Ultraxenopia (Project W. A. R. Book 1) (8 page)

If I’m going to get
answers, now is the time.

“The man I saw . . . who is
he?” I ask.

“His name is Ezra Laramie,”
he mutters in a flat tone. “A known and active member of the insurgent group,
PHOENIX.”

“Why would I see him?” I
ask, directing the question more to myself.

“I was hoping
you
would be able to answer that,” he says.

I look up at him, and for
one long moment, we simply stare at each other, both speechless with our mutual
confusion. Eventually, he closes his eyes and sighs.

“You don’t know. That’s to
be expected, I suppose. After all, it hasn’t happened yet.”

His exasperation with this
whole ordeal is beginning to show through, and I can see his usually stable
composure gradually crumbling away. When I still don’t say anything, his eyes
darken.

“However, maybe you can
tell me about the rest of it,” he sneers.

“The rest of what?” I ask.

“Your vision. Was it a
continuation of what you saw at W. P. Headquarters?”

I consider him for a few
seconds, debating if it will really do me any good to tell him. I’ve yet to
figure out how I’m going to escape anyway. For the time being, the best thing
to do would be to play along, keep him talking until I can work out what I’m
doing. Even if I don’t trust him.

“More like . . . a missing
piece out of the middle,” I try to explain.

“How does it end?” he
breathes.

I can hear the anticipation
in his voice, and suddenly, I regret opening my mouth at all. He won’t like the
answer to the question he’s asking me, but I don’t see any other choice except
to tell him. I hesitate, feeling more certain than ever that my life is in
danger.

Dr. Richter fidgets in his
seat as his usually calm façade continues to collapse. “How does it end?” he
shouts, slamming his fist on the table in front of me.

I take a deep breath, and a
sudden defiance burns within me as I meet his gaze. A smile curls my lips, and
for the first time since I woke up here, I feel like maybe
I’m
actually
the one with the upper hand.

“We all die,” I answer.

DR. RICHTER’S EYES WIDEN. HE STARES at
me for a moment before clearing his throat and regaining the composure that he
was so close to losing. Suddenly, he breaks eye contact with me, looking down
at the tablet before swiping his index finger across the top of the screen.

In a calm voice, he
murmurs, “Could you please come back in?”

The woman from before
re-enters the room a few seconds later. Her expression is still hollow as she
stands in the doorway like an obedient soldier, awaiting her next orders.

“Take the subject back to
the laboratory and prep the team for another session,” Dr. Richter instructs.

My heart catches in my
chest as my eyes dart to his. The panic rushes from my lungs in a single
utterance of disbelief. “What?” I breathe.

At almost the exact same
moment, the woman expresses her nearly identical uncertainty. “So soon?” she
asks.

I glance between them. The
woman looks confused. Uneasy even. Yet, regardless of her misgivings, I know
she’ll do what he says in the end.

They all will.

My eyes dart back to Dr.
Richter as he rises from his seat, a fresh wave of fear holding me down in my
own. He gathers his few belongings and approaches the door. I follow his every
movement. Waiting.

After a few steps, he turns
to look at me. His eyes stare back into mine with an alarming ferocity behind
them. “We will retrieve the vision in its entirety,” he drawls, “and then you
will lead us to PHOENIX.”

Incredulity takes hold of
me as I gape at him in disbelief. What does he expect from me? Doesn’t he even
realize that his last test nearly killed me?

I shake my head. “You know
I can’t control it—” I begin to protest.

He lunges forward and slams
his hand down on the table. “You will learn to!” he shouts. “You
will
lead me to him!”

I reel back, hearing his
words echo like an alarm in my head.

Lead me to him.

Lead me to him
. . . .

A scream rips from my
throat as my knees buckle beneath me, and all at once, I see a number of
images. Stab after stab, they flash through my thoughts.

I see the bar again—
The
Vega
. Except this time, I’m seeing it as if I'm standing inside. I notice a
bartender casually drying a wet glass, and there are three people sitting at
the bar in front of him, one of which I recognize.

It’s him,
I think in-between the
stabs.
He’s here.

My hand shoots out and
clutches at the table for support. Sweat trickles from my skin as I suck in a
heavy breath.

“What have you just seen?”
Dr. Richter’s voice is faint. The abrupt buzzing in my ears is almost enough to
drown him out.

Footsteps reflect off the
tiled floor, and within seconds, I’m aware of him standing in front of me.
Leaning down, he roughly grabs hold of my shirt. With a single tug, he pulls me
toward him until our faces are only a few inches apart.

“Answer me!” he screams.

Traces of spit land on my
cheeks, but I don’t blink or react. I simply stare back into those cold gray
eyes, determined not to tell him another word.

After a moment, he releases
his grip on me, his lips pulling into a malicious sneer as he drops me to the
floor. I moan when my head hits the hard surface of the tiles.

Fingers trembling, I grip
the edge of the table and pull myself back up. Once I’m on my feet, my eyes
dart to Dr. Richter’s. But he isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at the woman.

Out of the corner of my
eye, I notice her pull a syringe from the pocket of her white coat.
Instinctively, I take a step away from her. I won’t let them do this to me.

Not again.

My hand shifts until I feel
the jagged edge of the mirror slide against my palm. “Stay away from me,” I
whisper.

The woman ignores me and
begins to move forward. I take another step back, tightening my grip around my
makeshift blade. I glance at Dr. Richter, but he doesn’t say or do anything. He
watches us instead, his face an expressionless mask.

“I said stay away from me!”
I shriek. I raise my armed hand as a last means of defense. My entire body
shakes with rage, fear, and a multitude of emotions I can no longer control.
They build up inside of me, the pressure from them growing until I can’t possibly
hold onto it for another moment. Finally, the extreme weight of everything I'm
feeling seems to explode from my very pores—an outflowing of energy that’s like
a heavy burden being lifted from my shoulders.

The mirrored wall shatters.
The pieces fall with a loud clatter to the floor, revealing the hidden room on
the other side. A number of doctors stare back at me, shell-shocked and
unmoving.

As if in response, all
sense of sound is instantly lost to me. I’m unable to hear anything, as if I’ve
somehow become separated from the room around me—like I’m trapped in a
soundproof bubble where nothing and no one can touch me.

My gaze latches onto the
woman, and I can feel the energy around us pulsating like a beating heart. I
notice her fingers slacken almost at once, dropping the syringe to the floor.
My lips twitch. She grabs her head and begins to scream, but I can’t hear her.
Her body curls in on itself as she falls to her knees.

My breaths are ragged, and
despite my deafness, I can hear every one like a chorus in my head. My pulse
throbs in every vein, adding to the chaos.

I stare at the woman as she
writhes in agony on the floor. Oddly enough, I feel nothing. A strange, inhuman
detachment has taken hold of me, and at this moment, all I
can
feel is
pleasure in her pain.

Dr. Richter rushes to the
woman’s side. He looks so confused—so
helpless
. So incapable of helping
her. His mouth shapes words, shouting at me.

I don’t hear them either.

In. Out. In. Out. My lungs
work at double speed, trying to get my erratic breathing under control. I blink
several times, but that horrible pressure returns, rushing through my body.
Crushing me with its inexplicable power.

I squeeze my eyes shut and
stumble backward. Out of the blue, my hearing returns, pulling me out of my daze
and throwing me back into the room.

The woman’s screams seem to
dissipate the second I open my eyes. All trace of color dissolves from her
skin, and she goes limp in Dr. Richter’s arms. Several moments pass. However,
the worst is far from over.

We both stare in horror as
blood slowly begins to stream from every orifice on her body.

Dr. Richter pushes her
away, distancing himself from the growing puddle of red. After a long moment,
he finally looks up at me.

“What have you done to
her?” he breathes.

His lips tremble, but the
glint of excitement in his eyes reveals his true, unnerving emotions. I glance
between him and the unconscious figure before us. Did
I
do that to her?
Could
I do that to her? I shake my head in a desperate attempt to regain myself.

I feel dizzy. Nauseous. I
try to look around me, but everything is obscured and hazy. For a while, I
don’t move and neither does Dr. Richter. It’s only after I remind myself of my
intention to escape that I even remotely regain the energy to do so.

Shifting forward, I raise
the shard of glass within an inch of his throat.

“Take off your coat.”

He looks up at me,
bewildered by my words.

“Do it!” I bark,
threatening him again.

He shies away from me,
lifting his hands in an uncharacteristic gesture of surrender. Lowering his
arms, he removes his white coat and thrusts it in my direction—watching me in
amazement the entire time. I’m not an idiot, though. I know this piece of
broken mirror doesn’t scare him.

But
I
do, and that’s
all that matters right now.

I snatch the coat from his
outstretched hand and wrap it around my body as I move toward the open door.
Suddenly, freedom actually seems within reach. Inhaling deeply, I hungrily
embrace it, ready to run to the ends of the Earth to escape this hell.

However, something holds me
back the instant I step through the doorway. A question burning in the back of
my brain, feeding a desperate curiosity. I’m unwilling and unable to ignore it.

Stopping in my tracks, I
cast a reluctant glance back over my shoulder at Dr. Richter. “Why do you want
me to find him?” I ask. I watch him carefully, but he doesn’t turn to look at
me.

“I want to end what you saw
before it has the chance to begin,” he mutters, his voice so soft I can only
just hear it.

“And you think that man
will be the cause of it all?”

Silence.

The seconds roll by.
Realizing that the clock is ticking, I abandon my need for answers and hurry
back through the open doorway. It’s only when I round the corner that I hear
his long-awaited words follow me down the corridor.

“He’s a criminal,” he calls
after me. “You can’t trust him. You can’t trust him!”

His words seem to be a
warning, but I ignore them as they fade into the emptiness of the hallway.

I try to keep my movements
steady and inconspicuous, all too aware of the cameras hanging overhead. All
too aware that, at any moment, an influx of Enforcers could arrive to detain
me.

But no one comes. No one
tries to stop me.

Progressing through the
facility, I somehow make it to what I assume must be the main entrance of the
building. Still, the ease of my escape hasn’t gone unnoticed, and truthfully, I
can’t help but feel suspicious of it. After all, it’s too similar to what
happened at W. P. Headquarters, and the memory of how that turned out is all
too fresh.

Unlike last time, there’s
no home for me to escape to. So, why hasn’t anyone come after me? Why hasn’t
Dr. Richter raised the alarm?

Something isn’t right,
I realize.
This has
been too easy.

I glance around the corner,
hesitantly eyeing the doors in front of me. There are a number of guards
standing watch, but there aren’t any other exits—at least none that I could
find.

This is the only way in or
out.

I shake my head. This won’t
be possible. It
can’t
be possible. But I have no other choice.

Releasing a long quavering
breath, my fingers thrust the broken shard of mirror into the pocket of Dr.
Richter’s coat. Keeping my head down, I do the only thing I can. I walk toward
the glass doors.

My footsteps reverberate
off the floor, blending into the surrounding sound of the lobby. No one looks
at me, causing a faint flutter of hope to come to life in my stomach. However,
it’s immediately extinguished when my eyes land on the turnstile exit.

My heart drops. If I prick
my finger, the alarm will go off, since I don’t have the security clearance to
leave this place. I’ll be caught.

This won’t work.

I look around, all the
while telling myself to keep moving forward. My heart races. My breaths are
heavy. My eyes dart from side to side, and that vague feeling of hope is
resurrected when I spot a group of doctors to my right—a tight knit crowd also
leaving the building.

I fall into line behind
them, blending into the mass of white coats. I keep as close to them as
possible, but remain at the back to stay unnoticed. Luckily, it seems to work.

Beep after beep after beep.
The group grows smaller as each person ahead of me passes through the
turnstile. When the last doctor pricks his finger and the little light turns
green, I push through the barricade, practically hugging myself to his body before
it can close and lock me in—cutting off my only chance of escape.

He glances over his
shoulder when he feels me press against him, no doubt thrown off by the
unexpected and abnormal proximity of another person. I turn my head away,
grumbling an apology before hurrying in the opposite direction and out the
door.