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Eden

A truce is just the moment before things turn very good.

Or very, very bad.

We radioed the Reapers’ home base the day after the raid, but it was already in flames.

Alastair and a horde of Sinners had come in the night, stolen a huge chunk of their stores, and torched their livestock barn.

The reedy-voiced Reaper on the radio was in a state over losing so much of their supply. .. and over the violence.

Two dozen dead at Alastair’s hand.

It’s time for the Sinners to reign , Alastair told us, and apparently... this is what it looks like.

When we handed Sawyer the list of names, every Reaper was silent. He read them out, and from the safety of our defenses, we watched them break, one by one. We watched them lean on each other, and rage, and Cole storm off into the woods and not reappear for two days.

“But why would Alastair do that?” I’d raged to my brutes, crippled with choking, miserable guilt as they looked on with shadowed eyes.

“He’s claiming their land, Eden. Taking ownership. He’s made it clear what he wants,” Jasper gently replied.

An empire.

“But why would they kill the people working it?” I whispered back.

Dom stood beside me. “Not all of them. Only enough to make them scared. Enough that they’ll remember the next time the Sinners show up. Enough that the Reapers won’t want to fight back again.”

But the Reapers didn’t retreat.

If anything, the news seems to make them more determined to win our aid.

From their side of the moat, they strike up conversation with every civilian who wonders close enough to talk.

They throw over apples and overripe peaches.

They turn a blind eye to Kasey slipping out every day to snitch food from their stores, no matter what Jayk does to keep her away.

Akira floats around their camp, attending to chores but doing little to bother us.

And every day, Jennifer has breakfast with Sawyer on the bridge between us.

On the first day, they sat on opposite ends, a feast tucked in the middle, and we all held our breaths and our rifles as they shared it, all shy smiles and slow bites, and not a single word to send Jennifer limping back to safety.

The next day, they sat inches closer, and the smiles got a little less shy. The breaths a little less held. The rifles a little less tense.

Day by day, the civilians, on the whole, have begun to relax.

Except for a few.

Sloane, Ava, Ida. Deanna and Aniyah and a dozen others keep their rifles in hand. They haven’t once loosened their grips.

After the Reapers, we radioed Red Zone. Jayk hadn’t quibbled once over the others’ plan, and Red Zone seemed as good a place as any to start building our allies.

They were already on their way, as promised.

They’re as much in need of help as we are, as expected.

By day, Jayk has us on defense, on expanding the garden, on extending rations.

He has us working on our shooting and our archery.

He has us making arrows, and Katherine shows us how to make bows.

He has me sparring, since he was apparently unimpressed with my attempt during the raid, booty shorts or no.

There’s an uneasy truce at Bristlebrook—and we’re all holding our breath until it breaks.

Unless we’re talking about my brutes. Because that?

That’s been war.