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

doing?” I asked, pulling away from Avian.
    The woman’s face fell and she hesitated.  “Not well.  It looks like she’s going downhill fast.”
    I gave a hard swallow.  “And the baby?”
    “It doesn’t look good for the baby either, I’m afraid.  It will probably go when she does.”
    I nodded.  “Thank you.” 
    The woman shuffled away.
    “It’s not fair,” I said, standing there in limbo between the rooms of two fading people.  “People can’t just keep dying.”
    “That’s why we’re leaving the day after tomorrow,” Avian said, rubbing a hand over his head again.  “It’s time to do something about it.”
    I kept staring at the window to Morgan’s room and kept thinking about that baby growing in her stomach and how it didn’t have a chance of surviving.  I thought about how crowded it must have been inside my mother’s stomach with my sister and me in there.  I wondered if it felt like a relief as an infant to finally have some room once I was out, but that I probably wasn’t aware enough to feel anything.
    I had been dying too, at that point, after all.
    I suddenly gasped, feeling as if I had been punched in the heart with a ghostly, impossible fist.
    “Avian, I need your help.”
     

 
     
    EIGHT
     
    Avian and I slept little more than a few hours that night.  We had a whole new list of things to collect.  We scoured the fifth floor for supplies, took what we knew could be spared from the hospital wing, and knocked on select doors of people we knew would help us and not say a word.
    And I very carefully asked Dr. Evans some very careful questions about my past.
    The plan was improbable, but not completely impossible.
    I informed Royce that I hadn’t come up with a fourth member of our crew, but that I thought we could work just fine with the team I had come up with so far.  He didn’t fight me about it, but we were packed for an extra person.
    The night before we were to leave, Dr. Beeson radioed to let us know the van was ready.  Bill, West, Avian, and I made our way to the back of the building to check out what they’d created for us.
    We stepped out into the evening light, which reflected blindingly off the beast before us.
    “Who-hoo-hoo!” West said, clapping and whooping as he walked toward it.  “That’s what I’m talking about!”
    I couldn’t help but admire the vehicle as well.
    It had indeed been a fifteen passenger van at one point.  But it looked as if it had the top of it chopped off and raised an additional three feet.  It also had a huge luggage rack on top of that that already held a great deal of our supplies.  And on top of the cargo rack, were six large solar panels.
    The beast had been raised at least a foot and it sported massive, rugged-terrain tires.  A set of flood lights had been mounted to the front of the roof, and the entire thing was midnight black.  Even the windows looked blacked out.
    “Is that a firing turret on top?” I asked, spotting the thick, long cylinder atop the solar panels.
    “Indeed it is,” Dr. Beeson said, a grin spreading on his face.
    “Hey,” Royce said, sounding offended.  “This thing was mostly my baby.  Don’t you go taking all the credit.”
    “Excuse me,” Dr. Beeson said in an exaggerated voice, holding his hands up in mock surrender.  “It’s all yours to show off.”
    “Thank you,” Royce said, his chin lifting, a coy grin cocking in the corner of his mouth.  “Come on, reclamation team.”
    By this point, we were all grinning ridiculously as we followed Royce closer to the vehicle.  He threw the side doors open and held his arms out grandly for us to check out the inside.
    “The solar tank is made to withstand raging Bane, looting humans, and just about anything else this apocalypse has to throw at you,” he said as I stepped inside first.
    The last row of seats had been removed and was stocked full of weaponry.  The very middle of the roof had a hatch cut into it and opened up to