Chapter Fifteen

After…

Eve wasn’t what I expected. As Ben predicted, she finally made an appearance just after sundown.

The moment she waltzed into the room, it was clear that she was in charge by the way she held herself, exuding confidence and supremacy. She wasn’t much taller than me, but her big round eyes were the most vibrant shade of green I’d ever seen and clashed with both the red ring around her irises, and the fiery curls cascading down to her shoulders. She was probably in her early thirties but had the kind of pearly luminescent skin that redheads often did, making them look younger than they actually were.

She was followed into our cell by a man she introduced as Daniel.

“Halley, nice to finally meet you,” he said, standing by Eve’s side. “Apologies for the delay, it’s been a busy day for us.”

His accent had the slightest tinge of welsh in it, but it was only just detectable. He was taller than Eve and a little older—early forties at a guess. His eyes were such a deep shade of brown that his pupils were indistinguishable at a distance, and it made him look downright fiendish. The rest of his appearance embodied the term ‘dark and brooding’ with a head of thick black hair and an artfully trimmed goatee beard.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked, his attention turning to Claire. It wasn’t really a question, though.

Claire smiled half-heartedly and then gave me a little wave. “See you on the other side.”

In a matter of seconds, Daniel had ushered her from the room, his hand clutching her forearm so tightly his fingers left indents in her flesh.

I didn’t want her to go, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of doom building in my gut.

“I hope that Claire kept you company?” Eve asked, leaning back against the wall opposite me with her arms crossed. “Did she tell you much about us?”

“A little.”

Eve smiled. “She can be…muddled, at times.”

In no mood for small-talk, I breathed deeply through gritted teeth. “I need to see Nate.”

“Of course,” she said, coolly. “I just wanted to come and talk with you first.”

My growing irritation channeled its way into my hands where it made balls of my fists. It took me a good few seconds to settle myself enough to respond as impassively as possible.

“Fine.”

She moved toward me. “To be honest, we don’t normally do things this way. It’s been messy, to say the least.”

My next response was far from unemotional and came out far more curtly than I’d intended.

“You don’t normally lock people up then?”

“No, we don’t,” Eve replied. “Not unless we have to.”

My composure fractured there and then. “You didn’t have to lock us up!”

“You had a gun and threatened one of us,” Eve countered.

“We thought you were going to hurt Claire,” I snapped, copying her turn of phrase.

She said nothing until her lips finally curled into a sneer. “Like I said, messy.”

She walked over to the window and peered out onto the courtyard. “I have to protect the people of this community. You understand that?”

I watched her carefully, but she gave nothing away other than what she chose to convey; concern for her people, regret for the way things had happened. Right now, she was trying to take the moral high ground.

A swell of guilt rose in my stomach and forced me to suppress the urge to apologize. This mess was not our fault. Were they right to distrust Nate and I? Yes, of course they were, but we had just as much reason to distrust them.

“Yes,” I snapped. “I understand that.”

She turned back to face me. “In any case, once we all get to know each other, I’m sure you and Nate will fit right in.”

My fingernails dug painfully into my palms as my fists flexed. “What makes you think we’d want to stay here?” The words tumbled from my mouth before I could stop them. Pissing off Eve wasn’t going to do me any favors, and I wanted—needed—to see Nate.

She smiled again, seemingly unaffected by my remark. “Well, we were hoping you would stay for a little while, at least.”

Whether she was truly attempting to be reasonable or simply stringing me along, I couldn’t decide. My only choice was to play her game. “Why is that?”

“This is where we’re all meant to be, Halley,” she answered, matter-of-factly. “Besides, a doctor would be very useful to us.’”

I shot her a quizzical look. “How did you know Nate was a doctor?”

Eve shifted a little closer to me. “Because he was my doctor.”

“What?”

Eve slinked further forward until she was directly under the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room. The light brought out the flame-like highlights winding through the coils of her auburn hair. It was almost ethereal.

“When I got sick with the virus, he was there at the hospital,” she clarified.

Was this woman the survivor Nate had mentioned? The one who’d pulled through only to be told that her three little boys hadn’t made it?

“In Bristol? That was you?”

Eve dipped her head in response. “He stayed with me, day and night,” she said, exhaling heavily. Her cool repose was broken momentarily by a flicker of something in her eyes that was gone before I could define it.

Her unruffled demeanor returned, “I recognized him straight away. What are the odds of that? If it isn’t fate, then I don’t know what is.”

I still wasn’t sure if I believed in such things, but the chances of running into someone you knew in a world where only the most minuscule percentage of the population had survived were infinitesimally small. No wonder she wanted us to stay. If Eve was a believer in something divine, then having Nate show up would have strengthened her conviction tenfold.

The hairs on the back of my neck tingled uncomfortably and only added to the sense of uneasiness I felt.

“He tried to stop those bastards from taking me too,” she added. “He was a good man.”

I didn’t like her talking about him in the past tense like he wasn’t here anymore. “He still is a good man.”

Talking about Nate triggered a feeling of utter desperation to rise in my chest. It was physically hurting now, turning into a constant ache deep in my bones, like I was coming apart. This was the first time I’d ever wished our connection wasn’t so intense—not because of the pain so much, but more so because it was making it hard to think clearly. If we were going to get out of here, I needed my wits sharp.

“Eve, please, can I see Nate?”

She opened her mouth to answer me, but we were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Eve? Are you coming?” a voice said from the corridor.

“I have to go,” she said, flashing me an apologetic smile. “You’ll see Nate tomorrow, I promise.”

After she left, I fell back against the wall with my head in my hands.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

I wanted to scream—loud, in the hope he might hear me. I wanted him to know I was still here, and I’d find a way to be with him again.

Somehow.

****

Hearing the low murmur of voices echoing up from the courtyard, I moved sluggishly to the window and pressed my face against the metal shutters.

The pillar candles were all alight now, flickering gently in the breeze. Further back against the perimeter wall, a dozen solar lamps burned brightly.

A crowd of at least fifteen people gathered around the concrete bowl of the fountain, some sitting on the edge while others stood well back. I caught sight of Daniel and Laura then, standing off to one side, both wearing the same subdued facial expressions. When I glanced back to the fountain, someone was in the water, leaning casually against the frolicking mermaid. I was sure it was the other man who’d chased Claire, but I could only catch brief glimpses of him when he moved into the light. He was bare-chested and wore jeans rolled to the knee, although the water in the fountain reached his mid-thigh.

It wasn’t long before Eve appeared, followed closely by Ben, who had a firm grip on Claire. A few of the onlookers gave her a clap, and one even rushed forward to hug her. She smiled politely at them, but her body remained rigid in the embrace.

Ben helped Claire climb into the fountain and then got in beside her. She still wore the white dress she’d changed into earlier, the pretty ruffles fanning out in the water as the two men lowered her backward until she was floating.

For a ceremony intended to be tranquil and calm, most of the onlookers shifted uncomfortably now, their heads turning from the scene in front of them. Even Daniel looked away, casting his glance downward with one hand flattened over his mouth, while his free hand interlocked with Eve’s as she came to stand next to him.

The moment she nodded at Ben, a cold shiver ran down my spine.

Putting his hands flatly on Claire’s ribcage, he pushed her down under the water and held her there.

Seconds passed—too many seconds.

Let her go. Let her go.

When Claire began to struggle and kick out, the other man grabbed hold of her legs to stop her thrashing. A scream ripped from my throat, and my fists pounded hard against the shutters.

“Let her up!”

Claire’s body jerked and twisted, until eventually, she grew still, her arms floating up to the surface, bobbing limply beside her.

Hooking my fingers around the shutters, I rattled them as forcefully as I could. It was more out of rage than anything else—no way anyone would hear me from up here, no chance of me being able to pry the shutters away from the wall either.

Exhausted from it all, my forehead slumped against the cold metal. Unable to sever my attention from the scene unfolding before me, I continued to watch, helpless, in the same way I’d watched the news in the early days of the apocalypse.

Finally, the men released their grip on Claire’s body, leaving her to float serenely on the surface of the water for a moment until Ben lifted her out. The crowd dispersed quickly, including Daniel, who marched from the courtyard at some speed, leaving Eve and Laura as remaining bystanders. Laura walked forward and placed two fingers on Claire’s neck, presumably to feel for a pulse. She shook her head and then motioned for Ben to follow her back inside the building.

Obediently, he carried away Claire’s lifeless body.

Eve lingered in the courtyard, pursing her lips close to each candle before blowing out the flame. When she was done snuffing out the lights, she headed back into the school, pausing momentarily to glance up at my window. There was a distraught, unhappy expression on her face as our eyes met.

Seconds later, she walked away, disappearing completely from my view.

****

I didn’t see anyone again until morning when Laura brought me food and took me to use the bathroom. She was friendly at first, but when I refused to converse with her, she got the hint and didn’t bother to speak to me again.

In the bathroom, I spent at least half an hour throwing up, despite having barely eaten. Weary and utterly sapped of energy, I slumped down next to the toilet and hugged the porcelain bowl. Not one of my finest moments. At some point, I must’ve passed out because the next thing I knew, Laura was beside me. Her blond hair fell over my face as she slipped her arms around me in an attempt to prop me up against the cubicle door. The sound of her shrill voice as she yelled into a walkie talkie for help, roused me further from my daze.

The call was answered by Daniel, whose voice I instantly recognized despite the crackly response. He got to us in less than a minute, panting as he crashed into the bathroom.

“What’s wrong with her?” He threw one of my limp arms around his neck and then scooped me up off the floor.

“I don’t know, Daniel. I’m a vet, not a bloody doctor,” Laura snapped.

Daniel let out a vexed huff. “Yeh, well, the doctor is still out of it. How much did you give him, Laura?”

“He was uncontrollable, Daniel! I panicked!”

“Ben tells me she won’t eat. She’s probably exhausted.”

“What do you want me to do?’ Laura spat. “I can’t force her!”

“This whole thing has turned into a complete fucking mess!”

As I became more aware, I kept my eyes closed, listening to them bicker as they took me back to my cell, hoping to hear something of use. At least now I knew Nate was alive, albeit heavily sedated.

“Well, that’s what happens when you let Ben have a gun!” Laura countered. “He didn’t need to dart them.”

“Really? Do you think they’d have come here willingly after seeing him chase down Claire like that?”

Laura grunted. “My point exactly.”

They went quiet while Laura tried to make me comfortable on the mattress. She placed her palm against my forehead and then dug two fingers into my wrist, searching for a pulse.

“I could put her on a drip, get some fluids into her,” she suggested.

“There’s no point. She’ll be going in the water tonight.”

My breaths grew unsteady as an icy surge of fear wracked my body.

I was going in the water tonight.

It all made sense now. Nate was the one they really wanted—the doctor. They probably had limited resources and killed off anyone who wasn’t of use. Eve had simply lied to placate me.

“Just give her something to make her sleep till then,” Daniel barked.

No. No. No. If they made me sleep, there was no way I could get out of here.

Too late. The vein in my left arm suddenly stung from the insertion of a needle tip.

They were going to drown me.

But, not Nate. He’d be okay. He’d live. They needed him. He was safe.

“As long as I have you, nothing else matters.”

Shit. He wouldn’t be okay, though. They were going to break him all over again. He would end up back in the dark place. No hope. No reason to…

My head spun as the need to sleep scattered my train of thought. “Nate.”

Laura leaned close to me and whispered in my ear. “Sleep now, honey. You’ll see him tonight.”

What? What did that mean? Would they make him watch me die?

Don’t make him watch. Please, God. Don’t let him see. Don’t let him see…

My prayer went unfinished as the world faded to black.

****

Before…

Despite my willingness to bury my emotions in the deepest hole I could dig, the relationship between Rebecca and I became increasingly strained. While I carried on as usual, she was easily riled and snappy.

What did she want from me? It felt like she was angry at me for not being angry, like she wanted me to scream and shout at her until all her sins were absolved. Perhaps my refusal to fight with her was a worse punishment than not talking about it all, which I found difficult to reconcile. Part of me did want to punish her, not only for what she’d done to my mother, but also for leaving me with Andrew. She could’ve fought harder, taken him to court, maybe.

Anything instead of just walking away.

After a bad storm one night, the chicken coup took a serious battering, suffering a partial collapse of the hen house and fencing damage. Rebecca and I worked together, quickly making repairs before the chickens escaped or predators got to them. The rain was cold and brutal as we hammered together a new enclosure around the old one, removing and replacing sections as we went. By the time we’d finished, our hands were scratched to shreds by the sharp ends of the wire mesh we’d nailed to the fence posts, and our clothes were thoroughly sodden.

We congratulated ourselves on a job well done and, just like that, the tension lifted.

Later that night, Rebecca became unwell but assured me it was just a cold. Before long though, she was running a high temperature and wheezing with every breath.

“I’m fine, Halley. Don’t fuss,” she said, as I brought her the traditional honey and lemon concoction, and a hot water bottle.

Still, her temperature rose higher. I found myself in a state of abject panic, convinced she’d finally caught the virus and would die. Night after night, I watched over her, monitoring her breathing and checking her fever.

Please don’t leave me. Please don’t die.

After a week, since no other signs of the virus made an appearance, I relaxed a little, chalking it up to a bad cold like she’d said it was. Her cough, however, worsened. When she began to choke up blood, my anxiety went into overdrive.

“I just need antibiotics. There are some in the medicine box,” Rebecca said, still unconcerned.

Finding nothing of use, I hurried into the village and smashed the window of the chemists. After rifling through the contents of the shopfront and storeroom, I managed to find a box of penicillin specifically for chest infections. They were well out-of-date, but I hoped for the best.

It took a fortnight for the color to return to her cheeks and a full month before she was her old self again.

The fear of almost having lost her kept me awake at night, despite her assertion that I’d over-reacted. Sure, I’d been quick to think the worst, but what about next time? What about when the pills didn’t work anymore?

How long would it be before I was left alone here, forever?