kelly, and there was no way she’d managed to survive in this new world. She may have been raised by Ed, but he hadn’t managed to instill any fear in her. She’d been all about fun, which had drawn him when he was a teenager, but it couldn’t be helping her now.

“Eden, you know that’s impossible. Would you even know where to look?”

She dropped to the couch and lowered her head to her hands. “No. I haven’t heard from her in years. I don’t even know if she was still in Tacoma when everything happened. But it’s the only thing my mother has asked of me. I have to go find her.”

He sat on the edge of the cushion beside her and took her hand. “She doesn’t know what she’s asking. Sending you there is a—” He stopped himself from saying “death sentence,” though that was what he believed. “A mistake. And do you really want to leave her side when she’s so sick?”

“No, of course I don’t, but she asked me, Aaron. You have to understand that.”

He understood, all right. He understood that Eden wouldn’t be able to do it on her own, either, and he dreaded what was coming next, when she lifted tear-filled eyes and looked at him.

“Will you help me find my sister?”

Chapter Four

Eden’s heart thudded as the sailboat slid silently through the water toward the shore of the mainland. At Aaron’s signal, she took the sail down so no one would hear the canvas flapping and give them away.
 

Eden shivered in the boat as they looked for a place to pull in along the shore, someplace where they could hide the boat but could get to the city. They weren’t arriving at a dock, and were south of the city, so had to be careful of rocks as they neared the shore. Running aground could be deadly. They’d left home before dusk and now it was full-dark, but they couldn’t risk flashlights being seen from the shore. They’d even painted the boat and sail black so the reflections would be minimal.

Reflections of what, Eden wondered. Everything was so dark, even the stars were shrouded by clouds. Aaron had declared this a perfect night to go as he’d streaked his face, then hers, with grease paint.
 

Five days, he’d said. He’d give her five days to look for her sister in this giant haystack, and then they were heading back. They were armed to the teeth and supplied so that they wouldn’t have to waste time foraging. They’d start at Kelly’s last known address and move from there.

Eden knew Aaron thought her sister was dead. She knew he thought this was a foolish quest. But he had come with her anyway, dismissing all other offers of help from Damien, Ben and Angel. It was enough the two of them risked their lives.

She knew, too, that his mother was angry with her for asking this of him. But she also knew he was her best shot at finding Kelly, and fast.

Suddenly, Aaron was out of the boat, barely making a splash in the waves, guiding the boat onto the sand. Eden hopped out, barely getting her feet wet. She opened her mouth to say something but Aaron’s warnings came back to her. Voices carried in the open. Instead she helped him drag the boat across the sand to hide it near a group of rocks. Aaron tossed a gillie blanket over it and declared it hidden. The small boat had been hell on the ocean, and though she’d sailed all her life, she’d come damned close to getting seasick. But with the weather and the swells, two people could barely handle it. Still, it was their only means home, and she hoped no one discovered it and took it.
 

He barely allowed her to catch her breath before motioning her across the beach to the cliff.
 

He would go first, in the event of a patrol. As they hiked up the path, her anxiety grew. He crouched as he neared the top of the rise, scanned the area, then gave her the all-clear. They scrambled onto the flat of the cliff and looked around. Eden knew the city was nearby, but without lights, it could be anywhere.

They would be moving at night, as Aaron had done on his way to the island, but without flashlights. And with no moon, Eden struggled to see. Aaron wrapped his fingers around her elbow and guided her onto the asphalt of the road. They wouldn’t stay there long, either, since the roads were probably patrolled, either by military or gangs. He’d impressed upon her the need to avoid both. The fewer people who knew they were here, the better.

Her vision adjusted to the dark as they headed north into the city. She was astounded at the amount of decay in such a short time. The road buckled and broke, signs were twisted and bent, sitting at crazy angles, the green highway signs cracked, showing
coma 6
.
 

Six miles to Tacoma, the last address she had for her sister. And finding her house in the city would be tough with no lights, especially if the street signs were the same shape as the highway signs. She hoisted her pack higher on her back and followed Aaron along the road.

The clouds parted and she glimpsed the skyline, eerily dark. Below were some spots of light within the city.

“Fires,” Aaron said, low. “We want to avoid those.”

He’d warned her repeatedly in the time it took to gather their supplies, to prepare the boat, about the kind of people they could encounter here. Her knees were weak with terror as she stepped on the boat after hearing what people did to survive on the mainland, but she’d done it anyway. Now, seeing the lights in the distance, knowing the people around it would be desperate, willing to do unspeakable things, a shudder went through her.
 

The sound of gunfire popped in the distance, echoing off the concrete buildings, and she ducked even though she knew it was far away.

“Time to move off the road,” he said, and headed down the embankment into the shadows.
 

She stumbled after him, barely able to see where she was going, wondering how he could.

They moved into the town, past a corner store with the windows smashed, glass still littering the sidewalk and parking lot, hoses torn from gas pumps. If she’d thought they’d be able to find anything of use here, she was mistaken. She’d keep her focus on finding her sister.

Other than those random gunshots—had it been rival gangs fighting? People shooting wild animals for food?—the city was so quiet, only the occasional breeze whispering through the trees, the skittering of a rock on the pavement when she misstepped. No people, none of the sounds of the island, none of the sounds of a city.
 

And destruction everywhere, signs of desperation in some cases, with the shattered storefronts, scattered cartons, ruined now after being out in the weather for months. Some of the damage, however, was vandalism, boards torn from houses and tossed into the streets, signs shattered and torn down. She could almost feel the panic the residents must have felt. But did they stay, did they hunker down? Or did they leave? What did Kelly do?

All around them, creatures scurried—she could hear their claws on the broken pavement, the occasional hiss and bark. Pets left behind? She missed having a pet. Since her father had been the vet, they’d always had various animals in the house. She’d gotten her own dog when she was eight years old, and it had died when she’d been away at college. When she returned home, she’d thought about getting another pet, but her father had been against it, so worried about what would happen to the animals if the world came to an end.

Some people on the island still had pets, though they had to feed them from their own rations. She just couldn’t justify dividing rations among pets, not when supplies were low. She understood Aaron’s attachment to Huck, though. They’d been through a lot together.

She shook off the thought of pets, of having someone else to love, someone else to take care of, another responsibility. Didn’t she have enough?

Aaron reached back and closed his hand around hers. She battled the thrill that ran through her at the simple contact, realized he did it to expedite their mission, to guide her without words, not because he cared for her. Actually, she had the feeling he hated her a little, for bringing him here, for asking him to do this.

He guided her into an alcove in front of a store, one with no broken windows. He forced the lock and shoved the glass door open, facing some resistance. The worst smell poured out of the cracked door, and Aaron shoved her back, hard, trying to shield her with his body. Danger, she thought first, then saw the thing on the ground in front of the door, the reason it was so hard to open.
 

A dead body.

Eden pivoted away as her stomach heaved, but Aaron caught her before she left the alcove. She barely avoided splattering their shoes. The small area filled with the scent of decay and sick. Great. Way to show him how tough she was.
 

“How did he die?” she managed.
 

Aaron grunted. “Hard to say. It’s been awhile. And I think it’s a woman.”

But the woman had been holding a gun. Aaron pried it free, and the sound it made when it left her hands was sickening. Eden forced herself not to react.
 

Instead, she stepped with him over the body and into the store.
 

The place hadn’t been touched, so odd after seeing everything looted. The supplies were sold out or rotted for the most part, and while there were over-the-counter medications on the shelves, there were no prescription medications. Eden and Aaron loaded up on pain relievers, bandages and anything else they thought would be handy, like, praise God, toilet paper. She felt strange loading up on condoms, but they didn’t need another mouth to feed on the island. She hated telling people to practice birth control, like her father had done, but they had to see it was for the good of everyone. Eden grabbed a tube of toothpaste and made use of it to get the taste of vomit out of her mouth before tossing it in her pack and joining Aaron at the door.

The rest of the block wasn’t as well-preserved. The grocery store and another drug store had been looted and nearly emptied. Aaron pointed to a red cross on a building. A hospital? Her heart pounded—they could find so many supplies in there. She started to lead the way, but he held her back, drawing his pistol and motioning for her to do the same. Right. Just because they hadn’t seen anyone didn’t mean no one was around. And where better to hide than a hospital?

It wasn’t a hospital, exactly, more of a clinic, two stories. When they opened the door, the scent wasn’t of decay but of disuse. She found that reassuring.
 

Now her pulse thundered for a different reason as she kept her gaze on Aaron, watching his body language as he crept through the halls.
 

The place had been completely trashed, windows broken, computers turned over, papers scattered everywhere. Her hopes sank like a rock. Other people had come to find medicine, more than likely, and had taken their frustration in finding none out on the place.
 

When they emerged from the clinic, she heard the growling of animals as they fought over something, and realized with dismay it was the remains of the woman in the first store. Nausea welled once again, but she battled it and followed Aaron down the street. He drew her through the shattered windows of a gas station and headed to the coolers. The beer was gone, but some sodas remained in the dark refrigerator. He pulled out a root beer and motioned for her to get what she wanted. She chose a warm diet drink with a smile.
 

“This reminds me of going on road trips with my dad. He’d always stop at the gas station and get us a drink and a snack.”

Aaron drained half his bottle before replying, then used the neck of it to point at the decimated snack aisle. “Help yourself.”

She found a crushed bag of chips with an expiration date that had passed, but she ignored it and ripped it open. She poured some of the powdery remnants in her palm and funneled them into her mouth. She held the bag to him but he shook his head, making her wonder if he hadn’t lived on supplies like this as he made his way across the country.
 

“Are we getting close?” he asked, leaning against the wall and watching her.

“Not far.” They’d mapped it out, and thankfully she knew Tacoma well enough to know the general area where her sister had lived, though she had never visited.
 

“Let’s get going, then.”

She wasn’t used to walking such a distance—the disadvantage to living on an island. She wouldn’t show that weakness to Aaron though, not after she’d convinced him to bring her. So she worked hard to hide how bad her feet and knees hurt as she kept up with him.

Birds stirring, chirping, singing as they woke in the trees above them, signaling dawn’s approach as they moved into her sister’s neighborhoods, one of those with cookie cutter houses and streets with themed names. She was grateful it wasn’t in one of the rougher areas of the city, or Aaron would never have allowed them to get close. As it was, he was alert to their surroundings, gun drawn, though he had been very clear they weren’t to fire unless they had no other choice.