Metamorphosis

Chapter 14: Getting Ready

The papers crinkled slightly as fingers clutched them tightly. Phoenix stared at the last paragraph and felt herself bite her lip. She'd only been awake for two months. How did people know about her? How did people find out about the incident if no one was able to test and see her? The only people that were around when the Monestone broke were the one guard, Adam, Freya and Nova, and she doubted that they went around telling everyone everything about it.

They were pretty reserved about the incident already.

So how did someone find out?

"Phoenix, you got the papers?" a voice called.

She blinked and took a deep breath. "Yeah. I have them here."

Adam appeared from around the corner. "Can you bring them here? I have to input our destination into the plane so Brendan knows where to go."

She blushed at the sight of him. He was wearing a thin white t-shirt and jeans that hugged his frame, showing off his toned muscles. His blonde hair was unruly and untamed, and it kept falling into his green eyes. She turned abruptly away. "Yeah, one second."

"You okay?"

She nodded, not looking at him. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Hearing him walk closer to her, she tensed up. "You don't sound fine." Adam grasped her shoulders and turned her around softly. "Phoenix, what's the matter?"

She shrugged his hands off. "Really, it's nothing. I'm fine." She smiled up at him, and he frowned.

"Phoenix, I know you're not fine. Please. You can trust me. You know you can trust me." Adam took the papers out of her hand and set them down to the side. He picked up her hands and clasped them in between the two of them. "Please..."

Her face heated up when he touched her hands. When he picked them up, her heart started to beat faster and faster.

His green eyes looked into her brown ones and she sighed. "Fine... But you can't tell anyone else. Okay? Nova would kill me for telling you before her."

"I promise." He put his fist over his heart and winked at her.

Phoenix's cheeks heated up even hotter and she rolled her eyes. "I'm being serious..."

He immediately sobered up. "Okay. Sorry. Go on."

"It's just..." She sat down on a box behind her, and Adam sat next to her. "I don't know. I keep on telling myself that everyone has accepted me for being who I am. That people have moved on from the old me and have just accepted that I'm not the same person... But..." She turned her face away.

"But what?"

"But I feel like people are still expecting the same things of me as they did of Kat. Like they expect me to be able to do the same things as her in the same amount of time as her. It's like... I don't know... They still want me to be Kat. But I'm not. I just want to be me."

Adam wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on top of her head. "Phoenix, I know what you're talking about. I really do. When I first came to work here, no one trusted me. I was an ex-Viper agent, so I can understand why, but still... I mean, it was just under a year ago, so I was sixteen when all of that was going down, but... You know?"

She leaned into him and breathed in his faint, but very clearly masculine scent. Like cedar wood and freshly cut grass. His warm, protective arms stayed around her, and she was content. Her heart was beating like a hummingbird's, but for the first time, she ignored it and savoured the moment.

"Adam?" Nova's voice sliced through the silence like a warm knife through butter, and Phoenix and Adam sprang apart, both of their faces turning bright red as Nova turned around the corner. "There you guys are!" she said, walking towards them. When she saw how close they were sitting, a sly smile crawled up her face. "Am I interrupting something?"