Chapter 41
Chapter forty-one
It was the silence that kept getting to her.
Wynn thought she knew solitude. After working at her outpost, both with Foster and alone, she knew what quiet meant. But there was something unnerving about the silence of this place.
Corridor after corridor, they encountered nothing but a quiet hush and increasingly peculiar plants.
Having Iax beside her helped stave off the panic that might have wanted to take hold—him, and the continual swirl of questions in her head.
Every time something distracted her, like hostile foliage, it wasn’t long before she circled back to her outrage.
But the sight before her whisked it away, and she didn’t know where to look.
At the transparent dome above, revealing a view of the nebula that she could stare at for hours?
Or at how that dark, organic-like construction material was here too, surging out of the bulkheads covered in leaves, twisting up and through the plants and trees?
Or the viewers that seemed to grow out of those same trees, like heavy, electronic appendages too big for their branches?
Or at the massive tree that took up the middle of the space, twisting and twirling on itself, with branches thicker than her body and a trunk that she wouldn’t be able to wrap her arms around?
Or, most disconcertingly, the four people standing together near the center of the space, right next to it?
Wynn’s feet halted, and she swallowed around the nerves in her throat. Not people, Calypsons, right out of the history banks, just like Iax had said: Leon Sweeney, Heath Wiseman, Miri Bondar, and Briar Galloway.
They all wore matching bland expressions, and clothing that resembled what Iax had worn when he arrived at her outpost, black garb in that mesh-like material.
Now Wynn saw similarities between it and the bands of dark growth that had woven themselves through the bulkheads of the Calypso. Three of them had bare feet.
Wynn’s eyes landed on the woman standing in the middle of the group and stayed there as Iax tugged her forward, his fingers linked with hers. Everything was quiet, but for the soft whooshing of air swaying the leaves on the trees, even more aggressively near the top of the biodome.
Her heart pounded in her head as the space between them and the four Calypsons diminished. With each step closer, the knot in Wynn’s stomach grew and hardened. She squeezed Iax’s fingers, and he returned the gesture.
They stopped a handful of meters away from the group who stood as still as statues. Briar Galloway’s unnerving stare captured Wynn, freezing her beneath the warm glow of the synth lights.
Whenever Calypsons communicated outside of Sector Ten, it was Galloway who did the talking—brief though it always was.
A sour taste coated the back of Wynn’s tongue.
This was the woman she had seen in her memories.
And if Galloway was the person in charge, then she was the one who put Wynn on that ship with the other kids.
Heath Wiseman stood beside her, as he always did in those communications. Second in command, he stood taller by a few inches.
On Galloway’s left stood Captain Sweeney, and like the rest of them, he hadn’t aged a day since setting off on their mission so long ago. If possible, he looked even younger than his personnel records from the Calypso’s manifest. He was the only one wearing shoes, boots like Iax had worn.
Lastly, Dr. Miri Bondar stood on the far right. She’d been the head geologist on the Calypso’s original mission, and Briar Galloway’s best friend by all accounts.
The silence between them grew as the seconds ticked by, echoing louder than weapons fire. A sense of waiting, of expectation, grew along with the emotions churning in Wynn’s stomach. She flexed her hand in Iax’s.
“You will speak your thoughts aloud,” he finally said, the sound jarring in the hushed atmosphere. “So Dr. Wynn Lambdin can understand as well.”
Her eyes snapped to him, then returned to The Four. They’d been speaking with each other this entire time?
A cold emotion bloomed in her chest. These people could say whatever they wanted to each other, about her, and she would never know the difference. She had never felt more like an outsider than she did right now—in the place of her origin.
She accepted it, what Iax had told her at her outpost, about what she’d seen when mentally tortured in that white box. As peculiar as this place was, there was also something familiar about it. As much as she hadn’t wanted to come here, it felt like the place she was supposed to be.
And they’d sent her away. Discarded her like garbage.
Her grip on Iax’s hand tightened.
Finally, one of them spoke. “Your state of mind has turned volatile,” Galloway said, her voice rough and unused.
It took a moment for Wynn to realize Galloway wasn’t speaking to her. All four of them stared at Iax.
“You have returned changed,” Sweeney said a moment later, a hint of inflection in his voice, something close to censure. Wynn probably wouldn’t have noticed except for spending so much time with Iax.
Her gaze swung from him to the others, then stayed on Iax.
“I am angry,” he said aloud, his shoulders tense and his hand rigid in hers.
A length of silence followed the statement, filling the gap between them with something that pulsed and writhed.
“What creates this anger?” Wiseman asked, his head tilting to the side.
“That you sent her away those many years ago, she and others, when they deserved to be cared for. Like all Calypsons.”
Wynn gripped his hand in both of hers and looked up into Iax’s face.
He stared The Four down like he prepared to battle, like he would fight them all for her.
Wynn’s own ire shifted and morphed. To know that Iax felt the same way as she, that he stood beside her, against his own people, his leaders, soothed some of the bitter emotions that burned in her chest.
“Being away from us has tainted you,” Sweeney said with a tilt of his head.
“Humans have tainted you,” Bondar agreed.
Instinctively, Wynn stepped forward, ready for a fight. “He is not tainted. Stop saying that.” She kept hold of his fingers, and he stepped up beside her. “He cares.”
And maybe it was the first time he had. Because he could feel her emotions, he must have experienced new ones of his own. The evidence was right in front of her the longer they spent in each other’s company.
Wynn swallowed. “I don’t care what weird-ass shit you’ve learned to grow in this place. You can’t control what people feel, even if you want to.”
Iax’s fingers squeezed hers, and she stepped into his warmth. No one reacted to her declaration. The Four continued to stare at them in their disconcerting way.
“We can only hope,” Galloway continued after a minute, like Wynn hadn’t interjected, “the others sent with similar tasks will remain stronger than you.”
“Similar tasks?” The statement slapped against Wynn like a physical thing. Her fingers tightened around Iax’s. “You mean you’ve sent people after the others?” Her gaze bounced between them. “Did you send more people to Earth?”
Her questions rang out, then dropped like stones, unanswered.
If she’d surprised them with her knowledge of the others, they didn’t show it.
A silence stretched and morphed into something uncomfortable.
She looked up at Iax and swallowed around the lump in her dry throat.
Would he explain better? If not here, then when they had a moment of privacy?
A stormy expression gathered on his face, his frown intensifying as he stared at The Four. “I requested for you to speak aloud,” Iax said after a minute, the sentence harsh, reminding Wynn of his mood during her rescue on the Corvus. She shivered.
Another lengthy silence followed before Galloway tipped her head and said, “Leave us.”
Wynn’s stomach swooped with the force of the command. It took her a second to realize they meant to send Iax away. A protest rose at the back of her throat, but before she could voice it, Iax’s denial shot out like a weapon’s blast.
“No.”
It hung there between them, resonating long after the sound faded.
Wynn’s heart pounded, and she stepped closer, until the length of her arm pressed up against his.
“You once followed orders.” This came from Captain Sweeney, the same censure from earlier bleeding through again.
Iax lifted his chin. “It is Wynn whom I follow now.”
The Four’s heads snapped back at the same time. Wynn’s heart soared to hear those words. His loyalty meant everything.
Affection, gratitude, and love for him swelled.
He’d stuck with her, rescued her, not just because of the orders these people had given him, but because he’d needed to.
Did he understand how rare that was? Putting someone else first?
Even Foster, who she would have considered her closest friend, had ulterior motives.
Wynn turned to face him fully and took his other hand in hers to entwine their fingers.
He’d told her he could sense her emotions.
Could he feel this too? Had he felt it even before, when they were making love?
Maybe even sooner than that? She swallowed around the lump of emotions clogging her throat.
Did he feel the same way?
“That means a lot to me,” she said, her voice tight. “I would follow you, too.”
That was all she would say when they had an audience.
With a last squeeze of his fingers, she stepped in front of him, her back to his chest, to lean against him. His hands settled on her shoulders.
The Four’s eyes narrowed in unison, glinting eerily in the synth lights shining overhead.
“Whatever your reason for wanting me here,” Wynn said, her voice raised and firm. “I’m not going to cooperate if you force Iax to leave.”