Free Rise An Eve Novel by Anna Carey

words kept coming back to me. He’d said it was still possible to lose the child, that stress and strain could cause it all to go away.
    I stood, my knees light, and went to the back of the bathroom. Stepping onto the edge of the tub, I could just reach the small metal vent near the ceiling. I’d taken one of the screws out of the bottom of the circular grate, which now slid to the right, around and up, leaving room to reach my hand in. I pulled out the plastic bag nestled in the back of the vent. The gray T-shirt was balled up inside it, secure in its own secret pouch.
    I held it in my hands, feeling the ripped hem along the bottom, the tag that hung on by a few loose stitches, the letter C inked in. This might be the last thing I had of Caleb—the only proof he’d existed at all. It seemed so small and pathetic now, so momentary. The thread was already coming apart at the seams.
    That word— lose —felt heavier than it ever had before. What if, after weeks of having the baby without knowing, I’d already lost it? For the first time since I’d found out about the pregnancy I was pulled under by grief, the kind that took hold of me suddenly in the weeks after Caleb’s death. However hard it would be to have a child beyond the City walls, I wanted it—it was a part of me, of us . And within a few days, she (why did I think it was a she?) would be the only family I had.
    I couldn’t lose any more. There was so little already for me to hold on to. Moss was gone. Caleb was dead. Within days it would be over, the City, Clara, and the Palace receding behind me until I was back in the wild, alone, waiting how long—months? years?—to be called back. She was all I had left.
    Please , I thought, wishing for the first time in days that the sickness would come back, that I would feel something—anything—again. I didn’t want to lose her. I didn’t want to lose the possibility of what she would be, of what I could be for her. I couldn’t now. Every time I pushed the idea out of my head it returned, until I found myself sitting on the windowsill, the T-shirt in my hands. I pressed the thin fabric to my face, trying to control my breath, but each one caught somewhere inside me. I stayed there like that, in the quiet of the room, for hours, barely able to force his name past my lips: “ Caleb .”

eleven
    “THE LIEUTENANT SAID THE SOLDIERS OUTNUMBER THEM three to one.” Aunt Rose pushed her eggs around her plate, prodding them along with her fork. It was the first time I’d seen her without makeup. The skin beneath her eyes was a dull blue, her lashes barely visible.
    “What matters is we’re safe here,” Charles said. “There are a hundred soldiers surrounding the Palace, maybe more. No one is getting into the tower.” He glanced sideways at me as he said it, as if I could confirm its truth.
    I stared down at the thin piece of bread on my plate and the small pile of eggs beside it. My appetite had gone, but I still felt nothing. My father had been too ill to speak with me the night before, but the Lieutenant had assured everyone the siege would be suppressed within a day or two. They were already rationing, though. No supply trucks could come in from the Outlands, so the kitchens had been locked. One of the Palace workers, an older, spindly woman with glasses, had been given the unfortunate task of answering requests.
    We sat there, pushing the food around our plates, listening to the sounds of the City below. The gunshots could still be heard, even from the top of the Palace tower. Every now and then the fighting was interrupted by a quick, hollow pop that raised goose bumps on my arms.
    Clara broke the silence, her voice tentative. “How is he?” She didn’t dare look at me as she said it.
    Rose kept her eyes on her food, letting the fork rest for a moment on the edge of her plate. “No better, no worse,” she said. “You didn’t discuss his illness outside the Palace, did you?”
    “No, Mother.”