Eve of Man Read online

  He’s nothing like her, yet he is her.

  He averts his gaze and shifts, his foot nudging Michael’s leg. There is no response.

  “Are you okay?” he asks without raising his eyes to meet mine.

  “I’m not sure,” I say, thinking of everything that’s happened since I woke up this morning.

  “He didn’t hurt you,” he says quietly. It’s more an observation than a question.

  “No—I thought he was going to, but no. He was confused,” I tell him, feeling protective of Michael even though I’m aware the outcome could have been different. If Vivian’s words held some truth it should have been. Or maybe Michael is unique in his willpower and more dedicated to the cause than other men are.

  “Right,” he says in a disbelieving tone, a frown forming as the muscles in his jaw tighten.

  “It all happened so fast. Mother Nina. She’s dead,” I tell him, the words spilling from my mouth.

  He winces, but of course he isn’t surprised. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “You didn’t—”

  “No, but I should have—”

  “Maybe,” I conclude.

  “You couldn’t have,” his friend cuts in.

  I look up at him and study his face, wondering if he’s another of my Hollys, but I don’t recognize anything about him. I wonder what he’s doing here and what his connection is to her.

  A groan from the floor shifts my attention. Michael stirs, putting his hand over his face.

  I start to go to him, but an arm is raised to prevent it.

  I give “Holly” a withering look.

  “Don’t, Eve.”

  “I don’t think he had any intention of hurting me,” I tell them.

  “It didn’t look like that,” he says.

  “You saw,” I say slowly, remembering that she was there as the elevator doors shut, that I was shouting for Holly to help. I was terrified of the unknown and hysterical over Diego.

  He’d shed himself of Holly’s form and run to help me. I hadn’t needed him. I might’ve thought it at first, but Michael wasn’t a threat. If the opposite were true, though, if Michael had been trying to take advantage of the situation, I would’ve been saved. Helped. Rescued. The words circulate in my brain. I don’t like the sense of fragility that’s crept up on me today. Yet, in reality, I am weak. Weaker than I’d thought.

  “I…” He’s shaking his head, as though he’s finding the situation as bizarre as I am and doesn’t know how to react. There’s clearly no protocol for meeting me away from his disguise, away from her.

  “You are Hol—”

  “He just needs some ice,” he says quickly, cutting across me. “And to sleep it off.”

  “It was quite a punch,” grumbles his friend, rolling his eyes as he crosses his arms, assessing the damage in front of us.

  “I could’ve hit him harder,” he mutters under his breath.

  We hear the sound of feet hammering on the floor before Ketch and his team sprint into view, swarming along the corridor, accompanied by several of the Mothers, their faces frantic and fearful.

  I note the absence of Mother Nina, and my chest tightens.

  “Hartman. Bram.” Ketch nods at them, gesturing for them to step aside while the area is secured.

  Bram.

  His name is Bram.

  “Are you all right?” wails Mother Kimberley, throwing her arms around me with such force that I’m almost winded. “He didn’t…”

  “No,” I say, my cheeks reddening. “He— They—they just helped.”

  “Of course that’s all we did!” Bram scoffs, bemused that they’d think anything different.

  Mother Kimberley exhales with relief. “Let’s get you back upstairs. Vivian will be coming to see you shortly.”

  I’m crushed at the prospect. She is the very last person I want to see. Not one part of me wants to hear what she has to say about what has happened and my involvement in it.

  Within seconds Michael is removed from the elevator and I’m ushered back in, flanked by the Mothers.

  As the doors close I search him out and find those eyes once more.

  Bram.

  His name is Bram.

  * * *

  —

  Sitting on my bed, I wait. Not only am I waiting for Vivian to come in and reprimand me—somehow making out it was my fault—I’m waiting to become submersed in feelings. Guilt. Fear. Grief. Despair. Anger. Hope. Delight. Anything.

  Nothing comes. I thought it would and feel it should. I was full to the brim with overwhelming emotion while I was in that elevator, but now there is a big black gap where I ought to be feeling something.

  I am numb.

  My body is an empty void.

  My brain is frozen.

  I can barely move.

  Hardly think.

  My eyes are drawn to my dressing table, the bags of makeup and brushes Mother Nina packed away just a couple of hours ago when we were talking affectionately. I remember the warmth of her fingers as she touched my face and am haunted by what happened a short while later. The same action repeated, but this time so violent. I see her wrinkled face in Diego’s hands and the numbness intensifies. I’m unable to make sense of the horror I’ve witnessed. I should have been the victim. Instead he stole my old friend’s life. What was the point?

  This room. This space. I used to feel safe here. Oppressed, trapped, and controlled perhaps, but I have a great responsibility, and they’ve been here to help me do all I can to save our race. This sanctuary has given me support, kindness, and security while I’ve been growing up. They’ve given me comfort, stimulation, an education, and friends. Mother Nina.

  And then there was Holly. She was a gift, I see now. To keep me engaged with people of my own age, to keep me connected. Because one day all my real companions will perish and I’ll be here alone…What then? What is to become of me?

  I think of Holly and I see him—Bram, full of passion, anger, and fire.

  I wonder how long it’ll be before his image fades, or before my brain revises the arches of his nostrils or the wave of his hairline, makes him taller or gives him a more muscular physique. How long will it be before the image I have of him is turned into a work of fiction?

  I can’t believe I’ve actually met a Holly.

  They’ll be livid, of course. Even if they’re aware I can distinguish between her variations and know she’s just their puppet, she works. That’s why they keep sending her to me. I engage with her, confide in her…If they think I’ve seen completely through the lie, it’s possible they’ll stop sending me that version of Holly. My Holly.

  It dawns on me that that’s why Bram stopped me before I blurted out that I knew who he was. If I’d got those words out it would be over. Now I just have to wait and see if he returns. Pray that our little moment was lost within the spectacular devastation of the morning.

  “I’m sorry,” says a low voice behind me.

  My heart constricts and shrivels.

  I turn to Vivian, who is as composed as ever at my bedroom door.

  Suddenly I’m overcome with anger and hate. I grip my bedsheets to stop myself from lurching at her, because that’s what I want to do. I want to run at her and let this feeling go, but I can’t do that.

  “I know how fond you were of Mother Nina,” she continues.

  “I was,” I respond, hating how quickly we’re able to talk about her in the past tense and wishing we didn’t have to.

  “She did the right thing,” Vivian says, walking unashamedly into my room and looking me up and down, as though examining me for any physical injuries. She won’t find any.

  “Did she?” I snap.

  “Of course,” she says, her voice chillingly cold, considering she is talking about the loss of an innocent life and s
omeone she has spent at least a decade working alongside.

  “And what makes you say that?” I ask, the anger still bubbling inside.

  “She knew you were about to expose yourself.”

  I can’t deny it.

  “She saved you.”

  “So it’s my fault?” I shout.

  “I didn’t say that,” she says, her face like stone.

  “You implied it!” I shriek.

  “Eve, control yourself,” she warns, her voice remaining calm, unlike my own. “Mother Nina clearly sensed something that the rest of us had failed to spot. She’ll have died happy knowing she was saving you.”

  “Why didn’t you notice it?” I ask, jumping up from the bed. “How was he chosen over every other man screened? How was he allowed in here?” Blood rushes to my head as the words fire from my mouth.

  “The matter is being looked into.” She blinks with a pursed mouth, not giving the slightest indication that my reaction is bothering her. “It won’t happen again.”

  “And that’s it?” I ask, my voice cracking.

  “I think you’re forgetting the bigger picture here, Eve,” she retorts, her eyebrow rising just enough to be condescending but not enough to be completely inhumane, given the circumstances. “You’re becoming too sentimental at a time when the focus should be on the cause and what we’re set to gain—or lose. Choose your battles. Focus on the path ahead. It’s tragic about Mother Nina, of course it is, but hers was just one life.”

  “Why should my life be deemed more important than hers?” I ask, a lump forming in my throat.

  “You are called the savior for a reason. Do you pay any attention in your history lessons?” she quips.

  “I thought I was just a cog,” I say drily.

  “Eve…” She sighs with impatience, tugging on the cuffs of her shirt. “Mother Nina served the greater good by sacrificing herself. We should be grateful to her, but let’s not dwell.”

  I remain silent, my gaze falling to the floor between us.

  “And what happened in the elevator?”

  “Nothing,” I tell her, my voice barely audible as sadness niggles away at me. “I was saved.”

  “The guard was found unconscious.”

  “It was a misunderstanding.”

  Her eyes are on me, trying to read whether or not I’m telling her the truth. I don’t know why she’s bothering to ask. There must be cameras everywhere—surely she’s seen the whole thing already.

  “So no further action is necessary, with any of the young men involved?”

  I shake my head, unable to lift my eyes from the floor. “You said they would hurt me. That temptation would be too much.”

  “Temptation can either strike instantly or grow over time, Eve. Don’t be tricked into sloppy behavior or you may not be so lucky next time,” she warns, her eyes sharp. “Understand?”

  I nod.

  “Very well,” she says, making for the door.

  “A funeral!” I call after her. “Will there be one?”

  Vivian sighs at the inconvenience. “I’ll make sure it’s marked in some way,” she says. “I’ll get the other Mothers to…address it.”

  “Thank you,” I say, almost to myself. “She really was the most remarkable woman.”

  In that moment all I want is a pair of arms around me. Michael’s, Bram’s—Mother Nina’s…Even Vivian’s would bring a certain level of comfort. Yet she gives me nothing. Vivian takes a breath, lifts her chin, and silently walks out of the room. Leaving me to cry a swamp of tears on my own.

  14

  BRAM

  I close the door to the dorm and hit the lock with my trembling fist. I can’t stop the shakes. I managed to contain them a few moments ago outside the elevator, but now that I’m alone my body is free to react as it wants.

  I stumble backward. A grayish blur is forming a frame around the edge of my vision, like the vignette of an old photograph. The dorm spins. Bunk, window, door. Bunk, window, door. My balance fails as my legs give in to the weight of my thoughts, which are dedicated to one thing.

  Eve.

  * * *

  —

  I’m dragging my case through the corridor of my home in the cloudscraper. We’re high, somewhere on the upper floors. Clouds press on the glass wall, turning it gray.

  As I stare out at the hazy world, the clouds start to glow. A pair of huge luminous eyes suddenly appears outside the window, staring back at me.

  Your savior. A kind voice echoes through the air outside, muffled by the glass. Our future. The mist dissipates, revealing the pretty face projected across the side of the cloudscraper opposite.

  “Do you know who that is?” my father asks.

  Of course I do.

  “Eve,” I say, but my eyes are drawn back down the hallway toward the sound of my mother’s sobs behind the door.

  “Eve is going to be your new friend,” my father says, then notices where my attention has drifted.

  “Don’t look back,” he drones. He stands at the elevator door, waiting for it to arrive. “This is your one chance at a better life. You’ll thank me for it one day. For getting you out of this place.”

  “I want Mama.” The sound of my voice makes me realize I’m crying. Sobbing. “I want Mama!”

  “You will not see that woman again and you’ll certainly not be needing that, not where we’re going.” He tugs the small silver cross, and the chain breaks, falling from my neck. “Foolish beliefs for a foolish woman. You will not speak of her.”

  * * *

  —

  Eve!

  I sit up suddenly. It’s cold. My cheek is stinging as if I’ve been slapped repeatedly. My vision is blurry and has no color, but I can make out Hartman standing over me, hand raised. His mouth is moving, but I can’t hear him over the high-pitched ringing that’s vibrating inside my skull.

  He pulls his hand back and slaps me. The stinging in my cheek becomes a burn.

  “Bram!” he whispers in a hushed panic. “Bram, if you don’t come out of this soon I’m calling the medic.”

  “N-no…,” I mumble as I pull my cold, clammy body off the floor. “I don’t need it. I’m okay.”

  “Are you?” he asks.

  Am I?

  What the hell just happened to me? The color slowly returns to my sight, and with every deafening beat of the pulse in my ears I feel normality returning.

  “Just take some deep breaths and drink this.” Hartman hands me his flask. Without hesitation I take a gulp, and the boiling liquid hits the back of my throat. I spit it out instantly.

  “What’s that?” I say, handing the flask back to him.

  “Tea.” He shrugs.

  “You could have told me it was hot!”

  “Sorry. I just thought it might help calm you down.”

  “Did I black out?” I ask, although I already know the answer.

  “I dunno. All I know is that you bolted the second they escorted Eve away. When I got here the door was locked, so I had to hack in again, and when I finally got it open you were sprawled out on the floor, eyes in the back of your head, mumbling all sorts of weird stuff.” He swigs his tea. “Shit, that is hot!”

  I don’t bother asking what I was mumbling. Not because I’m afraid of what it might have been, but because I already know what it was. The last thing I was thinking of before I blacked out and the first thing I thought of when I came around.

  Eve.

  My stomach convulses, and within a split second, my throat is full of its contents. I projectile-vomit onto our dorm floor. Hartman jumps out of the way just in time.

  “What the actual f—” He doesn’t get a chance to finish before a second round erupts from my mouth.

  “Yuck!” He hands me a towel.

  I rip off my kinetic
suit and fall back onto my lower bunk with a heavy sigh. What’s happening to me? I close my eyes. Eve.

  I’ve seen her face thousands of times, but never like that. Never with my own eyes. I’ve never breathed the same air as her or caught the flowery scent of her hair.

  I take a breath and fill my lungs, trying to remember what breathing next to her felt like. Her smell. She smelled real.

  I suddenly remember her gazing into my eyes. No one has ever looked at me like that before. It’s like she was staring through me, into my mind, trying to see the person inside—the way she looks at Holly, except she found no one but me there this time.

  She saw me.

  She recognized me.

  She knows.

  “We have an emergency meeting in thirty minutes, but you’re staying here,” Hartman says as he mops up my mess with a towel.

  “No, I’m fine. I need to hear what’s happening,” I argue.

  “You’re in shock, Bram. You need to rest.”

  “Shock?” I almost laugh.

  “You witnessed something horrific earlier, man. This is your body reacting to it.”

  Something horrific? What’s he talking about?

  Then it hits me. The memories flash in my brain, cutting like glass. Mother Nina’s body, motionless on the floor. The cold stare of Diego and the blood on his hands, filling the creases of his knuckles and congealing under his fingernails.

  Horrific.

  “Yeah. I guess you’re right,” I lie.

  “You’re not a soldier, Bram. Things like that don’t happen every day. At least not up here. I mean, shit, is this what they’re all like out there? Are they that messed up?”

  “Don’t you remember it?” I ask.

  “My life before this place? Barely. Thank God.”

  “I do,” I admit. “Bits of it. Just flashes, really. It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Not that bad?” Hartman gawks. “You must be ill, mate. It was a bloody war zone for about thirty years.”