Chapter 8
Chapter eight
“Bullshit.” The word spewed from Wynn’s mouth.
Confusion-wrapped terror replaced the relief she’d felt after he’d said he wouldn’t hurt her or change her.
There was no way she was Calypson. She didn’t live in a nebula, or have glowing eyes. She’d never traveled to Sector Ten like those who revered Calypsons, those who wanted to escape their lives.
Her heart pounded in her ears. She couldn’t hear anything else as she stared at him, frozen in her indecision to run or fight.
Run where?
There was nowhere to go. The storm raged outside. He blocked both the pulse rifle and the exit.
She’d already tried to call for help. The storm was too severe for the grid to connect to this area. Wynn flexed her hand, the PALM she’d donned feeling tight and restrictive against her skin.
One last message from Asia Prime had imported before everything went offline, and it hadn’t been good.
This storm was the biggest the planet had seen, a hurricane that covered most of New Asia and the Pacific Ocean.
A certain tone laced the beginning of the message, a “Well, we hope we’ve built all the outposts sturdy enough to survive this.
” No help was coming because everyone was in danger. Shelter in place.
She was on her own.
And she was certain there were meteorologists back at the Science Academy shitting themselves with the opportunity to study the phenomenon. They wouldn’t care that she was stuck out here with a person whose eyes glowed and who moved with a speed she could barely track.
Inhuman. The word bounced around in her head, reinforced by the way he held himself, so still the air between them held its breath.
A fresh surge of panic swelled in her throat. Her gaze swept to the outside world, then back to the man. How unhinged was it to get in that hovercart and try to make it to Research Station 214 for help?
What were her other options?
Her thoughts emptied except for what he’d told her. Would believing him be the most idiotic decision of all?
“I want to leave.” She hated how her voice wavered.
He tilted his head, strange eyes glinting, but otherwise remained motionless.
“It is not safe.”
A shiver raced down her spine. When he’d first spoken, his voice had been rough and scratchy. The jagged edges had smoothed some, leaving a deep, gravelly timbre in its wake.
That sense of familiarity rippled through her again, but she was certain she did not know this man. This Calypson.
“I want to leave,” she repeated, her teeth gritted.
“It is not safe.”
Her hands flexed in frustration at her sides. “I’m not safe in here with you. I want to leave.”
His head tilted sharply, like he was surprised. How would I even know that? Did Calypsons experience emotion? What she’d seen of them, of him, made her think otherwise. She swallowed around the dryness in her throat.
“I will not harm you,” he said after a moment.
A disbelieving breath puffed from her lips. “I can’t trust you.”
His spine straightened. “I have done nothing to harm you.”
“You’re stopping me from leaving. That harms me.”
“It is not safe.”
A growl of frustration escaped her, and he tilted his head in the other direction.
“If it weren’t for the storm, would you allow me to leave?”
“Yes. We would both go. I have come to collect you.”
She shook her head in denial. “Not happening. No way in hell. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
His chin tilted at that, but he did not respond. Seconds ticked by while they stared at each other.
“So, what?” she croaked when her skin itched with the need to say something.
“We just hang out until it passes, and then you’ll try to make me go, and I’ll fight you tooth and nail so you don’t?
” His chin lifted, and she swallowed against the dryness in her throat.
“If you force me to go, it doesn’t really follow along with the ‘no harm’ mentality, does it? ”
He rolled his shoulders back. “I will not force you,” he said finally.
A snort left her nose, unbidden. “You won’t convince me to come with you.”
He didn’t react to her statement, didn’t tell her she was wrong, or become more confrontational. They stared at each other, motionless, while rain splattered against the outer decontamination zone door.
Second by second, some of her terror seeped from her body. The clenching of her fists relaxed, and her heart rate slowed.
Could she believe anything he told her?
Boom. A crack of thunder ripped through the building, rumbling the floor beneath her bare feet and making her heart leap into her throat. Every time she thought the strength of the storm might be lessening, it proved her wrong.
He looked upward, as though he could see the violent sky through the ceiling.
“It will be some time before the storm abates,” he said, his voice smoothing out more.
Her jaw flexed as she tried to decipher the statement. “Is that your way of saying there’s enough time to convince me?”
His eyes glinted as he refocused on her. “I do not understand your question.”
She huffed a breath. “No, of course not.” Everything he’d done or said so far was literal. She shook her head. “Never mind.”
Light flashed against the clouds, and another rumble of thunder rippled through the outpost.
He was stuck here like her. No matter who he was or what he was doing here, they couldn’t stare at each other for the duration of the storm. After a day in the fields yesterday, and spending most of the night in the greenhouse, the stiffness in her muscles told her she needed to stretch and move.
And thoughts of her greenhouse made her fidgety. All the work that was meant for two people now landed solely on her. She needed to do something, not just stand here and worry about how he was going to “collect her.”
He’d said he wouldn’t harm her, and he hadn’t.
He’d also said she was Calypson, but that was impossible.
A slow exhale passed between her lips, and she pushed off the wall. He twitched. She froze.
When nothing else happened except more thunder and lightning, she stepped backward into the kitchen.
He stayed in place.
She kept her eyes on him as she took another step, then another. His chin angled downward, but he didn’t advance.
Wynn’s butt hit the kitchen island, and she gripped the counter with both hands by her hips to keep steady.
“How about this?” she said, hating that her voice still shook. “How about I agree not to leave the outpost and you agree not to touch me, or hurt me, or do anything to me at all?”
He tilted his head, then nodded once. “Agreed.”
“And,” she continued before he said the entire word. “You can’t lie to me.”
He straightened. “Agreed.”
“And,” she rushed ahead again, needing this in order to keep her sanity. “Once the storm has abated enough, you will leave, and there will be no more talk about collecting me.”
His quick agreement didn’t come, and her hands tightened on the counter, the edge biting into her skin.
“I cannot agree to that,” he finally said.
Her fingers flexed. “Why not?”
“I have already agreed not to lie.”
A strangled noise emerged from her throat, her heart leaping at his words.
“Then I guess I have time to convince you to leave without me.” She wouldn’t go anywhere with him. Not in a million years.
She thought he would say he couldn’t agree again, but he nodded once. “Agreed. You may try to convince me.”
Even though it seemed irrational, those words relaxed her shoulders and lowered her heart rate. Wynn stared at him, waiting. She didn’t know why, maybe for some sign he would go back on his word, but he didn’t move.
The longer they stared at each other, the more the tension eased from her spine.
“All right,” she said aloud. “Okay.”
She swallowed, making the final decision to trust him at his word, though she might be a fool to do so, and gave him her back to face the kitchen.
The need to do something skittered through her arms and legs.
Lifting her shaky hand, she touched the closures of her UV-suit, unfastening the front, then pulled the neck over her head and back to shimmy out.
She slipped out of the boots, then gathered the bulky material, tossing it on the counter. It would be fine there for now.
Her gaze went to the dispensary on the left. She wasn’t hungry, even though she hadn’t eaten anything yet this morning. Tea.
Ignoring the man whose gaze burned into her spine, she skirted the counter and stopped in front of the dispensary. “Cup of water, hot, teabag number seventy-six on the side.”
A beat of time passed, then the dispensary door opened, shoving the steaming cup on a saucer, the bundle of tea sitting beside it.
Movement rustled behind her, and she tensed. She turned her head and saw him stop at the entrance to the kitchen, but he advanced no farther.
Tossing him a scowl, she grabbed the saucer and headed out of the kitchen, cut across the living room, right past his glasses on the floor, then through the short hallway to the entrance of the greenhouse.
The doors slid open with a whoosh, and the scent of green and dirt washed over her. She aimed for where she’d finished last night, four partial pots of dirt, the germination chamber sitting beside them, its hard silver exterior glinting from the strips of lighting from above.
She probably shouldn’t even be in here because of the chance the glass might crack due to the extreme weather. But if transparent aluminum could withstand conditions in space, then it should withstand this storm.
At least, that was what she kept telling herself as she refocused on her plants. If she didn’t have them to take away that itchy sensation, then she’d fall back on her other source of comfort.
Her hand reflexively went to the scars hidden beneath her shirt, her hand cupping her forearm. She curled her fingers inward, then forced herself to release the pinching sensation.
Not now. Not today. She focused on the germination chamber and opened it up with a swipe of her thumb. The seal released, and the lid popped open, revealing the rows of preserved seeds inside.
She lifted the first transparent packet and separated four seeds to plant in the waiting pots.
Fertilized dirt stuck to her fingers as she pushed them into the loose soil.
Even if the seeds out in the field didn’t live through the storm, at least she had this—months, years, of work she and Foster had accomplished together.
The itchy sensation returned on the heels of thoughts of her friend. Wynn tapped the surface of the counter, found a spaceball game to listen to as she worked, then centered her gaze on the next seed, the next pot.
With all four planted, she set them in their spots on the rotating shelves, pressed the control on the terminal beside her, and they rose in the air, presenting a new row empty of pots.
The door to the greenhouse slid open with a hiss, and Wynn tensed. She didn’t look toward the entrance as soft footfalls headed her way, but focused on retrieving empty pots and a container of soil from beneath the counter.
They clunked onto the work surface a little too hard. She winced, then took a sip of her tea. The heat was perfect, sending a little pain across her tongue, but not enough to scald. Setting the cup back on its saucer, she unstacked the pots until she had six.
The announcers’ voices fell into the background as those footsteps came closer. Her heart pounded louder and louder. Wynn kept her eyes on her hands, on the dirt, on the seeds, and didn’t look until a pair of boots stopped right beside her.
Her fingers stilled, bits of dirt falling to the work surface.
She tipped her chin and scanned upward, along the path of his black-clad legs, past his waist and chest, to his face.
She expected him to be looking at her, but he stared at the worktable with a furrowed brow.
At first she thought he was staring at the spaceball game, but then she followed his line of sight to her tea.
Wynn pursed her lips. Had he never seen tea before? Why wouldn’t he have? What did Calypsons eat, anyway?
Annoyance followed in the wake of her thoughts. She didn’t want to be curious about him. She didn’t want him here, period, but that didn’t make her mind any less inquisitive. Her fingers itched for a scanner, to run it over his body to see if his insides looked as human as his outsides.
Shaking off the urge, she focused on her seeds, planting one, then another, until six pots sat on the shelf and she pressed the button to swap it upward for the next.
She sank into the repetitive nature of the work, allowing her mind to blank. But always after a time, another question would emerge. How old was he? How had he arrived? Why did he want to collect her?
Eventually, he moved off, looking at something else. He paused, then reached toward one sapling. She tensed, about to shout at him to be gentle, but she didn’t need to. His fingers stroked the leaf so gently, it barely moved. A few more steps and he did the same to another.
The farther he walked, the more the tension eased from her shoulders.
But even as he left her alone, she kept her ears open for any sound of him through the clamor of the storm above and the recorded game playing from her work surface.
His footsteps faded to nothing as he reached the far end of the greenhouse, then became louder again as he walked up the other side.
Wynn touched the control to swap out the next row of pots and watched him through the gaps in the shelves. He examined the pots like he’d never seen such a thing, his lips parted and his eyes wide. And perhaps he hadn’t. She knew nothing of Sector Ten. No one did.
The barrier of the work surface and shelves made her bold, and she examined him as thoroughly as he did her work.
Though his eyes glinted in their disquieting way, they appeared kind. Or gentle, at least. She’d thought him expressionless at first, but now she gauged him to be full of curiosity, perhaps even wonder.
Again, a sense of familiarity assaulted her, but in the wake of it surfaced another thought. He’s handsome. An internal curse followed. She didn’t want to find anything about him appealing. If he meant to take her off world, then he was a threat.
A threat who hadn’t yet broken his promises, and looked at a sapling like it held the secrets of the universe.
Her shoulders slumping, she admitted defeat and met his gaze square on.
“What’s your name?”