The Fall

by Laura Liddell Nolen

  “They live in that one,” I said to Eren, pointing out their cabin from the cover of leaves around us. I glanced at him. “I’m not going to fall over, you know.”

  He relaxed his grip on my bad arm long enough to take a good look across the field. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I know. I wasn’t holding on for your sake.”

  “Hey, you feeling all right?”

  “Just thinking about how this is all gonna play out,” he said. I put a hand on his upper arm, and he covered it immediately, giving me a quick squeeze. “So it’s West and Mars. Maybe Shan. Anyone else?” he asked.

  I looked at him, surprised. “I haven’t told you yet? They have a daughter. Cecelia. And a son, too. They adopted one of the lockies. Maxx.”

  He looked at me in wonder. “Children.”

  “Yeah.”

  We held each other’s gaze a moment longer. “Huh,” he said finally.

  “We should go around back. The woods are closer there. Maybe there’s a window.”

  He nodded and led the way through the trees. We were half-running, half-ducking, and half-holding hands. We made pretty good time, all things considered.

  “I see two possibilities,” I said. “We run in now and try to warn them. Or we wait until dark.”

  Eren was studying the house. “Wait. Definitely. Mars would have done that already.”

  If she made it this far, I thought. “I vote running now.”

  “Why am I not surprised? But no. There’s a fair chance he’s already in there, waiting for us.”

  I tasted the air. The last time I’d gone up against Adam, he’d sent lightning clouds to kill us. The feeling of electricity in the wind wasn’t there yet, but I knew from experience that could change in a single jolt. “There’s also a chance he’s not going to attack head-on,” I told Eren. “I’m guessing he’s got a few tricks up his sleeve.” An image of Cecelia and her eight-toothed grin flashed through my mind, and my legs moved all on their own. I slipped out of the wooded cover and toward the house.

  Eren made a sound that fell somewhere between a choke and a shout. “Hey,” he said, stumbling after me. “Char.”

  “What?” I said, running a hand along the back of the cabin. I peered into the window. The lights were out, and I didn’t see anyone. I decided to move toward the door.

  “Char. Stop.” Eren followed behind me, looking panicked.

  “Maybe make a little more noise,” I hissed. “I’m not sure the gendarmes got a lock on our position yet.”

  I inched the door open to the exact width of my body and slinked inside, staying in the shadows.

  Which wasn’t all that difficult, since the lights were out.

  Eren, on the other hand, threw open the door and covered me simultaneously, which blocked my view of the room. I gave him an exasperated sigh. Apparently satisfied, he worked his way methodically through the cabin, clearing the space behind the door, underneath the bed, and in the bathrooms.

  “You happy now?” I said.

  Then he turned to me. “Charlotte,” he said, eyes flashing. “You cannot just run off like that.”

  I bristled. “Run off? What am I, five? We’re in the middle of a fight, Eren! The gendarmes are on their way any second now.”

  “You have to listen to me.” He held a hand out, as though he were going to hold me by the shoulders. As if he were going to make me listen.

  I jerked back as hard as I could. Flames lit my face, my eyes. “Don’t touch me.”

  “There are ways of doing this—” he began, taking a step forward, but I couldn’t hear him at all anymore.

  “No. Don’t touch me. You think this is the first house I ever cased?”

  “Just listen to me!” he said, not quite shouting. “You’re not trained for this. You can’t just—”

  “I was fine. I was sweeping the area as I went. Not that you would know that, since you probably think I’m just some kind of delinquent.”

  He shook his head, and I took in the sharp muscle of his jaw when I said the last word. “We’re in this together,” he said, bringing himself under control. “You cannot just leave without talking to me, even if you don’t—”

  “They’re my family. I had to protect them.”

  He gritted his teeth, speaking every word deliberately. Softly. “You are my family now, Charlotte.”

  The shock of the words drained the heat from my tongue. From the room. I was quiet. “And I have to protect you,” he finished.

  I thought of my mother. Right then, in the middle of the cabin. I didn’t know why. It was like trying to breathe in a burning room. “You, you—” I struggled for the words, but I’d never been one for declarations of love or valor. I felt lost.

  He rubbed a spot on the back of his neck, eyes strained, not quite looking directly at me. “It’s the only thing I’m good for anymore. I spent the last five years dreaming of you. The real you. A real—” He bit off the word, searching me. “Living out my own worst nightmares, just so I could be near you. To protect you. Because you were right. This isn’t over. And you were wrong, too, about us being finished. Back when you were in the hospital. Because whatever we were to each other, whatever we meant when we got married, it hasn’t changed. Not for me.”

  He was breathing fast, waiting for me to say something. Maybe there was nothing but a hole where my heart should have been, because all I felt was pain. Pain for Eren. For what we’d both been through. I thought of our “marriage,” and how, for a brief moment, I had even longed to be his wife, always knowing that it wasn’t real. That it could never work.

  “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. I wish you’d just let me go. I wish you hadn’t suffered. Because I don’t know what’s left of us,” I said finally. “I don’t even know what’s left of me. And none of this matters anyway, if we can’t get out of this.”

  He shook his head and took my hand in his, shifting his mother’s ring on my finger. “Of course it matters, Charlotte. It’s the only thing that does. If you’d wanted to run, you could have.”

  My head was light, and his hands were warm against mine. “Well. That is what I’m best at. You know. That and the odd felony.”

  He didn’t return my smile. “When are you going to realize that you’re worth saving, too?”

  I took a measured breath. There wasn’t time for this. We needed to—

  “Charlotte. I mean it. Look at me.” I tilted my head to his, and our eyes met. “It was worth it. All those years. All that time waiting for you to come back. Every moment. You were worth it.”

  I was quiet for a long time. “Then I have to protect you, too.”

  He nodded at me, his face serious. “We’re a team, Charlotte.”

  “And you’re wrong, you know.”

  He gave me an open look.

  “You’re good for a lot more than just protecting me.”

  He rolled his eyes, the shadow of a smile finally touching his expression. “Agree to—”

  “No. Eren.” Gently—barely touching him at all—I put my hand against his neck, in the same spot he’d been rubbing. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what our lives will be like if we make it through this. But I know that you matter.” He looked away, and I used my bad arm to bring his face right back to me. “And I am not talking about the things your dad wanted for you.”

  He shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. On an impulse, I kissed him.

  He leaned in, taking my head in both his hands, and kissed me back. His fingers were tangled in my hair, and his breath was hot on my neck.

  And then he pulled away.

  “I missed you,” he said, not quite smiling yet.

  “I mean, I could think of some other uses for you right now. I’m just saying.”

  At this, he laughed, and the pain ebbed, still rolling, like the lowest tide of the ocean.

  The battle began at dusk.

  Eren led me back to the trees, where we concealed ourselves once again. I lay on my stomach, c
loser to him than necessary, wondering what form the attacks would take. I expected lightning. What we got was worse. I focused on the cabin until my body was motionless and my nerves were made of iron.

  As if on cue, the air grew cold, and the empty house was silent.

  It started with a low rumble that worked its way through the ground beneath my belly. I searched the sky for the killer clouds but saw none. “Earthquake?” Eren mouthed.

  I gave him a perplexed shrug.

  As I watched, the earth beneath my hands shifted, and I moved my focus to the grains of dirt between my fingers. They lifted up into the air, then dropped. I felt the fall in my belly.

  Gasping, I grabbed Eren by the arm. He’d felt it, too. “It’s the grav generator,” he said into my ear. “That’s gotta be Adam.”

  I nodded grimly. There was only one reason he’d haunt the biosphere instead of the rest of the ship. Me.

  I put my bad arm over his in the gathering darkness. “We have no weapons,” I said. “No access to the controls. This is a deathtrap.” I took a breath. He could still surrender, get amnesty. “Because—this is it for me, Eren. I’m not leaving until it’s done.”

  He held my gaze until we understood each other, then stacked his other hand on top of my arm. He wasn’t leaving, either.

  In the distance, a twig snapped. “They’re coming,” said Eren.

  “They’re here,” I murmured back.

  Behind us, a branch rustled and revealed a soldier. There was no other word for it. He wore fatigues and carried a military-grade assault rifle. He wasn’t much taller than I was, and he was probably younger. He advanced through the trees with the confidence of youth and training and was followed by four other soldiers at staggered intervals, taking cover behind the trees.

  When they were barely past, another twig snapped, much louder this time.

  No, not a twig. There was a light buzzing noise, followed by a second crack, and the young man fell to the ground. His face hit the dirt at the same time as the rest of him. He shuddered and stopped moving.

  The battlefield burst into action. I heard a buzz, like being near a hive of bees, off and on, and it took a moment before I realized there were bullets overhead. I hit the ground, pressing my cheek into the dirt, and beside me, Eren was doing the same.

  I heard a man shout out behind me and switched to face the other way, trying to cover my head with my hands, still pressing the side of my face into the dirt. I couldn’t see the first shooter.

  “Are they shooting at each other? Why?” I said, my voice pitched high.

  “Separate troops,” Eren said, no longer whispering. “I don’t think the gendarmes expected opposition.”

  “Well, I know I didn’t.”

  “Your father?” he asked.

  “No. Not a chance.” This was far from his style. I knew too well that he’d prefer to let me get arrested peacefully, then fight it out in court later, if at all. He certainly wouldn’t want to kill anyone.

  “Who, then? An couldn’t have landed an army here,” he said. “They’d have seen her.”

  The bullets intensified, and I squirmed my way back toward a tree like an animal, never letting my belly off the ground. I heard more screams from deep in the woods.

  My instinct was to grab the fallen soldier’s rifle, but Eren grabbed my wrist. “No, Char. Stay down.” I looked back at the rear of the cabin and tried to decide whether its walls were thick enough to block the fire. Not that it mattered. I’d be dead if I stood. I peered through the space between the cabins to the field on the other side. It wasn’t long before the grass moved, and I saw the face of another soldier in the field on the other side. He was not alone.

  “Look, they’re in the field!”

  Eren squinted through the cabins. “Not our problem,” he said softly. “Your family’s not in there.”

  At that moment, the grass exploded. A strong whistle filled the air, and I felt Eren’s arms squeezing my back and shoulders. His right hand covered my head, pressing me harder into the dirt. Another explosion, but this time, all I could hear was a high-pitched whine.

  Eren slid backwards and pulled my leg. I met his eye, and he mouthed something.

  “What?” I screamed.

  He mouthed the same word again, and I realized I couldn’t hear anything anymore: not the blasts, not the buzz of bullets. I shook my head, gluing my body in place. I didn’t want to move. I couldn’t.

  He pulled harder, more insistently, mouthing the same word over and over.

  I wanted to scream.

  He grabbed the other leg, shifting himself half-upright, and I came to my senses for a brief moment. Eren had to stay down. If I had to back up to keep him on the ground, I would. “No!” I shouted. “I’m coming!”

  We slithered back with surprising speed. When we were well past the dead soldier, Eren stood to a crouch. “Get back down!” I said.

  “We have to get away from here. We need to—”

  He pulled me up until my feet hit the ground, and I began to run as though carried by wings. Trees flew past. The occasional branch whipped across my face, but I felt nothing, thanks to my fear-laced adrenaline. A vague part of my brain wanted me to calm down, to think, but all I could do was run. I felt my fear slip down into panic with every thumping step. We were approaching the edge of the biome, and then what would we do?

  “We need better cover!” I screamed. “A bigger tree!”

  Eren was shaking his head. His hand covered my mouth, and he dragged me into a clump of trees. “Whisper, Char. Just breathe. There aren’t bigger trees. They’re all the same age,” he said, and I realized that I could hear him. “Artillery,” he murmured, thinking. He focused on the sky, the horizon, the other trees, then moved his hand to my forehead, trying to calm me. “Shouldn’t be possible.” He dragged a sleeve over his face, knocking some of the dirt off onto the back of my neck, and I realized that he must have been afraid, too. “Why are they fighting? Why are they armed?”

  “I think they always were,” I said, trying desperately to slow my breathing. My mind, on the other hand, had the opposite problem. I needed to wake it up, but it was like my head was full of cotton. I was unprepared for any of this. “I think they had weapons from the beginning.”

  “No, think about it. They couldn’t have,” he said, his voice husky. “Don’t you see? Those were artillery shells. Someone is prepared to fight a battle.”

  I shook my head, straining to catch my breath.

  “A land battle. Who could have predicted that? Someone who planned to invade ahead of time.” He shut his eyes. “Way ahead of time.”

  “Not necessarily,” I wheezed. “Could just be someone with a knack for killing and few weeks of spare time. Anyone come to mind?”

  “Hey,” came a voice. We froze in each other’s arms, and I felt the thump of Eren’s heart against my back..

  “Char. Eren.”

  We looked around, perplexed. “Mars?” I whisper-shouted.

  The bushes parted, and Mars slipped in. She was truly a sight. Twigs and leaves adorned most of her back and chest, and her face was covered in dark brown mud. Eren and I made room for her.

  “How did you find us?” I said. “Where are the kids? Where is West?”

  “I’ve been following you since you got here.” She shook her head, glancing at Eren’s metallic k-band. “And no idea. Everything seemed fine when I got here, except that they were gone. So I left an alert and hid. With any luck, West will have seen it.” She let out a breath full of tension. “He’ll have seen it and taken my babies far away from this place.”

  “What kind of alert?” said Eren.

  “I left the broom on the back porch. Something we worked out when we got here, in case we were caught.”

  “That’s pretty smart,” I said.

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised,” she said. “Thieves do it.”

  “I mean, I just used a walkie-talkie,” I shrugged. “Less room for interpretation.
But you think West saw it? Or is there a chance he missed it?”

  “Those are the options,” Mars said archly.

  I grunted. “Sure. Or they could have been arrested before they got there. They could be hiding. They could have been arrested after they got there.”

  “If they’d been arrested, someone would have been waiting for us, too,” Eren pointed out.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Where was the broom? The front porch or the back?”

  “Back,” she said. “Why?”

  “Because,” I said, feeling slightly dizzy, “there is no broom on the back porch.”

  She held my gaze for an instant, then dismissed the thought. “You just didn’t see it.”

  “Mars,” I said, my voice low. “I can remember what things look like. Exactly what they look like. I can picture the porch as we walked in. There was no broom.”

  Her small face went pale. “You’re wrong. I put the broom there.”

  “Then you’ve had a visitor,” I said darkly.

  Mars took another second to process that and prepared to leave. Eren caught her by the arm. That was a mistake. “If you are fond of that hand, I suggest you let go,” she hissed, all anger now.

  But Eren did not flinch. “We need to think about this,” he said quietly.

  “I’m pretty sure ‘visitor’ is the correct response,” she said, reaching for her gun. “This is a battle zone, Everest,” she continued, her voice full of ice. “And my children are out there. So let. Go.”

  Eren’s other arm loosened around my chest as he made a point of straightening. “I know we’ve had our differences, Marcela.” I twisted in his lap to give him a quizzical look. I’d never considered the possibility that Mars could dislike anyone more than me, but based on the look on her face and the fact that he still hadn’t released her, Eren was making a fairly successful run at the position. “I was perhaps not her favorite prisoner,” he explained, referring to his brief stint as a prisoner of war in the Remnant. “But I pledge to you that I will help you find them. Now sit back down. We have to be smart about this.”

  The gun came down, not quite in line with his face. Which was why I didn’t jump her right then. “You’re gonna want to put that gun down, Mars,” I said quietly.