Once An Eve Novel

from Fletcher’s truck. He was coming through the trees, the thin branches snapping under his weight, his breath heavy and choked with phlegm. Wildflowers were crushed under me. Their delicate blooms released a sickening scent as I stared at my hands, my fingers orange from the pollen. Then he saw me. He raised his gun. I tried to run, tried to get away, but it was too late. He pulled the trigger, the blast echoing through the field.
    I shot up in bed. My skin was covered in a thin layer of sweat. It took me a moment to realize I was in Califia, in Maeve’s house, in the tiny room with the flowered wallpaper. I’d heard something downstairs—a door banging shut. I looked around. The candle had gone out. Cold air rushed through a crack in the window. I rubbed at my eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the dark.
    Someone was in the downstairs foyer. Heddy raised her massive head, listening as closely as I was. “Quiet down,” I heard Maeve say. She was in the living room, or the kitchen, maybe, speaking to whoever had just come inside. “She’s upstairs.”
    Heddy let out a low growl, and Arden started awake beside me. “What is it?” she asked, sitting up, her back rigid. Her eyes darted around the room. “Who’s there?”
    I brought my finger to my lips to silence her, then pointed to the door. It was open just a crack. I crept toward it, signaling for her to follow. The voices had quieted down, but I could still hear Maeve’s urgent whispers, and another woman’s tense, hurried replies.
    The hallway was dark. The staircase was surrounded by a fragile wooden banister, its posts missing in places. Arden shut Heddy inside the bedroom, and we crawled along the floor until we reached the stairs. Lying on our stomachs, we peered over the ledge. An eerie light glowed in the living room. “He knows she’s here—he was the one who brought her. And now this new girl shows up,” Isis said, her low, raspy voice giving her away. “Who else is out there looking for her? This isn’t how we’ve operated in the past, we can’t just—”
    “Since when do we have a policy of throwing women out into the wild?” I recognized Quinn’s turquoise shirt. She was leaning against the doorframe, her back to us, gesturing with her hands as she spoke.
    Isis raised her voice. “This is different. All the women are talking—all of them are concerned. We’re practically begging the King to track her here. Maybe today wasn’t the day, but it’s only a matter of time.”
    I turned toward Arden, letting my cheek rest on the cold floor. Most of the women had been welcoming since I’d arrived, but there was always the worry, just beneath the surface, that I could upset the balance of Califia. That all those years of building their city, clearing out the old storefronts and houses and reclaiming them, all those years of hiding behind a layer of ivy and moss, the days spent in darkness every time movement was detected inside the city—all of it would be gone in a moment if the King ever discovered me.
    “She’s no more of a threat than we were,” Quinn said. “We were all property of the King. When I showed up no one argued that I should be thrown out because troops might storm Califia. When Greta was rescued from that gang, no one cared about the raids that might happen. Those men could’ve killed us all.”
    “Please,” Isis hissed. “You know this is different.” I leaned farther forward, but I still couldn’t see her through the doorway. “They’ve been looking for her for months now. You’ve heard the alerts on the radio. It doesn’t seem like they’ll be stopping anytime soon.”
    Her words raised the fine hairs on my arms. Isis had lived in a houseboat for the last two years. She was one of the other Founding Mothers, and had survived in San Francisco after the plague by seeking refuge in an abandoned warehouse before finding her way across the bridge. I’d sat in her kitchen, eaten meals at her table, talked with her about the antique jewelry one of the women had recovered or her friend who was training to cut hair. I felt stupid now for having trusted her.
    “I’m not throwing her out,” Quinn said. “Tell her, Maeve. Tell her we won’t.”
    I could hear Maeve pacing back and forth, the floor creaking underneath her feet. Even in my darkest moments, when I imagined what might’ve happened to Caleb, when I wondered about Pip, or Ruby, or the fate of my other friends, I never considered that