Ultraxenopia (Project W. A. R. Book 1) (12 page)

“That’s difficult to
explain,” I mutter.

Ezra glares at me as he
takes another aggressive step forward. “Try,” he growls.

I glare right back at him,
annoyed with his persistence. “You wouldn’t believe me even if I did,” I snap.
“It’s the sort of thing you have to see to believe.”

“Then show us,” he says.

“I
can’t
,” I
breathe.

Once again, I find myself
staring down the barrel of his gun. His expression is almost savage, and I can
practically see the anger exploding within him. It’s like a fire behind his
eyes, devouring everything in its path.

“Show us!” he shouts at me.

I don’t flinch. I simply
look back at him, unfazed by his threat because I know he won’t use it. Not
yet, at least. Not until they get answers.

The others, however, don’t
seem to share that belief. The tension in the room reaches an all-time high,
and everything around me becomes chaotic as they rush forward to stop him.

“Ezra!” the woman screams.

“Hey, man, put the gun
away!” Jenner pleads.

They seem to think he’ll
shoot me, but I know better, and I can tell that Ezra knows this too.

Our eyes lock for what
feels like an unending length of time. All the while, he looks at me with an
almost inhuman intensity that seems to burn right through my soul. I can see
the question in his gaze—the uncertainty controlling the weapon in his hand.
Regardless of the unknown thoughts circulating his brain, after a moment, he
harnesses his gun.

“She doesn’t leave this
room,” he hisses. With one last glance in my direction, he turns and storms out
the door.

The woman looks at Jenner,
who lets out a disheartening sigh.

“I’ll go talk him down,” he
groans.

The woman nods, and we both
watch as he leaves the room. Within a matter of seconds, we’re alone once
again.

“I’m sorry about Ezra,” she
mumbles, sounding somewhat embarrassed. “He has a lot on his mind.”

I don’t answer her, unsure
what she expects me to say. An awkward hush descends between us, and I can’t
help but notice that she seems to be on edge. It’s as if she wants to ask me
something, but for whatever reason, her hesitation is holding her back.

“The doctor you mentioned,”
she finally whispers. “What did you think of him? Was he a good man?”

A good man?
I wonder.

I think of Dr. Richter, and
good
seems like the last word I would ever use to describe him.

“No,” I answer. “But then
again, I was nothing more than a science project to him.”

Her face drops, and I can't
help but feel guilty because I know her reaction is a direct result of what
I’ve said. But why? What does
she
have to do with Dr. Richter?

She smiles at me, but
something about her expression is forlorn, disappointed even. An uncomfortable
silence floods the limited space around us. Our eyes meet, but when I don’t say
anything more, she takes that as her cue to leave.

I watch her every movement
as she approaches the door, her long brown hair glistening in the harsh
lighting of the tiny room.

I don’t know what it is,
but something stirring inside of me compels me to speak. “You’re not how I
thought you’d be.”

She turns around to look at
me, and I waver, scrambling to arrange my muddled thoughts.

The words spill from my
lips in a rush. “PHOENIX,” I murmur. “You’re nothing like what the State
portrays you as.”

She smiles at me again.
However, this time her expression is coy, almost as if she knows something the
rest of the world doesn’t.

“That’s because we’re the
good guys,” she says.

BLOOD SPLATTERS ACROSS THE FLOOR,
staining the white carpet. I can hear his grunts of pain and cries of protest.
No one listens. No one tries to help.

He collapses to his knees
in front of me, more blood dribbling from between his cracked lips. I stumble
back, my mouth hanging wide in horror.

Why is this happening? Why
is no one trying to stop this?

My mother grabs my arm and
roughly pulls me away from him. Mother’s here now. Surely, she’ll try to help him.

“Take her out of here. She
doesn’t need to see this.”

Suddenly, another pair of
hands wrap around my body—lifting me off the floor and carrying me away from
him. I reach out, screaming for him not to leave me.

Begging them not to take
him away.

My father looks up, tears
streaming down his bloodstained cheeks. In a single ragged breath, I hear the
last words he would ever say to me.

“I’m sorry, Wynter.”

“No!” I scream.

I fight against the hands
that hold me, but I’m not strong enough. His voice replays through my thoughts,
haunting me with my own helplessness.

“I’m sorry, Wynter.”

Static covers everything,
and the vision changes. I find myself once again in that familiar scene of
destruction. Back in the barren wasteland that will eventually come to be the
end of all life as we know it.

But I’m not alone. Ezra’s
here. He stares back at me, the gun hanging at his side as tears rush down his
cheeks. I can see his lips moving, saying the very words that are now like a
bullet to my heart.

“I’m sorry, Wynter,” he
whispers.

Static once again. Their
voices surround me, echoing in a repetitive cycle of torture.

“I’m sorry—”

I clutch my head, trying to
force the voices out.

“I’m sorry . . .”

Tears burn my eyes as the
pain consumes me. I drop to my knees, praying for the vision to end.

I can’t take it.

“Wynter . . .”

I can’t take it.

“Wynter?”

My eyes flutter open, and I
find myself back in the tiny storeroom. Warm tears stream down my face,
engulfing me in the heartbreak still lingering from my dream. I brush them away
when I hear the door begin to open.

“Wynter? I’m coming in.”

I sit up just as the woman
from before enters the room. She’s holding a tray of what appears to be food
and gazing at me with an unexpected level of warmth, almost as if she’s happy
to see me for some reason. However, her face drops the moment she notices my
expression.

Her eyes never leave mine
as she sets down the tray. In one graceful movement, she’s sitting on the cot,
bringing herself close to me until we’re practically touching.

I can feel the kindness
that seems to radiate from her body like heat. It’s a wonderful aura—completely
unfamiliar to me in the best way possible.

“Are you all right?” she
asks. Her voice is soft and gentle.

I nod, but my breaths
tremble, revealing the truth. I sigh, wiping away the few remaining tears. “I
was remembering my father,” I whisper. “I was remembering the last time I saw
him alive.”

She frowns before placing
her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she breathes.

The corners of my lips
upturn into a smile, but I immediately look away from her, unaccustomed to
showing such weakness—to showing any emotion at all. It’s so different from the
life I led before. So different from the way the State has always forced us to
live.

“Do you mind if I ask what
happened to him?”

Her words surround me,
reminding me of my dark and harrowing past. I don’t speak for a long moment.
The lump lodged in my throat seems to swell with each breath.

“He was executed for
treason,” I finally answer. “My last memory of him is when he was taken from
our home. I never saw him again after that.”

Our eyes meet briefly, and
I can see the pity in her gaze. There’s something else there as well—an
understanding of sorts, almost as if she can empathize with my pain.

As if she’s felt it too.

“You know,” she says.
“Everyone here has lost someone or something. That’s why we fight. So our
losses don’t have to be for nothing.”

She folds her hands around
mine, and shifts her body even closer. The warmth I felt before seems
intensified by her touch.

“Regardless of your reasons
for coming here, I personally think you should stay. You belong with us.”

I stare at her in shock,
taken aback by her bold but blind sense of trust.

“Why are you so sure you
can even trust me?” I ask. “The others don’t.”

She shrugs her shoulders.
“You remind me of
me
when I was younger. I see the same fear in you that
I once saw in myself. That I
still
see in myself.”

I gape at her, wondering
how she can be so open with someone she doesn’t even know. After all, this
isn’t how our world works. We don’t make eye contact. We don’t develop close
relationships. We don’t welcome each other the way she’s welcoming me now.
Still, more than anything else, I find myself wanting to prove to her that she
can trust me—that I’m not here to cause problems for them.

“I’m not a spy,” I murmur.

When those words leave my
lips, I fully realize why I came here. It wasn’t just to find Ezra or to see
PHOENIX for myself. It wasn’t
just
to figure out what these visions
mean. It was to escape the life that had turned its back on me. To start over.

“I know,” she whispers
back. Smiling, she rises to her feet and offers me her hand. “Follow me,” she
says. “You could stand to stretch your legs and get out of this cramped room
for a bit.”

I hesitate, unsure how this
will go over with the others—Ezra, in particular. He specifically said that I
wasn’t to leave this room, so what happens if I do? Something tells me this
woman won’t let anything bad happen to me, though. She seems like someone I can
trust, and I doubt Ezra would do anything if she stood against it.

After a moment, I take her
hand and follow her lead toward the open door. Whatever happens, at least
she’ll be with me.

“Oh, by the way,” she says,
turning back around with a flick of her long hair. “My name is Rai. Rai Dorne.”

She smiles once again, and
I see the glint of something in her gaze that I’ve never known before.
Friendship. It’s a strange and somewhat foreign concept to me, but for the
first time, I think I’m beginning to understand what it feels like.

I follow her through a
series of hallways. Fluorescent lights hang at even intervals overhead, placed
between a maze-like network of pipes, which follow along the length of the low
ceilings. The walls are constructed solely of concrete, and all of the doors
and throughways seem to be made of reinforced metal.

I notice there aren’t any
windows. In fact, there isn’t any access to natural lighting at all. Between
that and the damp, musty air, it occurs to me that we must be underground.

At first, we’re alone.
However, the farther we walk, the more often we come into contact with other
people.

They all stare at me with
the same expression: confusion mixed even more heavily with distrust. I don’t
blame them, but after the first dozen or so glances, I lower my head, wanting
nothing more than to escape their judgmental gazes.

Suddenly, my feelings about
the situation become distorted. This felt like a good idea at the time, but
now, I’m not so sure.

“Hey!”

Looking up, I’m surprised
to find that we’ve wandered into a large open room. A number of other people
are gathered here, but out of all of them, I notice Jenner. He’s smiling
broadly and waving his arms, although I’m more preoccupied with the person
beside him.

I meet Ezra’s eyes. Even
from a distance, I can see the hatred there.

Jenner runs toward us,
skipping excitedly every third or so step. He stops next to me, grinning as he
bites into a large apple.

“How’s it going?” he asks,
spitting a little.

Before either of us can
answer, Ezra appears like a dark cloud on the horizon.

“Why did you let her out?”
He avoids my gaze as he barks at Rai.

“I already told you, she
isn’t our enemy,” she snaps back at him. “We shouldn’t treat her like one.”

I glance between them.
Jenner, seeming to realize that they’re about to have it out, puts his arm
around my shoulders and steers me away.

“Hey, why don’t we go sit
down and have a chat?” he suggests.

I look back at Rai and
Ezra. They’re arguing so fiercely that I can hardly make out a single word
they’re saying. It’s incredibly passionate, and I find myself wondering about
their relationship.

What are they to each other
that they can speak so openly?

I allow Jenner to lead me
to an unoccupied seating area in the corner of the room. As soon as we sit
down, he offers me a bottle of water.

“Thanks,” I mumble.

He smiles before taking
another loud bite from his apple. He stares at me for a moment, and then
outstretches his left arm until it’s hanging frozen in the air before me.

I peer at his empty hand.

“The name’s Jenner Rhodes,”
he says. “But just call me Jenner.”

I lift my arm, and I shiver
a little when he touches my skin. Although it’s an unfamiliar gesture to me, I
allow him to shake my hand.

For a long while after
that, neither of us speak. The others can still be heard arguing across the
room, but in spite of that, the silence is overwhelming. Still, I find Jenner’s
company comforting. Something about him, just like with Rai, is so unlike
anything I’ve ever encountered before.

“I agree with Rai, you
know,” he says. “I don’t think you’re one of them.”

“You seem to be the only
ones,” I whisper.

“Nah, you’re too innocent.
They have too much blood on their hands to pull that off.”

He leans in close to me,
and I can’t help but turn toward him, considering the proximity. His eyes meet
mine, and there’s an emotion buried behind them that I can’t quite figure out.

“Don’t worry,” he breathes.
“The others will see that soon enough.”

My jaw drops as I gape at
him, utterly amazed and somewhat lost for words. “None of this is how I
imagined it to be,” I manage.

“I can see what you mean,”
he says, throwing his head back and chuckling. “I thought the same thing when I
first came here.”

A lopsided grin pulls at
his lips as our eyes lock. I feel awkward beneath his gaze, and the silence
between us seems charged with an unexplained tension. I shift uncomfortably,
breaking the eye contact between us.

Out of my peripheral
vision, I notice him look away from me.

“It’s all lies, you know.
Everything they say about us,” he murmurs. “All that violence is attributed to
us, when in reality we don’t cause any of it.”

I glance up at him. “You
mean the State?” I ask.

He nods.

I consider his words. Why
would the State lie about PHOENIX? What would they get out of frightening
people with the threat of terrorism? But as those questions cross my mind, I
realize that I’m beginning to grasp the answer.

“If you aren’t responsible
for the attacks . . .”

“Fear leads to control,” he
grumbles. “I suppose that’s a pretty big incentive for them.” He leans back and
sighs. “I just wish people knew the truth about us. Mindless violence won’t
bring about change.”

“What will?” I breathe.

He looks at me, and for the
first time, I notice the color of his eyes. They’re a lovely shade of blue. For
some reason, it reminds me of sadness.