It was midnight when Knives awoke with the feeling he was being watched. Flipping on the lights, he looked around but there was no one there. Silently, he slipped into the hall and approached Onyx's door. Maybe Onyx sensed it too…
Trying the door and finding it unlocked, he slipped inside. Onyx was awake in bed with her light on. She wore a loose, black silk shirt and pants, with a small pair of reading glasses balanced on her nose. In her hands she held open a thick, raggedy looking book in her lap. Without even looking up, she gestured for him to sit at the end of the bed, "Trouble sleeping? Me too."
Knives nodded, "What are you reading? I don't think I've ever seen a book that thick."
She shrugged, "It was one of the ones salvaged from Earth. This one was Felix's favorite, so I kept it."
He frowned, "What's it about?"
Onyx closed the book, "It's about a man who becomes immortal, but finds that he can't stand seeing his friends dying while he stays young, so he tries to regain his humanity and become mortal again."
When Knives didn't answer, she set the book aside and leaned toward him, "What's wrong?"
He sighed, "Don't you think that it sounds like the three of us?"
Onyx shrugged, "Perhaps…but we are different. You said it yourself once. We never have been, and never will be human."
Knives sighed, "True…but we think like humans sometimes, don't we?"
She arched an eyebrow, "Oh really? What are you thinking then?"
He gestured for her to lean in closer, "Here, I'll tell you…" When she finally obliged and leaned forward, he grabbed both sides of her face and kissed her; hesitantly at first, then more fiercely as he grew more confidant that she wasn't going to strike him dead.
And to his surprise, she kissed him back just as fiercely, twining her fingers into his short, blonde hair until his head hurt. With a blink of Onyx's eye, the light was turned off by an unseen force.
"Dammit, Felix!" the captain cried, "The girl's a monster! We can't just allow her to wander about unhindered! Don't you understand what even a tiny bit of her blood could do?! She's just too powerful!!"
Felix Saverem, a young man with short, black hair and hazel eyes shook his head, "I won't let you harm Onyx! There has to be an alternative!"
Suddenly, the head engineer stepped forward. "I have a way," she gestured toward the computer banks, "I can easily manipulate her genetic patterns to render her sterile. That way, no one is in danger, and she gets to live."
Sighing, Felix nodded, "Very well."
It was three a.m. when Onyx finally awoke from her dream. Moving silently, so as not to wake Knives, she slipped out of her clothes and took a brief shower before changing into her traveling clothes, but as she reached into the pockets of her duster, she felt the crackle of paper. Pulling the sheet out, she read:
"Jeneora Rock; six days."
Stuffing the piece of paper in her pocket, Onyx headed up to the roof to ponder her unique predicament.