“That boy’s going to have to learn to follow common sense someday,” Bill said, shaking his head.
I didn’t have a response. This entire situation was hard and I was quickly losing my cool when it came to West and his recovery. But I had in fact had feelings for West. Those weren’t completely gone. I couldn’t just hate West because I had decided I wanted to be with someone else.
These human emotions were too damn complicated.
“Time,” Nick said as his watch beeped.
I pushed the door open and swept the space with my shotgun. It was perfectly empty though.
The building wasn’t large. We entered a living area with simple furniture and carpeted floors. Just to the left was a small kitchen with molding food on the counter and an even smaller dining area with a table and four chairs.
“Looks pretty safe,” Nick said as he walked around the space, testing his weight on the floor. Bill checked the kitchen.
I nodded, heading back for the doors that led off from the living room.
The door creaked when I pushed it open. I found a large bed, the sheets and blankets in a twisted mess in the middle of it. There was a dresser too large for the space. Sitting on it were three picture frames.
In one there was a picture with a smiling couple. She wore a flowing wedding dress, her hair in an elegant knot. He wore a handsome grey suit. They were looking at each other, their faces radiating love.
In another picture there was a little girl, probably younger than Brady. She had curly blond hair and wore a bright pink shirt. In the last picture there was a baby. The baby was young enough it was hard to tell if it was a boy or girl, but the pink blanket it lay on gave it away.
Swallowing hard, I checked the bedroom and bathroom attached to it. Everything looked safe.
There was one more door to check.
I pushed it open and stopped in the doorway.
The walls were painted a pale pink. A tiny bed was pushed into one corner. A frilly white blanket was tangled at the foot of it. A huge stuffed rabbit was about to fall off the edge. And in the opposite corner there was a crib. Toys sat neatly in bins along the walls. Sunlight shone in through the windows.
The room looked as if it was just waiting for those two little girls to come home and play.
“Everything good back here?” Nick asked, startling me.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice sounding rough. “Let’s go.”
The three of us stepped back outside. Many of the other soldiers were already done. They stood in front of the building, talking and laughing, looking normal. Bill and Nick went to join them.
Seeing that pink room had shaken me. I thought of those little girls and how they’d had their life stolen from them. I thought about my own childhood, the one that had been stolen from me.
A hard knot formed in my stomach. I ducked around the building to try and find some quiet. The side road was littered with garbage and debris. I stepped over a trash can. I didn’t want to be in my head just then.
I turned a corner into the back alley when I bumped right into someone. My bones instantly hissed to life and my breath snagged in my chest. I reached out a hand to steady myself, and pressed it right into the surface of West’s inhibitor.
A scream leapt from my throat as I pulled my hand back. My hand looked deformed, as if all the bones in it had broken and magnetized themselves to the inhibitor.
West swore under his breath and reached out to steady me. “Are you okay?” he asked at the same time I shook out of his grasp.
“Stay away from me,” I hissed, cradling my hand to my chest. The discomfort was dulling, my pain blockers kicking in. I could feel my bones trying to right themselves.
“Yeah, that’s what everyone seems to be telling me these days,” West said, a hard edge to his voice.
I looked up at him. His expression was angry, frightening even, now that his face was covered in so many scars.
“Look, West,” I said, dropping my hand to my side. “I don’t want things to have to be like this between us. But you’ve got to start thinking things through. You’re pretty much the one person here who can kill me now. You’ve got to be more careful.”
West suddenly chuckled as his gaze rose to the hazy blue sky and he shook his head. “Just think how romantically tragic this all would have been if you’d picked me instead of him. In love and wanting to be together, but you couldn’t even touch me.”
“West, stop it,” I said, my voice dropping low as I sensed where he was going to take this.
“But instead, you get your happy ending,” he said, his voice growing cold. He took a step toward me. His head dropped and he looked up at me from beneath his thick, dark lashes. “And what do I get?” He stopped a mere foot from me. My blood hissed. I stood with my back to the wall. “I get screwed!” West pounded his fist into the wall just to the left of my head. His nose was only six inches from mine.
“I get infected and you go and pick him?” he bellowed, his eyes growing darker by the second.
“I made my decision before I knew who was infected,” I spat back as best I could. It felt as if my throat were closing up. I was struggling to breathe.
“What am I supposed to do now, Eve?” he said, his voice not softening in the slightest. “I’m supposed to live the rest of my life looking like a monster and watch you and him live out a happily ever after?”
“Back…” I struggled. “Back off, West.”
“I don’t think so,” he said with a laugh in his voice. And for the first time in my life, I was afraid of West. “Not until you tell me that you don’t love me. That the past doesn’t matter.”
“West…” I said. There were thick black spots swimming in my vision.
“Get off of her!” Avian bellowed and I heard feet pounding the road.
The next second an arm wrapped around West’s throat and the two of them were tumbling across the pavement.
I collapsed to the ground, coughing violently. Avian rolled on top of West, pinning him to the ground. His fist connected with West’s jaw, West’s head sharply snapping to the left.
“Don’t come near her again!” Avian threatened, landing another blow as West swung back.
West took a swing at Avian, which he blocked with his forearm before landing another punch to West’s face.
“You have no idea who she really is!” West yelled. “She was never supposed to pick you! It was always me and her. Always!”
“That’s enough!” Elijah shouted as he sprang for the two. He shoved Avian off of West while West tried for another swing. Bill darted into the alley, pulling Avian away, holding his arms pinned behind his back.
“I mean it!” Avian screamed. “You touch her again and I will kill you!”
I couldn’t move, sitting immobile and stunned on the ground as I watched the mess I’d caused explode out of control.
What had I done?
What kind of an unfixable disaster had I created?
“All three of you back to the hospital, right now!” Elijah commanded, his eye wild and angry. “I will not have my own crew fighting amongst themselves!”
Avian jerked in Bill’s arms, trying to get back at West, who stared at him with death in his eyes.
“That’s enough!” I yelled, my ability to breathe returning.
“Cool it,” Bill said, jerking when Avian lurched for West.
“Back to the hospital,” Elijah growled again.
When Avian relaxed, Bill released him. Avian didn’t look away from West as he shrugged his shoulders, adjusting the rifle on his back. His jaw flexed along with his fists as he turned and walked down the alley.
West shoved Elijah off of him and walked away in the opposite direction.