Inside

by Kyra Anderson

  Getting off the table as slowly as possible, I moved closer, glancing at his wrist.

  It was six in the morning.

  Surely Dana was there.

  I looked around the lab, my eyes settling on the door the scientists had exited through. Then, I looked at the other door, the one at the back of the lab.

  I wanted to see him.

  I moved to the door and opened it, peering through the crack to see what was beyond. A hallway leading to another closed door lay ahead. Slipping into the dark passage, I closed the door behind me and moved to the next, slinking to the door and opening it.

  A familiar sight greeted me. I saw the massive room with rows and rows of glass-front cells. I could see some of the humans in the holding cells moving around restlessly, newer to the Commission. Others were out of sight, likely sitting or lying on the bunk beds that I had seen when I had broken out prisoners an eternity ago.

  I cast glances in all directions, looking for guards. There was one to my right, his back turned as he walked the other direction.

  I moved out of the hallway and gently closed the door behind me, my eyes forward as I crept along the cold hallway, ignoring the incredulous looks of those in the holding cells.

  A feeling stopped me as I approached one of the hallways. After one moment used to analyze the feeling, I ducked into the hallway next to me and pressed myself to the corner of the cell, peeking around the edge.

  I was acutely aware of all the people gathered close to me, banging on the sound-proof glass, trying to get my attention.

  Ignoring them as best as possible with my hyper-sensitivity, I spotted one of the black-clad guards leaving the hallway I had almost passed by. He turned, walking to the next hall, his back to me the entire time.

  Finally paying attention to the four humans in the cells I was pressing against, I studied their desperate expressions. They looked horrified, desperate, begging and pleading with me through the glass to release them, even though I could not hear their cries.

  They looked ridiculous, silently yelling, begging to be set free, their faces contorted in fright…it was a funny sight.

  I smiled, turned, and left, ignoring the other cells who were repeating the silly dance against the glass wall of their cages.

  Moving as silently as a breeze, I made my way to the end of the room, keeping my senses open to where the guards in the holding cells were likely hiding. My bare feet moved easily over the smooth cement.

  When I was at the last row of cells, I stopped, carefully peering around the corner and seeing the guard posted at the door into the car elevators.

  It was six in the morning. I somehow knew that the Sweeps teams were asked to report back at five-thirty, which meant that the teams had had time to clear out of the car elevators and were probably sleeping.

  I lifted my fist to the wall and angrily pounded on the thick concrete five times, attracting the attention of the guard and causing him to run closer. With a smile, I danced around the other side, running up the aisle, through the gallery of comical startled faces in the holding cells and running to the door, sliding through it easily.

  When the door was closed behind me, I remained still, my back facing the hallway that led into the room with the car elevators. I listened intently for any movement in the next section of my course.

  Positive I had heard nothing, I turned and, just as quietly as before, moved through the larger hallway, not caring if the cameras caught my movement. I located the shelving unit I remembered in remarkable clarity from a distant dream.

  Ah, there you are…

  I pulled the shelves away from the wall and slid behind them, entering the small, dark, cold hallway, sealing myself in as I pulled the shelves back to the proper place.

  I could not stop the smile pulling at the corners of my mouth.

  This was too easy…

  I moved to the other door and pushed it, looking into the dark Records room. It looked exactly the same as it had before, but I still did not entirely recognize it. I remembered flashes of faces and information, files pulled from dusty cabinets in my memory, but the room itself had etched no particular images in my brain.

  I pushed the filing cabinet back into place, looking around at the rest of the room, trying to recall the path.

  Barely seeing a door around one set of shelves, I tilted my body to get a better look. There was a door across from where I was standing, so I moved closer, looking it over once before reaching for the handle.

  I stopped, feeling a pulse from the metal. It was alive…

  The door was pulsing with the electric sensors that would trip and send an alarm through the entire building if opened without proper clearance.

  I retreated.

  Taking my time and acutely sensing for any changes in temperature or air movement, I moved around the crowded space. I vaguely remembered another passage…

  I stopped, turning to another filing cabinet. With a smile, I reached to the floor, pulling a latch on the back of the cabinet, releasing the door and opening up another hallway.

  Giggling like a child, I moved into the dark corridor, sealing it, and moving to the bottom of the other door, finding the latch with no trouble, and sliding the book shelf to the side on its tracks.

  I stepped into the huge library of the Commission of the People and could not help but look around in awe. There was something beautiful about it. I did not realize it was a library. I felt as though I had stepped into a work of art, as if someone had gone through and painstakingly arranged the striped of colors in each of the outlined boxes on the walls, creating a masterpiece of colors.

  Enthralled, I left the open passageway and walked through the ground floor, looking at the books. There was a type of feeling I had never experienced before when looking at physical books. Libraries were almost all electronic now, apart from some universities and government libraries, but looking at the physical copies, I felt something far more profound, something deep, filled with various emotions that clashed together just outside the spines.

  The room was electrifying.

  I got a spark of something in the back of my mind, and I remembered that I needed to see him.

  I started toward the door that I remembered, when I caught sight of the gaping black mouth I had left open. Unsettled by the blackness in a room filled with such intense colors, I closed the passageway, nodding in satisfaction when the black abyss had been covered.

  I continued on my mission, trying not to be distracted by the adorned shelves.

  I opened the door leading to an empty hallway and smiled. This was familiar territory.

  I had to see him.

  If it had been another time…if I had not been on the table so often…if I had never been submitted to the T-Team, I might have been frightened by my desire to see the man who had captured me and promised to break me, but I was not frightened. I needed to be with him.

  I could not explain it.

  It was a longing for someone to understand me. Like on school trips in my other life as a child and the only thing I wanted to do was go home, back to my parents and to those who felt comfortable.

  That was the desire I felt in needing Dana.

  As I approached his office door, my feet quiet on the carpet, I halted, feeling something off about the situation.

  Dana was not alone.

  Someone was in there with him…

  I dropped to a crouch, inching forward, wondering who was with the leader of the Commission. I pressed my hand to the cold metal of the door handle and slowly pulled, feeling the metal slide along the latch and release the door. Carefully, I pushed the door inward and pressed my face to the crack.

  There was no one in sight, so I pushed the door further, carefully maneuvering myself to peer around the other area of Dana’s office. Dana was walking over to a woman. She caught my attention immediately.

  She was beautiful, and it was not just her vibrant auburn hair, or the perfect curve of her hips that were hugged by the
pencil skirt, or the way her back dipped slightly at the waistband before curving into a beautiful slope ending at gentle shoulders. It was the entire feeling she had about her. It was warm, comforting, yet powerful and intoxicating. Like Dana’s presence, only not as electric.

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?” Dana murmured, a smile in his voice. He was dancing with her. He was practicing that seductive waltz that no one could refuse. I shivered in anticipation, eager to watch.

  Dana stepped closer and stood directly behind her as she remained by his table, his hands not touching her. She lifted a picture. Eyna’s picture.

  “It is,” she admitted. Her voice was pure, powerful, and beautiful, rolled into a symphony of sounds that caused me to shiver.

  She turned to face Dana and my breath caught in my throat. She was as radiant as the sun. Her skin was smooth and perfect, her wide eyes a light hazel, dancing with a fire that matched Dana’s intense gaze. She was alluring, and surprisingly composed considering her close proximity to the leader of the Commission. She was staring directly into his eyes and no part of her was overwhelmed.

  “But don’t you think you are messing with something that you really shouldn’t?” she asked, strong, powerful against Dana’s influence.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, you’ve created an entirely new species, stronger than man and animal,” she elaborated. How was she not affected by him? I looked over her body, over the curve of her beautifully round breasts under the blouse to the tight cinch of her waist and out over those hips that led down into toned, smooth legs and back up to her perfect face, mirroring Dana’s movement as he looked her over. He was trying to dominate her, loom over her, make her react. But she was a rock, staring at him as though he was doing nothing out of the ordinary.

  “You’re playing God,” she finished.

  “I would never think to do something like that,” Dana chuckled with his voice of honey. “Merely testing the limits of humans…seeing how powerful they can become…”

  His hand rested at her hip and my body jolted at the touch, knowing that she would do the same. She did not. She was still and silent, watching Dana, at ease and still completely in power. I was getting excited as I watched them. She did not seem surprised or even concerned when Dana’s hand moved from making small circles over her hip to snake around her back and pull her to him, almost crushing their pelvises together. My breath caught in my throat and I bit back a whine.

  “It’s…intoxicating.”

  “You’re addicted to power,” the woman stated matter-of-factly.

  I blinked at her, shocked and intrigued. This woman was very strong. If she did not find Dana attractive and was not responding to his sexual advances, I would assume she was a lesbian, but even a lesbian would have felt overpowered by his presence, dominated and weak…this woman was in complete control and Dana was enjoying the challenge.

  “What about you?” he purred. “What gets your engine going?”

  I watched his hand move from her back to her hip again before tracing down her right thigh to the bottom of the skirt, his eyes locked on hers as she remained still and silent. I saw his fingers brush her thigh. Was her skin as smooth as it looked?

  “You’re very warm, Miss Harris,” Dana whispered, his voice wet with seduction.

  Still, she did nothing. She was silent, impervious to his powers of seduction and dominance. His fingers stole under the skirt and my body reacted, my back straightening, watching each new patch of skin revealed as his fingers continued on their path, pulling the skirt up. But that flawless, taught thigh became marred with dark ink, swirling over her skin. I blinked, surprised to see her with such a large a tattoo. Dana seemed just as fascinated as he pushed the skirt up and revealed more.

  It was a serpent-like tail…

  And back legs…

  A red dragon, spiraling over the expanse of her taught skin, the head and wings most likely spread over her ribcage. Dana smiled when he recognized the animal and glanced up at her eyes, his hand moving further to bunch the skirt at her hip. The tattoo was very bright and I longed to rip the clothes off of her and see the dragon in its entirety. The tattoo was meticulously done. It looked real, as though there was a dragon resting against her thigh, spiraling up her side, hiding under the confines of the fabric still covering her body.

  I heard the air move over Dana’s teeth as he opened his mouth to speak, his eyes focused on the tattoo, but the breath halted and I looked at his face to see what was wrong. From his profile, I could see his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. I blinked, wondering what he was seeing that I could not. His hand moved away from her, quick, as though he had been bitten. He backed away three steps, his face turning to hers.

  His entire demeanor changed.

  Dana was afraid.

  He was overwhelmed. There was something about the woman that made Dana’s instincts react and tell him to get away. He looked like a cornered animal, desperately looking for a way out without upsetting the approaching predator.

  The woman watched, unwavering, knowing the effect she had on him.

  “The power you have is over a very small world, Mr. Christenson,” she whispered darkly. “In the grand scheme of things, you are very small indeed.”

  “What do you want?” Dana snapped.

  There! That was fear in his voice!

  “I want to follow the progress of the Machine of Neutralization project,” she said, standing straight from her leaning position on the table and pushing the skirt to cover the bottom of the vibrant tattoo. “I want to see what you have created, because I want to try and stop the destruction you will unleash on this world.”

  “Humans have already done a good job of that,” Dana hissed.

  “It’s true, and perhaps there is nothing I can do to stop what is about to happen,” she shrugged. The woman took a step forward and Dana immediately retreated, his shoulders stiff, alert, ready to defend himself. “So, Mr. Christenson, at most, I will be sure that when humans escape to the new planetary system, you will not join them. You will stay and be prey to what you have created.”

  Both were still, staring at one another. The woman nodded to the door, her eyes never leaving Dana’s.

  “You have a visitor.”

  Dana turned slowly and I shied away from his eyes, expecting him to be angry. However, he looked surprised and slightly amused.

  “Well, if it isn’t Little Lily.” He walked to me, Veronica also turning her eyes to me. I shied behind the door further. “What are you doing here?” Dana asked tenderly, as if I was a small child who had climbed out of bed in the middle of the night to see a parent. He reached his hand out and I took it, following his guide as he pulled me to my feet and into the office.

  As I stepped in, I let go of his hand and wrapped my arms around his waist, holding him and pressing my head to his chest. He chuckled, and I heard the rich sound move through the cavity of his ribs.

  “Veronica Harris, meet little Lily Sandover,” Dana introduced, moving us to the middle of the office, across from Veronica. I was closer to her now, and all I wanted to do was explore everything about her. Until I was standing in front of her, with my arms around Dana, I did not realize that her presence in the room was overpowering Dana’s influence. It was incredible to feel the clashing of such intense energy.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lily,” Veronica greeted. I shivered. With that voice directed at me, I felt myself go weak in the knees. I pulled myself away from Dana and moved closer, looking her over carefully, fascinated by something I could not see, but could feel acutely. There was something about her that was otherworldly, far too powerful to be described in words.

  I did not take into account her puzzled expression as she watched me. She looked between me and Dana, her hazel eyes revealing slight confusion that only could be seen along the edge of the vibrant energy in her eyes.

  When I was right in front of her, close enough to feel the heat rolling off her body, I stopped and shive
red again, this time in anticipation of touching her.

  Slowly, my hand reached out and rested on her arm. I was surprised by the incredible warmth of her skin. She did not flinch away from my touch, though her body language suggested uncertainty about how to react.

  I pressed myself closer, my hand running up her arm and to her shoulder, pulling her even closer as I pressed the length of my body against hers. The warmth that engulfed me made my eyes close in bliss. There was something incredible and calming about her presence, but even in that calm, I found an intense excitement at being so close. Dana had a feeling of energy and movement, while Veronica was energetic and stable, like a warm fire, contained, controlled, and necessary for survival.

  My hand moved up her neck to her face, gently tracing the contours of her high cheek bones as I looked at her long eyelashes and perfectly shaped nose. There was no way a human being could be so perfectly crafted…Her beauty even overpowered Dana’s.

  My other hand reached to her shoulder and I rose up onto my toes, my body sliding along hers. Even with the fabric covering both of us, the sensation was surprisingly tactile.

  My hand went to her soft, full auburn hair, pressing it to my face and taking a deep breath.

  The hand on the back of my collar pulling me away was the most horrific thing I had ever experienced. I let out a whine, eager to return to my exploration of the powerful woman.

  “You’ll have to forgive her, Miss Harris,” Dana smiled, putting his arm around my shoulders and keeping me at bay even as I looked over her longingly. “She’s just starting out. You know how they are when they’re young.”

  “I’m sure I don’t…” she said. “She seems to be very similar to you,” she noted. There was a spark of fear in my gut at the words, but I could not place what about the statement worried me. I cocked my head to the side, trying to understand the meaning behind her observation.

  “Well, we’re working on it,” Dana said. He looked at me and rubbed his hand over my shoulder. “However, we’re making great progress if she managed to get all the way here without detection.”