Free The Human (The Eden Trilogy) by Keary Taylor Page A

shotgun leveled.
    There was a decision to make in that moment.  Did I shoot them dead and become a murderer but keep them from possibly murdering us?  Or did I show mercy and risk them flooding our city with Bane?
    They cut around a corner, killing the choice. 
    “Eve!” I heard Avian shout from behind me.
    I turned just briefly enough to see him knock a man unconscious with the butt of his shotgun and take off after me.
    “I got this!” I bellowed, kicking up my speed.
    I turned the corner and faltered for just a moment.  Margaret was in sight.  But her men were gone.
    Something embedded itself into my side and every muscle in my body locked up.  Air froze in my lungs, and black lines flickered across my vision.  I hit the ground like a freshly cut tree.  Across the street and just around the corner, I could see Avian, his fist connecting with another man’s jaw.
    I rolled as I hit the ground, my vision turning up to the cloudy sky.  A man’s face entered my field of vision.  He had something in his hands and everything in me wanted to fight back as he covered my head with it.
    But then everything shut down.

 
     
    TEN
     
    The ground was moving and it made my stomach sick.
    A quick tug upward, and then a stomach dropping downward motion.  Repeat. 
    Over and over I bobbed.
    I was on water.
    My eyes felt like sandpaper as I tried to pull them open.  Everything was black and blur.  And I couldn’t find my body.  I was aware that it was still there, but it may as well have been dead.  Nothing could move.
    I could however hear feet shuffling.  They sounded like they were behind a door maybe.  Muffled.
    Air couldn’t move past my dead lips, couldn’t cry out for answers.  Or help.
    Suddenly, there were voices.
    “You really think this doctor of yours can fix me?”
    Something inside of me died when I recognized that voice.
    West.
    “He was the best heart surgeon there was on the West Coast before the Evolution.”
    And instantly I was full of fire and wrath.
    That was the girl he’d been talking to in the dining area.
    “I just hope this wasn’t a mistake,” he said, his voice growing quieter.  “Cause I’m a dead man if he can’t take that scrap out.”
    The pieces of the puzzle started sliding into place with only a few words.
    I calculated in my head the amount of time West had.  I got the sense we’d left New Eden and were headed back to wherever these people were from.  I couldn’t gauge how long we’d been traveling.  But it had been just over a week from the time West came out of Extraction to the time before I got knocked out.
    West only had about five days.  Seven if he was really lucky.
    He really was a dead man if this supposed doctor couldn’t fix him.
    Had my harshness toward him really driven him to do this?  To betray his family and look for an elusive fix?
    But I also had to consider why I was here, drugged and bound.  I couldn’t imagine anyone else would have given away my secret.  Had West traded it for the surgery?  Had they tricked it out of him?  Had he let it slip?
    “Don’t look so down,” the female voice said.  “You made the right choice.”
    “I know I needed away from her,” West’s voice grew quieter.  “But I just feel weird about leaving everyone.  About leaving her.  I searched for her for five years, and now I’m just walking away.”
    “You made the right choice,” she said again, her words starting to slur in my ears.
    Shadows started climbing in my brain, heavy and thick.  I tried to keep them out, to find a door to close to them.  But they were fog and mist and they crept in through all the cracks in my head.
     
     
    There was light dancing behind my eyelids.  It was dull and gray.  But it was light.
    “A little too effective,” a voice said.  “Wouldn’t you say?”
    “Yes ma’am,” another responded, shame and fear in it.
    “See if you can rouse her.”  The voice was female.
    Something hard and cold whipped