58. Fifty Five
Fifty Five
Creed
The agony in my chest is indescribable.
Each breath is a spasm, quick and unsatisfying to starving lungs. That’s not the root of my pain, though. It’s a hole, an absence. No tears will fall, though I choke on sobs.
The press of a palm might as well be a striking cattle prod. I yank myself away from the perpetrator, baring my teeth at a wide eyed Veda. Despair has been misplaced, choler filling the void.
We stand in the empty lot of the campsite. It’s been an hour since Eden was taken, but only thirty minutes since Veda and the other’s let me out of the bedroom. They didn’t want to, either, but after enough screaming and throwing stuff around, the mother of the child begged them to open the door.
“You need to calm down,” Veda signs slowly.
Without a place to aim the blame, I lash out at the closest target.“You let them take her!”
She looks remorseful, lips twisting to the side as she bites back her own guilt. “I understand how you’re feeling—”
“No, you don’t understand! Your best friend is dead!”
Veda blinks at me in surprise, her cheeks reddening. I’m too angry to care. Turning on my heel, I make my way toward one of the vehicles sitting in the lot. Unsure who it belongs to, I rationalize that if they didn’t want anyone using it, they shouldn’t have left the keys in it.
Veda steps into my path.
“You don’t know where you’re going,” she reminds me.
I shrug my shoulders.
“Wait for your brother to come back. We’ll all go together.”
Slamming my hands on the hood of the car, I throw my head back and stare at the sunless sky.
Every second that Eden’s away feels like she’s slipping through my fingers. If they had let me go with her, I might have been able to do something. But they doubted me. They doubted that I would be able to take care of us, so they let her throw herself to the wolves.
Mind made up, I reach for the door. Movement in my peripheral vision captures my attention. I freeze.
It’s the same SUV as before, but the tail end is smashed in, and a few of the windows are shattered. It peels into the clearing, slamming on the breaks.
They’ve returned.
I’m unarmed, and if there’s multiple of them, I’m as good as dead. But I don’t think. I move. The blacked out windows make it impossible to see into the front seat, and when I race up to the driver’s door, I catch my own wild reflection.
As I grab the handle, the door swings open. It’s not multiple men, it’s just one. Well, it’s not a man at all.
It’s Sylvie.
Blood coats her chest and arm, and her hair clings to her neck, coated in the sticky substance. You would expect her to look haggard, or on the brink of losing consciousness, but she only looks pissed.
“Where’s Cecil?”
“Where’s Eden?”
Our signs are simultaneous, twins of desperation.
When her jaw drops, my heart sinks.
“He’s not with you?” I ask, unsteady on my feet.
When she answers, she doesn't beat around the bush, and she doesn’t pity me. She squares her jaw and meets my eye. Holding it. “It was a trap.” She glances over to where Veda and the others rush towards us. “They took him. All of them.”
My head spins, and I have to crouch down to avoid falling on my ass.
Cecil is gone. Eden is gone.
They’re gone, and I’m here. Alone.
“They were here?” Sylvie asks Veda, taking note of the destroyed campground. The older woman offers a solemn nod.
When Veda speaks, she keeps her hands at her sides, but I read her lips perfectly. “They have Eden.”
Bile rises up and out of my mouth. The dam bursts.
The savory scent of chicken broth and sautéed vegetables will usually make my mouth water, but right now, it might as well be rot and vinegar.
“You need to eat,” Sylvie tells me. She’s on the faded lazy boy across from where I sit on the couch. Using her teeth, she rips gauze that she's wrapping around her shoulder. The bullet is still in there, but she’s completely unbothered.
I don’t respond to her; I face the clock and watch the ticking of the thin black arm. Each second is somehow longer than the last.
It’s only 2:00 in the afternoon. We’ve got ten more hours until we can leave. Ten. Painstaking. Hours.
After I had thrown up the acid in my stomach, the forgotten tears made themselves known. I would have expected Veda to be the comforting one, but it was Sylvie who rubbed my back, coaxed me into the RV, and forced me to drink sips of ice water.
“We’ll find them,” she had promised. “But not yet.”
The plan was set in place without my input; not that it would have counted for anything, anyway.
Sylvie gave a brief rundown of what transpired: from the trap at the orphanage to the miraculous dust storm.
She was adamant that Eden and Cecil will be kept alive.
For how long? No telling. But at least they’re not dead.
Traveling to the Sanctuary in the light of day is a suicide mission, so we’ll use the cover of nightfall to our advantage.
Once there, we’ll move silently, using gunfire only when necessary.
Veda is convinced that they underestimate us, that they won’t expect us to come to their doorstep.
So, we’ll pick them off one by one, making our way into the heart of the facility.
Ten of the Resistance were able to make their way back to our camp, escaping the orphanage before being apprehended. Injuries were minor, and spirits remain intact. Truthfully, Cecil and Eden being taken has boosted morale. For that, I’m grateful.
The cushion beneath me dips, and I slowly face the unwelcome guest. Sylvie’s amber eyes bore into me, and with her hair tied in a knot at the nap of her neck, I see a violet bruise has bloomed over her temple.
“You need the energy. Otherwise, you’re useless.”
I scoff, wiping my nose against my sleeve. Exhaustion tugs at me, but the anxiety refuses to let me rest. Or eat. Or breathe. “Aren’t I already?” I retort, cocking my brow. She doesn’t frown, or reprimand me, she simply stares.
I shift uncomfortably.
After a beat, she stands from the couch and makes for the bedroom. Before she passes the threshold, she turns back, giving me a final up-down glance.
“I don’t know. Are you?”
The door shuts behind her, and with Veda outside taking inventory of our weapons, I’m left alone with the steaming bowl of soup in front of me.
And damn it if I don’t eat the whole thing.