Evelyn Earth Part 43

I turned back around and looked at the group of people I was left with. One of them I could kill right now, another I wouldn’t trust with my left shoe, three of them were useless and Sebastian was my only friend and I didn’t even trust him completely. I sighed.

                “Are we done fighting kids?” Sloan said sarcastically. I shot him a death stare and bared my teeth a little. Actually, make that two people I could kill right now.

                “Are we?” I looked at Audrey who had taken to twirling tendrils of her flame coloured hair around her finger.

                “For now” she cooed. I grimaced in annoyance. Who even spoke like that? It was a cross between the voice of a child and a whore.

                “Can I speak to you alone?” I said to Sebastian. He nodded in response, shot Sloan a reproachful look and followed me behind a slab of fallen concrete.

                “So she wasn’t what we were expecting” I said.

                “If you were expecting help then no not at all, that one’s like wild fire. She flares up and burns out unpredictably. When she first appeared your power outburst had already run its course through most of the city. She questioned me about it and before I could even reply she grabbed me and pulled out all my bloody memories. Everything she touches is instantly under the command of her power, and I mean instantly Evs.”

                “So she’s faster than me?

                “In terms of destruction love, she’s a cheetah and you’re a cat.”

                “What does that make you?” I grinned.

                “A fucking sloth that’s what” he growled in annoyance.

“If her power’s that fast then why didn’t she use it?”

“Beats me, maybe she’s biding her time, waiting to launch a surprise attack? I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Did you get a look inside her head? When she connected with you did you see any of her intentions?”

                “That’s the thing innit, I tried, but it was like a dark empty room, absolutely nothin’ to see. Every time I tried to ask her about what she knew she’d go on about destruction and how that’s all there was. That thing she said about talking to an angel, Gerard got that out of her, not me.”

                “Fuck. So how are we supposed to unite with someone like that?”

                “Look, convincing her to destroy the city won’t be an issue. Convincing her to let people live…” he shrugged.

                “That boy that was with me” I lowered my voice, “he’s Portuguese, like literally beamed here from Portugal, along with seven hundred other people.”

                “What? So these daft angels are transporting people into cities now? What for?”

                “I was thinking the same thing, what Audrey said, they’re not rational, some of them are fucking up. Before they were brought here the angel had them in a desert with no food or water for God’s sake” I raised an eyebrow. Sebastian puffed out his cheeks and blew out the air in a long blustering sigh.

                “So what do we do now? We can’t bloody well kill seven hundred people can we?”

                “They’re in a park up north, it’s far enough away for us to clean out the city without catching them in the cleanse.”

                “Are you up for it now?” he looked at me and his eyes sparkled with mischievous excitement.

                “I don’t think I could take on the rest of this today” I looked around me, “plus my leg and shoulder are killing me. I was going to see if you could help me heal it?”

                “I don’t know about healing, I could give it a shot. Come on lets go back I don’t feel good leaving her alone with the lads for so long yeah?”

                I followed him back onto the path where the others had settled down in the shade. Sloan was sipping out of a water bottle that Travis and Izwan were eyeing with jealousy.

                “How’s our food and water situation going?” I asked no one in particular.

                “We lost our supplies in the Asian grocery store after your latest temper tantrum” Sloan said.

                “He the only one who find water and not share with rest of us” Izwan glared at Sloan.

                “Find your own water you squinty cunt.”

                “Hey!” Sebastian turned on Sloan, “since when do you fucking talk to any of us like that?”

                Sloan continued to sip his water as if nothing had happened. Sebastian continued to stare at him and I was eyeing up Audrey who was sitting next to Gerard and stroking his arm. They were whispering to each other and I strained to hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t make it out. I cursed the fact that I couldn’t amplify my hearing once again.

                “Since it’s my fault that your supplies were destroyed I’ll find us all some water okay?” The only person who acknowledged what I had said was Travis. He smiled at me shyly as if he were a little kid smiling at a teacher who was about to reward him with some candy.

                I moved off behind the concrete block again and placed my palms and forehead on the ground. The Earth opened up to me and I was delving into its depths with a purpose that I had never had before. We needed clean drinking water and maybe, just maybe, Owen was right and this was what my terrain vision was for. My eyes flew over rocks and clay, mounds of bones and old decayed plastic. The ground was filled with things that I had never thought to look at. All the foreign objects stood out to me like sore thumbs, but none of them were water.

                I delved deeper. I cleared at least a hundred metres of land underneath me, but still nothing. I cast my vision out wider and gradually stumbled upon damp looking ground. I followed the soft earth deeper until I hit the jackpot, an underground well. It wasn’t far either, just a two kilometres to the west. We would be out of the CBD and in prime position to sweep the whole city. Once we had our fill of water and we were all well rested we could tackle our destinies.

                “Alright guys, let’s move, there’s an underground well about twenty minutes’ walk from here. We can all get nice and hydrated and sleep off all this tension.”

                “Who the fuck says we have to follow you” Sloan sneered at me. I narrowed my eyes at him.

                “You’ll do what you’re told or I’ll make you disappear” he looked over to Sebastian, “don’t look at him, he won’t be able to stop me, in fact” I raised my voice so that the whispering duo could hear me too, “you will all do as you’re fucking told. I’m sick of this aimless wandering, the chit chat and the arguments. I’m making it really simple. You either fall in line or I’ll push out into oblivion.”

                Sebastian went to open his mouth,  but I interrupted him with a look that said, if you contradict me I’ll slam you into the ground before you can get your slow miasma one metre in front of you.

                One by one everyone got up from their shady respite and began the fairly short walk to the well. I deliberately fell back behind everyone so that I could keep an eye on them. As I had begun my rebuff to Sloan I realised that I really was sick of the ambling around. It had been months since the Mother released her vengeance and we were only mobilizing now. It wasn’t good enough and I knew that it was our complex human nature that had delayed us for so long.

                I had at first wanted to live in a secluded bubble, amongst my precious clothes and precious furniture then when Owen came along I had wanted to stay beside him, denying what I was. With Sebastian I had been so overwhelmed by power and new abilities that I had absolutely no control over my destiny. It was high time that I took my life into my own hands and tuned out all outside influences.

                Audrey’s single mindedness must be nice. To know exactly what you need to do and having it coincide with what you want to do. I was a tangle of contradictions and it had driven me mad. I was done with the nuances of this group and with everything else. With every step I took towards the underground well my resolve hardened. Every step I took away from Owen hardened my heart.

                When we reached our destination I got Sebastian to manipulate the ground and create the hole through which we would collect the water. Travis and Izwan went hunting around the nearby houses for a bucket and rope and by the time the sun set we were all satiated, except for Sloan. When the boys had found the gear needed for the well they had also stumbled upon some jars of conserves in a garage and when Sloan went to grab one I took off one of his fingers.

                He screamed and moaned until I told him to either shut it or lose his vocal cords. Audrey had gone off with Gerard into one of the houses after they got their share of water so I didn’t need to maim anyone else who tried to move in on the boys’ food supply. Throughout this whole display Sebastian sat quietly and watched me. His eyes were hooded and I could tell that his mind was working in over drive.

                Before I had taken in my second batch of vengeance Sebastian and I had been almost neck and neck in terms of power. Now with my dragon ready to burst out of my body at any second Sebastian was no match for my abilities and he knew it.

                In the glimpse that I had taken into his mind earlier I had seen not only his time with Audrey, but the time where he and Sloan had travelled together. How they had come across large concentrations of vengeance that Sebastian simply couldn’t absorb for fear of bursting with darkness. There was only one small piece of darkness that had nestled into an old power generator that he had been able to accommodate into his body, and that was a meagre pittance compared to my raging storm—a storm that he had eased and taken into himself as well.  

                As I looked at him now I could tell that these things were playing on his consciousness, sinking it. I moved over to sit beside him.

                “Tell me what you’re thinking about” I said quietly.

                “You already know” he replied without looking up. His fingers were intertwined and he squeezed his palms together until the edges of his skin turned white.

                “Think about the time you saved me from self-destructing.”

                “I did that for my own personal gain” he ground his teeth together, “it wasn’t enough though. You’re still the stronger one aren’t you?” He looked at me bitterly and it was the first time I had seen raw emotion on his face.

                “It doesn’t matter who’s stronger. Imagine how strong we would be together.”

                “It don’t feel good to be strong together it feels good to know you have someone’s back, to know you can defend yourself if your own backs against the wall. When I lived in London yeah, I got pushed around by guys who were bigger than me, guys with guns. Now I’m getting pushed around by a bird who happens to have a bigger gun than me. Tell me how that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

                “I’m not pushing you around” I said taken aback.

                “What do you call it then?”

                “Leading.”   

                “Leading” he snorted.

                “The world we are about to create won’t be a democracy. It’ll be led and controlled by us. Think about what life will be like when this is all over. It will be a new world, with a new system. No governments, no churches, just us and the Sun soldiers. You will be able to push around whoever you please, lead however you please.”

                “Unless you disapprove is that it?”

                “When the Mother created us we were all scattered far apart. You, you’re meant to be somewhere else entirely. Audrey too. We were called to unite only because of the new threat from the Sun. Once it’s all finished, we’ll all go back to where we came from and lead from there. I won’t be around to tell you how to run your piece of the Earth.”

                “You’ve thought about this a lot haven’t you?”

                “Too much” I smiled.

                “You think any of it will come true, all your theories.”

                “Tell me what I’ve been saying hasn’t sounded logical?”

                We continued our talk well into the night, debating over things and sharing every detail of what we had missed in each other’s absences. Where once Sebastian had been unwilling to reveal his so called mysteries he now told me everything.