Wednesday morning meant training. Eden had gotten up early, left Babe and his pig sleeping and she'd gone and she'd trained and now she's sitting on the steps of the compound with a cigarette burning between her fingers, but she's got more on her mind than a soldier who's probably still naked in her bed, whatever that meant.
A glance at her watch confirms more than the time. She hasn't seen Alice since Halloween.
When she looks up and sees Alice, there's relief, sure, but there's something else. There's a flair of utter fury. People disappear here all the time. People disappear or they wander off the path into dinosaur territory or they just plain die. Alice is a touch bitch, but Eden woke up nine years old, and anything, and the same kid's been sleeping in her bed on and off for a week now, and anything is fucking possible.
Eden takes a slow drag on her cigarette, and then she stands up.
There was a big building in front of her, and Alice's challenged mental processes recognized it, eventually, as the Compound. There was another familiar shape there, too. Eden. And she didn't look happy.
Maybe she should have mentioned she was going for a walk, Alice thought fuzzily as she walked on, her mud-encrusted boots creaking on the boardwalk. But she hadn't been thinking when she'd left...that had kind of been the point. She doubted Eden would understand, though.
She stopped in front of her. "You're back to normal," she observed. Maybe not the best thing to say given the circumstances but it was the only thing she could think of. 'I'm back' was just too cliche. She wasn't Arnold Fucking Schwartzenegger. Not even close. Not anymore.
Bill Nelson once told Eden that if you do something four hundred times, it ends up in your muscle memory. Your body knows how to do it without you. Eden's having to learn how to do soft things by memory, how to talk to children, how to kiss Babe without waking him, but her body is the body of her soldier, and there are hard things that she remembers.
Without a word, she hauls back and punches Alice in the mouth, and then she turns around and stalks into the compound.
Alice's ass hit the ground before she realized what had happened, and even after she did she sat there with her head spinning, blood on her lip and her jaw smarting.
"Fuck!" she exclaimed, "What was that f-" But Eden had already gone.
As it turned out, the punch had been just enough to snap Alice out of her daze, and she scrambled to her feet without any more hesitation and hurried after Eden into the compound.
Comments 49
A glance at her watch confirms more than the time. She hasn't seen Alice since Halloween.
When she looks up and sees Alice, there's relief, sure, but there's something else. There's a flair of utter fury. People disappear here all the time. People disappear or they wander off the path into dinosaur territory or they just plain die. Alice is a touch bitch, but Eden woke up nine years old, and anything, and the same kid's been sleeping in her bed on and off for a week now, and anything is fucking possible.
Eden takes a slow drag on her cigarette, and then she stands up.
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Maybe she should have mentioned she was going for a walk, Alice thought fuzzily as she walked on, her mud-encrusted boots creaking on the boardwalk. But she hadn't been thinking when she'd left...that had kind of been the point. She doubted Eden would understand, though.
She stopped in front of her. "You're back to normal," she observed. Maybe not the best thing to say given the circumstances but it was the only thing she could think of. 'I'm back' was just too cliche. She wasn't Arnold Fucking Schwartzenegger. Not even close. Not anymore.
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Without a word, she hauls back and punches Alice in the mouth, and then she turns around and stalks into the compound.
Her cigarette lies discarded on the step.
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"Fuck!" she exclaimed, "What was that f-" But Eden had already gone.
As it turned out, the punch had been just enough to snap Alice out of her daze, and she scrambled to her feet without any more hesitation and hurried after Eden into the compound.
"Eden! Eden!"
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