Elites of Eden (Children of Eden #2)(83)

The trick was keeping it from us.

Has the world been healed all this time? Why didn’t they tell us? Do they even know?

I want Lachlan to see this, and Lark. And oh, my mother! What I wouldn’t give to have her standing beside me gazing at what we all thought was lost. How many times Ash went to the temple to repent, on behalf of mankind, for the terrible things we did to the planet, the animals, the very dirt itself. How guilty we all felt that we’d destroyed our home, killed almost every living thing but us. I want the people I love to be here with me, knowing they can let that guilt blow away in the tender breeze.

Maybe we hurt the world. Maybe we even killed it.

But it’s back to life now.

I sigh, and at the sound the deer tosses its magnificent rack, stares at me a long moment with one prancing hoof raised, then turns and, with a bunching of muscles, springs away. I feel a pang of regret when it is gone. But it doesn’t matter. The world is here, and it’s not dead!

I smile, and the smile turns into a laugh. Giddy, I turn to look for the Greenshirts. They’re still far behind me, but they must see it. I wave, laughing like a maniac. Wait until they’re close! Wait until they see! Nothing else will matter to them. Wait until the citizens of Eden see. Rich and poor alike. Politics, poverty, second children—it will fade into nothing once people know that the world has been reborn.

“Look!” I cry joyfully to the Greenshirts. “Can you believe it? Look at it!” I run toward them. I want to embrace them, to dance with them. They are sharing this incredible discovery, enemies no more.

I move lightly over the grass, then the sand, back into the artificial desert. “Come see!” I call to them.

Then the air around me smacks me from all angles with a whoosh, and I’m enveloped by killing heat, blinded by white light. I can see the heat rising from the almost-hidden grates. Whatever the earthquake broke, it’s been reactivated.

It doesn’t matter. The Greenshirts will join me out here. We’ll manage to get back somehow, to tell everyone the miraculous news. The Center officials will shut down this burning hot wall-without-walls that has kept us clueless about the outside world for so long. We’ll start anew in the world.

In this beautiful green world of birds and deer and trees and rich fertile Earth behind me.

I turn . . . and the forest is gone.

All I see is the shimmering silvery wave of heat rising from the desert sand.

The cry that escapes my lips has no words, only raw, wrenching pain.

Gone.

Was it there?

Yes. Yes! I know it. I saw it, smelled it, felt it beneath my feet. It was real.

It is real.

I try to run to the place where it was, but I’m hit by a wall of heat so intense I can’t cross it. When I try to put my hand through, my fingertips come back blistered.

The Greenshirts know. They’ve seen it. We can go back to the Center and . . .

They tackle me from behind, putting their combined weight on me, pressing my face into the burning sand so that I can’t breathe, can’t see. I try to shout at them, beg them for help, tell them that the wonderful wooded living world we found is more important than punishing a second child. But my words are choked in the sand.

One of them hits me in the back of the head, and a second later everything goes black.

But in that second I realize the truth. The Center knows about this. They’ve been deliberately keeping everyone in Eden from knowing that the Earth healed itself long ago. Maybe it was never even really destroyed in the first place. Now, for reasons unknown, they are keeping every human left on Earth trapped in a giant cage.



* * *



I WAKE IN cool comfort. I’m lying on a bed, dressed in something light and clean. The torturous desert is gone. I open my eyes to gray walls. To a door with a small barred window.

A face looks through the bars. It’s a woman, with a cap of dark curling hair and comforting brown eyes. She smiles at me.

“Good. Our friend is awake at last.”

“Where am I?” My voice is hoarse, my throat scratchy and dry.

“Someplace safe,” she says.

Am I in the Underground? I sniff, but detect no sharp, cool camphor smell.

“The forest,” I begin, but she shushes me.

“There’s time enough for that later, during your session.” Session? “You should eat something first.” She opens a slit at the base of the door and slides a tray inside.

“Where am I?” I ask again. When she doesn’t answer, I pull myself awkwardly to my feet, only now noticing that my ankles are chained together. My wrists, too.

“You’re in the Center prison, Rowan. But only for a little while.” Her voice is soft and hypnotically soothing. “We have a place for you. A safe place where you can be made whole again. We know you’ve had a great many troubles in your life. You’ve been kept from your proper place as a first child. But now—after a little treatment—you can rejoin society and take your proper place in Eden.”

She tilts her head to the side, the bars slashing her face with diagonal shadows. “We’re so happy to have you back, Rowan. Don’t worry. We’ll make you well in no time. Before you know it, your delusions will be gone.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. How long have I been unconscious? My brain feels fuzzy, my eyes blurry with their new lenses.