Uncovered (Book one in the Last Resort Series)

ZOE

ZOE REACHED ELI. She could not believe that she saw him after all this time. She wrapped her arms around him. She held him tightly in her arms. She felt his heart racing in his chest.

She pulled herself away from him. Zoe realized the look she saw on his face moments ago. Eli looked like he was drained. She had no idea what to do. She lowered Eli down onto the platform of a hologram. She hoped that the energy from the hologram would make him feel better.

Zoe tried her best to keep a relaxed look on her face. She placed one of her hands onto the back of Eli's neck. She thought it was strange. She felt no hole in the back of his neck. She knew something was different, not right.

She heard Danny mumbled as she walked towards them, "And I'm back to being invisible."

Zoe had no time to worry about what Danny was thinking. She saw Finn clenching onto the side of the platform. She wondered if there was anything else that they could do.

Then she remembered, what the computer told her a month ago when she was with Zara. The computer said that it used a fusion power to keep the system running, back when radiation was a problem. Zoe wondered if this same fusion power was what Eli warned her about, back before the disaster hit.

She thought that the idea was brilliant back then. Now she thought it was such a crazy risk.

Zoe knew there was nothing that they could do. She stared into Eli's stunning eyes. She never thought that she would get to see him again. She always looked up to him, because of his intelligence. Now she wondered if his intelligence was the reason he would end up dead.

She tried to keep the tears back in her eyes. She kept her head up as one tear dribbled down her face. She saw Eli's eyes begin to drop.

He whispered to her, "It's nice to see you."

She told him, "You smell great."

Zoe watched a smile race across Eli's face. He stared into her eyes. Zoe wondered if he thought it was a funny thing to hear, after all, this time. But he had no idea what her world has been like.

She tried not to think about everything she had seen over the years. Zoe saw humanity at it's worst, after the disaster. She screeching sound that echoed in her ears as people were burnt alive.

Zoe knew that Eli would want to know about everything. She made sure that she had a story to tell him. After all, she was the one who was seen as a goddess. She still thought it was strange that people worshiped her like she was a powerful force of nature. She had fifty something years to get used to it. But she guessed that what she deserved for seeing such madness.

She looked into Eli's eyes. Zoe could tell that he was feeling a bit better. She figured that the energy from the hologram was just what the doctor would have ordered. She let out a sigh of relief.

Her thought went elsewhere. She remembered an argument she had with Eli before the bombs went off. She never thought that he would wake up with his memory. She still hoped that he forgot about the argument.

She looked down at Eli's chest, "So, um. You know that I didn't really mean what I said to you, before all of this."

Eli placed his hands onto the platform by his sides, "About?"

Zoe cleared her throat, "Your girlfriend."

She wanted to say more. She stared into his eyes. She hoped that he realized who she was talking about.

Zoe saw a look in his face. She knew that he remembered the argument they had. She held a sad look on her face. She knew that Eli still had to process that she was dead. She wondered if he even thought about her yet.

Eli looked away from Zoe. She knew that it was nothing personal. Eli was just remembering what he saw in the simulation was fake. Zoe wondered if Eli even thought about what she might have seen.

Zoe stood up from his side. She knew that he probably needed some time to process everything that had happened. Zoe then remembered something she was overlooking. She remembered what happened to Eli when he became emotional.

A warning sign flickered in her eyes. She knew what Eli saw the same look on her face. Zoe wondered what he was thinking.

Eli lifted his head up from the platform. He got himself up onto his feet. Finn stood next to him, just in case the fall.

Zoe was glad that Finn and Danny decided to make the trip into the dead zone. She wondered what Eli would have done if he was all alone in the room with the empty pods.

She remembered the first time she saw that room. It was before the bombs went off. Eli and a few others on the team just finished making the pods and were hacking the pods up. She never thought that all of them would fit in that room.

Zoe's memory faded away. She saw the look on Eli's face. She was surprised to see him looking so normal, with his clean clothes and nice haircut. She wondered if she looked like a mess in his eyes. She guessed that she did not look bad for someone who survived the end of the world.

He muttered, "It's alright."

Zoe realized he was talking about their argument. She nodded her head politely. She wondered if Eli would try to go see her.

She knew what happened to everyone else. Her other friends that she helped out of the pods, wanted to see their homes. She explained to each one, that there was no much to see of any of them. Some of them went there on their own, to see it for themselves. Zoe wondered what would Eli do.