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Derek smiled. “Good. So we won’t have a problem when I say stay away from Eva.”
Krieger lowered his hand. Foe. “I think we should leave that decision up to her.”
He didn’t miss the twitch of Derek’s upper lip or the snarl that accompanied it.
Sore. Spot. Hit.
Derek’s hands fisted at his sides.
“Is there a problem here?” Eva asked, standing to their right. Her golden hair had been braided over her shoulder, giving her the look of a commanding officer.
“No problem. Just getting to know our new soldier is all.” Derek backed down but held Krieger’s gaze.
“There will be plenty of time to get to know each other later. Right now, we need to move out. We’re burning daylight. Derek, gather the crew.”
As soon as Eva was out of earshot, Derek leaned back into Krieger and whispered, “This isn’t over,” then turned away to bark orders at the others.
Krieger tugged at his new collared, button-down shirt. Tucker Sanders gave him enough clothes to last a lifetime: jeans, cargoes, shirts, and sweaters galore. Most had been placed back in his hut and had stains, holes, and imperfections, but he couldn’t care less.The material would serve its purpose—protection and warmth.
Yet how many men had worn these clothes before? What had happened to them that they weren’t here to wear them now?
He shrugged the thought off. The layers would be needed, especially the dark gray utility jacket, which right now felt stifling.
Derek was dangerous with a capital d, and now Krieger knew why. Derek wanted Eva. His gut told him that wasn’t all. Something about that guy was majorly off, and Krieger felt he wasn’t to be trusted.
He loosened the top buttons of the shirt, then gathered his bag. He hadn’t realized how vital it was that he went on this mission until now. Eva would need him—more than she realized.
After Krieger strode to Eva’s left side, he waited for the rest of the crew to gather on the elevator. Derek tried to stare him down before he assumed his position on her right.
She ignored them both as she called out their names, pointing in each soldier’s direction.
“Krieger, this is Luke and John, they’re brothers. You know Sarah from the dining hall, and you’ve met Derek. Everyone, this is Krieger,” Eva said, then reached for the lever to lower them to the ground.
She seemed lost to her thoughts as she stared hard into the air. A tick in her jaw told him she was tense.
What worries and fears danced in her head?
He turned his attention to the crew. Luke had broad shoulders, light hair, and a scar that ran through his eyebrow. He nodded in Krieger’s direction as he bent down to pick up his gear.
John also had light blond hair but had a thinner frame than his brother. He approached Krieger and held his fist out. “Nice to have an extra pair of hands on the crew.”
Krieger stared at his fist hanging in the air, unsure what to do.
John smiled and said, “It’s okay, man. Eva told us your memory had been wiped.” He gave Krieger a soft clasp on his arm before grabbing his own gear off the floor.
Before he could respond, Sarah moved past him. She had ebony skin and dark hair that was pulled up into a ponytail. She graced him with a shy smile, exposing a perfect set of white teeth. Krieger noted they all seemed to be around the same age.
The pulley system lowered them slowly and steadily to the ground. Eva was the first off the platform, leading the group through the ground village of huts.
Krieger took in his surroundings. Some women carried baskets of vegetables while others carried folded laundry. Some men busied themselves in an open hut around a fire, clanking and scraping of metal sounding from the doorway. A blacksmith?
Children ran past him, brushing up against his leg as they went, laughing down the road. The smell of meat cooking reached him, and burning wood filled the air with a hearty aroma. A group of young men walked by him, eyeing him suspiciously. They held jugs filled with water and lifted them onto the platform they just vacated.
Without warning, a chicken ran past him, hanging a sharp left into an open pasture next to a barn, joining other chickens of different colors and sizes. Mooing and bleating rang out from an open window on the side of it. Is this how they sustain all these people?
Laughter caught his attention, and his head swung in the direction of an older couple sitting on chairs in front of a hut, sharing a secret whisper that they both clearly found funny. Krieger’s chest warmed at the sight. Maybe the end of the world wasn’t so bad? What sort of place had he left behind? Was it like this?
Eva marched toward a wooden wall and a set of double doors that reached up into the canopy of the trees. The men who guarded the door nodded in Eva’s direction as they lifted the beam placed horizontally across the gate. As it opened into the unknown forest around them, Eva stopped and turned, her eyes locking onto his. She nodded in his direction, then stepped from the safety of Everwood.
