by Wendy Knight
“Phoenyx,” Cole’s mouth was next to her ear, and his breath was warm against her neck. She giggled, tilting her head and leaning closer. “Something is wrong, Phoenyx. You have to tell me how to help you.”
“Why is something wrong?” She shoved him away and promptly tipped over, crashing painfully into the tunnel wall. “Why is something wrong just because I say what I want instead of what I’m supposed to? I’m always protecting everyone and everyone hates me and I want you, but no! You have a stupid girlfriend and you promised you would never hurt me but you did! You did.” She sank down to the floor and started sobbing.
She could hear Enika and Cole’s voices, and then Keven’s, but it was from a distance. Her rational side, the always-too-hot side, was trying to come back, but she kept pushing it away. She didn’t want to be so hot no one would touch her. She wanted to be loved.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“HAS SHE BEEN AWAKE AT ALL?” Keven’s voice filtered through the darkness, tugging her out, out of the warmth and the oblivion and into the cold. She groaned, trying to bury herself under her blankets, back in the oblivion.
“No. But I see some life.” She felt Enika’s hand, cool against her forehead, and she shivered.
“Any idea what happened to her? You guys drug her with cold meds or something?”
“No.” Cole. Cole was here. He sounded exhausted and scared. “All we can guess is that when she let her — like her alien half or whatever take over, it flushed her system with something akin to alcohol. Maybe adrenaline. That’s my guess.”
“How do you know she won’t spontaneously combust and kill us all?”
Nyx’s heart fell. RayAnna was here too. Of course she was. Because she was human and not a burning, freezing, winged freak. And Cole was in love with her.
In love with her too.
“How long?” she croaked, so everyone would forget RayAnna’s question. Enika squealed, pulling back the covers, her hands lifting Nyx’s head while Cole carefully poured water down her throat. She swallowed even though she didn’t need it — she didn’t get dehydrated or thirsty. She didn’t need their water because the 70% of her that had been water was now electro-magnetic plasma that she could start on fire at whim. Or something like that.
“How are you feeling?”
Nyx forced her eyes open, taking in Enika’s worried, pale face. It was like she had aged ten years since Nyx had last seen her.
“Fine. Blurry. How long?”
“Three days.” Cole’s voice was hollow even as his eyes burned into her. She couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to look away. But she had to. She’d made a fool of herself and it was time to act like the weapon she was.
A weapon — not a girl with a heart.
“And the Garce?” she asked, tearing her eyes away from Cole to look at Keven.
He shook his head. “They’ve been quiet. I think your little attack sent some sort of message. Well, that and we leveled the hospital. They’ve withdrawn out of your territory.”
I have a territory.
“Did you draw my blood?”
Cole nodded, she saw the movement out of the corner of her eye. “We drew it right after you collapsed, and again once a day until now. The only difference was the amount of adrenaline in the first batch.”
“Did you put it in the bullets?”
“We’re still working on it. I’ll have Blair or Mike come give you an update later.”
“Tell me about the hospital.”
Keven ran a hand over his face. “It’s gone. But not the Garce, although they didn’t like the attack.”
Enika rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It was awful. The building is crumbling and burning and exploding, and they just ran right out. Like—like rats out of a flood.”
“You watched them? Without me there? What if something—” Nyx attempted to yell. Instead, it came out as more of an exhausted snarl.
“Chill, birdie. We watched from a distance. Perfectly safe,” Keven said.
She glared at him.
“You scared us, Nyx.” Cole took her hand, running his thumb across her palm. She didn’t know if he even realized what he was doing, but his warmth against her chill felt wonderful. Heavenly.
Human.
She pulled her hand away, trying her best not to meet his eyes. But her best wasn’t good enough. And there was hurt in those dark eyes. A world of pain and confusion staring back at her. Pain she didn’t understand. Shouldn’t she be the one with a broken heart? He’d replaced her. With herculean effort, she closed her eyes, squeezed them tight.
I’m an alien. I’m a hybrid. I’m not human.
And he is.
“I didn’t stop loving you. Ever. Not when I thought you were dead. Not when I thought you were a blood-thirsty alien.”
She would do anything to shut those thoughts out. Maybe there were some Pys to fight somewhere nearby. That was always a good distraction. She sat up, fought off a wave of dizziness, and rose to her feet. “I need to talk to our bullet makers.”
Cole reached out a hand, steadying her. Enika was trying to get her to rest. Keven, thankfully, didn’t baby her like everyone else. He nodded, turning away and disappearing up the stairs. She shook Cole off, sent Enika an apologetic smile, and went after him.
WHEN NYX WALKED IN and Blair didn’t stumble backward or shrink away or even blink at her weird, she decided he was her favorite. “How’s it going?” she inched toward him, so as not to scare him and render her favoritism moot.
Blair glanced at her and shook his head, going back to the bullet on the table in front of him. “We’re testing bullets by just putting water into them so we don’t waste your blood. So far, the bullets aren’t cooperating.”
Mike walked into the shop, checking out the windows before he came to the table. He, too, seemed completely unaffected by Nyx’s presence. “Even if we can figure out how to get the blood into the bullet and have it release on impact, which theoretically is possible, but not so much when we don’t have a factory…” He stopped and scratched his head — most of which was bald. “What was I saying?”
“The blood into the bullet?” Nyx asked helpfully.
“Right. Even if we can do that, we can’t mass produce them. Not without a factory. We have 300 and something people in this compound, and it would take every single one of us all day long to make one bullet. We’d use that much against one Garce.”
Nyx sighed, slumping onto the stool. “Suck. I really thought I’d come up with a brilliant plan.”
Keven stared intently at the table, so hard Nyx could practically see the gears churning in his head. “Whatcha thinking?” she asked, hoping against hope that he had a better plan than hers.
Mike and Blair both paused, Blair’s drill still whirring in mid-air.
“I have an idea, actually.” Keven paced around the table, still thinking. Nyx watched his progress. Keven was a combat genius of some sort. She’d known it before the invasion, just by talking to him. After the invasion, though, he was the first person she told about the underground tunnels in Ogden — because she knew he’d know what to do with them, when so many others wouldn’t have. And then she’d been taken…
But when she’d escaped, she’d known where to come. There hadn’t ever been a doubt.
“Okay. Blair, you do the whole archery thing, right?” Keven stopped abruptly, and Nyx, still watching him, nearly fell off her stool. As she struggled to regain her balance, he glanced at her with a sigh and then continued. “What if we dipped the tips into her blood?”
“Could you keep it wet long enough to shoot it? I don’t know if dried blood would work.” Nyx shrugged, shaking her head. “I don’t know if this will work at all, actually.” There were so many factors. Did the blood have to be wet? Did it have to be on fire? Was it the force of her attack that hurt them, and not the blood at all?
But the conversation had gone on without her. “It would be a heck of a lot easier than chiseling out bullets.” Blair tossed the
drill onto the table. “Let’s try it.” He pulled the trap door up to go back down into the tunnels. It wasn’t until he was almost completely down the ladder that Nyx realized what he meant when he said Let’s.
“No no no. I try it. I will report my findings back to you.” She grabbed his upper arm, which was the only thing she could still reach. “Get your arrows and your bow. But that’s all I’ll need.” She met his gaze, making sure he understood her, throwing in a little intimidation while she was at it.
Blair raised an eyebrow, completely oblivious to her attempts. “Do you even know how to shoot a bow?”
Keven chuckled, watching it all with his arms crossed over his chest. “Oh yeah. She knows how to shoot a bow.”
At one time, a lifetime ago, when she’d even still had a father, and a mother and a sister, she’d been obsessed with archery. Her dad had gotten her first bow when she was nine. He built an archery range in the backyard, where most people in their neighborhood put their gardens and ten thousand zucchini plants, and she’d practiced with him every day. At first, it was just because she wanted to do what he did, to do things with him, to get his attention.
It had changed though. After he’d left, she kept doing it because it saved her. It was a distraction and therapy, just like running. She’d done archery in junior high and high school, and had gone to the state tournaments every year.
Well, until her junior year, when the world abruptly ended.
“I think I can figure it out.” She nodded at Blair.
“Okay. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, she’s going to hunt a whole pack of Garce by herself? Who was the idiot that okayed that?” Cole tried not to strangle the shampoo bottle he’d been on his way to take RayAnna. His hands gripped it, felt it collapse as the air whooshed out of the open cap.
Enika plucked it away from him, scowling. “I don’t know how you’ve missed this, but no one okays what Nyx does. Nyx decides she’s going to do something, and she does it. She doesn’t exactly ask for permission.” She started down the tunnel, glancing over her shoulder to see if he was coming.
Grudgingly, he started after her. The tunnels originally had included much of downtown Ogden, much more than anyone could have guessed, because many of the entrances had been bricked off after prohibition had ended in the 1920s. Keven had blown the brick walls out of the way, and eventually found a tunnel leading very near the Weber River. With the help of several ingenious refugees, he’d found a way to divert a bit of that water so they could bathe. In a world where surviving was questionable on a day-to-day basis, showers and baths had been a luxury not many could afford. The compound, though underground and dank and dark, with the low ceilings and rough floors, was still heaven-sent. It was no wonder so many of the refugees here refused to leave, even with a hybrid alien in their midst.
But Cole had a suspicion that the reason the Garce were so thick here, or at least had been, was because there were so many people still alive in one place. The Garce followed the food.
And the Pys followed the Garce.
It was a vicious, vicious cycle.
He nodded at several other people as he walked silently with Enika, alternating between fuming and thinking. They’d accepted him here with no question, which could have been dangerous. A lot of people, after the invasion, had taken advantage of others. There had been looting, of course, but as the humans had thinned and the Garce had grown, there had been bands that survived solely by riding around, usually on bicycles because fuel was so hard to come by and horses had all been eaten. They would capture anyone they came across and use them to feed the Garce during an attack.
Humans could be monsters too.
But here, they welcomed any survivors that came through. Just since he and Enika and RayAnna had shown up, there had been at least two more groups of five seeking asylum. Turns out, Nyx had left messages all over the city.
Messages for him. Looking for him, while he’d been falling in love with someone else.
“Knock knock!” Enika yelled through the door, pounding with her small fist. “Shampoo delivery!”
“Toss it in, please,” RayAnna called back. Enika threw it across the floor, where it scraped and sloshed its way out of sight. “Thank you,” RayAnna responded. Her voice was warm and welcome and safe. But it didn’t make Cole’s knees weak or his body respond like Nyx’s did. He didn’t get lost in her eyes, he couldn’t watch her sleep for hours. He didn’t love her the way he loved Nyx.
And he had to somehow find the courage to tell her that.
Enika leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor, pulling her knees up to her chest. “I hate that she goes alone. I hate that there’s nothing I can do to help her.”
It didn’t take a genius to know Enika wasn’t talking about RayAnna’s shower. “You made her new clothes.” Clothes that hug her curves and keep me awake at night. “That made her happy.”
Enika sighed, dropping her head back against the wall. “Yeah. But it didn’t make her safe. I wish she would tell us about the others she and Keven have mentioned. Maybe if she told us, we could use it — to help her or something.”
Others, like Nyx. Just the implications of what a group like her could do was mind boggling. If she could take on a whole pack of Garce by herself…
More of her could take on the Pys. Maybe.
Enika leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’m never going to be able to pay her back.”
Cole laced his fingers through hers. “I don’t think she cares, Enika.”
Enika was silent for several long minutes. It wasn’t until the door swung open and RayAnna finally emerged that Enika answered him. “But I do.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON FOR you to come. Any of you. I’ve fought the Garce alone for over a year. I don’t understand why you think—”
Cole could hear the anger in her voice long before he came around the corner to see it in her face. Blair held up his hands, although he leaned against the wall and somehow didn’t seem to notice that Nyx’s towering wings were vibrating with nerves, anger, fear… whatever it was that made her that upset. Once, Cole would have known. Now, not so much.
“What’s wrong with her?” RayAnna whispered, tucked against his side, her hand clutching his so tightly that the blood was cut off from three of his fingers.
“I think, I think—” Enika said sarcastically, “—that she wants to go fight by herself and someone has dared tell her no.”
Nyx turned, hearing Enika’s voice. Her deep, dark blue eyes were narrowed, menacing, terrifying. Beautiful.
Cole felt like a traitor, but he wasn’t sure which girl he was betraying. The one who held his hand, or the one who held his heart.
“Don’t you even think about joining this conversation,” Nyx growled. But she wasn’t talking to him. It was Enika she was threatening, possibly the only person in the compound completely safe from Nyx’s wrath, no matter how angry she was.
Enika smiled sweetly. “I don’t even know what this conversation is about. Can’t join it until someone catches me up.”
Nyx rolled her eyes, throwing up her hands. Justin answered her. “We’re going to observe Nyx’s attack. To see how the arrows do.”
“I think I liked it better when you were all deathly afraid of me,” Nyx muttered.
“That’s not true.” Keven hefted a bag over his shoulder, totally dismissing her comment. “Let’s go. As it is, I doubt we’ll make it back by sunrise.”
There was a flurry of instant activity, men grabbing weapons and bags, jostling each other as they tried to get out the door. Only Nyx stood silent, watching it all helplessly.
Enika started to follow, one foot out the door before Nyx’s hand shot out, grabbing her elbow. “You. Are. Not. Going.”
Enika met her eyes, raising her chin. “I love you like a soul sister, Nyx, but you never have been and never will be my boss.”
Nyx’s shoulders slum
ped in defeat. “Just—just be safe, okay?”
Enika’s anger melted and she threw her arms around Nyx. “I promise.” She danced out of Nyx’s grasp and out the door, swinging her ax behind her.
Nyx sighed, rubbing her temples like she was getting a headache. “She’s your sister. Can’t you stop her?” she asked Cole, who was watching with amusement.
“You know her as well as I do. You don’t tell that girl no. It’s a trait that you two share quite a bit, actually.”
She scowled at him, sparks literally shooting across her eyes. “Why can’t she stay here with you, like RayAnna. RayAnna’s such a good girl.”
RayAnna peered around Cole, brown eyes huge. “Thank you.” She sounded surprised, terrified, confused.
Nyx smiled.
“I’m not staying here.” Cole braced himself for her anger. But the sheer terror, the dark pain that nearly overwhelmed her — that, he was not expecting.
“Cole, please. I can’t—I can’t protect all of you. Please stay here.” Her words were laced with a desperation so strong, it almost changed his mind. Almost.
“RayAnna’s staying here with Justin. I need to be there, Nyx.” What if you need me, and I’m not there?
“Nyx! Let’s move, little bird!” Keven yelled from the street. His 4-Runner rumbled, like it was hungry for the fight, and Enika leaned out the side window, watching them both anxiously.
“Please, Cole,” Nyx whispered again, almost making no sound at all.
He just shook his head and turned to RayAnna. “I’ll be back soon. Stay with Justin, okay?”
She nodded, her eyes darting to Nyx and back to him. “Don’t let them hurt her,” she murmured.
He raised his eyebrows. Of everything that could have come out of her mouth, that was the last thing he expected. “I won’t.” He kissed her on the forehead and turned to go. Nyx, with one last, sad look, swept out of the shop door and into the street. She visibly pulled herself together; Cole could almost see the alien half of her taking control. She raised her chin, squared her shoulders, spread her wings. It was dark, but she gave them light.