novelraw Chapter 489: So, We Stay
Chapter 489: So, We Stay
Zubair had seen real training fields before.
He had stood on packed earth that still held the heat of the day, watched men run drills until their legs shook and their vision tunneled, and learned the difference between exhaustion that made you sloppy and exhaustion that made you lethal.
He knew what preparation looked like when people honestly wanted to prepare.
And what it looked like when people were playing soldiers.
This was the second one.
The open area beyond the inner perimeter had been cleared into a wide expanse of sand and compacted dirt, surrounded by observation platforms and temporary barriers that suggested this ’arena’ had been thrown together instead of a permanent thing.
Targets dotted the field at uneven intervals. Obstacle structures rose in places that made no tactical sense, as if someone had designed them to look impressive from a distance instead of functional up close.
Or just functional in general.
And civilians with powers were being herded through it like livestock.
Zubair stood at the edge of the field with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, his posture relaxed in the way that came from years of knowing exactly how much attention to give a situation. He didn’t need to squint to see the flaws. They were obvious enough that even Lachlan would have started making jokes by now.
Beside him, Psycho watched in silence.
Alexei’s face was still there, still human enough to pass, but the thing behind his eyes had no interest in pretending. Psycho leaned slightly forward, his head tilted, and his pale gaze tracking the movements of the trainees with predatory focus.
"She is testing us," Psycho said at last.
His voice was low, almost bored, like he was commenting on the weather.
Zubair didn’t look at him right away. He watched a man with enhanced reflexes misjudge a jump and land badly, rolling across the sand with a cry that was equal parts pain and humiliation. The instructor barked at him to get up. The man did, slower now, favoring one leg.
"I just don’t understand why," Psycho continued, tone unchanged.
Zubair exhaled through his nose.
He tilted his head slightly, eyes still on the field. "Do you need to?"
Psycho’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. "Not really," he shrugged.
The obstacle course reset with a sharp whistle. A new group moved into position, shoulders tight, eyes bright with the kind of hope that came from being told you mattered because you were useful.
Zubair nodded once, more to himself than to Psycho. "Good," he said quietly. "Because if we start trying to understand her instead of trusting her, that’s when we screw this whole thing up."
Psycho hummed in vague agreement.
Across the field, two men stood apart from the instructors, clearly not there to shout or demonstrate. They were observers, and the way the soldiers deferred to them without being told marked them instantly as authority.
René Lapierre was easy to spot.
He wore his command the way politicians wore suits—tailored, comfortable, and designed to signal control without effort. His wannabe military hair cut was neatly kept, his posture upright but not rigid. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. People leaned in when he spoke.
Beside him stood Mathis Duhon.
The Bishop.
Zubair recognized the type immediately.
Bishop didn’t look imposing in the traditional sense, those who knew how to look would see him for what he really was. A predator that played the sheep just a little too well. Security chiefs that looked like him didn’t stop violence...they simply smiled brightly while sticking the knife in someone’s back.
"They’re teaching them how to be loud," Psycho observed. "Not how to be effective."
Zubair snorted softly.
One of the trainees launched a blast of kinetic force at a target and was rewarded with applause from the instructors. The target shattered dramatically, pieces flying outward in a way that looked good from the stands.
Zubair clocked the wasted energy immediately. "That would get him killed in thirty seconds outside these walls," he muttered.
Psycho glanced at him. "You’re being generous."
Zubair finally looked over, brow creasing. "You said angels and demons make your skin crawl."
"They do," Psycho replied easily. "We are not in good company."
Zubair’s attention snapped back to him fully this time. "Run that by me again," he said, voice dropping. "Because the last time I checked, angels and demons didn’t exist."
Psycho’s gaze didn’t waver. "Neither did zombies," he said. "And look where we are today."
The words settled into Zubair’s chest like a weight he hadn’t known he was carrying.
He watched the field again, suddenly seeing it differently. The way certain trainees were being watched more closely. The way some mistakes were corrected and others quietly noted. The subtle separation happening even here, even now.
Selection.
"Then what does that make you?" Zubair asked quietly.
Psycho turned his head, eyes glinting faintly in the sun. "Something much, much older than either species."
Zubair absorbed that without comment. He had learned a long time ago that arguing about taxonomy didn’t change reality.
Psycho leaned back slightly, attention drifting again to the course. "Now," he said mildly, "back to our precious little petal. Why is she testing us?"
Zubair didn’t answer immediately.
He watched a woman with pyrokinetic ability lose control during a timed run, fire flaring too hot, too wide. The instructors shouted as the guards tensed. The woman reined it in just in time, her face pale, and her breath ragged.
Pressure without protection.
"I don’t know," Zubair said at last. "We have been with her for a long, long time. Probably longer than we actually think if we take into account the cages in the North. You would think that she wouldn’t feel the need to test us."
Psycho considered that. "So?"
Zubair’s jaw tightened. "So maybe she isn’t testing us." His words were slow as if he was tasting them on his tongue to see how truthful they were. "Maybe she needs to be here for some reason, and she isn’t willing to let us go."
A long moment passed as Zubair felt something unpleasant twist in his chest at that idea.
"Like a real-life version of her Oogie Boogie doll," Psycho chuckled, his tone light and almost amused.
Zubair didn’t laugh.
He watched the sand, the targets, the men trying to be shaped into weapons by people who had never been hunted by anything that mattered.
Psycho nodded once, as if answering his own thought. "That’s fine," he continued. "As long as I’m the one sleeping in her bed, I can be a good little toy soldier and fall in line."
Zubair turned on him then, heat flickering instinctively under his skin before he forced it down. "Watch your mouth."
Psycho smiled. This time it was genuine. "You misunderstand me," he said. "I’m not mocking her."
He leaned closer, voice dropping. "I’m acknowledging that she doesn’t need us the way we think she does. And that scares you."
Zubair didn’t deny it.
Across the field, René Lapierre raised a hand and the exercises halted. The trainees froze where they were, panting, eyes bright, waiting to be told if they had done well.
Lapierre spoke, and even from this distance, Zubair could see the effect. Shoulders straightened. Chests lifted.
Hope.
The most dangerous tool in the room.
Zubair folded his arms slowly across his chest.
"She told us to stay," he said quietly. "So we stay."
Psycho followed his gaze, expression unreadable. "Until?"
Zubair’s eyes tracked the line of guards, the watching officials, the walls that hid whatever Adam was building beneath it all.
"Until she says we’re done pretending," he replied.
On the field, the whistle blew again.
The trainees ran.
And Zubair stood still, watching a place that thought it was teaching violence slowly realize it had no idea what it had invited inside.