Renegade

Chapter Sixteen: Project Valeria

Veronica opened her eyes, blinking out the bright light that shone in her face. She was sitting in a chair in the center of a dark room. She was facing a man. He wasn't tall. He was bald, small glasses covering his beady eyes. A small sole patch grew on his chin. The man's face looked tired, weary.
"Hello, Veronica," he said, "I'm here to ask you a few questions and if you answer them to my satisfaction, you may leave this place unharmed."
Veronica sat silent, dumbfounded. "Wait," she mumbled. She was having trouble taking this all in. Her head felt heavy, the words coming out of the man's mouth seemed muffled. "Where am I?" she said, "Who are you? Why am I here? What do I need to-" She jumped up, but two unseen hands grabbed her shoulder and pushed her down into the chair.
"Like I said, you just need to answer a few questions," the man said gently. Veronica stared at him, silent. "They have to relate to your friend," he said, "Byron Peters." Veronica's eyes went wide.
"No," she said, "No, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to tell you anything about him."
"So there is something to tell," he said, a statement more than a question. "We expected this kind of reaction, so we came prepared." He nodded towards whoever it was standing behind Veronica. "What-" she managed to get out before the needle pierced her neck.
Then everything flew out of brain and through her mouth. That her best friend in the world, Byron Peters, was some kind of mutant. What he could do wasn't natural. He could read people's thoughts and sometimes speak into theirs. He had begun to notice it about three months ago, just after he turned twenty. She didn't know why she did it; she just felt like she needed to. She had kept it a secret for so long, and it was good to let it go. It felt good to finally tell someone. The man in front of her smiled, and Veronica blinked.
When she opened her eyes she was somewhere else. She was on the floor in the laboratory she and Byron had created a couple of years ago. Then Veronica realized what she had just done. She had just betrayed Byron. She had told someone else about him. That he could do something strange. And people fear strange things, she knew. And fear inevitably morphs into hostility. Whoever it was Veronica had talked to, they would hunt down Byron and hurt him because of her. There would be nowhere he could go because of her.
But there would be, she thought. Byron could escape. He could leave the Nation and be safe forever. But Veronica couldn't go. She wouldn't be able to live with herself, she knew, living with the immense guilt. So she decided to do something.
She could hear sirens approaching aboveground. She heard the rattle of the elevator and the click of the door at the entrance to the lab. She looked up.
Byron was here.

Veronica's eyes snapped open. A memory. Finally, a solid memory. Something from her past. Then she started remembering the emotions. What it had felt like that night. The pain. The guilt. The helplessness. A tear rolled down Veronica's cheek as she remembered what it had felt like to betray the closest person to her. She now knew for a fact that Byron wasn't an enemy, but she also knew that she had done something terrible to drive him away. What it was, she had no idea. But she did know that she had done it, and Byron had done as she intended for him to do, otherwise she would not be sitting in a cell underneath Leon's palace.
"What is it?" Veronica jumped when she heard the voice next to her. She looked over and saw Phoebe looking at her through the small window in the cell's wall.
Veronica eyed her, still not sure whether or not she could trust her. She looked away.
"You remembered something, didn't you?"
Veronica blinked. "I just don't understand," she said, shaking her head. "Why?"
"What?"
"I don't even know what I don't understand. I just can't figure it out. Any of it."
"I told you the truth, Veronica. You and Byron-"
"Shut up," Veronica said softly, "Just please, shut up. Stop trying to tell me one thing or another and just leave me alone." Veronica sank back into the cold, hard bed of her cell, tears flowing freely from her eyes until she fell back asleep.

"What is it?" Kristine said. She had been called to a room up near the Surface, where the guards resided. She had been told they had urgent news.
"They're here," said Captain Denver, the leader of the team that was on duty. "The Unnatural."
"They've come to us as predicted," Kristine said, "So all is going according to plan. Take our current Unnatural to their stations. Let them in." Denver nodded to two guards, who went running to obey Kristine's commands.
"And one more thing, Captain," she said after thinking for a moment.
"Yes, Your Majesty?"
"I need Scott in the Machinery Room now. Forget what I said about waiting for the morning. I do believe it is time we finally partake in our own Project."