Eve & Adam (Eve & Adam #1)(7)

“Wimp,” Pete says.

“Weakling,” I respond.

“I don’t feel right beating up on a little girl.”

“Don’t feel bad, Pete. Keep at it and you may learn to throw a punch that actually connects some day.”

With our ritual abuse concluded, we make an appointment for the day after tomorrow. Pete heads for the gym’s showers; I head for my quarters.

My quarters, my place, my space. It’s on Level Four, where Spiker maintains rooms for visiting scientists and dignitaries. Some of those rooms are amazing. My quarters do not justify the word “amazing,” but they aren’t bad.

In any case, this place is a major improvement over the boarding school in Montana that Terra shipped me off to after my parents died. Some kind of tough-love dude-ranch high school for troubled kids called Distant Drummer Academy. I wasn’t troubled—unless you count being orphaned overnight—and I wasn’t in high school, but Terra provided them with a nice diagnosis of severe ODD. And a hefty donation.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder? Yeah, I can do that.

I lasted eight days.

After they kicked me out, Terra gave me two options: I could live at her place, or I could live at Spiker.

We both knew which one I’d choose.

I have a single room, but it’s big enough for a queen-sized bed and a sofa, TV, desk, beanbag chair, and mini kitchen. Except for the two framed photos on my desk, it’s as sterile as a hotel room. I like it that way.

I barely notice the photos anymore. There’s one of my parents at a podium, my mom in a shimmering green evening gown, my dad in a tux. They’re accepting an award, flashing smiles. And there’s one of me and my mom reading a book together. We’re in some kind of waiting room, sitting on orange vinyl chairs. I don’t remember where it was, or why we were there.

But then, I don’t remember much of anything.

Next to the mini kitchen is a small bathroom. That’s where I strip down, soap up, and shower off.

That’s where I start thinking about the girl.

Like I don’t know her name: the girl. Please, Solo. I know her name. Evening. E.V. to her friends.

Eve.

There’s a problem with that name, Eve. You say “Eve” and you think Garden of Eden, and then you think of Eve and Adam, naked but tastefully concealed by strategic shrubbery.

Except at this particular moment, my brain is not generating shrubbery.

So, basically, that’s despicable. The girl had her leg chopped off. She just got out of surgery. So I add shrubbery.

And yet the shrubbery doesn’t stay put. It’s moving shrubbery. It’s disappearing shrubbery.

Which is deeply wrong of me. I step back under the twin showerheads and blast myself with hot water. Maybe I should make it cold water. But I don’t want to.

“That’s the problem with you, dude,” I say, speaking to myself. “You suck at doing things you don’t want to do.”

I don’t feel bad speaking to myself.

Who else have I got?

Solo isn’t just a name, it’s a description. I have no actual friends. I have some online ones, but that’s not quite the same.

I’ve never had a girlfriend.

When I touched Eve, she was the first girl I’d touched since coming here to live six years ago. Unless you count women scientists and techs and office workers I’ve accidentally brushed in the hallways.

Sometimes I do count those. It’s a normal human behavior to count whatever you have to count.

“Back up, man,” I tell myself softly. “She’s a Spiker. She’s one of the enemy.”

The microphones won’t pick up what I say with the shower running. I know these things. Even though I’m not supposed to. For six years I’ve lived and breathed this place. I know it. I know it all.

And I know what I’m going to do with it.

As soon as Eve is gone.





– 9 –



Three little days, but oh my God, can they be long.

Time is relative. An hour spent watching paint dry is much longer than an hour getting a massage.

Which is exactly what I’m doing. Getting a massage from Luna, the massage therapist.

Luna doesn’t touch The Leg.

In my head, The Leg is capitalized because The Leg is what my whole life seems to be about now. Every single person I’ve seen in the past few days asks me about The Leg.

How is it?

How’s The Leg?

The Leg is attached. Thanks for asking. There’s The Leg right there. It’s on display, always outside of the sheets and blanket, although the whole thing is still so wrapped up it looks like I borrowed The Leg from some ancient Egyptian mummy.

How’s The Leg?

It seems a bit mummyish, thanks.

I had a dream where The Leg was no longer attached. Not a happy dream, that. It scared me. I try to be glib and tough and all SEAL Team Six about it, but in all desperate seriousness: I was scared.

“I need Aislin,” I say to my mother.

“Aislin is a drunken slut,” she replies, without looking up from her laptop.

This is diplomatic for her.

I decide to change the subject. “What are you working on?”

With effort, she pulls her gaze from the screen. “Fluff. A vanity project for one of the biochems.”