The young man who treated my wound and wrapped my head with a bandage looked like he was my age, but a bit more fragile and weaker for someone in their twenties. "It's just a cut, but it's already stopped bleeding." He worked quickly, standing over me while I balanced on the edge of the mattress. "Head cuts bleed more than any other body part 'cause of all the blood vessels and stuff. You'll be all right."

"Thank you." I touched the wad of gauze near my temple with my fingertips.

"A drop of this will take the pain away." He lifted the familiar medicine dispenser to me. The small glass vial held a single drop of clear liquid at the tip. "Just lift your tongue."

"No thanks. I can deal." If I wasn't sure about the water from the faucets, I was more unsure about whatever they had in the dispenser. I wouldn't risk it and hoped Vince and Tamara hadn't either.

He nodded and left the room with the tray of bloodied gauze, leaving the door open for Vince to limp in with a clean bandage bound around his calf. A smile curled my lips when I noticed the worry in his eyes. His concern reminded me how much he cared for me, even if he had difficultly showing or admitting it.

"You're okay." He struggled with the metal crutch he had tucked under his right arm. "You look good."

Comments on my pleasant appearance were nice, even though I knew he was comparing me to the hell I must've looked like just minutes before, and not the glowing beauty I emitted.

I nodded. "How's your leg? How's Tamara?"

"My leg's okay. They're treating her now. Just a couple of bumps and scrapes." He dropped down beside me on the mattress. "She shooed me away when I peeked in at her." Our thighs grazed as he shifted to the edge.

I cleared my throat to distract myself from his touch. "They all seem to be really helpful, truthful, and pleasant, huh? Especially that woman." I leaned in and lowered my voice. "I think she's up to something. I don't buy it."

"Me neither." He looked to me, our eyes glued to one another's. "But I'm so confused because she's right about a lot of things."

"Like the air." I shook my head in bewilderment. "Why would your dad lie to us about contaminates all these years?"

He shrugged. "They even sealed this place off-"

"With these people in it." I didn't want to believe it, but signs were pointing to that being the truth. I searched his eyes for a hint of fear, so I wouldn't feel alone in my emotions. "What would make someone do that?"

"Maybe he really believed they were contaminated. That they were dead. Maybe he was trying to save the rest of facility like he said."

"The order was to kill everyone on Ten with the assumption that anyone alive was infected?" I scoffed. "Why wouldn't he and his advisors acquire proper proof before ordering their deaths? Without definitive knowledge of who was contaminated or not, or even if there were toxins at all, any order as permanent as death is risky and irresponsible. No one operates on pure speculation."

"So you believe her?" His eyebrows dipped.

"You said it yourself, she's right about a lot of things."

If she's telling the truth about the breach, or the lack thereof, is there a possibility Mom survived? Silence fell over us. My thoughts were muddied with what could be the truth or lies and who was telling which. I didn't know what to believe.

"My father will fix this." He nodded with assurance. "He'll get us out of here."

Giving him the look he had given me a few seconds prior, I used his words. "You believe that?"

"I do," he said, his voice stern.

"Why did you come up here, Vince?" I shifted to face him, attempting to keep in check the anger that rose from the pit of my stomach. We wouldn't be in this position if he hadn't come. "This wasn't even our fight and you raced up here. Why?"

He dropped his gaze. "I'd do anything to protect my father. You know that. I already told you that. No matter what, he can count on me, and I was going to prove that. I was going to show him that I would do whatever it took to protect him." He turned to face me. The anger lines deepening between his brows. "Why did you come?"

"For the same reason." My anger dissipated when his gaze met mine. "I'd do anything to protect you, Vince. Anything. If I had to give my life for you, I would. What's the point in life if you're not here to share it with me? It might sound cheesy but that's how I feel. You're all I care about. You're all I've got."

After opening my heart to him, I expected him to turn away as he had done so many times before, but he didn't. His hardened stare softened, and his gaze dropped to my lips. My pulse tripled and my chest heaved, rising and falling. My sights traveled from his golden orbs and down along his thin nose to stop at his full lips. I ran my tongue along my lips to moisten them in anticipation of what was to come.

He brought his fingers to my temple. "You almost died trying to rescue me." The appreciation in his face was apparent. The realizations of my actions must've hit him hard. "You nearly gave your life for me."

His hand rested on my chin and the warmth radiated from his fingertips, sending a shudder of pleasure down my spine. He looked into my eyes again, as if assessing my reaction. His gaze traveled the trail of his thumb as he ran the pad of it along my lower lip. Afraid to move or speak or otherwise pull him from the dreamlike magnetism, I willed his next move.

Kiss me. Fucking kiss me. Grab me and press your lips to mine.

Instead of moving forward, he surprised me by gently guiding me to him by my chin, orchestrating the thrilling and powerful moment. I anticipated the heat of his lips on my lips, the wetness of his tongue on my tongue, and the sweet, sweet taste of everything Vince.

When our lips finally met, I sighed onto his mouth, the sensation of bottled up bliss finally escaping me. The soft skin pressed against mine sent tiny beacons of pleasure throughout my body.

Now I needed more.

I need his slick tongue against mine, the warmth of his naked body on me, his hands-no, his mouth on my body, on my cock. His hard and heavy stiffness in my hand, between my lips, inside of me-

Footsteps at the door startled us and we separated by feet in seconds.

"Uh, knock knock." Tamara stepped in, displaying the small adhesive bandages on her knuckles. Her voice a bit shaky and apprehensive. "I wasn't as beat up as you guys, so a few little bandages are my rewards..."

I stood to examine her with my eyes more closely and to also put much needed space between me and Vince. I wasn't ready to explain away our intimate closeness. "You're okay though?"

"Physically, yes. Emotionally and mentally? Well...." She threw her hands up. "What the fuck is going on around here? Toxins, no toxins? People living in the upper hemi were left for dead or mistaken for dead? And that baby...? I just don't know what to believe anymore."

I nodded. "We feel the same."

"So, they're allowing us to be with each other now." She lowered her voice just above a whisper. "Why? To prove they trust us so we could trust them? Nope."

"Look, they're pretty smart." I looked back and forth between her and Vince. "Especially that woman. They know we don't trust them. So, I say we be as straightforward as we can with our concerns and encourage them to be as straightforward with us. After all, we should try to get back down to Nine, and these people can help us accomplish that."

"Well, wait. What do you mean, 'get back down to Nine'?" She shrugged. "Don't you want to get to the bottom of what's going on first?"

I shook my head. "We should figure out how to get home. Everything else is out of our control."

Tamara scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're the one always talking about 'We're gonna be the leaders one day. We need to take our jobs seriously.' Well, this is us getting serious. We need to figure out the truth. See what's going on and what everyone's hiding."

"She's right, Connor." Vince stood, balancing on his good leg. "Something's going on and we need to figure it out. That's the responsible thing to do."

Deep inside I just wanted to go home, return to the familiar, and be back where I knew it was safe. However, Tamara and Vince were right, there was more to the story we needed to figure out first. A lot more. And going back down probably wasn't safe right now, especially if everyone below thought we were contaminated.

"Okay." I nodded. "We'll find Emily and demand to be told everything. The truth."

A voice from the hall startled me. "No need to gather the pitchforks and go searching." Emily appeared in the doorway behind Tamara. "We're not fond of witch hunts around here. You want to know the truth, it's all in here." She moved past us and toward the bed, tossing a thick, multipage book onto the mattress. "There it is. The four-hundred-and-seventy-one-page tome detailing the vile acts of Refuge Inc. and their leaders from over a century ago. The truth."

I ogled the dog-eared book with the plain cream-colored cover. "What does that book have to do with you or us?"

"It's our history. It's Refuge Inc.'s history. It's our truth." She aimed her index finger to the paperback. "It's what they presented to us all as legend, but what they done back then was no myth. It's exactly what they're doing now. Repeating history.

"Anyone with an opinion that differs from Randolph's is a threat. He and his friends tried to control us by shutting us up. Back then, his biggest fear was rebellion. We had read the stories and saw the movies about totalitarian regimes and tyrannical leaders. He knew what would happen if enough people felt like he'd been given too much power. He knew what history had told us, and had proven. We'd fight. That's exactly how most of these people felt, like fighting, and putting back what was right. But to shut them up, he lured most of them to the upper hemi and then demolished Twelve, which collapsed into Eleven. That deliberate act separated the upper hemi from the lower hemi. Then he sealed off access to the stairs and lifts and left us up here to rot."

Tamara picked up the book and quickly skimmed through its cream-colored pages. "This book is about Adam and Elliot. It's fiction. It's no truer than Superman, Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy."

"That's false." The scarring around Emily's lips and eyes prevented her from scowling, which I imagined was her attempt. "I tried to stop him. I tried to save them before it was too late, but I failed. Instead I ended up here with them, barely hanging onto my life, as one of the first blasts in the stairwell nearly killed me."

"I guess you're gonna tell us the explosions was how you got your scars, huh?" Vince glared.

"No. My scarring is a result of chemical burns from our first attempt at blowing a hole out of here. I wasn't as knowledgeable about making explosives as I thought. Trial and error."

"Why would Dr. Randolph severely damage the facility and possibly risk the lives of everyone in this place, including himself?" I glared, trying to keep my composure and not to call her a blatant liar while I waited for her answer.

"Because he knew he'd get away with it." She looked to Vince. "Your father's an utter genius. He knew who to go to to orchestrate his plan and they fell for it instantly. It worked perfectly. He knew the shell of the sphere was strong enough to take an explosion from inside or out. He knew exactly where to place the detonators to cause the floor to collapse. He knew how to lie and mislead everyone.

"He trapped us up here, extracted the eX-lement, chlorine, and fluoride from our water, and cut our energy. That effected our food supply, our power usage, and our pregnancy and disease-fighting abilities. He wanted us to overpopulate the upper hemi and die from lack of resources, or die of disease and starvation, or all the above. And the worse part, most of the people who suffered and still suffer had never questioned or opposed Randolph. They loved him."

Bullshit. I shook my head. "How could anyone extract anything from up here when the hemis are self-sufficient?"

She raised her palm to her throat. "The facility used to function as a whole, and it was possible to operate anything within the facility from either control room. Having two control rooms meant more people could help the facility function smoother, and it took the strain off of the workers and the system, until he overrode and shut down control of the upper hemi."

"I don't believe you." Vince growled.

"I know." She nodded. "He's your father. Who would want to believe that their father was capable of such atrocities? But he is, and he's done much worse."

"I don't want to hear this shit." Vince attempted to walk away, but I stopped him by placing my hand on his wrist, noticing the smooth skin where his med patch used to be.

"Yes." Emily gestured to his wrist. "I removed that because it's useless."

"I guess you're an anger management expert too, right?" Vince sneered.

"That patch was the cause of your anger, Mr. Moore." She went on, "It was flooding your system with a stimulant that causes the user anxiety and short temperament. Your father knew that. He wanted you to be nothing more than a thoughtless brute, an unthinking fighting machine who would risk its life protecting him, which is exactly what you've done."

"How dare you!" Vince spat on the floor at her feet. "Screw everything she says."

"It's the truth." She looked into his angry eyes, expressionless. "You'll be in better control of your anger in a few hours when the stimulant fully leaves your system."

Vince snatched his wrist from my grip and turned his back to us.

Emily nodded to Tamara. "Refuge Inc. refused to allow your mother and father inside the facility, Ms. Arnold, even though your father held a doctorate in physiology and would've willingly contributed. Randolph elected to only allow your grandparents to escort you inside because he wanted to control the racial balance of the facility. He feared that any one group with too much in common would one day figure out their power in numbers and would turn against the minorities for supremacy, but he's had a distasteful view and fear of black people in large numbers long before the impact. It stemmed from a reminder of our history and segregation, something you guys were never taught. And since your grandparents would naturally never have a turn at conceiving and have a shorter life span-"

"Oh, so now Dr. Randolph fears people like me in large groups, right?" Tamara scoffed and folded her arms over her bosom. "Nice. Say anything to make us hate him, right?"

"Connor-" Emily started.

"Cadet Nichols," I corrected.

"He purposely sent your father outside on a mission he would never return from." She swallowed and her voice grew heavy with gloom. "He sent him and his colleague to die. And he decided to kill them that way instead of simply putting a gun to their heads because he needed to hide the fact that he's a murderer."

"Why? Why would he do that?" The very thought of my dad pained my heart and her lies turned it to stone. "How would you even know all of this? Why should we believe anything you say?"

"You still haven't pieced it together, huh?" She wiped a single tear from her cheek. "Because-" her voice hitched as she forced out her words. "Because I'm your mother."

~~~

How's that for a reveal? What other secrets you think will be uncovered? How do you think they will get through this? Don't forget to vote and comment!