Blood of Eve

by Pam Godwin

  Jesse gave me a stern look and stabbed a finger at the space behind him. He wanted me glued to his back? Fine. For now.

  I trailed him up the hill, sticking close. My sweaty finger pressed tightly against the trigger guard of the carbine as I studied Darwin’s slinking jog.

  About forty paces in, I smelled it.

  Death and decay hung in the air. My gag reflex kicked in, and I instinctively breathed through my mouth, dragging the vile taste of rot across my tongue.

  Jesse staggered, his hand reaching back to grab my arm, his eyes frantically searching the depths of the woods.

  Panic spread through my limbs and crushed my lungs. Please don’t let that smell be the Lakota. Please, oh fucking God, please.

  Darwin zipped past Roark and Shea, his steps picking up speed. His nose lifted from the ground, pointed left, and he took off through the brush.

  We followed him, the godawful stink growing stronger, more potent, with every step.

  Up ahead, Darwin stood in a small clearing, his head cocked to the side. His hackles weren’t up and his fangs weren’t out. No, he was waiting for us. And whining.

  It was at that moment I knew. I knew what we’d find, and Jesse did, too. His hands trembled his outstretched bow, and a guttural noise sounded in his throat.

  We ran toward the clearing where Darwin waited, passing shriveled, dead trees, our boots crunching yellow and brown leaves. It looked—felt—like the life had been sucked from the landscape.

  “Jesse.” I grabbed his arm, trying to slow him. “The Drone…”

  He ran faster, burst into the clearing, and smacked into a maze of spider webs. Right on his tail, Roark, Shea, and I didn’t see it until we were tangled amid the sticky strands.

  I swung my arms, wiping at my face and clothes in a frantic attempt to shake free, but the strands clung to me like double-sided tape. The creepy-crawling sensation itched over my skin, and I continued to paw at it as I peeled my eyes for spiders.

  The webs were normal-looking, but my association with them was tainted by memories of the Drone in Iceland, his naked body pulsating beneath thousands of squirming spots. The abscesses bubbling over his abdomen, festering and erupting with gossamer strings. The sticky threads clutching my shoulders and jerking me backward.

  I shivered, relaxing a little when I didn’t spot any spiders. Didn’t sense the Drone or any sign of life for that matter. This place felt like an abandoned graveyard.

  “Sweet fecking hell,” Roark choked beside me, the sound of his gagging almost as bad as the smell itself.

  I searched for the source of the stench, my gaze landing on funnels of silk, which burrowed off in multiple directions, creating holes large enough for a man to walk through.

  A ring of stones sat at the center of the clearing, filled with ashes and dust. An old campfire? A network of silk draped over it, as well as the ground, the surrounding trees, and…

  “No,” Jesse croaked. “Oh God, no.”

  He sprinted after Darwin, toward an embankment on the far side. Dropping his bow on the ground, he shoved his hands through his hair and stared at three human-sized, silk-wrapped sacs hanging between the trees.

  My stomach twisted, taking my heart with it as I ran to his side. Together, we ripped away layers of gossamer, starting at the top and working downward until…

  Three bloodless faces stared back at us, frozen in death. Paper-thin skin stuck to pronounced cheekbones. Long hair matted human skulls, the strands hanging over hollowed-out eye sockets and jaws stretched in horror. Black hair. Gray hair.

  Naalnish. Badger. Akicita.

  No Elaine.

  A low, pained cry ripped from Jesse’s throat. Or maybe it was me. I inwardly prodded myself, unable to feel my legs, my fingertips, or my heart.

  Jesse stumbled backward, his expression tightening, his hands curling into fists. I watched numbly, coldly, as he plowed into the nearest tree, punching it, over and over.

  Roark tackled him from behind and slammed him into the ground, speaking into his ear. I looked away, unable to swallow, finding it goddamned difficult to breathe.

  A gentle hand rested on my shoulder. “These were your friends?” Shea whispered. “The Lakota?”

  I nodded. At least I think I did.

  “And the woman who was with them?” Shea’s touch slid down my arm. “Where’s she?”

  My hand went to my mouth to hide my trembling chin. How did the Drone find Elaine? Was Michio involved? Maybe he rescued Elaine from the Drone? Or maybe he’d led the Drone to Elaine?

  No. I gritted my teeth. Michio wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t betray me. I was the one who could communicate with the Drone through shared dreams. I must’ve accidentally given away the Lakota’s location. Or perhaps the Drone had known it all along.

  I waited for my eyes to burn and well with tears, but they never did. Instead, an icy self-hatred trickled in. It snarled things through my mind like I led the Drone to them and It’s my fault they’re dead and They died because they loved me. The self-hatred wanted me to curl up and close my eyes and never open them again.

  The Lakota had represented so many things for us. They were our friends, our refuge waiting in the mountains, and the final connection Jesse had to his past. With the entire world dead and dying, Jesse had clung to something few could claim. He’d had family, and they’d been ripped away from him.

  Shea’s hand fell away, and my gaze followed her retreating form. She sat beside Darwin and moved his head to her lap. They were both listless, unwell, and likely seconds from passing out.

  A few feet away, Roark knelt over Jesse’s slumped body, his hands cupping Jesse’s head, speaking at a volume too low for my ears. Hopefully, Roark knew what to say to take that stricken look off Jesse’s face, because I was at a complete and total loss.

  I was prayerless.

  Hopeless.

  Numb.

  Leaves and twigs swirled around my legs, the water sun-warmed yet refreshingly cool against my calves as it rippled by. The stream was wide enough to offer protection against aphids but shallow and calm enough to stand in. Though it was probably too late to wonder if the boots I’d borrowed from Shea were waterproof.

  I blew a clump of sticky hair from my face and concentrated on the angle of my elbows and the placement of the arrow. My biceps burned and my fingers cramped around the bow, but I’d grown used to the discomfort over the past couple weeks.

  Distraction. That’s what this was. Something to occupy our minds, something other than the three bodies we’d cremated and scattered to ash ten days ago and however many miles up the mountain. And maybe, just maybe, I’d shoot an accurate arrow before Shea and Darwin were strong enough to make the rest of the hike down.

  “Wider,” Jesse breathed against my nape, his tone a darker shade of annoyed.

  His fingers dug into my hips from behind as he kicked the insteps of my boots, knocking my feet farther apart in the stream.

  Beside me, the water lapped against Shea’s knees as she adjusted her stance to mirror mine, her pretty face creased in concentration. When it came to archery, she and I were closely matched in skill, though she looked a helluva lot more comfortable holding the bow.

  How was I supposed to angle my chest again? I copied her position, pointing my shoulders toward the target, only to have Jesse twist my hips where he wanted them.

  Ugh. Would I ever master this? And why wasn’t he giving Shea the same hell he was giving me?

  I pulled the arrow back, squinting at the wide base of the tree on the shore. I was going to hit the motherfucking target this time.

  “Evie.” Jesse grabbed my hand and pushed the arrow forward, loosening the tension in the string. “Look at your fingers. You’re ten yards from the target.” He gritted his teeth, his face inches from mine, his full lips and strong jaw irritatingly attractive. “What have I said?”

  “The closer I am,” I grumbled, adjusting my hand, “the lower my fingers should be on the string.”
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  Roark sat on the shore, stroking the top of Darwin’s head, his emerald gaze on the surrounding woods.

  I nodded my chin at him. “Why isn’t that guy training?”

  “His weapon isn’t out of ammo. Bend your elbow sideways.” Jesse smacked my outstretched arm and waded behind me to take more frustration out on my other arm. “Lift this one higher. See? Puts the proper back muscles in-line.”

  To think, the archery lessons had been my idea. Jesse hadn’t been interested at first, despite the fact he’d told me months ago I needed to learn how to use the bow and arrow. I still wore my knives, and frankly, there might’ve been a part of him that liked me depending on his protection. But beyond that, he hadn’t shown interest in anything. He’d shut down that first week following the deaths of our friends, his grief running so deeply and inwardly, I thought I’d lost him.

  He’d gone back to sleeping alone in the forest, giving me vacant glares every time I approached him. I didn’t have the energy or desire to be pissy about it. I was grieving, too.

  My mind was plagued with memories of fishing with Badger, sleeping in the warmth of Naalish’s platonic arms, and listening to Akicita’s vivid stories while drinking his hickory coffee. Akicita had led me out of a very dark place after Joel died, his palliative humming and patient words saving me from myself, right here in these mountains. The scent of evergreen, the beady eyes of a rabbit, the gurgling of the stream, every breath of woodland life was a painful reminder of the men I’d lost, and those reminders threatened to crash down the wall I so carefully held my emotions behind.

  The same wall that kept me from falling apart every time I thought of Annie and Aaron.

  Strangely though, Jesse didn’t seem to have a problem sharing his grief with Roark. Over the last couple weeks, the two of them spent every daylight hour together, talking quietly, hunting for food, or simply sharing silence.

  Even weirder, Roark touched him. A lot. A hand on his shoulder, a nudge of his knee, even a hug here and there. Such a foreign thing to witness. I felt as though I was standing outside of some inner bro circle, uninvited and warded off by the disgusted twist of Jesse’s lips whenever he looked at me.

  As a priest, Roark was well-equipped to be an effective counselor. If Jesse was in need of a friend with faith, someone who could offer hope and prayers and wings, that person wasn’t me.

  But I wanted those wings, the kind of strength that could be found in the blind belief that there was something greater than this sweltering, soulless hell. I wanted that faith so I could be there for Jesse as Roark had been.

  Instead, the best thing I could offer was distraction.

  I pulled the arrow back, moving to anchor position, and rested my top finger at the corner of my mouth. Looking down the shaft of the arrow, I aimed at the center of the tree trunk, released the shot, and held the stance.

  The arrow flew past the target and wobbled through the woods. Well, shit.

  Jesse strode away, kicking through the stream, head down, and his hands pulling at his hair. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  I lowered the bow, my spine straightening. “Excuse me?”

  He spun back, his eyes flashing, vicious and angry. “You can’t even hit a target at ten yards. An unmoving target. You’re a goddamned waste of time.”

  My breath caught. He didn’t say this was a waste of time. He said me. I was a waste of time.

  Shea hugged her bow to her chest and stepped upstream, her expression pale with shock.

  I felt something a whole lot more venomous than shock. I plowed forward, my heart punching against my ribs, the heat in my cheeks rising to an inferno.

  “Fuck you and your arrogant fucking face.” I held the bow out to him. When he refused to take it, I slapped his chest with it. “Maybe the weapon is out of alignment. Did you think of that? Or maybe it’s fucking cursed.”

  I regretted that as soon as I said it. The bows he’d given Shea and me had belonged to the Lakota, the ash wood softly worn by their gentle hands, the arrows crafted with skill and love.

  The same bows we’d pulled from their dead fingers. The same arrows that hadn’t saved their lives.

  Jesse yanked it from my hand and strapped it on his back. “No such thing as an inaccurate bow. The person is inaccurate.” His tone scathed with rage. “You are inaccurate.”

  Splashing sounded Roark’s approach and in the next breath, he sidled in front of me, his hand tightly gripped on Jesse’s shoulder. A warning grip.

  “Well done.” Two words Roark said when he didn’t mean it. His fingers squeezed, shoving Jesse backward. “If ye talk to her like that again, I’ll break your face and send ye off seeing triple with your sphincter leaking ass juice. Feel me?”

  Jesse jerked out of Roark’s grip, his glare stark red and aimed at me.

  This had nothing to do with my archery skills and everything to do with the deaths of our friends. Jesse hadn’t verbally blamed me, but I could see the censure that put shadows in his eyes and grooved angry lines across his face.

  But I’d rather him blame me than Michio. If Michio had led the Drone to the Lakota camp…

  I shut the door on that thought. We couldn’t determine the timing of the Lakota’s deaths given the mummified state of their bodies, but if Darwin had left the mountains because of the Drone, his travel time to the animal reserve didn’t add up to the timing of Michio’s departure.

  Jesse was smart enough to work that out, which made my telepathic link to the Drone the most obvious point of blame.

  As Jesse trampled downstream, all I could do was stare after him, my pulse pounding in my throat. How would we move on from this? What could I do or say to return to the way things were between us?

  Walking away wasn’t the answer. I released a blade from my forearm sheath, aimed it at the tree branch he was about to duck beneath, and flung it with the same numbness I’d hidden behind for two long weeks.

  It landed with a thunk, inches above his head.

  He stopped, glanced up at the buried blade, and turned his neck. His glare found me, tunneled into my chest, and bit a chunk out of my heart.

  I swallowed the unbearable hurt and raised my chin. “How’s that for inaccurate? Maybe I should’ve aimed a few inches lower?”

  His brows dipped over red-rimmed eyes. Then he turned away and continued downstream.

  “Bastard.” I hated watching his retreating form. Hated it.

  “Evie.” Roark sighed, turning to face me. “He’s—”

  “Grieving? Well, so am I.” I just chose not to take it out on other people.

  “Give him time, love.”

  I’d given him two weeks, and the coldness was shattering me from the inside out.

  I pushed past Roark, gave Shea a strained smile, and waded after Jesse. As I trudged beneath the overhanging branch, I collected my knife and returned it to the arm sheath, my attention on the muscled form of stubbornness incarnate. “Stop walking away from me, Jesse Beckett!”

  He continued his slogging pace, not even acknowledging me with one of his condemning glares.

  I charged down the middle of the stream, fuming and clumsy, lifting my heavy boots out of the water to gain speed. No more running away. The bastard was going down.

  A few splashing stomps later, I spun around him, grabbed his wrist, and pulled it across the front of my body. As intended, the momentum fucked with his balance and forced him to take a step.

  Surprise rounded his eyes as I ducked down and gripped the back of his denim-clad thighs, hooking in and dropping to my knees. The rocky bottom jarred pain through my knee caps as I locked a leg around his forward-stepping ankle.

  Sure, he was bigger and stronger, but he hadn’t spent years learning Jiu Jitsu under my husband’s ruthless tutelage.

  He saw the confidence in my eyes, and he knew it, too. “Evie…”

  With his ankle trapped, I drove into his chest, laying him flat on his back with a colossal splash.

  He cras
hed beneath the water, the stream washing over his face. He thrashed and bucked under me until my thighs straddled his waist.

  His hands broke the surface first, wrapping around my throat. His head followed as he sat up and gasped for air. “The fuck?”

  “Fucking say it, Jesse.” My throat worked against the press of his fingers as my miserable damned emotions chewed away the edges of my voice. “If you’re going to blame me for their deaths, use your fucking words.”

  “Blame you?” His face fell, as did his hands, dropping to my lap. “What are you talking about?”

  I stabbed a finger at his chest. “You look at me with contempt. With hatred.”

  My chin wobbled as an aching jolt of sadness punched through my anger. I covered my mouth with shaking fingers, attempting to hide the vulnerability plastered there.

  Gathering my composure, I lowered my hands and curled them against my thighs beneath the water. “You’re breaking my heart with your…your goddamned silent treatment. What do you want me to say, Jesse? I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” My voice broke, and I swallowed to strengthen it. “I’ve said it a million times, but dammit, I can’t express how sorry I truly am.”

  Leaning back in the stream with water splashing over his shoulders, he held his head up to see me, to search my eyes, his own growing wider, glassier. “Evie, you…I’m not…fuck!” He swiped a hand over his face. “You couldn’t be more wrong. If I look at you with anything, it’s with…”

  His raspy voice trailed off as he stared past me. When his eyes returned to mine, they were soft and full of regret.

  I really needed him to finish that sentence, but I wouldn’t force him. Instead, I slowly, cautiously, traced the corner of his mouth, trying to tease the words from it.

  He sat there, his body rigid beneath mine, forming an imposing cliff in the stream. Flexed biceps, strong neck, bunched pecs, the power in his thighs invisible beneath the water, but they tensed against my ass as he leaned forward, pushing the hair from my face, his gaze following the movement.

  “I look at you with fear, darlin’.” His voice rumbled in that vibrating twang of his.