Chapter 3
Three days later, Krieger stood with a few other members of the crew near the elevator shaft. He was still unable to get the image out of his mind of Eva’s pale, stony expression when she told him she was mission bound and wouldn’t be able to take him on a tour of Everwood.
It hadn’t taken much to convince her that she would need him on her crew. She seemed lost in thought the whole conversation, no doubt working in his favor in her allowing him to go.
But hell, she had saved his life, the least he could do was watch her back. He owed her that much, didn’t he?
Besides, his stitches had come out, and he was feeling better. He was ready to see what his new life would be like as a soldier in this settlement, which apparently included new clothes and weapons.
Eva had introduced him to the man in charge of outfitting all the soldiers, Tucker Sanders.The eccentric man’s voice had an edge of excitement as he talked of battle weaponry and the bag of survival gear he gave him.
Even the white hair at his temples seemed to stand on end as he packed for Krieger. Tucker’s smile had extended ear to ear, exposing his silver-capped teeth, which brought a spark of joy to Krieger’s face.
His good mood was ruined, though, when he saw “tall, broad, and dangerous” walk down the steps to the elevator, gear in hand—the badass who had stood next to Eva on the stage the other day. Their eyes met briefly, and his dark eyes seemed to say, back the hell off.
With a deep sigh, Krieger pressed off the wooden wall to introduce himself. After all, they were going on the same mission. Comradery and all, right?
Or was that keep your friends close but your enemies closer?
Either way, friend or foe had yet to be decided.
Krieger widened his stance as he stopped in front of him. “I’m Krieger, seems we’ll be working together.” His outstretched hand hung heavy in the air.
Dark Eyes knelt down to his bag of gear. “I know who you are, Krieger.”
As he straightened, it became obvious Krieger was the taller man, but Dark Eyes didn’t seem to care.
Krieger kept eye contact. “You are?”
“Derek Conroy.” Derek’s toes butted his as his chin rose higher. “I’m second-in-command on these missions. I hope you can take orders.”
Krieger held his position. “I seem to have made it this far.”
Derek smiled. “Good. So we won’t have a problem when I say stay away from Eva.”
Krieger lowered his hand. Foe. “I think we should leave that decision up to her.”
He didn’t miss the twitch of Derek’s upper lip or the snarl that accompanied it.
Sore. Spot. Hit.
Derek’s hands fisted at his sides.
“Is there a problem here?” Eva asked, standing to their right. Her golden hair had been braided over her shoulder, giving her the look of a commanding officer.
“No problem. Just getting to know our new soldier is all.” Derek backed down but held Krieger’s gaze.
“There will be plenty of time to get to know each other later. Right now, we need to move out. We’re burning daylight. Derek, gather the crew.”
As soon as Eva was out of earshot, Derek leaned back into Krieger and whispered, “This isn’t over,” then turned away to bark orders at the others.
Krieger tugged at his new collared, button-down shirt. Tucker Sanders gave him enough clothes to last a lifetime: jeans, cargoes, shirts, and sweaters galore. Most had been placed back in his hut and had stains, holes, and imperfections, but he couldn’t care less.The material would serve its purpose—protection and warmth.
Yet how many men had worn these clothes before? What had happened to them that they weren’t here to wear them now?
He shrugged the thought off. The layers would be needed, especially the dark gray utility jacket, which right now felt stifling.
Derek was dangerous with a capital d, and now Krieger knew why. Derek wanted Eva. His gut told him that wasn’t all. Something about that guy was majorly off, and Krieger felt he wasn’t to be trusted.
He loosened the top buttons of the shirt, then gathered his bag. He hadn’t realized how vital it was that he went on this mission until now. Eva would need him—more than she realized.
After Krieger strode to Eva’s left side, he waited for the rest of the crew to gather on the elevator. Derek tried to stare him down before he assumed his position on her right.
She ignored them both as she called out their names, pointing in each soldier’s direction.
“Krieger, this is Luke and John, they’re brothers. You know Sarah from the dining hall, and you’ve met Derek. Everyone, this is Krieger,” Eva said, then reached for the lever to lower them to the ground.
She seemed lost to her thoughts as she stared hard into the air. A tick in her jaw told him she was tense.
What worries and fears danced in her head?
He turned his attention to the crew. Luke had broad shoulders, light hair, and a scar that ran through his eyebrow. He nodded in Krieger’s direction as he bent down to pick up his gear.
John also had light blond hair but had a thinner frame than his brother. He approached Krieger and held his fist out. “Nice to have an extra pair of hands on the crew.”
Krieger stared at his fist hanging in the air, unsure what to do.
John smiled and said, “It’s okay, man. Eva told us your memory had been wiped.” He gave Krieger a soft clasp on his arm before grabbing his own gear off the floor.
Before he could respond, Sarah moved past him. She had ebony skin and dark hair that was pulled up into a ponytail. She graced him with a shy smile, exposing a perfect set of white teeth. Krieger noted they all seemed to be around the same age.
The pulley system lowered them slowly and steadily to the ground. Eva was the first off the platform, leading the group through the ground village of huts.
Krieger took in his surroundings. Some women carried baskets of vegetables while others carried folded laundry. Some men busied themselves in an open hut around a fire, clanking and scraping of metal sounding from the doorway. A blacksmith?
Children ran past him, brushing up against his leg as they went, laughing down the road. The smell of meat cooking reached him, and burning wood filled the air with a hearty aroma. A group of young men walked by him, eyeing him suspiciously. They held jugs filled with water and lifted them onto the platform they just vacated.
Without warning, a chicken ran past him, hanging a sharp left into an open pasture next to a barn, joining other chickens of different colors and sizes. Mooing and bleating rang out from an open window on the side of it. Is this how they sustain all these people?
Laughter caught his attention, and his head swung in the direction of an older couple sitting on chairs in front of a hut, sharing a secret whisper that they both clearly found funny. Krieger’s chest warmed at the sight. Maybe the end of the world wasn’t so bad? What sort of place had he left behind? Was it like this?
Eva marched toward a wooden wall and a set of double doors that reached up into the canopy of the trees. The men who guarded the door nodded in Eva’s direction as they lifted the beam placed horizontally across the gate. As it opened into the unknown forest around them, Eva stopped and turned, her eyes locking onto his. She nodded in his direction, then stepped from the safety of Everwood.
The sun was hovering well above the horizon as light cut through the branches. As he looked up, he watched the puffy clouds part and leaves float gently on a soft breeze.
Thick tree trunks surrounded them, and pine needles and leaves littered the ground, crunching under their shoes as they started their descent into the valley below. The scent of wheatgrass, pine, and nature decaying was strong but somehow soothing to his nerves. Was he used to living in the woods?
The soldiers marched in silence. John and Luke carried larger guns over their shoulders. Derek had a pistol strapped to his waist and right thigh. He had no doubt those were only the beginning of the weaponry they carried. The pockets and secret compartments of the clothing could hold ammo, knives, and other weapons that went boom.
Tucker had outfitted him with a pistol, two boxes of bullets, two knives, and a grenade. None of which were visible to the naked eye. When Tucker asked if he’d used these weapons before, Krieger had given a sharp nod. He really wasn’t sure, but how hard could it be? Point and shoot. Stab with the pointed end. Release clip and throw. The bigger question was, what or who did they expect him to use these weapons on?
As he moved through the trees into the wheatgrass field, he adjusted his pack on his back. Tucker had loaded it with dry oats, canned beans, smoked meats, a ferro rod to start fires, a pelt, a canteen, and a tarp. It was still baffling as to how he got so many items stuffed into the bag. Why would he need all these provisions? How long would they be away from Everwood?
There was still so much he wanted to know about the settlement, the people, this feud with Stone Haven. And who were these Others?
If he could just get Eva alone, maybe she would open up about it. The way she walked now, with her quick pace and impassive features, he wondered if the conversation with her father didn’t go well.
They had taken a path from the wheatgrass back into the tree line, and with an elongated stride, he met her speed. Maybe she would unburden herself to him. “Want to talk about it?”
She did not turn to look upon him. “Nope.”
Or maybe not. “Well, can you answer a few questions?”
She hiked her pack higher on her back, and he suppressed the urge to take it from her. She seemed troubled; there was no need to poke at her pride and make her feel worse.
She sighed. “Why the hell not, shoot.”
He glanced around him. The group had spanned out among the trees, eyeing the area around them. Derek seemed to be in deep conversation with John, paying Eva little attention.
Krieger cleared his throat. “Why do you live in trees?”
As they walked under a tree canopy, she looked to him, a glint coming back into her eye. “Wait.”
A few steps later, she turned, emerging from the tree line into another open meadow. “Turn around, Krieger.”
Following her lead, he swiveled, and his breath caught in his throat.
From this vantage point, Everwood was in full view; the tree house village was larger than he would’ve ever expected. This was a part of the settlement he hadn’t yet seen.
Row after row of wooden huts sat beneath the branches, limbs, and leaves of the forest. The balconies and bridges would be well hidden if he didn’t know they were there.
Even now, he could see a few people moving over the structure, busy with daily duties and rushing from project to project and home to home. A woman hung curtains on a window, a young girl walked with a toddler along a balcony, a man sat atop a roof with a hammer, pounding on the shingles.
His ears opened up to the wind carrying the voices of the people, the music of the chimes that hung on the structure, the laughter of the children, the sounds of tasks being completed, and... water babbling?
Not far from where they stood was a creek bed filled with trickling water. The creek ran directly under the wall of Everwood, then flowed downhill.
“That’s the settlement water source?” Krieger asked.
Eva nodded. “We also have a rain collection system in place. The water still needs to be carried to the huts individually, but it works.”
From this position, he could see the tops of what looked to be an elaborate system of metal and wood stilts, holding the first level of the village above the ground. The other levels were attached to this foundation and the trees, anchoring it to the earth while stabilizing it. The upper level disappeared into the canopy. Ropes and ladders hung from curves and dips in the wooden floor, leading to lower tiers. Only a couple stories were noticeable between the undergrowth.
He looked to Eva, who still beheld the tree house village, her home. “How did you create this?”
Despite her mood, she smiled. “A couple of engineers, a handful of contractors, scavenging, and a lot of hard work.”
By this time, the crew had caught up with them, and she turned her attention back to the mission.
“You still haven’t answered my question, why do you live in the trees?”
She stared down the path, her face turned impassive, almost sad. Gone was the glint in her eyes, the smile, the excitement in her tone. All that remained was a hard look of determination. “Soon you will see.”
He slowed his pace. Soon you will see. What kind of answer was that? He glanced back over his shoulder at the tree house, then to the crew.
Derek was back, giving him death stares as he walked only feet behind Eva. Did she welcome Derek’s advances? Krieger made a mental note to find out.
Krieger took a deep breath and tilted his head to the sun still high in the sky. Sweat trickled down the sides of his face and beaded on his forehead. No doubt this would be a long day.
By the time the sun was close to setting, his clothes were soaked in moisture. His wound throbbed with heat, begging for him to stop. But he kept moving, flanking Eva on her right, determined to keep Derek at a distance.
They continued their descent, alternating between rocky slopes and heavy brush. Her feet moved over the ground with a stamina not even he possessed. Maybe it was because he’d just been injured, or it was possible she made this trek often.
They moved across a ridge where only a few yellow flowers still bloomed. Their perfumed scent settled on the air, lightening the mood.
The crew continued in silence, reserving their energies for other ambitions. Some scanned the area countless times. What was out there that they deemed so dangerous?
Soon the boulder-covered terrain softened into a flat plain of grass. The clouds thinned and darkened; the wind kicked up. A storm looming.
Eva looked to the sky and sniffed the air. “Rain is coming. We need to move faster. We’ll camp just ahead.”
When she glanced at him, her eyes scanning his movements as he walked, he nodded. She approached him with a catlike grace and said, “Are you all right, you seem—”
“I’m fine.” He was in pain and in need of a rest, but he didn’t want her pointing it out.
He removed his canteen from his bag and took a hard pull on the water, then poured some of the liquid over his face.
Eva still studied his features. She didn’t believe him. How did she see right through him?
“Come, there’s something I want to show you,” Eva said as she turned away from him.
Krieger was just about to stow his canteen when his shoulder jerked hard. Derek pushed past him, giving him a hard look. Krieger matched his stare, hoping to send a silent warning not to do that again.
Sarah followed Derek, glancing at Krieger as she walked past him, gracing him with a sympathetic smile. No doubt she witnessed Derek slamming his shoulder into him.
Krieger finished packing the canteen, then approached the edge of a grassy knoll, where the crew began to slow. He stepped to Eva’s side, studying her features, before following her gaze.
His reflex was immediate. He staggered backward, taking hold of Eva’s shoulder to bring her with him.