High Noon - Casey Bond

Chapter One

Eve

I sobbed as I fell.

It wasn’t because of the pain lancing through my head or fear of the looming impact, but because of Enoch’s expression when he realized I was leaving him. Blood still oozed from his lips when he parted them to cry out. I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. But I didn’t leave just because he fed from that soldier…

I had to do it, I told myself.

He looked at me like I was betraying him. He begged me not to jump, not to go, not to leave him behind. I hesitated because for a second, I didn’t want to. For a second, I considered staying.

In that moment, I regretted climbing onto the roof with Titus and the awkward angle of my feet as they gripped the steep pitch. I felt horrible for trying to slip away without saying goodbye, yet felt a thrill in my stomach at the thought of actually going home this time.

But the sting of all that combined wasn’t as painful as the way he looked at me. In that moment, I knew it was the same look he had on his face when an army of my clones showed up at his manor in thirteen-forty-eight. When he thought I’d not only stabbed him in the back, but rotated the blade to inflict the most damage possible.

When I made the decision to go, I tightened my grip on Titus’s hand.

The distance I put between me and Enoch in that moment was more than could be measured from the steep rooftop to the ground under his feet.

In the end, Titus was the one who jumped. He pulled me with him because I was holding his hand. Tight. We were teammates, after all, and we had to get home.

I was the one who chose to leave, though. I could’ve jerked my hand away from Titus and climbed down to Enoch, forsaking the call of friendship. I could have slit the back of my hand open and jerked the tech out, abandoning the call of duty. I could’ve burned and buried my tech suit so I could stay with Enoch, listening to the call of his heart.

What hurt in the end was that my choice wasn’t him.

I chose me. I wanted to live. I wanted to go home. At home, I could get help. I knew Kael would heal whatever was wrong with my head and pain receptors, and once I was better, I would find Enoch and hope he could understand and one day forgive me. I could only hope he didn’t harden his heart and become the monster I once loathed.

Hope was the only thing I could focus on as my stomach plummeted along with my altitude. I hoped we finally made it home this time. Hoped that somehow, the disruption of my presence in his life warned Enoch against a bleak future that was completely at his mercy. I retained hope that my country wouldn’t be torn to slivers, that Victor would never rise to power, and that Kael would never hurt another living thing. That he’d never have the opportunity to do so.

Harsh wind rapped in my ear as I fell.

All objects were subject to the immutable laws of gravity, Kael once told us. Everything fell at nine-point-eight meters per second squared in a vacuum, feathers and stones alike. But this was no vacuum, and I was more stone than feather. Feathers had less mass. They weren’t dense. Their downy hairs could catch the air and send them sailing.

Stones were weighty.

Some types more than others.

As my suit accelerated my fall, I knew that if I hit this time, I would hit like granite. And this time, I might shatter into a million pieces. I was falling way faster than I ever had in previous times. A thousand times faster than nine-point-eight meters per second squared.

I couldn’t see anything but a brown blur below me and fuzzy blue above, and couldn’t think of anything but home and the memory of pain reflecting in a pair of ethereal green eyes.

I thought of every moment stolen with Enoch amidst the million others he’d lived. Every smile and laugh. The awe in his expression when we first met, and how I managed to somehow surprise him. The way his thumb felt as it brushed the back of my hand.

I thought of his gentleness and ferocity. How he could be kind and yet protective. How he could be hurt but still love. How his eyes wrinkled