Page 19 of Rebirth

I tilt my head, considering. Her boldness is…unanticipated. “It was foolish to follow me here.”

Her throat moves. Such soft skin covering one of her weakest spots. The vein her people call the jugular thrums so clearly I can see it. Just one nick. An errant claw at the wrong place, the wrong time, and she would be gone.

Still, she turns to face me, not running away from the proximity, our bodies brushing, her strange garments over my ba’clan. And they shiver—a reaction I store away for later scrutiny.

“I’m beginning to believe it was foolish to do a lot of things, but I suppose, yes, I am a scientist, and standing by while the world erupts or is burned to ashes isn’t something I could do for long. So I came here. And now, I don’t know if I can leave.” Her eyes dart behind me. “What is this place?”

I hesitate, torn between ire at her intrusion and strange pride in her fearlessness. “My laboratory. You should not be here.”

My warning falls on air as her gaze moves over the room.

“There is nothing in here.” Eyes with too much intelligence meet mine. “Where do you do your experiments? If we are to work together—”

I surprise myself for I am the one that moves away.

Experiments.

Working together.

Neither will occur.

“You waste your time. Your people have given you false hope. My work is finished here.” And then the rest I must not say out loud. That I have given everything I can and if I continue, I might lose the last bit of myself that remains.

A slight shiver across my spine, my ba’clan moving like a wave, alerts me to the fact the female has approached my back.

Has she no sense of survival?

Prey approaching the predator from the rear, I almost expect her to wield a weapon at me, but all I’m faced with when I look over my shoulder are eyes that burn with fire as red as the filaments on her head.

Anger. She is feeling anger.

And something else.

I sniff.

Not fear, when there should be. But, instead, anxiety. She is curious. Curious to know something.

“I saw it,” she says. “I saw what you were looking for.”

My head tilts, ears perking off the sides of my head as I face her fully.

When I wait for her to continue, her lips press into a thin line.

“The veins! I saw them.” Her throat moves as she turns, hands on her hips as she paces a few steps away from me before turning around to face me again. “What are they?”

My eyes narrow slightly as I take her in.

So…she dug further than I did. Found the thing that was calling me. Knows of the presence still crawling through this land like a cancer.

“Something tells me,” she takes a step forward, “that the others don’t know about this. I don’t know what. Call it a hunch.” She runs a hand through her filaments and I watch the strands fall in small clumps. “Or, or, maybe I’m crazy and all this is in my head and I’m blowing everything out of proportion. I’ve only just arrived. The world is frickin’ saved. We’re safe. I’m talking to a frickin’ alien when yesterday I wasn’t even sure that was possible! There are kids playing outside! People living together out in the open. Fuck, I think I even heard a bird within those trees.” She laughs, but I sense no mirth. “I’m making this a big deal when it isn’t. Right?” Her eyes meet mine and there is a pleading within them. One I find I cannot deny. “Tell me I’m blowing things out of proportion.”

I study her and her gaze doesn’t falter.

“You choose to ask me this. Your foe…instead of your kin on the ground.”

Her eyebrows shoot up and I am once again caught in the vision of how malleable hyu’man skin is. It furrows, her brow curving as she stares at me.

“Foe?...You’re my foe?”

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