Page 134 of A Silence So Divine

Slamming my hands on the hood of the car, I throw my head back and stare at the sunless sky.

Every second that Eden’s away feels like she’s slipping through my fingers. If they had let me go with her, I might have been able to do something. But they doubted me. They doubted that I would be able to take care of us, so they let her throw herself to the wolves.

Mind made up, I reach for the door. Movement in my peripheral vision captures my attention. I freeze.

It’s the same SUV as before, but the tail end is smashed in, and a few of the windows are shattered. It peels into the clearing, slamming on the breaks.

They’ve returned.

I’m unarmed, and if there’s multiple of them, I’m as good as dead. But I don’tthink. I move. The blacked out windows make it impossible to see into the front seat, and when I race up to the driver’s door, I catch my own wild reflection.

As I grab the handle, the door swings open. It’s not multiple men, it’s just one. Well, it’s not a man at all.

It’s Sylvie.

Blood coats her chest and arm, and her hair clings to her neck, coated in the sticky substance. You would expect her to look haggard, or on the brink of losing consciousness, but she only looks pissed.

“Where’s Cecil?”

“Where’s Eden?”

Our signs are simultaneous, twins of desperation.

When her jaw drops, my heart sinks.

“He’s not with you?”I ask, unsteady on my feet.

When she answers, she doesn't beat around the bush, and she doesn’t pity me. She squares her jaw and meets my eye. Holding it.“It was a trap.”She glances over to where Veda and the others rush towards us.“They took him. All of them.”

My head spins, and I have to crouch down to avoid falling on my ass.

Cecil is gone. Eden is gone.

They’re gone, and I’m here. Alone.

“They were here?”Sylvie asks Veda, taking note of the destroyed campground. The older woman offers a solemn nod.

When Veda speaks, she keeps her hands at her sides, but I read her lips perfectly. “They have Eden.”

Bile rises up and out of my mouth. The dam bursts.

The savory scent of chicken broth and sautéed vegetables will usually make my mouth water, but right now, it might as well be rot and vinegar.

“You need to eat,”Sylvie tells me. She’s on the faded lazy boy across from where I sit on the couch. Using her teeth, she rips gauze that she's wrapping around her shoulder. The bullet is still in there, but she’s completely unbothered.

I don’t respond to her; I face the clock and watch the ticking of the thin black arm. Each second is somehow longer than the last.

It’s only 2:00 in the afternoon. We’ve got ten more hours until we can leave. Ten. Painstaking. Hours.

After I had thrown up the acid in my stomach, the forgotten tears made themselves known. I would have expected Veda to be the comforting one, but it was Sylvie who rubbed my back, coaxed me into the RV, and forced me to drink sips of ice water.

“We’ll find them,”she had promised.“But not yet.”

The plan was set in place without my input; not that it would have counted for anything, anyway. Sylvie gave a brief rundown of what transpired: from the trap at the orphanage to the miraculous dust storm. She was adamant that Eden and Cecil will be kept alive. For how long? No telling. But at least they’re not dead.

Traveling to the Sanctuary in the light of day is a suicide mission, so we’ll use the cover of nightfall to our advantage. Once there, we’ll move silently, using gunfire only when necessary. Veda is convinced that they underestimate us, that they won’t expect us to come to their doorstep. So, we’ll pick them off one by one, making our way into the heart of the facility.

Ten of the Resistance were able to make their way back to our camp, escaping the orphanage before being apprehended. Injuries were minor, and spirits remain intact. Truthfully, Cecil and Eden being taken has boosted morale. For that, I’m grateful.