Type X

by M. A. Phipps

  Silence settles between us again, but the plea burns in his gaze like an open flame. His lips don’t move. However, his soundless words beg me not to turn him away.

  I consider him as my eyes trail over his features. His face is familiar to me, and just like with Ezra, I’m certain I recognize him.

  But from where, I don’t know.

  Lowering my eyes, I nod my head. Or, at least, I try to. My neck is stiff from the paralytic weighing down my body, and it’s difficult to breathe, let alone move. Wondering if he even noticed the gesture, I peek up at him. A smile twitches at the corners of his lips.

  His body language gives off a certain eagerness as he approaches me, but at the same time, he appears to be restraining himself. Why, I can’t be sure, but I have a feeling it has to do with the fact that we’re no longer alone.

  A sharp scraping sound cuts through the air as a second chair is dropped in front of me. My eyes lock with those of the figure standing beside it—the same man who accompanied Nolan before. He peers down at me, and his upper lip curls in disgust as his fingers tighten around his gun.

  I stare at his hands, unfazed by his blatant and unexplained hostility toward me. My gaze follows the curve of his weapon where I glimpse a streak of red smeared across the metal.

  Blood.

  My blood.

  Glaring at him, I tense my jaw. “So, I have you to thank for the headache then?”

  The black-haired man ushers my assailant from the room before he can answer. Perhaps he pre-empted this confrontation or maybe he’s afraid I’ll have another outburst if he doesn’t separate us. Regardless, the younger man relents. With a sneer, he storms out of the room without a backward glance.

  The steel door closes, leaving us alone. Taking a deep breath, the black-haired man tugs on the chair, turning it around so he’s straddling the seat. Resting his arms across the back of the frame, he lets out a sigh before plopping his chin on top of his overlapping hands.

  An awkward hush fills the room as I wait for him to speak. I can feel him watching me, searching my face as if he’s trying to figure out the answer to some unvoiced question. His eyes penetrate me on a level I’m not comfortable with, making me feel uneasy.

  “It’s good to see you,” he finally says.

  I resist the urge to tilt my head, aware how inhuman it makes me seem. Pressing my lips together, I listen to his voice play on repeat through my thoughts. My brain suddenly registers where I recognize it from.

  “You’re the one who shot me,” I realize.

  He winces as if my words are a physical slap. Running his hands through his mop of hair, he fixes his eyes on a random spot on the floor. He looks embarrassed, ashamed, or maybe even overwhelmed by the guilt of what he’s done.

  In a hurried breath, he splutters an apology. “I’m sorry, but it was the only way to get you out.”

  I remember what Nolan told me before. About the extraction.

  About an old friend of mine being the one responsible for my rescue.

  “How’d you do it?”

  I don’t expect him to answer, and from his expression, neither does he. Regardless, the words flow from his lips with ease.

  “Inside help,” he admits. “We have someone who was able to tell me how to infiltrate the airfield. Who knew how to pass me off as an Enforcer. There were only a limited number of people who even knew you were going to be there, so we couldn’t just barge in. We needed the security clearance.” He blinks a few times, clearly unsure how much to tell me. “Anyway, this person provided the gear I’d need to extract you, and we just customized it to suit the circumstances.”

  Thinking back, I remember finding it odd how balanced he was. Considering the unstable environment following the explosion, his body should’ve been tossed around like a leaf. In spite of that, he was in full command of his movements. Each step landed where he wanted it to, holding him to the floor as everyone else was pulled to their deaths.

  I also remember the strange clang of his boots. The way they stuck to the metal.

  Like magnets, I think.

  “And after?” I press him.

  He stares back at me but says nothing. His gaze reveals a conflicted confusion, and for a moment, I contemplate whether or not to push him. Ultimately, I decide that I need to know. I need to make sense of this. No matter what he says.

  “I remember everything that happened before you shot me. There was no way we were getting out of there alive. So, how did we?”

  My voice is soft, a mere whisper flowing around us like wind. The discomfort on his face is visible in the slight twinge of his cheeks, but in spite of that, he answers my question.

  “The State’s transport helicopters are equipped with ejector seats in the cockpit. I’m not proud of what I had to do to get us to them . . . but I couldn’t turn back.”

  I’m tempted to ask him what he means by that. Trouble is, I already know the answer. If he was willing to use a grenade in a fully occupied cargo hold, chances are, he was also willing to put down a pilot or two to get out of there.

  The question is . . . why?

  Why was extracting me so damn important?

  “The entire operation was risky,” he adds, “but it was the only way to get to you with how well-guarded you were.”

  I linger on those last words. He’s right. I was well-guarded. So, how did they manage it? How was he able to get to me when the State took every effort to ensure I would never even be seen?

  Curiosity gets the best of me, and I’m keen to know more. A jumble of questions rises in my throat, dancing across my tongue.

  Before I manage to utter a single syllable, the man’s voice breaks the hush once more.

  “To be honest, I’m surprised it worked.”

  My eyebrows scrunch together as he hunches forward. His expression seems reluctant more than anything else—almost as if he doesn’t know how to phrase his next words. As if he’s nervous to ask me the one question we both know is impossible to avoid.

  “I thought for sure you would’ve seen me coming,” he murmurs, “and that the State would’ve known about our plan. That you would’ve known.”

  My eyes widen, but I suppress what I’m feeling by removing all trace of emotion from my face, so I appear as distant and uninterested as possible. A survival tactic I’ve mastered over the years I spent with Richter.

  I huff out a short breath to steady myself.

  “It doesn’t work like that,” I whisper.

  Bewilderment skews his features. I waver, trying to determine the best way to explain it. Or should I even explain it at all? Should I tell him? Should I reveal the deeper workings of my condition to these people?

  His blue eyes glow with anticipation. I’m unsure why, but the sight of them unsettles me, causing that vague feeling of familiarity to resurface. By this point, déjà vu is my permanent mental state.

  I drop my gaze to break the inexplicable connection between us, focusing on the floor.

  “Sometimes these things come to me, but usually not until the last minute, and only if they’re occurring in the immediate vicinity. If I want to know before that, I have to be on guard and at least somewhat aware of what I’m meant to be looking for. Otherwise, I’m as blind to it as anyone else.” Pausing to shrug my shoulders, I sigh with exasperation when they still refuse to move.

  “The price of full control.” My words are nearly inaudible. “I should’ve been on the lookout, but I was . . . distracted. By the time I sensed what was going to happen, it was already too late.”

  Peeking up at him through the curtain of dark lashes lining my eyes, I’m taken aback by the intrusive way he looks at me. The expression on his face is indecipherable, but then again, maybe I’m not meant to understand it.

  “I-I’m sorry,” he stammers. “It’s just . . . you’re different than you were the last time I saw you. Before, you couldn’t—”

  “Control it?” I interrupt.

  He nods his head but says nothing.<
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  For a while, we don’t speak. When he swallows, his throat shifts, and the sound is like a blaring drum in the tense silence. His eyes glaze over, assaulting me with the visible sadness hiding in their depths.

  “What did they do to you?” The words part his lips in a shaking breath.

  I can’t handle the unbearable anguish in his gaze. The pity and remorse there are remnants of emotions I have no way to fully remember.

  I turn away, desperate to escape them.

  His eyes burn into my soul with the intensity of fire while piercing my heart with the rigidity of ice. The paralysis holds me in place, making me witness the full force of everything he’s feeling, even though I want nothing more than to run away from it.

  A shiver crosses my skin as the hush pulls me closer to the boundary of madness. Feeling the need to break it, I say the only thing I can think of.

  “Why?”

  His brow furrows as he straightens in his seat. Reeling back, he searches my face, but as the seconds pass, I realize that he doesn’t grasp what I’m asking.

  Over the course of the past few moments we’ve spent together, there’s been one question on my mind that I’ve been unable to make sense of. It’s plagued me since this conversation began, and now we’re brought full circle—forcing me to finally reach out for an answer.

  “If you were certain that I knew, that the State knew about your plan . . .” I hesitate, distracted by the dark desolation in his eyes. “Why did you risk your life to go through with it . . . ?”

  His lips contort into an exaggerated grimace, and his body doubles over, cowering as if he’s afraid. Or worse, as if he’s in pain.

  A far too familiar guilt bubbles up beneath my skin, but I push it back before it can break through the surface.

  After a long moment, he sits up straight. Clearing his throat, he rises to his feet, and shoves back the chair, causing a faint scratching to echo around us. The sound is eerie, much like the friction hanging in the room.

  He lingers for a few seconds, only meeting my gaze when he speaks. “Because you’re my friend,” he breathes.

  My heart reacts to those words, creating an unsteady chorus of panicked palpitations.

  My eyes follow his steps as he heads for the door. For some reason, I see myself reaching out to him. I can feel something deep inside of me grabbing hold and pulling him back—desperate to keep him here just a little bit longer.

  “Jenner.”

  He pauses in the doorway. His movements are slow as he looks back over his shoulder, delayed by a peculiar combination of hope and fear.

  Licking my lips, I whisper, “That is your name, isn’t it?”

  A veil of darkness crosses his gaze. Nodding his head, he proceeds over the threshold—keeping his eyes fixed on mine up until the last possible moment. The sound of metal resounds in my ears as he closes the door between us.

  I shift on the leather sofa, twiddling my thumbs as my feet tap against the floor. Lengthening my neck, I lock my blank stare on the wall in front of me, trying to blink only when I absolutely have to. The whole time, all I can hear is my mother’s voice ringing in my ears as a constant reminder.

  “It’s not polite to fidget.”

  Even at a young age, I knew she really meant, “Don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself. Be still. Blend in.”

  Considering everything that’s happened, I suppose I now find the subliminal warnings she ingrained in my childhood a bit odd. She went to the effort of teaching me how to survive in our twisted society, but at the slightest hint of trouble, she abandoned me to the very world she was meant to protect me from.

  Father, on the other hand, was different. He never would’ve left me. He never would’ve given me up.

  Not like she did.

  I feel his warm hand brush a strand of hair behind my ear, and with a single breath, his soothing voice melts away my hard exterior. The coldness of our world put it there. It turned me into just another mindless drone.

  But where our world was ice, my father was fire.

  I glance up at him. His lips twinge at the corners as if attempting to smile, although the expression doesn’t reach his eyes. At the last instant, he suppresses it, and I watch as it dies away, fading into nonexistence like a smothered ember.

  “You don’t realize it,” he says, “but your life has been robbed of many things, Wynter. Many wonderful things that you’ll never have the opportunity to know or discover.”

  I stare at him in confusion, taken aback by the look of pity on his face.

  “Like what?” I ask him. The voice that expels from my mouth is young and childish. Me, when I was no older than four years old.

  He seems to consider me for a moment. In the silence, I observe how tired he looks as if he’s been bearing a heavy weight on his shoulders. Making up his mind, he extends his hand toward me.

  “Come. I want to show you something.”

  I place my tiny hand in his without hesitation. He pulls me to my feet, and I’m overcome with a strange burst of excitement—an emotion at complete odds with my otherwise reserved and monotonous life.

  My eyes follow my father’s every movement, more curious than ever to know what he plans to show me. However, just as I take a step, he extends an arm to hold me back. Turning around, he drops to his knees. His hands clasp around my shoulders, and I can feel the importance of his next words in the quivering of his fingers.

  He leans forward so our eyes are level. “Now, Wynter, I need you to promise me that you won’t mention this to anyone. Whatever I tell you or show you, no one can know. Not even your mother.” He hesitates. “Especially not your mother.”

  His words should’ve alarmed me then, but they didn’t. I trusted Father. He never needed to explain himself to me.

  In my small, high-pitched voice, I express my dedication to him. “I promise.”

  Those words echo around me, warping into static that distorts the entire memory—replacing it with the one moment I can never escape.

  I stand in the middle of the brightly lit hallway, staring at the puddle of blood where it seeps into the carpet. Lifting my eyes, I see a hand reaching out to me. The skin on the knuckles is torn and bruised with streaks of red crusting into the hair coating the adjoining arm. A lump swells in my throat, choking me until I’m forced to acknowledge the person the hand belongs to.

  My father.

  However, he’s not reaching for me—not as I am now. He’s reaching for her. My younger self. The six-year-old child who had no choice but to witness this. Who had to watch as her father was beaten to near death.

  I can hear her screaming, just as I can see her visible distress as she tries to comprehend why any of this is happening. Her cries cut off, and suddenly, there’s no one else here but me, facing this on my own.

  Because, despite the passage of time, I still am that little girl.

  Still alone.

  Still helpless.

  My eyes widen when my father meets my fear-filled gaze.

  “I’m sorry, Wynter.”

  I watch him as my body freezes in place, reclaimed by the ice and coldness I was named for.

  My lips begin to tremble. I want to intervene, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m as powerless as I was then, and the awareness of it gnaws at me more than any of the atrocities I’ve committed since.

  His hand stretches toward me one last time, his mouth shaping my name. The pained expression on his face reminds me of the words he spoke before. The promise he made me keep.

  My eyes brim with tears. “I didn’t tell,” I try to say.

  I repeat those words as I collapse to my knees. My heart caves in, dragging me to the floor, and the agony that’s been tearing me apart from the inside now streams down my face in a wave of grief.

  “I didn’t tell . . .” My cry of denial saturates the air.

  Lowering my gaze, I hide my face in my hands, unable to look at him any longer. My chest heaves as my lungs constrict, suffocatin
g my very existence with the emotions I would rather forget.

  A soft gasp rushes from my lips when a hand touches my shoulder. Glancing up, I prepare to see my father—hoping, deep down, that he’s managed to escape his fate. Instead, I see the blond-haired man from before.

  Ezra.

  He takes a step toward me and brings his face close to mine. I can’t move or think, too bewildered by his proximity. His unexpected, yet tender, movements only feed my confusion, and my heart races when he brushes his hand across my cheek. His thumb trails in a gentle curve along my lower lip, wiping away my tears.

  “Please don’t cry,” he whispers.

  My eyes shoot open, waking me from the dream. The bright light above impairs my vision, and when it clears, I’m startled to find that I’m not alone. Ezra kneels in front of me, the distance between us minimal, just like it was only seconds earlier.

  “Come on,” he says in a hushed voice. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  I’m too stunned to speak. The last time I saw him in person, I had my hand around his throat, so why is he here now? Isn’t he afraid I’ll try to hurt him, or worse?

  The conversation I saw between him and Nolan enters my thoughts. I remember what he said. How adamant he was about every word.

  Perhaps it’s for that reason, I don’t fight against him.

  A wary shudder runs through my body as he waves a small device across the arms and legs of the metal chair. The shackles pop open with a hollow-sounding snap, releasing me within seconds. Ezra leans forward, wrapping his hands around my waist to help me to my feet. Our eyes meet for the briefest of moments, but neither of us speak.

  I’m surprised by the abrupt change in my response toward the man beside me. Before, I wanted to hurt him and get answers by any means necessary. Now, however, my dream has cast a cloud of doubt over this entire situation. I’m confused, just as he said.

  My feet stumble forward. Despite the fact that the paralytic is no longer raging through my system, my body is still weak as a result of whatever these people injected me with. Although it makes me uncomfortable, and I’m not accustomed to such intimate behavior, I have to rely on Ezra to help me across the room. I lean against him as each awkward step takes us closer to the door.