The Eden Projects (FINAL EDITING)

Chapter 39. Bonnie and Clyde.

"I'm coming with you."

"Stay in the car." Kasper unlatched the door.

"Listen- I didn't stay alive all this time to be sitting in some car while you go make terrible decisions." Zak's hands busied with his jacket before he unbuckled his seatbelt. "We make bad choices together."

Kasper turned the headlights off with an exasperated huff. "Fine. Do what you want."

Zak was still groggy and swayed unsteadily when he stepped out of the truck. Playing the stutter off in a wildly exaggerated stretch.

The quiet darkness ebbed and flowed around them in muddy waves. Together they listened to the swift wind breathing down the streets.

Closer. It whistled through the alleys.

Come closer that I may devour you whole.

Clicking came from somewhere a block away. An unseeable thing crept over a rubble pile to their right as another skittering shadow shot across the metal roof of an old car to the left. They weren't the enemy. Kasper tightened the chest strap on his backpack. Yes, there were worse things than monsters taking late night strolls.

Zak reached for his flashlight, squinted, and slid his hand away. "Wow. That's wild."

"What."

Zak stepped away. "Nothing."

Kasper had become overly aware of Zak. He could constantly feel the energy of everything bending around the man and when that emptiness was gone, all matter of worry fluttered up in him. "Are you sure you're good?"

Zak nodded. "Mhm." His complexion had remained unnaturally pasty since he had woken up.

"You don't look good."

"I'm fine." he put distance between them. "Geez."

Kasper's brow knitted. "You want to talk about the tower, right?" The Tower had lost its power over him now that he knew what dwelled there.

Zak held his breath with a sharp inhale and shook his head. "No."

He felt the pressure behind the word and he hardened against it. "Then stop acting like I need to ask."

"I'm not asking."

They were bickering again and a stern mutual silence held up the only reprieve in their current situation. Neither wanted to be there. Neither wanted to need Ace. But they did. Hopeless. This is hopeless. Their walk only had one end. They were on Ace's road and Ace would get his way. There was nothing either could do. Maybe he does know what's best. They both felt Ace's tugging. The chains were tightening around their throats. Fighting the collapse of their independance was pointless.

"Well, they aren't attacking." Kasper watched a Flicker slink under the outcrop of a fallen overhang. "That's new."

Zak looked out into the dim. "Maybe it's because they know what you are."

"Yeah, but you're still here." He remarked on Zak's humanity. "You're dinner with a capital D."

"Maybe I don't matter to them anymore."

Kasper hated allusion, and here it was again. He rolled his eyes. The Flickers wriggled about in the shadows. Watching and waiting to pick at their tails. Kasper tightened the velcro cuff on his wrist. "Something's off about you." He pulled a few steps ahead of his friend. What the hell is up with him?

"I could say the same about you."

Down and away they walked. Moving around the last blockade with a precision only the blinding daylight could bring. Not a single misplaced step shot a noisy clamor out from either of them. Odd. Everything about their late night venture was odd. The quiet stiffened their tempers and their bodies tensed with anticipation. There was no longer an alpha in the small town, but that did little in the way of calming things. Kasper's stomach groaned. What are they waiting for?