Once: An Eve Novel Part 3

"Back away from the fence, Eve! Enough," Stark called. Then, to the guard, "Lower your weapon!"

"Please," I urged.

She parted her lips to speak. "Where did all the birds go?" she asked, then rested her forehead on the fence.

Stark grabbed my elbow. He raised his hand to the guard, signaling for her to lower her weapon. "All right, enough. Back in the truck," he muttered, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my arm.

As they loaded me back into the Jeep and tied me to the carriage once more, I kept my eyes on Ruby. She was still leaning against the fence, her mouth moving, as if she hadn't even noticed I'd gone.

Lowell started the engine and the Jeep's tires ground against the hard earth. The gate pulled back. I felt that familiar loneliness, the bottomless, empty feeling of having no one. The place that had stolen Pip and Ruby from me had taken Arden, too. I watched the stone wall disappear behind the trees as the gate shut, so much of my life still trapped inside.

ten.

THE SUN SLIPPED BEHIND THE MOUNTAINS. THE WOODS WERE giving way to wide stretches of sand. I sat tied to the Jeep's metal insides, my body stiff and sore from so many hours in the truck. We were forced to drive on the b.u.mpy, bare ground beside the asphalt to avoid the many motionless, scorched cars blocking the roadway. The Jeep pa.s.sed under giant signs, their paper ripped and peeling, images faded in the sun. PALMS, one read. ONE RESORT. TOO MANY TEMPTATIONS. Another showed bottles of amber liquid, the gla.s.s beaded with sweat. The word BUDWEISER was barely legible.

We sped toward the City's walls. Ma.s.sive towers rose up from the desert, just as we'd been told at School. My thoughts were with Arden and Pip, strapped to those metal beds, and with Ruby and her unfocused stare. Ruby's question kept playing in my head-What about me? The guilt returned. I hadn't done enough. I had left that night, a.s.suming there would be a chance to come back. More time. Now, with my hands bound, just outside the City of Sand, there was nothing I could do to help them.

As we approached the fifty-foot wall, Stark pulled a circular badge from his pocket and held it out for the guards to see. After a long pause, a gate opened in the wall's side, just big enough for the Jeep to pull through. We drove inside, then rolled to a stop in front of a barricade. Soldiers circled the Jeep, their rifles drawn. "State your names," someone yelled from the darkness. Stark held out his badge and recited his name and number. The other two men in the truck did the same. A soldier with sunburned skin studied the badge, while others checked the car, s.h.i.+ning lights beneath the metal carriage, on the men's faces, and on the floor around their feet. The beam ran over my hands, still in their plastic restraints. "A prisoner?" one of the troops asked. He kept the flashlight on my wrists. "Do you have papers for her?"

"No papers necessary," Stark answered. "This is the girl."

The soldier studied me with beady eyes, smirking. "In that case, welcome home." He signaled for the troops to fall back. The metal barricade rose up. Stark pressed his foot on the pedal and we sped toward the glittering City.

We pa.s.sed buildings lit from within, bright blue and green and white, just as my Teachers had described. I remembered sitting in the cafeteria at School, listening to the King's addresses over the radio, telling of the restoration. Luxury hotels were being turned into apartment buildings and offices. Water was supplied by a local reservoir called Lake Mead. The lights shone in the top floors of every tower, the pools glowed a perfect crystal blue, all of it powered by the great Hoover Dam.

The Jeep sped through a sprawling construction site on the outskirts of the City. Sand drifts were ten feet high in some places. Troops walked along the top of the wall, their guns pointed out into the night. We pa.s.sed crumbling houses, piles of debris, and a ma.s.sive pen filled with farm animals. The smell of waste stung my nostrils. Giant palm trees towered above us, their trunks withered and brown.

As we neared the center of the City, the land opened up. Gardens spread out on our left and a concrete lot on our right. Rusted airplanes sat in front of a decrepit building with a sign that read McCARRAN AIRPORT. We sped past wrecked neighborhoods and the sh.e.l.ls of old cars, until buildings rose up around us, each one grander than the next. They were all different colors, buzzing with electric light.

"Impressive, right?" The soldier with the scar asked. He sat beside me in the backseat, twisting open his canteen.

I stared at the building in front of us: a giant gold pyramid. A green tower rose up on the right, its gla.s.sy surface reflecting the moon. Impressive wasn't the word. The polished structures were unlike anything I'd seen before. I'd only known the wild-broken roads, houses with their roofs caved in, black mold that spread over the School walls. People strolled on metal overpa.s.ses above the streets. At the end of the main road a tower shot up into the stars, a bright red needle against the night sky. We've survived, the City seemed to say, with every glittering skysc.r.a.per, every paved road or planted tree. The world will go on.

The Jeep was the only car on the street. It moved so quickly that people went by in a blur. I could tell they were mostly men from their broad shoulders and heavy builds. Tiny white dogs roamed the street, nearly a third the size of Heddy. "What are those?" I asked.

"Rat terriers," the scarred soldier said. "The King had them bred to deal with the rodent infestation."

Before I could respond, the Jeep was turning left, cutting up a long road that snaked toward a ma.s.sive white building. Rows of government Jeeps sat out front. Soldiers were stationed along a strip of narrow trees, machine guns slung across their backs. I stared up at the expansive white structure. The main entrance was lined with sculptures-winged angels, horses, women with their heads cut off. After driving so many miles, we were here. The Palace.

The King was upstairs, waiting for me.

Stark took me from the Jeep, his hand clamping down on my arm. I could barely breathe as we entered the circular marble lobby. The King's face had haunted me for months. I thought of the photo I'd grown up with in School. His thin gray hair hung over his forehead. His skin was loose around his jowls and his beady eyes were always watching, following you wherever you went.

Soldiers milled about the lobby, some talking, others pacing in front of a fountain. Stark took me through a set of gold doors into a small mirrored elevator and punched a code into a keypad inside. The doors slid shut and then we were moving, up, up, my stomach rocking as the floors flew past-fifty gone, then fifty more.

"You're going to regret this," I said, straining against the plastic bands around my wrists. "I'll tell him what you did. How your men threw me onto the ground in that parking lot. How you threatened to kill me." I looked down at the gash in my arm, the crusted blood turned black.

Stark shook his head. "Whatever it takes," he said, his voice flat. "Those were my orders. Do whatever it takes to bring you here." Then he turned to me, his eyes bloodshot. He clutched the collar of my s.h.i.+rt and pulled me toward him so my face was just inches from his. "Those men you killed were like brothers to me. They served with me every day for three years. The King will never punish you for what you did, but I will make sure you never forget what happened that day."

The doors opened before us with a terrifying bing! Stark's nails dug into my arm as he led me to a room across the carpeted hall. "You'll wait for him here." Then he pulled a knife from his pocket and sliced the plastic restraints in two. My hands tingled from the sudden rush of blood to my fingers.

The door closed. I leaped up and grabbed the handle, knowing before I even tried it that it would be locked. A long mahogany table sat in the center of the room, surrounded by a few heavy chairs. A ma.s.sive window looked out onto the City, a two-foot ledge just a few inches below. I went to the gla.s.s, wedging my fingers beneath the pane, straining against it. "Please open," I muttered under my breath, "please just open." I had to get out of that room. It didn't matter how.

"They're sealed shut," a low voice said. My spine stiffened. I turned. Standing in the doorway was a man of about sixty, with gray hair and thin, papery skin.

I stepped away from the window, my hands dropping to my sides. He wore a deep-blue suit and a silk tie, the New American crest embroidered on his lapel. He stalked forward, taking one slow lap around me, his eyes scanning my tangled auburn hair, the linen s.h.i.+rt soaked through with sweat, the sc.r.a.pes around my wrists from where I'd been bound, and the wound on my arm. When he finally finished his survey, he stood before me, then reached out and stroked my cheek. "My beautiful girl," he said, running his thumb over my brow.

I smacked his hand away and staggered backward, trying to put as much s.p.a.ce between us as possible. "Stay away from me," I said. "I don't care who you are."

He just stood there, staring. Then he took a step forward, and another, trying to get closer to me.

"I know why I'm here," I spat, circling the table, moving backward until I was pressed against the wall. "And I would rather die than bear your child. Do you hear me?" I raised my arm to strike him but he caught my wrist instead, his grip firm. His eyes were wet. He leaned down until his face was level with mine.

When he finally spoke, each word was slow and measured.

"You aren't here to bear my child." He let out a strange laugh. "You are my child." He pulled me toward him, cradling my head in his hand, and kissed my forehead. "My Genevieve."

eleven.

WE STOOD LIKE THAT FOR A SECOND, HIS HAND ON THE BACK of my head, until I broke free. I couldn't speak. His words rushed in and corrupted everything-past and present-with their horrible implications.

I felt light-headed. What had my mother told me? What had she said? It was always the two of us, for as long as I remembered. There were no pictures of my father on the wall above the staircase, no stories told about him at bedtime. When I was finally old enough to realize I was different from the children I played with, the plague had swept through, taking their fathers as well. He was gone, that was all I needed to know, she'd said. And she loved me enough for both of them.

He produced a s.h.i.+ny piece of paper from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and held it out to me. A photograph. I took it, studying the picture of him, many years before, his face not yet touched by time. He looked happy, handsome even, with his arm around a young woman, her dark bangs falling in her eyes. He was gazing down at her as she stared into the camera, unsmiling. Her face held the confident expression of a woman who knows she is beautiful.

I held the picture to my chest. It was her. I remembered every line of my mother's face, the slight dimple in her chin, the way her black hair fell onto her forehead. She was always scrambling for a pin to hold it back. We had played dress up that day in my room, before the plague came. I could still hear the children outside, shouting and laughing, the sound of skateboards on the pavement. I wore my shoes with the pink bows. She took my other elephant barrette and put it in her hair, right above her ear. Look, my sweet girl, she said, kissing my hand, now we are twins.

"I met her two years before you were born," the King began. He led me to the table, pulling out a chair for me. I obliged, thankful when my body sunk into the cus.h.i.+on, my legs still shaking. "I was already the Governor then, and was doing a fund-raising event at the museum where she worked. She was a curator before it happened," he said. "But I'm sure you know that."

"I hardly know anything about her," I managed, staring at her eyes in the photo.

He stood behind me, his hands resting on the back of the chair, looking over my shoulder. "She was giving me a private tour of the gardens, pointing out these plants that smelled like garlic and kept the deer away." He sat down beside me, raking his fingers through his hair. "And there was something in the way she spoke that struck me, as if she were always laughing at some joke only she understood. I stayed two weeks there, and then we kept in touch after. I would come to see her whenever I wasn't in Sacramento. But eventually the distance was too much for us. We lost touch.

"Two years later, the plague came. It was gradual at first. There were news reports of the disease in China, in parts of Europe. For a long time we thought it had been contained abroad. American doctors were coming up with a vaccine. Then it mutated. The virus was stronger; it killed faster. It reached the States and people began dying by the thousands. The vaccine was rushed onto the market, but it only slowed the disease's progress, drew out the suffering for months. Your mother was trying to reach me but I had no idea. She sent emails and letters, called before the phones went out. It wasn't until I was quarantined that I discovered the correspondence in my office. A whole stack of letters was piled on my desk, unopened."

I remembered that time. The bleeds had gotten worse. She went through handkerchief after handkerchief, trying to keep her nose dry. She'd finally gone to sleep one afternoon, her bedroom dark as I wandered out. The house across the street was marked with a red X. The lawn beside it was dug up, the dirt turned over where they'd buried the first bodies. The quiet scared me. All the children were gone. A broken bicycle sat in the middle of the road. The neighbor's cat was outside, lapping at the end of a hose, as I approached the door. I'd walked in, looking for the couple I'd seen coming and going so many times before, the man with the brown hat. I remembered the smell, thick and foul, and the dust that had acc.u.mulated in the corners. We need help, I'd said, as I took a few tentative steps into the living room. Then I saw his remains on the couch. His skin was gray, his face partially sunken in from decay.

"You left us," I said, unable to hide the anger in my voice. "She was alone, she died alone in that house, and you could have helped her. I was waiting for someone to save us."

He covered my hand with his own, but I pulled away. "I would've, Genevieve-"

"That's not my name," I snapped. I clutched the picture to my chest. "You can't just call me that."

He stood and walked to the window, his back to me. Outside, the land beyond the wall was black, not one light visible for miles. "I didn't even know you existed until I read her letters." He sighed. "How could you be angry with me for that? They had to put soldiers at my door to prevent people from attacking me. I was one of the few government officials in Sacramento who survived. The people were convinced I had some magical cure, that I could save their families. As soon as the outbreak ended, as soon as I had the resources, I sent soldiers. I was setting up a new, temporary capital, and trying to a.s.semble the survivors. I sent them to her house to find you both. You were already gone."

"Was she there?" I asked, my hands folded over the photo. I remembered her standing in the doorway, blowing me a kiss. She had looked so fragile, her bones jutting out beneath her skin. Still, it didn't stop me from imagining that things could've been different. That maybe-against all logic-she could've survived.

"They found her remains," he said. He turned and came toward me. "That's when I started searching for you, in the orphanages at first, and then, when the Schools were a.s.sembled, I looked at the rosters there. But there was no girl named Genevieve at any of them-you must've started going by Eve already. It wasn't until they sent back the graduation photos and I saw your picture that I knew you were alive. You look so much like her."

"I'm supposed to believe all of this based on this one picture?" I held it up.

"There are tests," he said calmly.

"How am I supposed to trust anything you say? My friends are in those Schools still. They're all there because of you."

He walked around the table, letting out a deep breath. "I don't expect you to understand it yet. You couldn't possibly."

I let out a tiny laugh. "What's to understand? There doesn't seem to be anything complicated about what you're doing. They're all there, against their will, because of you. You're the one who started the labor camps and the Schools." I shook my head, trying not to notice the way our noses both slanted to the left, or how we shared the same heavy-lidded eyes. I hated his thinning hair, the subtle cleft in his chin, the deep creases at the corners of his mouth. I couldn't believe I was related to this man-that we shared history or blood.

His skin glistened with sweat. He covered his face but I watched him, refusing to look away. Finally he turned and pressed a b.u.t.ton on the wall. "Beatrice, please come now," he said, his voice low. He brushed a piece of lint off the front of his suit jacket. "You've had a trying day, to say the least. You must be tired. Your maid will see you to your room."

The door opened. A short, middle-aged woman came in, clad in a red skirt and jacket, the New American crest on the lapel. Her face was lined with deep wrinkles. She smiled when she saw me and curtsied, a "Your Royal Highness" escaping her lips.

The King put his hand lightly on my arm. "Get a good night's rest. I'll see you tomorrow."

I started walking to the door, but he grabbed my hand and brought me into a hug, squeezing me close. When he pulled back his expression was soft, his eyes fixed on mine. He wanted me to believe him, that much was clear, but I steeled myself against it. I thought only of Arden's bound ankles, her body writhing as she tried to free herself.

I was relieved when he finally dropped my hand. "Please show Princess Genevieve to her suite and help her out of those clothes."

The woman looked at my tattered pants, the blood on my arm, the bits of dried leaves tangled in my hair. She smiled sweetly as he disappeared down the hall, his shoes snapping against the s.h.i.+ny wood floor. I stood frozen, my heart loud in my chest, until the room was silent, all traces of him gone.

twelve.

"AND THIS IS WHERE YOU'LL HAVE YOUR AFTERNOON TEA," Beatrice said, gesturing at the ma.s.sive atrium. Three walls were all windows, and the gla.s.s ceiling exposed the starless sky. We had pa.s.sed the formal dining room, the sitting area, the locked guest suites, and the maid's kitchen. It had all gone by in a blur. He is your father, I repeated to myself, as if I were a stranger delivering the news. The King is your father.

No matter how many times I turned over the thought, it seemed impossible. I felt the hardwood floors beneath my feet. I smelled the sickeningly sweet cider boiling on the stove down the hall. I saw the sterile white walls, the polished wooden doors, heard the clack clack clack of Beatrice's low heels. But I still couldn't believe that I was here, in the King's Palace, so far away from School, Califia, and the wild. So far from Arden, Pip, and Caleb.

Beatrice walked two steps ahead of me, telling me about the indoor pool, rattling off the thread count of the sheets. She went on about the fresh meats and vegetables that were delivered to the Palace daily, the King's personal chef, and something called air conditioning. I didn't listen. Everywhere I looked I saw a locked door with a keypad beside it.

"All the doors need a code to open?" I asked.

Beatrice glanced at me over her shoulder. "Only some. Your safety is obviously very important, so the King has asked that I not share the code. You can call me on the intercom if you need anything, and I'll take you wherever you need to go."

"Right," I muttered. "My safety."

"You must be relieved to be here," Beatrice went on. "I wanted to say how sorry I was about all you've been through." I watched as she punched in the code to the suite, trying to catch as many numbers as I could. She pushed open the door, exposing a wide bed, chandelier, and a serving cart with a covered silver platter. The faint smell of roast chicken filled the room. "I've heard what happened in the wild-how that Stray took you, how he murdered those soldiers right in front of you."

"A Stray?" I asked. The photograph of my mother trembled in my hands.

"The boy," she said, lowering her voice as she led me into the bathroom. "The boy who kidnapped you. I guess it isn't public yet, but the Palace workers have all heard. You must be so grateful to Sergeant Stark for bringing you back here, inside the walls. Everyone's talking about his upcoming promotion."

My stomach felt hollow. Stark's words in the elevator returned, his promise that he would never let me forget what happened that day. He must've known how I felt about Caleb. He had seen how concerned I was on that ride in the Jeep, could hear the panic in my voice as I begged him to st.i.tch up Caleb's leg. It all became sickeningly clear: As the King's daughter, I could never be executed in the City. But Caleb could.

"You have it wrong. Caleb didn't kill anyone. I wouldn't have survived if it wasn't for him." I tried to look her in the face, but she turned away. She stood in front of the sink and twisted on the faucet, waiting until the water was hot and steaming.

"But that's what everyone's saying," she repeated. "They're searching for the boy in the wild. There's a warrant out for him."

"You don't understand," I managed. "They're all lying. You don't know what the King has done out there. He's evil-"

Beatrice's eyes widened. When she finally spoke her voice was so low I could barely hear it over the running water. "You didn't mean that," she whispered. "You cannot say such things about the King."

I pointed to the window, the land stretched out for hundreds of miles. "My closest friends are imprisoned right now in those Schools. They are being used like farm animals, like they never imagined or hoped for anything different."

I let the photograph fall to the floor and put my head in my hands. I heard Beatrice shuffling around the bedroom, opening and closing drawers. The tap was still running. Then she was beside me, tugging the sour, sweat-soaked s.h.i.+rt from my body, helping me step out of the muddy pants. She set a hot, soapy cloth on the back of my neck and ran it over my shoulders, working the dirt off my skin.

"Maybe you misunderstood or misheard," she said matter-of-factly. "It's a choice the girls have at the Schools-it's always a choice. The ones who are part of the birthing initiative volunteered."

"They didn't," I said, shaking my head. "They didn't. We didn't ..." I bit my bottom lip. I wanted to hate her, this foolish woman, who was telling me about my School, my friends, my life. I wanted to take hold of her arm and squeeze, until she listened. She had to listen-why wouldn't she just listen? But she worked the washcloth over my back, gently lifting up the thin straps of my tank top. She wiped the dirt from my legs and out from between my toes and rubbed at the mud behind my knees. She did it with such care. After so many months on the run, of sleeping in the cold bas.e.m.e.nts of abandoned houses, her tenderness was almost too much to bear.

"They hunted us," I went on, letting my body relax just a little. "The troops hunted me and Caleb. They stabbed him. And my friend Arden was dragged back to that School. She was screaming." I paused, waiting for her to argue, but she was kneeling beside me, the washcloth hovering over the gash on my arm.

She turned over my hands, staring at the bluish-red line around my wrist where the restraints had been. The cloth slipped over the mark, working at the raw skin, the blood now a thin, purple crust. "We shouldn't be talking about the troops this way," she said slowly, less a.s.sured. "I can't." She looked up at me, her eyes pleading with me to stop. Finally, she turned away and picked up a nightgown she'd laid out on the bed.

I took the ruffled dress from her hand and slung it over my head. I wanted to cry, to let my body heave with sobs, but I was too exhausted. There was nothing in me left. "He can't be my father," I mumbled, not caring if she was listening. "He just can't be." I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes.

Beatrice sat down beside me, the mattress springs creaking underneath her. She pressed a clean washcloth to my face, wiping around my hairline, my cheeks, then folded it and placed it gently over my eyes. The whole world was black.

The day had been too much. The hope of seeing Caleb, the soldiers' attack, Arden and Ruby and the King with his declarations-the weight of it fell on me, pinning me down. Beatrice was right beside me still, her gentle fingers rubbing at my temples, but she seemed so far away.

"You're not feeling well," she offered. "Yes," she repeated to herself as I drifted off. "That must be it."