Once An Eve Novel

few other women helped Missy into a chair, offering her their condolences for the knot forming on the back of her head.
    Outside, the night was cold and damp. I slipped out of Maeve’s grip. “You’re right,” I said meekly. “It has to be a lie. I guess I just wanted to believe it.”
    Maeve’s face softened and she reached out to squeeze my shoulder. She held Lilac close to her side. “We hear these types of things all the time. Better not to entertain them.”
    I shook my head. “I won’t then. I promise.”
    But as we walked back to her house I slowed my pace, letting her, Lilac, Delia, and Isis get a few steps ahead. Arden ran up behind me. We were both smiling in the dark. She nodded toward the bridge, the idea already taking root. The question that had consumed us was answered. Finally, we knew what to do.

seven
     
    “JUST A LITTLE FARTHER,” ARDEN SAID. SHE CROUCHED BEHIND a burned-out car, her breath short as she pulled Heddy to her, gripping the dog’s rope collar so she wouldn’t move. “We’re almost there.”
    I peered through the binoculars, looking at the tiny, nearly imperceptible lantern light that shone at the top of the stone ledge. Isis was just outside the front entrance to Califia, a black dot moving against the gray landscape. “I can’t tell if she’s using her binoculars anymore,” I said. That night, long after Maeve and Lilac had gone to sleep, we crept into the storage room, carefully collecting supplies and loading them into two backpacks. Then we’d made our way across the bridge, darting from car to truck to car, zigzagging so as not to be seen. Now we’d nearly reached the end: Only a few yards separated us from the short tunnel leading into the city.
    “Let’s sprint it just in case,” I said. Each step was unsteady, and my legs felt like they might give out beneath me.
    Arden looked at Heddy, smoothing down her soft black ears. “You ready, girl?” she asked. “You have to run fast. Can you do that?” The dog stared at her with big amber eyes, as if she understood. Then Arden turned to me and nodded, signaling for me to go first.
    I sprang up from our hiding place, pumping my legs as fast as I could, not looking back at Califia or the lantern or Isis’s silhouette, pacing in front of the stone ledge. Arden followed close behind, jumping over deflated tires, charred bones, and overturned motorcycles. The bag was heavy on my back. The jarred berries and meats inside clanked together as Arden darted ahead, the dog right beside her. I kept running, clutching the binoculars and sprinting toward the black mouth of the tunnel.
    I didn’t even see the battered cart. It was lying beneath a truck, its hooked handle reaching for my ankle as I passed. It pulled me, pack and all, to the ground. I screamed as my knee met the pavement.
    As Arden ran she turned back, her gaze scanning the mountains. “Get up, get up, get up,” she urged, stepping over the last of the debris until she was safe, out of sight, in the entrance of the tunnel. She and Heddy watched me from there, her voice calling beyond the darkness.
    I scrambled to my feet and grabbed the binoculars, which had been crushed beneath me in the fall. My backpack was dripping, and something thick and purple ran down my legs as I limped forward, trying to get out of Isis’s line of sight. When I reached the tunnel, I collapsed against the wall.
    “Has she spotted us?” Arden asked, holding the dog back to keep her from licking my face. “Where are the binoculars?”
    “Right here.” I held them up. The center had cracked, leaving the two scopes connected by only a narrow piece of plastic. I pressed them to my face, searching the hillside for signs of her, but both lenses were black. “I can’t see anything,” I said frantically, banging the binoculars against the palm of my hand, trying to fix them.
    Isis was probably halfway down the dirt path by now, sprinting to the houses to wake up Maeve. It wouldn’t be long before she came across the bridge to retrieve us. “Come on,” I whispered to myself, shaking the silly contraption to get it to work.
    But when I held them to my face again I still couldn’t see anything. No Isis. No Quinn. No Maeve. There was only infinite black in front of me, and my eyes, bloodshot and frightened, reflected in the glass.
    THE NARROW HOUSES OF SAN FRANCISCO WERE COVERED IN colorful, ornate carvings, their paint peeling off in sheets. Burned-out cars were piled at the