Of Eternal Life (12 page)

Eli stopped talking for a few moments. He seemed lost in memory. He shook his head twice, took a shuddering breath, and continued in a tired voice. “We reported back what we had found, and I don’t know why we didn’t expect it, but they came for us in the middle of the night. Just,” he made a grabbing motion with his hands, “snatched us from our bunks and tossed us in the back of a truck.

“We were stateside by the next evening, meeting with a damned general. We were told our lives were over. Officially speaking. They offered us an ultimatum: they could make us disappear — and we all knew what that meant — or we could sign on to become a part of Operation: Middle of the Garden and they would compensate our loved ones. We were told that no matter what we chose, our families would be notified that we had been killed in action.

“Every single one of us signed up to join. My mom had just been diagnosed with cancer, and the compensation they promised ensured I was more help to her dead. Only one other soldier, Jericho, and I were brought to a hospital. We never saw the other three soldiers again.”

Abilene cinched her legs in tighter. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to run from him screaming. She wanted to believe him.

She couldn’t.

“They called the fruit a
specimen
,” Eli continued. “Just slipped it in with all of the pills and supplements they made us take. We never knew what had happened — until the change hit. The next morning, we woke up and couldn’t even recognize ourselves.

“I mean, we were in pretty good shape to start with. I was a new Green Beret, and Jericho was athletic. But something had happened to us.” He motioned to his body, and flashes of his perfect physique appeared in front of Abilene’s eyes. She stared at his flawless chest.

“As soon as the scientists saw us, they separated us. We were put in two different labs. And then the …
experiments
…began.

“The first one was easy,” he said. Abilene knew this was hard for him. Maybe even as hard for him to tell it as it was for her to hear it and feel the hope leak out of her.

“It was lethal injection,” Eli said. Abilene’s eyes snapped to his face. Oh, God, what had he been through that these were his memories?

“I just …fell asleep. I barely remember it. I woke two days later and had lost all memory. It wasn’t until they were preparing to do the second experiment that I remembered they had killed me. That they were planning to kill me again … .

“Abilene, that’s what the experiments were.” Eli’s voice was rough, achy. “No matter what they did to me, no matter how I died,” his voice cracked, “I always came back. They gave me the fruit from the Tree of Life, and it made me immortal.”

Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God
. Abilene squeezed her eyes shut and resisted the urge to rock back and forth in sorrow. She felt tears sting her eyelids. This was worse than anything she could have imagined.

He’s broken. The man you thought you were falling for is insane
.

It was such a cruel end to such a hopeful day.

Abilene straightened her spine. She would
not
show her despair in front of him. He had started off as her patient, and he certainly needed medical attention now. She had an oath to fulfill. This delusion about death and immortality could be the symptom of several things: post traumatic stress disorder, definitely — even schizophrenia, a zealous upbringing, or child abuse.

She knew one of the rules in psychology was not to deny what the patient believed.
Okay, so what
should
I do?
She opted for a question.

“Eli, how many times have you …died?” She hadn’t been able to say the word without hesitating first, and Eli noticed.

He chose not to comment on her hesitation and answered the question. “Latest count is 140 times. You found me right after the last experiment.”

That gave her pause. She remembered those moments in the closet vividly. They had marked the transition in her life, a time she would recall divided her life into
Before
and
After
.

She had declared him dead.

No, she’d already decided she must have been mistaken. She’d told herself so several times since he had awoken from his …
coma
.

“Do you a-age?” Abilene asked.

Eli shook his head once.

“So, you’ve been alive for….” She waited for him to fill in the blank.

“Thirty-eight years.”

He expected her to believe that he was nearly forty? Wasn’t it just yesterday that she was thinking he looked her age or younger?

“Okay,” she said, “are there any other side effects from the specimen?”
Phew
. She’d made it through that question without a single hesitation.

His shoulders drooped, but he just sat there, staring at the floor.

“Eli?” she prodded.

He shook his head.

• • •

Abilene looked devastated.

Hell, you happy now?
Eli asked the Voice.

Yes
, it answered back smugly.

“I understand,” said Abilene with finality. Uh oh, that wasn’t good. “Eli, I’m going to help you. We’ll go to Atlanta tomorrow, back to your hometown where everything is familiar, and we’ll find a great place for you.”

Eli’s patience broke. “’A place for me,’” he repeated. “You mean another hospital where I’ll be a prisoner.” He surged to his feet. “Damn it, Abilene, I tell you I think I might love you or something, then tell you the
truth
about myself, and you want to have me committed!”

She’d been so wary about him just seconds ago that he half expected her to cower in the wake of his anger. Instead, in the true Abilene-form he’d come to admire so much, she stood, too, toe-to-toe with him.

“‘Or something’?” she yelled into his face. “Jeez, Eli, if your feelings for me are so distasteful, why don’t you try to fight them?”

“Don’t you think I have?” he yelled right back. “
God
, I want to
hate
you, woman! You’re everything I despise!”

She reeled back as though he’d slapped her.

Shit! Shit, shit, shit!

Really, Eli?
the Voice drawled.
You’re a regular silver-tongued Casanova.

He opened his mouth to apologize, not knowing what he could say to make it better, but Abilene held up a hand to stop him.

“No, it doesn’t matter,” she said hoarsely. “
I
should apologize. That was very unprofessional of me.”

Eli did not like her tone at all. It was distant. Cold.

“I can promise you that we will have a perfectly acceptable doctor/patient relationship from now on, Eli. You can trust me.”

She actually sounded like she had something to apologize for. As though their relationship up to this point had been a mistake. An unethical move on her part.

It hurt more than Eli expected it would.

She wasn’t done yet. “It’s been a long day. I think it’s time we went to bed.” She sat down stiffly on the bed he’d pleasured her on just half an hour ago. She gave him a look that told him not to contemplate joining her there.

He sat down obediently on the other bed, dumbfounded by how wrong things had gone. He’d damaged them. Damaged what they’d begun to cultivate.

“I’ll see you in the morning. Good night,” she said in clipped tones. She reached to the bedside table and clicked off the light.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he watched her lie back and roll onto her side, presenting him with her back.

He should lie down, too. Should try to get some sleep. He would need it if he were going to protect her.

But he couldn’t look away from her rigid back.

And so he didn’t miss it when her back began to shake with silent sobs.

He felt sick. He could do nothing but watch as she cried until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

Even then, he couldn’t break his paralysis to allow his own worn body to fall back to the bed and into slumber.

He was frozen in place, haunted by what had just happened, until the rising sun began to stream in through the window.

This was quickly turning out to be one of the worst mornings of Eli’s life. Abilene had said not one blessed word to him since waking up on the textbook definition of “the wrong side of the bed.” At least it was a textbook definition in Eli’s mind since the side she’d woken up on was not next to him.

She hadn’t attacked him, verbally or physically. Hadn’t indicated in any way whatsoever that she was angry with him. No, that would have been a relief.

Instead, she’d treated him with the cold, calculated distance of a doctor with her crazy and wayward patient. She’d nodded politely when he suggested it was time to hit the road; she’d smiled each time he’d tried to engage her in small talk in the last couple of hours.

She was driving him fucking nuts.

But he’d be damned if he was going to attempt conversation again. He wasn’t quite ready to admit how much it hurt to have her write him off. He didn’t need a constant reminder that he’d botched his declaration last night.

Anything, literally
anything
would have been better than the actual way he’d chosen to let Abilene know about his feelings.

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. He’d been doing well in the wooing department, considering he and Abilene had met when he decided to kidnap her. He just wasn’t that smooth. That he had managed to charm her was a miracle in-and-of itself.

And now, the glacial chill emanating from her corner of the truck was causing him to lose hope. Eli had no idea how to get back in the good graces of a woman; he’d never tried before. In his previous life, if he’d driven a woman away, he’d never bothered to win her back. There was no point, and there hadn’t been a woman so special that he had even considered it.

Not so with Abilene. From the second her face fell because of his words, Eli craved reconciliation. Well, not so much reconciliation as the ability to turn back time and kick his own ass before he screwed up.

Abilene straightened in her seat, and for a moment, Eli felt his heart rate quicken at the thought that she was getting ready to break her reign of silence.

She gestured to a car parked on the shoulder about half a mile ahead of them. “Maybe we should stop and see if they need help,” she said. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”

He squinted through the windshield.
Hmmm
. He didn’t like the thought of stopping to help someone when Abilene was in the car. If he was by himself, sure, but if the stranded driver proved to be less-than-savory, he didn’t want Abilene anywhere near potential danger.

However it
was
the first time she’d spoken to him all day, and he didn’t have any better ideas on how to begin mending fences. And she was right. They were in the middle of nowhere. It could be hours before another car passed by.

He grunted to let her know he’d heard her as he began to slow down in preparation for pulling off to the side. He was overthinking this; it would be nothing. They would help some sweet old lady change a tire and then be on their way, and Eli would look like a hero.

As the tires of the truck kicked up the gravel from the shoulder, Eli spied the parted hair of a fastidiously groomed man and relaxed. It was just an older gentleman. The other driver’s window was rolled down, and he was studying them in his rearview mirror.

Eli turned to Abilene. What he was about to ask was not going to win him any favors. “If I ask you really nicely, will you stay in the truck?”

She looked offended at his request — it was obvious that a man asking the lil’ lady to stay put was not her favorite — but she nodded, anyway.

Eli took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped outside into the Arkansas morning.

“Uh, hey there,” he called. “Do you need help?”

The man sitting in the car turned his head at the sound of Eli’s voice, and at the sight of the shadowy profile, Eli froze.

Tormentor
.

He knew, in the flash of a heartbeat, the man in the car was Major Taylor.

Oh, holy God, what have I done?
Abilene was sitting in the truck behind him. He’d hand-delivered the most precious person in the world to the most hateful.

With fluid movements, Major Taylor swept open the door of his car and unfolded to his full height. Eli sunk back on his heels, adopting a fighting stance.

“Well, well, well,” Major Taylor said. “I must say, I didn’t expect getting you to pull over to be so easy an endeavor.” He stepped forward. “I was hatching hair-brained plots of chasing you down and forcing you from the road.”

“I will rip you limb from limb, even if she has to watch,” Eli growled from the back of his throat. He didn’t want Abilene to witness him exacting his revenge, but if the Tormentor took one more step toward him, and therefore her, he was going to seal his own fate.

Major Taylor sighed. “You always were so primitive, Subject.” He shook his head in mock-sorrow while reaching into the inside pocket of his blazer.

Flashes of red rage lit behind Eli’s eyes as he realized that Major Taylor was pulling out a small, deadly firearm.

And then, from behind him, Eli heard the sound of Abilene exiting the truck. Horror washed through him.

“Eli?” she asked in a wavering voice. The timbre of her voice portrayed an array of worry, and it struck him like a blow that she was concerned for his safety.
His
safety; not her own.

“Ah, right on time, my dear,” Major Taylor said, turning his attention toward where she stood.

Eli stepped between Major Taylor and his line-of-sight to Abilene. “You don’t get to talk to her,” he said.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt Abilene’s light touch on his shoulder. She had scooted around the hood of the truck and now stood at his back in a sign of solidarity.

It meant more to him than she could have guessed.

“Well, if the pleasantries are to be denied us, I may as well get to the point,” the Tormentor said. “Abilene is coming with me.”