Love, Death, Robots, and Zombies by Tom O'Donnell

Author:Tom O'Donnell [O'Donnell, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tom O'Donnell
Published: 2014-11-25T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14.

Twelve days isn’t a very long time in the scheme of things.

But then, time is relative. The few seconds it took to kill Ballard lasted quite a while. The entire year before that, on the other hand, has blurred together into a memory that might as well have only spanned a week or two. Our time on the road to Apolis lies somewhere between those extremes, though it definitely stretches beyond its implied length.

By the fourth day, Echo isn’t talking to me. She’s being childish. I try to tell her so, but the flare of anger in her eyes could burn holes through me, and then she’s not talking to me “even more,” if that makes sense. She talks to Byron and Jarvis though. Half the time I think she does it just to spite me. Jarvis, fine–he follows her like a puppy. But Byron? He can’t be that interesting. She refuses to hunt with me. She sets her own snares when we stop, and at night she uses a blanket she borrowed from the caravaners. Still, that’s okay. I just spend more time with Octavia.

There’s something sweet and pure about Octavia. She’s so … undamaged. Sometimes in abandoned villages, we’ll find one house still standing, miraculously untouched by the Fall. Octavia is like that house. Yet sometimes she’s empty-headed about the world around her. She says things that leave me staring in disbelief. She admires Cove, for instance. She thinks they’re working for the good of the world. She even wants to go there one day. I can’t resist telling her they burned my village. She thinks that’s terrible, but also adds:

“Oh, but you mustn’t blame Cove itself, Tristan. I’m sure those soldiers were acting against orders. Cove doesn’t do things like that.”

“It was their commander who lit the first torch!” I say. She gives me this pitying look like I’ve tragically misunderstood the murder of my friends and family. That leaves me sour for most of the day, but my anger cools when we stop again, and we form an unspoken agreement to avoid the subject. I can’t help but forgive her. She’s just so good to look at.

Ambrose contributes to our conversations and is frequently a topic himself. Octavia spends a lot of her time worrying over him. Occasionally, Ambrose is unintentionally rude. He asks awkward questions and brings up Cove when it’s inappropriate. Other times, he’s disarmingly childlike.

On the sixth day out from Hapsburg, the three of us wander into a patch of forest during a midday break. The land is particularly healthy here. You can feel it. Sunlight slants through the trees, illuminating small insects, suffusing the leaves until they positively drip with light. Bird-calls echo through the forest. Theoretically I’m hunting, but really I’m willing to starve if it means getting closer to Octavia.

Ambrose runs off laughing and insists Octavia has to find him. I should thank him for this, because immediately a whole range of possibilities open up. She pretends not to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.