“No one was murdered,” he refuted. “Least of all children.”
“And you were here to witness that, were you?” I snapped back. “Because these ghosts were, and they tell a very different story from the rewritten history currently presented as truth in today’s schools.”
“My, my,” he said, voice mild but that dark anger of his sharper. “You’re awfully vehement about a situation that supposedly happened long before you were born.”
I flexed my fingers, trying to keep calm. He was trying to force a slip on my part, trying to uncover the truth, no matter what Nuri herself might wish or order. I had to be careful. Had to watch what I said.
And I couldn’t, simply couldn’t, let emotion get the better of me.
“You’d be pretty worked up if you could listen to their story and could experience the pain and the horror they went through.” I tore my gaze away, my eyes stinging. “Their death wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t fast. No one who had been quartered in this place at the end of the war died easily. Believe that, if nothing else, ranger.”
We walked through another doorway and I led the way left, into another of the main tunnels that allowed access to the next two floors. I avoided the sixth floor—which contained not only my sleeping quarters, but the bunk rooms, main medical facilities, and the crèche and training areas for young déchet—simply because they required ID and blood work to access them. And doing that would only confirm his suspicions. Instead, we continued on to the fourth floor, which was the area Penny had seen.
“Children aren’t always the most reliable of narrators,” Jonas said softly. “And it has been a very long time since the war.”
“I agree, children aren’t always the most reliable of narrators. And yet here you are, believing every word that comes out of Penny’s mouth despite the fact Nuri herself said the child had changed.”
“Touché.” The hint of amusement in his voice was both surprising and oddly warm. Or maybe it just seemed that way simply because of the brief absence of suspicion and anger. “But that still doesn’t negate the fact—”
“There’s more than children haunting this place,” I cut in. “There’s the ghosts of all the adult déchet who were here at the time, and their story matches those of the younger ghosts.”
He blinked. “There’s déchet here?”
I smiled, though again it held little humor. “And ghosts of scientists, doctors, nurses, clerical staff, and probably a whole lot more that I’ve never even talked to. When your people cleansed this place, they cleansed it of everybody involved, be they human or déchet.”
“Perhaps,” Jonas bit back, no doubt reacting to the trace of anger that had ebbed into my voice despite my best efforts, “they figured it was the only sure way to rid this world of the perversion that was the déchet.”
Perversion. Travesty. A foul corruption of nature. We’d been called all those things and more, both during the war and the years immediately after it, before the shifters had begun altering history. It still had the power to sting, even now. Just because my creation had happened in a tube rather than as a result of intercourse between two people didn’t make me any less of a being. It didn’t make me a monster.
Granted, there were déchet who had been mo
nsters, especially in the ranks of those who had been first assault soldiers and either designed or medicated to feel nothing. But could the same not be said of humans and shifters?
Somehow, I kept my voice even as I noted, “There’s an awful lot of hate in your voice for a race that disappeared over one hundred years ago, ranger.”
“I lost a lot of family in that war.” The dark anger in his voice was even stronger. But I guessed that was no surprise, given a shifter’s life span was far longer than a human’s. While Jonas himself didn’t look old enough to have lived through the war, his parents surely would have. “It’s not something time can erase, no matter what some might have you believe.”
Given I’d echoed those sentiments not so long ago, I could hardly disagree.
We finally reached the fourth level, and I led the way toward the same small dispensing kitchen I’d taken Penny to. I was aware of Jonas looking around, silently taking everything in, just as I was aware of his every move. His every intake of breath.
It was damn annoying, that awareness.
“Coffee?” I said, increasing the length of my stride to pull away from him. “Or perhaps something to eat?”
“Coffee, one sugar if you have it.”
Thankfully, he stopped in the middle of the room rather than following me over to the machine, and looked around. “What was this place?”
I shrugged as I ordered two coffees. The machine, like the doors, was extremely slow to respond. “From what the ghosts have said, this floor contained secondary medical facilities, kitchens, and training for pubescent déchet.”
His gaze came to mine, green eyes giving little away, but his energy watchful. Full of distrust. “How many areas can you access?”
The first coffee appeared. There was a hint of sweetness entwined through its bitter scent, so I handed it to Jonas. His fingers brushed mine as he took the cup, the brief caress electric.
“There’s six floors that aren’t filled with concrete,” I said, resisting the urge to clench my fingers and keep hold of that electricity for a little bit longer. “But not all six are accessible. Some areas require eye scans and blood-work tests to enter. I haven’t figured a way around them yet.”
“You seem awfully proficient at working with old machines,” he commented.