Already I could tell there was an obvious leader of the group. The one with the golden skin and eyes of cosmic dust. A lion in disguise. Two of them were thrown up a wall. When they pulled themselves up, they reached down to grab the next ones.
The screen artifacted. Skipped forward in time. The smallest of them left behind in the dust attempted to get over the wall. Two of them were still there, watching and laughing. One of charcoal black skin, and a blond with the teeth of a bear. The runt clawed at the wall only to fall repeatedly.
Static. The screen flashed a series of colors cutting through like lightning.
Reynolds cursed under her breath.
When it stopped, the runt was clinging to the edge of the wall, kicking as hard as it could to pull itself up. Fingers were stained black, the liquid spotted along the wall. The charcoal one stomped on its fingers.
“You can’t do it!” The bully snarled. “Why don’t you just die already?!” He stomped again, making the runt let go with one hand.
She quickly clawed at the edge again and pulled herself up a little more.
“Go away!” She screamed.
“Let’s help it!” The blond grinned.
They grabbed the girl by her hair and pulled her over the edge only to proceed to kick her around. She fought back, clawing and snapping at them.
It artifacted again.
The blond laid on the floor at the foot of the wall. The charcoal lizard now locked in combat with the wolf snapping at his face. Black blood was splattered everywhere. The others were yelling, maybe cheering the fight on. A bell sounded, but it did not deter the fighters.
A woman in a white lab coat rushed into view of the camera.
“Stop!” She shouted. “Both of you, stop!”
“Doctor, get back!” A man in blue armor tackled her to the floor. He put his body over hers just in time to stop a blast of flame from scorching her. A shriek came from one of the fighters.
“I need back up,” The man called. “Get back. It’s too dangerous!”
Purple shot across the screen. The sound cut out into an ear piercing ring. It lasted only seconds before it was back on, static keeping the camera fuzzy.
Three men in matching armor were in the middle of the screen. One kept the fiery lizard at bay while the other two dragged the runt away. The doctor stood, covering her mouth. She cried, her body shaking and moving uncontrollably. The wolf gurgled, cried, and howled as it was dragged by its shoulders. Its jaw barely hung unto its face at one side, black blood pouring out. The lizard was not in good shape either. He spat flames at the armored man holding him back.
Reynolds tapped on the screen to rewind it and pause it when the runt was in clear view. She pointed.
“Look, Midi.” She played it back at a quarter of the original speed. “It looks like the wounds are already healing!”
Beep! Boop! Beep!
“I know, it can’t be possible! It shouldn’t be.”
“Where did you get this footage?” I asked.
Reynolds nearly jumped straight out of her seat. She yelped and covered her mouth.
“Oh, my god. Liam! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” She hit me in the arm.
I laughed. “If you would have answered the door...I heard screaming, thought you were in trouble.”
“No. I’m fine.” She took a breath.
“So, how’d you get it?”
She cleared her throat and looked away. “It’s not like they would have given it to me if I asked.”
“You stole it?”
“You guys kept them busy long enough for me to download their entire database!” She smiled. “Did you know they recorded everything? Not a single second went unrecorded. Every room has a complete three-sixty view.”
“Kind of creepy.” That did not sit well in my stomach.
“Under normal circumstances, I agree. This though...The children had to be watched. All thoughts and ideas had to be logged. It looks like Dr. Schreider kept a vlog as well. I haven’t looked into it yet, it’s password locked.”
I wasn’t sure what to do with this information. The video sat in the back of my head in a funny way. It almost looked like a movie. Like it wasn't real at all. I shook my head.
“I actually had a couple questions for you if you have a moment.” Right now I needed to focus on something more important. I knew she would tell us any information once she was ready.
“Of course!” She smiled. I could see the exhaustion in her eyes.
“We’re prepping for B-58, and I was wondering if you knew of an---”
“We’re going to B-58?! Really?! That’s amazing! Maybe I can get a live eos as a sample!”
I held a hand to stop her. “Hold on. I don’t know anything about that. I just want to know if I need medical supplies for the medics. I don’t want anyone getting sick, or dying of an infection because they got injured.”
“You’ll need a lot of stuff.” She said, “I can make a list for you.”
“Thanks. That’ll help. Make sure you have a list for the hospital, too. We’re returning to Solstice to prepare.”
“Wonderful! Is there anything else?” She looked back to the screen.
“One more thing.” I grabbed the edge of the desk to pull myself around. “Did I tell you about this...smoke Fenris produces?”
“He produces smoke?”
“Apparently he does. It’s dangerous as well. When we got Ianisse, he used it on the ravens. They all bled from...everywhere and choked to death. I was hoping you would be able to come up with something we could use to protect ourselves from it.”
“If Fenris gives me a sample, I might be able to. You may be best suited to using a closed air system though.”
“Those don’t last, but an hour, or two. If we can even breathe the air on B-58, I’d like to conserve that best we can.”
She grinned, and poked my chest. “You’re still afraid because of the last time!”
“No! I’m...I’m just being reasonable.”
THIRTY
I didn't see Fenris again until we got to Solstice. I expected the valkyrie to have been sent out to work by Reaper. Which made plenty of sense. Ever since the warp jump failure, Fenris had pretty much stayed with me. For someone who did not generally have friends, I grew accustomed to his presence. My room was a void. A cold, empty space. I couldn't stand the silence. The white noise. The soft clicks and beeps of the machines. It made my entire world feel lonely. Even though I focused on making a supplies list, I turned to whiskey to drown out the silence. The quiet voices whispering in the back of my mind. Reminding me of all my past failures.
When I saw Fenris again, I found him down at the nuclear core. Sleeping where I had first found him. He looked so alone. Cold, he pressed into the platform closest to the core.
"Fen?" I slowly approached him. No one else seemed to be around.
His lights off, he gave me no reaction.
He always responded….
"Fen, wake up." I touched his shoulder.
Crimson light bathed the floor beneath his frame. His head dragged to look up at me. My chest felt tight.
"What are you doing down here?"
"Waiting."
"We're back at Solstice."
"Time I walked." He sat up, scratching his belly.
My eyes narrowed. "You mean leave?" My chest tightened to the point it was hard to breathe.
"Yes." He stood.
"Why? What happened to going to B-58?"
"Will go still. Not with Syndicate." He stepped right by me.
I was at a loss for words. Just like that, he was leaving? No reason? Maybe I didn’t do enough for him. Maybe he felt unwelcomed. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. The air felt cold as ice. The room was starting to feel much smaller.
I ran after him and grabbed his elbow. Something pricked into my skin, so I quickly recoiled. A glance to my hand showed blood trickling down, first from a series of thin cuts, then it followed the creases of my palm an
d down my wrist.
Fenris turned halfway to look at me.
"Shit…" I hissed. I held my hand close. "Why are you leaving?"
He was silent. He rolled his shoulders to make his cloak drape over his arms as if it would protect me from that armor, or maybe protect him from me. Did he really not trust me anymore?
"You owe me an answer!" I shouted, using my officer’s voice.
He answered by turning to walk away. So, I grabbed him by the forearm with the same injured hand. I squeezed tight, biting back the pain of those razors digging into my skin. Fire coursed through the bones of my hand. Hard to focus on him, everything around me slowly engulfed in shadows. The room was so small now. It felt like a horse kicked me in the chest. Worse than a knife in the back.
Fenris didn't move. Not so much as a twitch of a muscle.
"Well? Answer me!" I glared. "You suddenly don't have the balls to tell it how it is?"
"This why." His voice was soft, crackling with a strained growl.
"What do you mean?" Was I too rough? Maybe I yelled too much, or drank too much.
Fenris was quiet for a moment. The lights on his face concentrated at the lowest portions.
I waited, still squeezing through the pain. The questions raced through my mind.
When I blinked, Fenris suddenly snapped. A starving wolf bit the air in front of me, the arm I held barely moving at all. If anything, I was hurting myself the longer and tighter I held. I didn’t care though. If his armor cut my hand apart, then it would be worth every drop of blood and spark of fiery pain.
Lips curled back to show off those wicked teeth. A growl turned snarl made my blood run cold. Fur stood tall. That cloak seemed to hover off the ground. The black wolf loomed over me, his nose a mere inch from my face. My teeth chattered til I clenched my jaw. My breath caught in my throat.
I had never felt so small. The shadows crept around me. Dark vines jutted out like daggers, coming right for me as they had in the past.
"Don't need you." He snarled. His voice rattled through my bones. "Worthless! Pathetic!" His lower jaw quivered, twisted, and snapped side to side. His voice was all I could hear. He looked ready to cage my head between those foul teeth.
I swallowed hard. Trembled. He was all I could see in the darkness, those crimson lights bathing him in a bloodthirsty silhouette. I should have ran. Every fiber of my muscles screamed to get the hell out of this place. Yet I dug my nails into the plates of his armor.
Fenris moved closer. Vicious claws clicking against the floor. His jaws cracked shut and opened again. It mimicked snapping bones and churned my stomach.
"Burden! Weak! You are nothing."
I bit my lip. Held my breath. I almost believed him. Maybe I really was nothing, but I wasn’t weak. I wasn’t a burden.
"Liar." I choked out. "You don't actually think that."
I still didn't budge. Didn't let go. My chest ached with each beat of my heart.
"I'm not afraid of you." I lied.
I took a breath. I kept focusing on his mouth. Those teeth scraped against one another with the subtle sound of scratching metal. Why would anything need that many teeth? My hair stood on end.
"You can't just walk out like you were never here! Of all the shit we've been through! Why would you go through so much trouble just to leave?!" I squeezed tighter, wincing at the pain.
Another moment of silence. Without a sign of me letting go, Fenris soon moved again. I knew I couldn't stop the valkyrie.
The wolf came for me with a ferocity I had not actually seen before. A wild animal cornered and afraid. Desperate to survive. Fenris ripped from my grasp. My hand throbbed like fire slicing through the skin. I didn’t even see what happened next.
On the floor, I stared wide-eyed up at the wolf. His teeth snapped right in front of my face. I shut my eyes, expecting my neck to snap next.
This is it. I thought. This is how I die?
This wasn’t right. This wasn’t Fenris.
"Goddammit! What's wrong with you?!" I shouted. "We're friends, Fenris!" Those teeth were too close for comfort.
I watched his lower jaw peel downward with the squishy sound of stretching muscle. Wider. Wider. It was like looking into the mouth of a snake about to swallow me whole. I scratched at the floor, wanting to pull myself backwards. I couldn’t move. My body refused to do anything, but stare. The crimson light shined against the roof of his mouth. I swear there was a third jaw with perfect saw-like teeth. His hot breath washed over me and for once I couldn’t smell it.
Fucking do something, you idiot! I screamed in my head.
Instead of running away, I grabbed onto him. The biggest teeth that I could safely grab without getting hurt by the other ones.
"You're really gonna kill me? After claiming you don't hurt humans!"
Fenris answered with a snarl. I gagged at his breath.
His claws dug into the metal floor at either of my sides. The floor crumpled like cloth under the pressure. He started shaking his head, dragging me across the floor with it.
"Let go." He snarled.
"Fuck you!" I immediately retorted.
Then it clicked in my head. Fenris wasn't trying to hurt me. He didn't want to eat me. He was just trying to scare me. Force me away. I knew that tactic. In a miserable world filled with liars, and cheaters, it was best to be alone. To avoid the extra pain of betrayal and loss.
"What are you afraid of?" My voice cracked.
He stopped moving.
I pulled on his teeth to lower his hollow nose from my face. I looked him in the eye.
"You think we're just gonna die out there, don't you? You think it'll be your fault."
The lights shifted, trickled downward like rain.
"You fucking bastard." I snapped. "That's not how this works! You can't try to scare your friends away!" I pulled his teeth more, bringing his face closer. Some of them poked into my chest, easily piercing through my clothes.
"If there is anything humanity is good at, it’s surviving. It’s beating the odds. Humans can adapt and overcome any situation. Just like we did in the war. You know we only just got here, right?" I pulled more. "We fought in the unknown against a force that, honestly, should have wiped us out. A lot of us fucking died, but they paved the way for the rest of us to overcome."
I took a deep breath. Fenris didn't look much calmer. He was still growling. Claws still scratching at the floor.
I thought about that video I saw before. The clip of the children fighting. I remembered what Eight said. Fenris was abused all his life. Outcasted and treated like a monster.
I couldn't deny there was a monstrous side. Everyone had one.
"You're...you're not a monster." I said softly. "You've never had a friend before. I know what it's like. To be alone...to have no one to care for you. I know that feeling."
My fingers slowly loosened.
"You don't have to be on your own anymore, Fenris. You don't have to do this alone."
The wolf sat back, keeping his head low. His eyes still trickled downward. He didn’t look so bloodthirsty anymore. Instead he just looked...pitiful.
I wrapped my arms around the valkyrie's snout, pulling him in close. His forehead came to rest against mine. Pricked by his teeth, I didn't care at all. The pain was worth it.
Fenris was quiet, his eyes dimming. He let me hold him for as long as I wanted.
With a soft breath, I said, "I don't want to lose you, too."
All lists had been submitted to Reaper that same morning. He checked them and handed them off to the logistics Lieutenant. Now he just had to wait. They would stay here for as long as they needed to. Upgrading the ship was easiest while it was docked. Granted zero gravity meant less energy would be used when moving the larger objects around.
Having found out about the data Reynolds downloaded from Avant-Garde, he tasked her with figuring out as much about the eos as possible before they would leave Solstice.
A great mistake in the war, he noticed
, was the lack of understanding the enemy. When the war first started, humanity took a drastic loss. They had not even mastered space travel, yet they were forced to fight in it.
He did not want to make that mistake again. He knew they could beat the eos back, whatever they were.
He decided a glass of liquor would be a good idea before he ate his dinner. He retreated to his office. Already there were notifications on his computer. New additions to the ship stock. He scrolled through them, reading the notes if there were any.
One glass in, Reaper kicked back. A new ping showed up. This time it beeped incessantly. He half expected it to be Jackal calling him. When he looked, he nearly jumped out of his seat.
He hit the button to pick it up and dropped his feet to the floor.
"Captain Phillips!" Came a fairly cheery voice. The screen showed the camera of the man on the other end. A well decorated Admiral.
"I hope I'm not calling you too late in the evening." A professional smile.
"No, Admiral, it's never too late." Reaper returned the smile.
"I must confess, I didn't call you for chit chat, I have an important assignment I believe only you could handle."
"What's the mission, sir?"
"We've received intel about a Garchtan who has gone AWOL. A soldier known as The White Death due to her white armor which starkly contrasts Garchtun's orange and yellow standard issue."
"Why would she go AWOL? Isn't Garchtun one of the wealthier nations?"
"It seems she was involved in a classified mission. She killed her own squad and each person that has gone after her."
"This sounds like a serious problem."
"I want you to find her. Apprehend her. This is a great opportunity for us to extend an olive branch."
Reapers eyes averted from the camera. Of course something would come up to delay their trip. He couldn't decline, not if the Admiral was personally choosing him.
"Are you lacking confidence?" The admiral questioned.
"No, sir! I was hoping to continue an investigation." He wanted to choose his words carefully. His hesitation to keep speaking gave the Admiral a chance to stop his train of thought.
"I haven't gotten word of any investigation. Is it related to the eldiravan?"
The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1) Page 25