“Don’t,” she gritted between clenched teeth. “I can’t—” She shook her head and dropped her hand, her eyes expressing something he could not name, but tugged at him to move closer, to put his arm around her though he did not know what that would accomplish.
“Please get dressed.” She turned her head away to stare vacantly towardthe kitchen.
Iax looked down at himself. A flush covered his skin where Earth’s radiation had affected him. He continued to feel its impact on the cells in his body as his essence repaired the damage.
Turning his head slightly, he focused on the mechanism hidden behind the walls that cleansed his garments of radiation. It whirred and hummed, almost inaudibly, using a similar solution to what had misted over his body.
Iax returned his attention to Wynn who hadn’t moved from her spot, her chest rising and falling in quick breaths. Her distress had not diminished despite his sending the animals away.
He walked toward the control panel beside the transparent door, pressed his hand flat against its surface, and sent his essence inside to accelerate the process. The humming increased in volume until it waned abruptly.
The compartment opened, revealing his garments folded and stacked along with the outerwear Wynn had used earlier, and her weapon lying neatly at the bottom. He dressed, starting with his pants. His healing skin scraped against the material despite its softness. Next came his shirt, then boots, but he left his jacket and glasses within the compartment.
When he turned, he found Wynn staring at him, lips parted. A breath shuddered through her body, and she leaned against the opposite wall.
“Did you really talk with them?” The words whispered between haggard breaths.
Iax considered her question and tipped his head toward where the animals had disappeared. They had only left the area after his continued encouragement.
“We communicated.” Their existence was troublesome on many levels, but the one that preoccupied his mind the most was Wynn’s fear of them. He could not force his mind away from the matter.
She leaned heavier on the wall, her knees bending. “What did youcommunicateabout?”
He had promised not to lie, but hesitated to divulge everything he had learned from the animals. He did not want to cause Wynn more distress when she stared at him in a way that constricted his throat.
He spoke around the obstacle. “I learned where they originated, and their directive, then told them not to return here.”
A single tear rolled down her face. Watching it fall cut something inside him, a rip through his chest. He reviewed his experiences since coming here, about the emotions he felt and what Wynn projected to him, searching for a way to help her.
“Their directive,” she repeated. “They were following orders?”
He hesitated, searching for the best words to describe his interaction with the animals. “Not orders. They do not have words, only impressions and impulses. They follow those.”
And there were similarities between him and them he needed to examine, but her next question pulled his thoughts away from the task.
“Where did they originate?”
He refocused on her face, which had gone alarmingly pale. “A lab.”
She sucked in a quick breath, then shook her head in denial. “You’re saying they were engineered?” Before he could answer, she shook her head again, the movement frantic. “The investigators told me they’d mutated naturally. They didn’t say anything about a lab.”
Her breaths accelerated, and her hands opened and closed against her thighs.
“Where is this lab?”
He searched through the conversation, but could not deduce a specific location from the impressions he received from the animals. “I do not know,” he replied a moment later.
Her chest continued to rise and fall. “There were only two of them,” she said, her jaw tight. “There were four last time.” She pressed a hand flat against her stomach.
“These two had not been here before. They searched for those missing of their kind.”
She shook her head again, her lips pressed tight together. Moisture welled in her eyes, threatening to spill.
He had thought conversing with the animals would help her, but her distress rose.I have made it worse.The need to help her impelled him, and he could not stop his feet from moving forward.
“Wynn,” he said, her name soft in his mouth.
She lifted her head, her eyes unfocused as she stared up at him.
