“That’s how I feel,” Severine said. “At the same time real and not.”
Rilex reached across and stroked Severine’s cheek with his thumb. She could see the tenderness in his eyes and felt herself melting again. It was incredible the effect that this man had on her. She never could have imagined that he would have taken over her heart the way that he had, and given her the hope for a new life that she now had in front of her.
“Have you thought about his name?” Rilex asked.
Severine shook her head.
“I don’t know what name to give him,” she said.
“You can name him anything that you want to,” he told her. “Why don’t you choose something from one of the species that you have in you? Do you know any of the languages for those species? Any of the words?”
Severine knew that the suggestion was coming to her from a place of warmth and love, but it made her uncomfortable. She shook her head.
“I know a few words,” she said, “but I don’t think that that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” Rilex asked. “I named you with a word from my language.”
“I know,” Severine said, “but it’s different.”
“Why is it different?” Rilex asked.
“You have a heritage,” she said. “You can trace your family. You know where you came from, who your parents are. You have a connection to the species that you are and your history. I’m not even sure that I know all of the species that I have in me, and even if I did…”
Her voice trailed off and Rilex looked at her intently.
“Severine,” he said. “You have a heritage. You have a history. It doesn’t matter where you come from or how you came to be. You should be proud of who you are. You are starting a new family, and that family needs a heritage. You need to teach our son to appreciate who he is and the history that he has, no matter how difficult that history may be.”
Severine tried to nod, but her head hung and she looked down into the bowl that still held most of the food that Rilex had put out for her. What he said touched her deeply, but she still struggled to feel the connection to the species that had combined to make her that he so obviously did to his kind. She felt like she had stolen their heritage and history.
“I don’t deserve any of that history,” she said. “I don’t deserve to claim any of the heritage or the pride of those species. I was never intended to be a part of them. I was not born to be someone’s child or to continue the line of any family. I am an Other. I am not a part of anything except being a part of nothing.”
“Severine…” Rilex started, but she shook her head to silence him.
“We shouldn’t stay here,” she said, stating to collect the food back into the storage containers. “We need to get back to the ship.”
She could sense that Rilex wanted to say something else, but he relented.
“How should we go?” he asked. “Do you think that the others are still up there waiting for us?”
Severine had pushed the attack by the other hybrids out of her mind and now the reality of it came rushing back to hit her. She felt like the breath had been knocked out of her and she no longer wanted to move, but she knew that they had to. They couldn’t just stay in the chamber while the others were in the ship or making their way to those who were waiting for them elsewhere on Penthos. They needed to get back to them and figure out what was going to happen next.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “They could be, but they could have also gone back to their barracks. We could try to go back up there and walk back to the ship.”
“Or?” Rilex asked, obviously hearing the hesitation in her voice that told him that there was another option.
“Or, we could use the network of chambers down here.”
“Network of chambers?” Rilex asked. His voice hovered somewhere between interested and quizzical, as if that meant something more to him than she meant it to.
“When Ryan designed the bunkers, he wanted to make it so that we could easily get to them without having to be on the surface. It would let us go between the different bunkers and also move around the planet without being exposed to the enemies. That way we could more easily ambush them.”
She hated saying the words. Just thinking about the training that she went through and the horrible things that she had done, and planned to do, made her stomach turn. Even though she knew that she had been forced and tortured into everything that she did, she still felt ashamed of what she had been responsible for in the years that she had been under Ryan’s control. Now that she was admitting them to Rilex she wasn’t just telling him about the bunkers or the network of chambers that connected them. She was telling him what she was used for, what Ryan wanted to make her do. She felt like she was admitting to him what she might have done to him.
“Who built the network?” Rilex asked.
It was a question that Severine wouldn’t have expected him to ask. She didn’t understand why it would matter to him who had actually built them, rather than the fact that they were there at all.
“I don’t know,” Severine admitted. “We started learning about them during our earliest training and they were already here by the time that we came to Penthos for the first time to run training drills.”
“Ryan designed them?” Rilex asked. “They were his idea?”
“I assume that they are,” Severine said. “Everything was always Ryan’s idea. Why? What is it?”
Rilex looked around at the chamber where they sat as if he was examining it more closely than he had before, trying to find something specific. Finally, he shook his head and looked back at her.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just feel like…” he hesitated and looked around again. “This is so familiar, but I can’t remember why. It’s like something that is so far in my past that I can’t reach it anymore.”
“Was there something like this on your home planet?” she asked, hoping that she might be able to help him draw the memories forward.
Rilex shook his head again.
“No,” he said. “There was no reason for us to go underground. Not to this extent. I don’t know.”
“I can bring you through the network,” Severine said. “It would keep us from having to go up to the surface until we were closer to the ship, but there is a chance that there could be other hybrids down here.”
“Why didn’t the ones who attacked you follow us down here if they knew about them?”
“I’m not sure,” Severine said. “I know that there are some that aren’t used as often, even some that were only shared with a few of us. That doesn’t mean, though, that there aren’t those who do know about it down here, or that we won’t encounter them when we get closer.”
“Our choice is either to go back up to the surface and be exposed, or to remain down here and have a chance of encountering them and possibly being trapped.”
“Yes,” Severine said.
“Which do you think would be better?” Rilex asked.
It was still so strange to be asked for her opinions, to be given a choice. She could see the sincerity in Rilex’s eyes, though, and knew that he truly wanted to know how she felt about the situation and what she thought that they should do. She drew in a breath, thinking through both options as quickly as she could. Finally, she let out a breath.
“We should use the tunnels.”
Chapter Six
Jonah hesitated for only a moment before stepping out of the abandoned medical facility and into the closet at the end of the laboratory building corridor. His hands burned and his arms ached from the effort it took to move the blockade out of the way, but he had known that it was the only option. Jonah had been concerned that the Valdicians and the hybrid army would use the hole in the main corridor of the laboratory building to come down into the basement to access the rest of them, or that they would recognize that they must be in the basement and use the door from the breeding facility to get to them. In the middle of the night, however, h
e heard loud pounding sounds coming from the stairwell. When they went silent, he climbed the stairs to find that the hole in the wall had been repaired. Downstairs, the door to the facility that Rilex had destroyed had also been repaired and he was unable to open it.
The idea of the Valdicians being so close to him and to the wounded and the women that he had tasked himself with protecting was unnerving. He didn’t understand why they would repair the door to the facility without coming up into the basement after them, unless they didn’t realize that when Pyra and the rest had left and gotten onto the ship that there had been some left behind. Whether they knew that there were more in the basement or not, he understood why they would go to the effort of repairing the hole in the wall in the middle of the night. The last several days it seemed that the laboratory building had been closed, but now he could hear the faint sound of footsteps overhead, which meant that it was open again. They wouldn’t want any of the people who worked inside the building during the day to see the damage and possibly venture down the forgotten stairwell to uncover the facility. It made Jonah wonder what they had done about the damage to the main office and the electrical locking system, or if they would simply allow those working in the building to believe that there had been an intrusion of some kind.
He suddenly wondered about the staff that was meant to take care of the building, cleaning it during the night or acting as security. It occurred to him that Ryan could have influenced those positions as well, ensuring that the people who took those responsibilities would know what he was doing and to protect him. The thought sent a chill down Jonah’s spine. What this man was doing was more far-reaching than they even imagined, which made him wonder how much more Ryan was doing that they hadn’t even yet considered.
The repaired wall in the main corridor had left his only access point to the rest of the building the closet that Eden had led them to and it had taken Jonah quite some time to remove the barrier that they had built against the door at the bottom of those stairs. Some of the pieces he had simply sent crashing to the ground because they were too large to lift away, and after each he would pause and listen, waiting for any sign that someone had heard and was coming to find out what had happened. When he finally got through the barrier, he traveled through the door and up the stairs into the closet, briefly concealing himself behind one of the pieces of equipment before stepping through the door into the hallway.
It was silent and shadowy when he emerged onto the laboratory floor. The newer section of the builder smelled fresher and cleaner than the basement and he thought of the extensive repairs, improvements, and renovations that must have been made to the building to preserve its new appearance and to keep it relevant to the blinding speed with which science and technology developed within these laboratories.
Jonah didn’t know what time it was or even the part of the day. It seemed by his sleep patterns and the atmosphere of the light throughout the building that it was very early in the morning, but he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t had access to a clock while he was in the basement, and because of the travel, the battle, and staying awake to care for the wounded and the women who were still in the basement, he knew it was entirely possible that he had inadvertently reversed his internal clock and that it was actually the evening hours rather than the beginning of the day. Either way, he didn’t see a sign of anyone else in the building and resolved to continue on. He turned and adjusted the equipment inside the closet to conceal the entryway to the stairwell. It was his only option for getting down into the basement again and he didn’t want to risk coming back to it sealed back up by the mysterious cloaked team that seemed to hover around Ryan.
He walked quickly toward Ryan’s laboratory and grasped the handle to the door. He pressed down on it, but it stayed stiff. The lock had been replaced and Jonah felt his heart sink. He needed to get back into the lab, and if this door was locked again, that meant that the back entrance was likely locked again as well. He didn’t know what to do. Stepping back, he looked at the door carefully, hoping that he would notice some area of vulnerability that he could use to get back into the lab.
“I think that I might be able to help you.”
The soft, cautious voice startled Jonah and he took a step away from the door, turning defensively toward the words. His hand had gone instinctively to the weapon at his hip, and he saw the woman coming toward him in the hallway take a step back when she saw him. Jonah dropped his hand and reached out toward her to reassure her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You startled me. I didn’t realize that there was anyone else here.”
The woman shook her head.
“It’s alright,” she said. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to just sneak up on you like that.”
“What are you doing here?” Jonah asked.
He didn’t mean to sound so aggressive, but he felt on edge and suspicious of everything that he encountered when he was outside of the basement. Though she had been inhabiting nearly his every thought since the first time that he saw her, actually seeing her again had thrown him off and he was unsure of how he should react to her. The woman held up an access chip.
“I got here early for work. I thought I heard a door close and I came up here. It looks like you’re having trouble getting into the lab. Maybe I can help you.”
She hesitated and Jonah nodded.
“Thank you.”
The woman stepped in front of him and touched her access chip to the fixed keypad by the door. There was a low click and she turned the handle, pushing the door open.
“Did you forget your access chip?” she asked casually, glancing to her side to look at him.
Jonah stuttered for a moment.
“I, umm…”
“You know, it was so strange,” she said, stepping into the lab. “The other day when I was here all the locks throughout the building had been compromised, but then it seemed like overnight they were repaired. Did you hear anything about that?”
“That is strange,” Jonah replied, glossing over her question as he stepped into the lab and closed the door behind himself. “I guess it’s good that they got repaired, though. Did you, um, need to get your access chip reprogrammed for the new locks?”
He knew that he sounded awkward, but he realized that if the locks had been replaced he wouldn’t be able to come back once she left. She turned around to look at him and he couldn’t decipher the expression on her face. It was as if she was at once as suspicious as he was, but also hopeful.
“Are you here in Ryan’s place?” she asked.
There was a hint of nervousness in her voice that made it go higher even as she was trying to sound conversational. The sound immediately created a knot in Jonah’s stomach. He had heard Eden talk about Ryan and the uncomfortable, unethical treatment that she had faced from the man. Just like Eden, this woman was considerably younger than Ryan and it wasn’t beyond his notice that she was beautiful even beyond the lab coat and hair tied up in a messy knot on the top of her head. He wondered if she had gone through the same types of things that Eden had, and the thought of it made him feel sick. He shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Not in his place, no.”
She nodded, a look of relief crossing her face.
“Do you know what happened to him? Nobody seems to have seen or heard from him in a while.”
Jonah didn’t know how to respond. He felt like he was in a fragile, vulnerable place. He didn’t want to tip himself into a never-ending spiral of lies that he might not be able to keep up with, and that might threaten everything that he was trying to accomplish. At the same time, he couldn’t figure out a way that he would be able to even begin to explain to her what was really happening and why he was there.
“He must have had something that he needed to do away from the University,” Jonah said, hoping that that was enough for her and that she wouldn’t pry any further. As soon as he said it, though, something occurred to him, and he turned back to her. “How do you have a
ccess to his lab?” he asked. “I thought that this lab was restricted.”
“But you have access to it,” she said, her tone saying that she wouldn’t tell him anything if he didn’t offer the same information in return. They stared at each other for a few seconds before she extended her hand to him. “My name is Aubrey.”
He took her hand and shook it.
“I’m Jonah,” he said.
She looked at him through slightly narrowed eyes and he got the distinct feeling that he was being scrutinized. Their hands fell away from each other and he immediately felt the regret of no longer feeling her skin against his.
“I work in the main laboratory downstairs,” she told him. “I’ve done some special assignments in cooperation with Ryan and his lab assistants. When he had them, of course.”
“When he had them?” Jonah asked, trying not to let his voice suggest that he knew anything about it.
“His female assistants never lasted very long. Eden was the one who was with him the longest, but you must know how that turned out.”
“I must?” he asked, crossing to the cabinets at the far end of the room and opening one of them.
He didn’t know how long he was going to be able to be in the lab and he needed to make the most of whatever time that he had in case he wasn’t able to get back in.
“Well, yeah,” Aubrey said. “She left more than a year ago. Supposedly she had some assignment and just decided never to come back. That must be why they chose you. To replace her, right? They wouldn’t dare give him another woman after all of the rumors.”
“Rumors?”
He closed the first cabinet and started going through the next. He didn’t want to sound as though he were disinterested in what she was saying or she might stop talking and force him to leave. At the same time, he was too focused on going through each of the items in the cabinets in hopes of finding something relevant to his mission to really invest in the conversation.
“The reason that the women didn’t last long? I know for one that they weren’t just rumors. Of course, the powers that be in the University don’t care enough to actually listen to what any of us had to say. Ryan is far to well-respected in the scientific community and his family has too much of a tie to the University for them to question him or his integrity unless someone had real evidence to show. He’s too smart for that, though. He’d never do anything that could be documented or actually brought up in front of the dean or the department heads. He hasn’t had an official assistant since Eden left, but there has to be somebody helping him.”
The Alien's Mystery (Uoria Mates IV Book 7) Page 5