The Eden Projects (FINAL EDITING)

Chapter 40. Homecoming

Within the hour they were driving.

The night was cold. Cold in a way that crept from your bones outward. Clamming up your palms and dressing your body in a corpse-like whiteness. Freezing up your joints with rigor mortis until the act of barely twitching seemed like too much of a task. 

Nerves fired. 

Synapses shot signals. 

Breath left lungs. 

Fear. 

Fear rattled them. 

The truck flowed down the last leg of their journey. Zak was afraid even if he wouldn't say it, Kasper knew it. He sat back, pressing hard into the seat behind him. Knees crammed up to the dash in the way they always were. This, Kasper assumed, was the most Zak-like position he had seen yet. It simply felt right.

"Do you remember the first time we brought you inside The City?" Zak looked to him. "You were like twelve." 

Kasper twitched. He had been so focused on driving. Remember it. Come on. Just remember. "No."

"No?"

"No."

"It was raining." Zak rested his head on the crux of the seatbelt where it ran over his should. "I remember- hah- you couldn't believe how big it all was. There was so much green, the walls were alive. They had those fancy billboards that changed when you looked at them long enough- I wonder how they got the plants to grow on the walls like that..."

"Mhhh." 

"Wish I knew what it was like you know?" He readjusted in his seat. "Maybe things woulda been different if we were inside the walls and not out."

Kasper's mind hadn't left the street by the bank. Zak was hiding something. He never hid anything.

Every so often, Ace, who stood in the truck bed, leaned through the sliding rear window, giving out quivering instructions on where to go, the odd Flicker ran past, or at their side in a mad dash. Unable to catch up.

"Turn here." Ace tapped the roof, shouting in.

Kasper slowed. "You're kidding me, right?" They approached a completely wooded area, a streamline of gray pavement rose down the middle of the wildland. Tall barbed wire fencing ran down either side, keeping the road from spilling out into or being invaded by the foliage. It divided the acreage in two like a deep cut laceration.

"It's on a reserve. You have to take this service road on. Unless you've got wings hidden under all those thorns." Ace handed the map through, the singular claw on his wing hit the side of the truck as he shifted. Keeping himself balanced.

Kasper snatched the map up quickly. It was true, and what only added to the danger was the fact that nowhere along the line was a spot to turn around if they needed to. It was a straight shot into the base. "This is insane."

"One way in, one way out. To turn around you have to go in. In to get out. Get it? Well- go on, we don't have hours to sit here debating."

"This is such a bad idea." Zak held his hands up in the dark. Pushing his hair away from his face. "You two have a death wish."

Kasper did just that. He debated for a moment. "You better not be lying, I'll kill you myself." He pulled the steering wheel hard and swung into the drive. Flicking off the lights and picking up speed.

"I don't lie."

The fences were perfectly intact. Every so often groupings of stairs climbed up to a walkway above the road like those seen over service tracks at rail stations. Heavy beams held the rusted grating in place. The vehicle crept over the pavement-turned-gravel two-track in a rapid crawl. Then, out of nowhere, a ways ahead, came a large barred gate. Kasper slammed on the brakes and Ace smacked his head on the trucks cabin, falling backwards in a flurry of limbs and feathers.