Eden’s POV
James is alone in his office, the one Jason had been brought to on his first day, so when Graves starts as soon as we walk through the door I am surprised. He usually waits for Foster, or the opposite way around. They are both always in the room when going over the statistics.
He gives us facts and figures, things that, at first, made no sense to me, but now they are the root to our survival. I mentally note that John, our oldest is lagging behind.
“Where’s Foster?” I ask, interrupting James’s well rehearsed speech.
He looks startled by my sudden rudeness, ever since the incident on the first day of training I have been trying to be a little more amicable. So it must surprise him when I cut him off. “She’s sick,” he replies. End of subject. “You shouldn’t have made such a dangerous move, Eden,” he states, glowering at me as I smirk. “You could have been killed.”
“Except I wouldn’t have been,” I retort. “Mccready only had stun bullets in his gun, I would have barely gotten hurt.”
James glares at me, struggling to hold back his sassy response. “You are dismissed, agent Zacharias,” Graves says, not breaking eye-contact with me. I can feel Jason’s shock at being dismissed so shortly, normally we would discuss other tactical strategies and how to make the recruits better until we were all about to nod off. Foster usually wasn’t there for that, so it was often just James, Jason, and I.
"Sir, I don’t think-”
“Go!” James shouts, turning toward the younger, his eyes sparking with fury. Even I am surprised with his sudden mood change. He is not usually this volatile. Jason gives me a pointed glance, saying ‘don’t anger him any further’, and walks out the steel door. “Eden, that was the stupidest move could have ever done on any tactical mission,” James states, his eyes never leaving mine.
I can’t help but feel that he is staring straight into my soul, seeing right through the barriers I have so carefully created, and knowing my every thought. “It wasn’t a tactical mission,” I reply, keeping my face blank.
“No.” He grits his teeth. “But it is my job to keep you lot safe, and by doing that you are making it infinitely harder.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten hurt, Dr Graves.”
“That’s not the point,” he hisses. I raise an eyebrow. Ever since we’ve started doing tactical training he seems to have gotten edgier and edgier. Like he’s truly frightened for our safety, which would be ludicrous of course, considering he’s the one who brought us here, he shouldn’t be scared of something he has forced us to do. “The fact of the matter is that you are continually disobeying our orders, you and Jason.
“Then why am I the only one here, sir?” I ask, struggling to control my rising anger. This is more than just about me disobeying orders, this is about some internal problem he is dealing with.
“Because,” he says, closing his eyes, “you are the one hope we have of winning this stupid war. Jason is a good soldier, Eden, trust me. But he is not you.” His eyes are conveying something to me that I have no understanding of. I wish I could understand it. “Now, Amanda thinks Jason is the true leader, but honestly, I don’t think he’s the right person for the job. I think he’s too weak, too narrow minded. He doesn’t have the backbone to do what is right.”
“What are you saying?” I ask timidly, my hands clasped behind my back, my hands curled into fists.
“You’re going to have to make sacrifices, Eden. Lots of them. And they’re not going to be easy.” James is gripping the mahogany desk that stands between like his life depends on it; his knuckles have turned white, and his fingernails dig into the precious wood. “What I’m saying is that you are going to have to detach yourself from these kids. They are not your friends, they are not your peers, they are not your mates.”
“That’s not what you said three months ago.”
“That is no longer relevant.”
“Then what is relevant? Get to the point,” I snap, my temper flaring for a short moment.
Graves takes a deep breath, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment before snapping back open, an even brighter, more intense blue, than before. “We have a mole.”
YOU ARE READING
Inhuman Origins (On Hold)
Science Fiction"They aren’t real humans, never have been. Even if they had come from a mother’s womb they would never have been normal. They are genetically engineered super humans. The government has made them and watched them and controlled them. The government...
