“Ellyssa?”
Ellyssa sat on a chair in front of a window, her head bent. Moonlight streamed through the glass panes and caressed her hair in spun silver. A slight shudder shook her shoulders.
“Ellyssa?”
She turned and looked at him, her cheeks shining and her eyes glistening from tears. She, too, had her sorrows, her regrets.
“Oh,” Rein said, going to her. He lifted her chin with his hand and wiped away a fallen tear. Sadness floated in her azure eyes, shimmering pools of twilight.
“It’s going to be fine,” Rein murmured, wrapping his arms around her back. “I promise.”
Ellyssa buried her face in his midsection. Something hard in her hand pressed against his backside, and he knew instantly it was the cave pearl the little girl had held in her death grip.
Silently, they held each other, his hand gliding over her silky hair. Her grief released in soft sobs; what remained of his left with hers. Time passed before Ellyssa looked at him, her eyes boring into his.
“I’m sorry,” Ellyssa said, her voice as soft as the streaming moonlight. She sighed. “Things I’ve just realized were missing in my life are gone… again. It started with Jordan, which wrenched my soul, and now…everyone.”
Rein pulled her up and enveloped her in his arms. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. We will get through this. And if the few missing are still alive, we will find them.”
Nodding against his chest, Ellyssa clutched onto his back as if she feared losing him too. Rein brushed his lips across the top of her head, her temple.
As Rein kissed her, Ellyssa’s grip on his back tightened. She leaned her head back and found his lips. At first, Ellyssa’s mouth moved with his, softly, almost hesitantly, then she pulled Rein closer as her tongue parted his lips. Her taste flooded his mouth as she explored; heat radiated off her. The urgency in Ellyssa’s kisses increased, and electric tingles shot through Rein’s veins. Like an addict, he savored it and wanted more. He walked her to the bed with her arms wrapped around him and gently pushed her down, breaking them apart.
Rein looked down at Ellyssa and pushed a strand of hair away from her eyes, the back of his hand cherishing the softness of her skin. The azure of her eyes burned bright, not with sadness or anger, but with ardent desire.
Since he’d first kissed Ellyssa in the field weeks ago, their relationship had been one Rein tentatively explored. They’d shared a kiss here, a touch there. He didn’t want to scare Ellyssa off with a onslaught of feelings she couldn’t comprehend or understand.
Rein definitely didn’t want her to respond to him out of despondency. He feared it would only confuse her more.
Rein traced the curvature of Ellyssa’s cheek; her skin pinked with desire. Closing her eyes, she pressed her face against his palm.
Rein sighed. Since he’d first found her in the store, all he had wanted, if he were to be honest was to be with her.
How he hated Dr. Hirch, not for the torture he’d put him through, but for what he had done to Ellyssa—trying to turn someone apparently so full of love and understanding into a robotic killer.
Ellyssa opened her eyes and looked up at him. Her bottom lip pulled into her mouth, seductively.
The love pulsed through Rein’s body and wrapped around his heart, instilling life in him—a reason to continue. If it wasn’t for Ellyssa, the need to be with her, to hold her again, he would’ve died the day Dr. Hirch had introduced him to Aalexis. Because of Ellyssa, he had found the strength to continue.
He owed her everything.
He wanted to be her everything, to share himself with her, to become one with her.
Did she?
Questioning, he raised his eyebrow.
Ellyssa looked up at Rein; green fire flickered in his eyes, but indecision made him hesitate. She knew it was because they hadn’t ever explored this forbidden territory. They’d never had a chance. Being alone was not part of their lives. The moments they’d shared had been a few touches and gentle kisses that had only increased in passion once back in the makeshift hospital, before Rein had left to a fate she didn’t ever want to consume her thoughts with.
But the opportunity was afforded now, and too precious to let slip through her fingers. Especially now when all Ellyssa wanted to do was forget. She’d tried when she’d first entered the bedroom, but the horror in the cavern had swept into her exhausted mind and dominated her thoughts with glazed-over dead stares and bloated bodies and a…cave pearl, until Ellyssa was a sobbing mess.
She had to move forward, and Rein was the means.
The unknown squeezed Ellyssa’s heart and her pulse accelerated, carrying with it hormonal urges. Everything she knew about procreating had been clinical, something found in a textbook. The route her father had taken to create her and her siblings hadn’t required that a male and female lie together.
Only inferior beings participated in showing affection of any kind, her father had said. Emotions show weakness, and with weakness comes hesitation, and with hesitation comes death. Ellyssa remembered the words as clearly as if he said them to her now.
But her father had been wrong about her, about all the things he had drilled into her since her childhood.
Ellyssa gazed at Rein. His dark hair was wet and mussed, bow-shaped lips set into a chiseled face, the towel riding low on his waist, his body lean, muscular and hard. He was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen, and not one part of him was her father’s, or society’s, idea of perfection.
Passionate heat radiated off Rein and mixed with her own. Unsure, her hand shaky, Ellyssa reached out and, tentatively, touched his stomach. She trailed over the indentations of his muscles and over his chest. His muscles twitched in response. His bare skin was smooth and rough at the same time. Every point of contact sent sparks.
“Come here,” Ellyssa whispered.
Rein bent over her, his wet hair tumbling over his forehead, and his mouth found hers. She scooted back on the bed, her head coming to rest on a pillow as he leaned over her.
“Are you sure?” She could hear the careful hesitation in Rein’s voice. “I don’t want this to happen because you feel… I don’t want to take advantage of you,” he finished.
She thought for a moment. Was she mixing up her feelings for him with the loss and sadness she felt?
So what if she was?
Ellyssa loved him. From the time her eyes had first opened to Rein’s angry face back when she’d been hurt in the coal mine, she’d been drawn to him, although Ellyssa hadn’t recognized the foreign sensation at the time. And she knew Rein loved her.
Wasn’t love enough?
As Rein watched her, moonlight curving around his body, excitement Ellyssa had never experienced before coursed through her. The fluttering in her stomach and her heart, she knew what she wanted—what she needed. It had nothing to do with the loss she felt.
Chewing on her bottom lip, Ellyssa nodded. “I’m sure.” She paused for a moment, soaking in the happiness on his face. “I love you. I always have.”
Rein dove down, his lips grazing the crevice of her shoulder and finding the hollow of her neck. Ellyssa sucked in a breath as he made his way up, sampling her jawline. Wherever his lips grazed, her body quivered.
Then, Rein found her mouth, his kiss deep and wanting. An explosion of intense proportions swept through Ellyssa. Her heart pounded inside her chest, and heat burned in her lower stomach. She matched his urgency.
“I love you, too,” Rein said against her lips, his voice husky.
His warm breath washed over her, and she inhaled his scent. Losing herself, the door she’d always kept closed to his thoughts creaked open. Monumental sensations rushed in and tangled within hers. His love, her love, the touches of their skin, the electricity and tingles. All melded into one.
Rein shifted, and she felt his hand on her stomach, palm to skin. He pushed the borrowed T-shirt she was wearing up, and cool air caressed her, fueling the heat within. Ellyssa grabbed the
back of his neck and brought his mouth to meet hers as his hand moved toward the swell of her breast. Powerful currents shot from his fingertips.
Rein stopped kissing her mouth and moved down over her throat before continuing to her midsection, each light nibble of his teeth making her stomach twitch in anticipation. He lifted her shirt up and over her head, and she lay exposed before him.
“You are perfect,” Rein said, his eyes moving from her body to meet her eyes. “So beautiful.”
Heart thudding, blood running lava hot, Ellyssa reached up and cupped his cheek. He leaned in to her touch and kissed the inside of her palm.
“You have my promise, I will always be with you. Nothing will tear us apart,” he said.
Without another word, Rein was on her mouth again, deep, urgent, his tongue exploring. Ellyssa’s pants landed on the floor next to her shirt and his towel.
The penetrating kisses and the hardness of Rein’s body against hers filled Ellyssa with an emotional barrage that whirled through her so fast, she couldn’t keep up, nor did she try. His hands ran over the curve of her hips and thighs.
With gentle care, Rein shifted above her and pressed his body against hers. Breath hitching in her chest, Ellyssa stilled, unsure, afraid. Then, foreign instincts surged, and her body knew what to do. She let it take control. Her hands clutched his back, trying to pull him closer as he carried her to the edge where she gladly fell over the precipice.
Rein moaned Ellyssa in her ear at the same time as she sighed.
9
Mathew’s limp body was dragged across the compound by unseen soldiers who gripped him under his armpits. His body felt disconnected from his mind, as if his muscular integrity had been compromised, unresponsive to his mental commands.
The cold nipped through the thin cotton material and stung his broken flesh. Coals of the dying fire burned relentlessly inside him, the pain a constant reminder that his body was indeed a part of him.
The door to the barracks slammed open with a bang, and Mathew was dumped into the familiar hell, like a discarded bag of trash. The wooden floor of the barracks smacked his backside.
Through slitted lids, he peered at two soldiers. The shorter of the two blurry images stepped forward, and a sharp pain penetrated his side as the man kicked him. Grunting, he rolled over, out of the way of the door. It slammed shut behind him.
As soon as the soldiers had gone, another blurry face popped into his line of sight and cool hands touched his face. “Oh my god, Doc. What in the hell did they do to you?”
Mathew recognized the deep tenor of the voice, but the owner’s name flitted away from his grasp. He opened his mouth to respond, to say anything, but the ability to form words seemed to have flitted away, too.
“You, go get some water,” commanded the voice, “and you, rip up that sheet.”
Mathew hissed as trails of pain followed behind fingers, leaving in their wake a throbbing discomfort. His head started to pound in cadence. He closed his eyes to the bombardment of dull colors and wavering images—to the pain.
Mathew couldn’t close out the confusion that kept his brain working, though.
As soon the girl and the young man had walked through the door, Mathew had known. Their resemblance to Ellyssa was uncanny—the same blond hair, the same cold azure eyes, the same pitch to the German accent when the little girl had spoken.
Fear had pricked Mathew’s insides when the little girl, who physically looked older than her young face showed, approached him. He’d remembered what Ellyssa had told him about her siblings, the abilities they wielded. But he hadn’t been prepared for the pain that had followed. Ellyssa had said nothing about that.
Had she known?
Surely, Ellyssa wouldn’t have deceived them. Not after all they’d been through together. He had witnessed her transformation.
Ellyssa had been the one to go after Rein, after all.
No. Something else was the culprit.
Had the epitomes of perfection evolved further?
Mathew screamed as sharp knives stabbed wherever someone touched him. His overtaxed brain screeched to a halt, and his train of thought muddled. Sweet endorphins released and swept through his bloodstream, dulling the stabbing to pricks.
Water wet Mathew’s tongue. He fought the urge to gulp the steady stream. The coolness flowed inside him and quenched the remaining burn.
Suddenly, the hard planks no longer supported his weight, and he floated, blissfully. He wondered if he was dying; it felt like he should be after what he’d been through.
Black drifted in front of him. Sweet and coaxing.
Mathew went to meet it.
The aftereffects of what the Commandant had witnessed kept him stunned into silence. Slouched behind his desk, feeling insignificant, Hans watched Aalexis and Xaver. Postures straight, heads held high, they regarded him with disdain, their derision shadowed behind placid expressions, but there nevertheless.
Hans had been right. The two young people sitting in front of him were the epitome of perfection and well trained by The Center, but they were more. By all accounts, they were superior.
The Führer’s poster children.
The Center had been busier than what the information Hans’ security level had provided.
He wondered if the Colonel knew. Of course he did. How could he not? That had been exactly what he meant by the missing link. Though, he wondered if the Colonel had taken the time to consider the implications of what such superiority could mean, not just to the Renegades, but to all of them.
“You do understand?”
Aalexis’ German accent broke through Han’s musing. She still spoke to him as if he was a child, and she his superior. Then again, he supposed that was exactly how he seemed to her.
The commander of camp nodded. “Yes, I do.”
“The male called Doc must be kept alive.”
“I understand.”
“Good,” Aalexis said, standing. “Until our next visit.” Without another word, she moved out the door. Xaver swung it shut behind them.
The Commandant stood and went to the window. Blackness had swallowed the light, and stars scattered across the sky.
It amazed him how dark the plains became during the evening hours. Of course, besides the camp he was charged with, there was no light pollution from any cities for hundreds of kilometers. Due to its isolation from other major cities, the city that had once been called Amarillo had been evacuated of its thirty thousand or so civilians, and they were relocated to a more populated area for better control.
The place had remained completely empty until the old Air Force base had been reopened as a isolated concentration camp fifteen years ago. Isolated was the keyword. Besides the hundred soldiers assigned under Hans’ charge, his corporal, the sergeant-at-arms, and the political prisoners, no one lived within a four-hundred-kilometer radius.
In addition, the area was further desolate due to the lack of a sturdy infrastructure; the old highway, which had been newly paved before Germany won the war, lay in disrepair, just like the small city. After the initial raids and patrols, the Führer, apparently, had decided there were better ways to spend money. If not for the small airport being reopened along with the camp to transport the prisoners and supplies, traveling would’ve been almost impossible.
An arc of light from the office door caught the commander’s attention and drew him from his thoughts. He watched as the shadows of the two teens moved against the wind to the Audi. The dome light flicked on as Aalexis climbed into it, then again as Xaver hefted himself into the driver’s seat. Soon afterward, headlights sliced through the darkness.
Hans couldn’t see the young girl or boy perched in the SUV, but he could still feel their eyes on him, drilling into him.
Hans’ skin crawled.
10
The sky grew darker in the west as the sun threatened the night from the east, bringing the moment of twilight, the indistinguishable division between night and day.
Tiredness clung to Aalexis’ eyelids, making them feel heavy and gritty. She hated the need to sleep, but it was something that couldn’t be helped. Regardless of her superior genes, she still held ordinary characteristics, still had to maintain homeostasis.
Fighting the desire to lean her head back against the hard plastic of the chair and close her eyes, Aalexis stood just as Xaver entered the small room next to the hangar. Her brother’s eyes were puffy and red, too, making their blue more prominent. His chiseled features sagged with exhaustion.
“They are ready to leave,” he said, rubbing his face.
“Finally.”
Aalexis grabbed her bag and handed it to her brother, then followed him into the early morning. Freezing wind whipped around and snuck up the bottom of her coat, sapping away any of the heat from indoors. She looked at the sky where oranges and reds streaked. Off to the northwest, angry dark grey clouds swirled. She hoped the weather wouldn’t impede their return home. She wanted to check on the workers’ progress.
“The pilot wants to leave before it snows,” said Xaver as if reading her mind.
Aalexis boarded her father’s private jet—no, it was now hers. Not everyone had the luxury of flight, usually only important people of the military or the state. Of course, no one had questioned when she and Xaver requested the privilege.
The jet could comfortably seat ten people. A television hung on the wall in front of the seats, and a stereo system was anchored to a table beneath it. At The Center, none of them had ever participated in watching television or listening to music, except for educational purposes. Her father had found such frivolous pastimes wasteful when there was an agenda of training and practicing and conducting experiments.
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