by Pam Godwin
Amos stared at his dusty loafers. Either he still didn’t believe we could cure the nymph or he was considering the ramifications of what Michio suggested.
Jesse twisted the needle onto the syringe barrel, his mouth sliding into a lazy grin as he stepped beside me.
I didn’t trust that grin, not when he was seconds away from sticking me. “Is this payback for saving your hide out there?”
Roark perched at my side, his attention darting between Amos, the now docile nymph, and the low hills beyond the doorway. His soft eyes and relaxed shoulders radiated calmness, but since he wasn’t talking—or swearing—I knew he was on high-alert. My guardians worked efficiently like that, one of them always on the lookout when the others were distracted. Made it easier to relax sometimes, knowing we had each other’s backs.
Jesse swiped the inside of my elbow with iodine, cleaning away the aphid guts. “You disobey me because you think it gives you control. But the only thing your hardheadedness will accomplish is getting yourself killed.”
Oh, we were back to that again? “Maybe I don’t listen because you use words like disobey.”
He tied a rubber hose around my bicep, tighter than necessary, and touched the hypodermic point against the crease of my arm.
Blood didn’t bother me, but I’d rather not see it drain from my body. So I closed my eyes. “I thought I was supposed to die on a cliff or at the end of your—”
He shoved the needle into my vein.
“—prick.” I flexed my hand against the sting and opened my eyes to find him steadily watching me.
There were so many facets of that watchful gaze. Sometimes it was creepy and invasive and judgmental. Other times it was so damned sexy, I felt it in places he never physically touched. But it was always steady, as if the only thing that mattered to him was reading my thoughts and predicting my actions.
Jesse Beckett was a strange one, mercurial in his moods, precarious in his affection for me. If I didn’t share his belief in his visions, I’d question his mental health. Maybe I should question it. I mean, I used to see visions too, but it had been months, and now I wondered if it was all just a coping mechanism for the loss of my children.
How was Jesse coping with this fucked up world?
As he filled the vial with my blood, his eyes didn’t waver from mine. His strong cheekbones formed a dramatic ledge for that deep-set glare. The vivid copper of his irises churned with gold flecks, sucking me in. He was so damned hypnotic.
I sat taller and blinked to break the trance. “Have your visions changed? Did you really think I would die out there?”
He looked down and removed the syringe, lips pinched, eyes hidden by his lashes.
“Awesome.” I jerked my arm from his grip and pressed a finger against the tiny well of crimson. “Great talk. We should do this more often.”
On the other side of the room, Amos answered Michio’s questions. No, he hadn’t encountered other nymphs. Yes, this was a remote area. No, he hadn’t left the reserve in two years. Evidently, it was Jackson who captured all the aphids, luring them into the cages to unleash on trespassers. And Jackson made all the supply runs, which didn’t give me a lot of hope for Amos’ ability to protect and care for a cured woman.
Jesse loaded the vial of blood in the gun and stepped toward Michio. Halfway there, he stopped and walked back. Without pausing to catch his breath—to let me catch my breath—he leaned over my lap and braced his arms on either side of mine.
Holy shit, he was close. His legs pressed against mine, his full lips a kiss away. My lungs, my muscles, everything froze up.
“Just because I know how you’re supposed to die,” he whispered against my gaping mouth, “doesn’t mean I know how often or badly you’ll be injured between now and then.”
My heart thumped wildly at his words, his proximity, and the shock of it all coming at me at once. He glanced at Roark, who glared at the doorway as if it were filled with aphids. It wasn’t. That was Roark pretending not to listen.
Jesse bent closer, drugging my inhales with his woodsy scent and shoving his sexual energy, frustration, whatever this was in my face as his lips brushed my ear. “I’m not going to let you die, Evie. We won’t let you die. It’s time you start depending on us.”
I understood what he was saying, but maybe he didn’t realize just how vital his safety was to my peace of mind? “I get it, but—”
“I want more.” He lifted his hand to cup my cheek but drew it back before he made contact.
“More?” Dependency? Touching? Mixed signals and sexual frustration bounced all over the damned place, spinning my head into a fog of What the fuck?
“You’re not the only one affected by this.” He gestured between us and strode off, holding the dart gun out to Michio.
I growled low in my throat. Typical Jesse, making cryptic declarations and leaving too many questions at the most inopportune time and place to ask them.
Michio accepted the dart gun and held it up for Amos’ inspection. “This is blood, not a bullet. It won’t hurt your nymph.”
He went on, explaining how the healing process worked as my mind replayed the last few minutes.
Jesse made me feel like a fool. My hand clenched. I did depend on them. Like an equal. I pulled my weight, dammit. We all did.
Roark remained silent beside me. He might’ve been listening to Michio’s conversation with Amos, but I felt the weight of his eyes urging me to talk.
I kept my voice hushed beneath the medical chit-chat across the room. “I was married to an overprotective man for fifteen years.”
His hand settled on my thigh and squeezed. “I know, love.”
Yeah, they all knew. I’d spoken of Joel often. “Living with Joel, I had two choices: become a pushover or push back.”
“A pushover wouldn’t have survived out there alone as long as ye did.”
Agreed. Marriage to Joel made me stubborn, but it also toughened me enough to survive. “Dependency is dangerous, Roark.” Truth was, I was scared. Reliance scared me. Didn’t matter how strong and brave my guardians were. “You’re not bulletproof either. Or aphid-proof or fall-off-a-cliff-proof.” Considering how people had died trying to protect me, I had every right to continue training in battle and protecting myself. And every opportunity I got to protect my guardians was a chance I’d take. “Too many dangers could take you away and leave me alone again.”
Roark nodded, his eyes on Jesse. “He knows that. He’s just…frustrated.”
Fucking understatement. Jesse stood against the far wall, hand resting on the tomahawk at his hip and his glare shooting laser beams of frustration across the room.
Roark lowered his head and whispered, “He needs a release.”
A release?
“A blow job, hand job, something…”
Umm, was he suggesting I step up and take care of it? Roark wasn’t possessive like Michio, but his open-mindedness had my head shaking and my stomach flip-flopping. “How they ever let you in the seminary is beyond me.”
Michio drew my attention as he took a slow step toward Amos and the cage. “The genetic code that makes us human is dormant in the nymph. Evie’s blood will unlock it.” He raised the dart gun. “Move out of the way, Amos.”
Show time. I hopped down from the table. “We’ve done this twice, and we’re batting two for two.”
Didn’t need to mention the first nymph was murdered after we cured her.
Amos rubbed a hand on his pants, and his gaze bounced between us. With a trembling exhale, he shuffled to the side.
Michio’s finger stretched toward the trigger. The nymph’s head tilted back, and a wet scream ripped from its mutated gullet.
The ear-piercing squeal rattled through the room, and the invisible vibrations smacked me directly in the stomach. But the attack didn’t just come from the nymph. Its link grafted onto multiple telepathic streams coming from outside. My insides lit up with at least a dozen aphid signals, the familiar feeling waving
over me and causing the hairs on my arms to stand up.
“Aphids.” My gaze flew to the doorway. “Twelve or more. Down the hill, I think.”
As Jesse ran out the door, the boom of rifles echoed in the distance. Georges and Tallis could handle them. In fact, the pulsing links were disintegrating with the blast of gunfire.
Amos stared at me like my skin had turned green. “Your eyes…they’re black.”
Shit. That was an annoying side-effect of my aphid communication. Good thing he couldn’t see the black spots on my back.
Michio used Amos’ distraction and raised the dart gun at the nymph.
It dragged its jaw along the bars, the fleshy parts in its throat worming, stringing snot from the stabbing spear. As it threw back its head, Michio let the dart fly. The tranquilizer casing hung from the nymph’s neck, and the creature slumped to the floor.
Relief washed through me. It was done. Finally, Amos would see—
He fell against the cage door and reached for the unconscious nymph through the bars, his cry strangled and angry. “What have you done?”
I ground my teeth. I’d only been half-listening, but I knew Michio had explained this part.
Outside, the fire of rifles ceased, as did the pinching vibrations in my gut.
I met Michio’s eyes. “The aphids are dead.”
“What?” Amos turned wide eyes on me. “You can feel them?”
Crap. He was already suspicious.
I nodded, slowly. “It’s complicated.”
His expression distorted into oh-shit-you’re-a-monster terror, the only warning I got before he withdrew a small pistol from his waistband and aimed it at me.
My heart slammed into my throat, and my hand went to the sidearm on my thigh. Then everything happened at once. Jesse appeared in the doorway, Roark’s boots squeaked behind me, and Michio flung himself across the room to reach me.
I raised the handgun. “Wait! I’m not—”
Michio plowed into me as the explosive bang of Amos’ gun reverberated the walls. I squeezed the trigger.
So many things went through my mind in that slow-moving second that hurdled me to the floor beneath the impact of Michio’s lunge.
I hadn’t checked Amos for concealed weapons, hadn’t questioned how he would react to my bizarre biology. I’d seen the change in his expression. I could’ve stopped him.
Next came the realization that I felt nothing but the hard floor at my back and Michio’s weight on my chest. The bullet hadn’t hit me.
I refused to accept that and gave my insides a thorough once over, searching for the burn of lead lodged beneath my skin.
No bullet wounds. Which meant…
Michio convulsed on top of me, and fear rose up, paralyzing my muscles in cold shock. Wet warmth seeped from his shirt to mine, and the bitter scent of blood saturated the air.
He’d blocked the bullet. With his fucking chest! Every cell in my body screamed in denial. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. He was going to die.
“Michio?” Blood drained from my face as I tried to shift him off me to the floor.
His bulk suddenly lightened and rolled with the help of Jesse and Roark.
Amos lay sprawled a few feet away, a red stain spreading from a hole in his shirt and his head hanging to the side. Passed out. Or dead. I didn’t give a shit.
Michio’s chest heaved in time with the noisy breaths wheezing past his lips. The crimson blot over his heart doubled in size with each rise and fall.
Ohmygodohmygod, this couldn’t be happening. I bent over him, wrestling with the harrowing seconds between terror and responsibility. Do something!
My pulse pounded past my ears as I spread my hands over the wound, unsure, helpless. He was the doctor, the only one here who could fix this.
Blood seeped between my fingers, and his face grew paler with each shallow breath. Please, open your eyes.
“Michio? Michio, talk to me.” My teeth sank into my lip, and I put my weight into my hands until I couldn’t compress any harder.
But the blood kept coming. It soaked his clothes, pooled on the concrete, and stained his neck. My hands were gloved in shiny red. My arms, my tank top, my lap, I was covered in it. I hadn’t seen this much human blood since that asshole sailor tried to saw off my boob in Dover.
A terrified noise rattled in my throat, and my entire body shook with tremors. I couldn’t stop the blood flow, didn’t know how to save him.
Jesse sat back on his heels and ripped off his shirt. Then he shoved the wadded fabric beneath my hands and pressed. “Doc? Doc?”
Michio’s eyes fluttered. Scared eyes, peering from red-rimmed sockets. “Roll me.”
Jesus, okay, still conscious and talking. That was good, right? My walloping pulse didn’t agree.
Roark rolled him, and I helped Jesse hold the shirt to the wound. A smaller circle of blood wet his shoulder blade.
Michio drew a shallow inhale. “Did it go through?”
“Yeah.” I found a tiny breath of relief in not having to remove a bullet. But his cheek was so fucking clammy under my hand. I swallowed past the helplessness wedged in my throat. “What now? How do we control the bleeding?”
“Doc?” Roark gripped Michio’s chin. “Tell us what to do.”
Michio’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his body slackened against the floor.
No, no, no! Determination seared up my spine. I ran fingers along the side of his windpipe, seeking and finding his heart beat. “His pulse is rapid, weak…God, it’s barely there.”
Jesse ripped away Michio’s shirt and used the scraps to stanch the exit point. I strained to hear each of Michio’s inhales as they teetered in, each breath as uncertain and fragile as I felt.
My guardians remained silent. Like the nymph, who lay on her back, dart in her neck. Like Amos, unconscious or dead.
Roark kicked the gun away from Amos and knelt beside Michio’s duffel bag. “Does he have QuickClot or Celox?” His accent strained with worry. “Surely he has something in here to seal it with?”
“I don’t know.” I should’ve paid attention to his supplies, should’ve been better prepared.
I swallowed hard and turned my attention to Jesse, his glare intense and blistering. I wanted to scream at him. See? This is what happens when you rely on others. I depended on Michio for all things related to first-aid. I didn’t even know if we had bandages or pain-killers.
Minutes passed. It felt like hours. I laid my hand on Jesse’s to take over the compress. But he left his there, twining his fingers through mine.
I cleared my throat and looked to Roark. “I can’t go through this again.” I reached out to touch Michio’s closed eyes and hesitated, my fingers caked in blood. I lowered my hand. “Michio let me grieve your death for days.”
At the time, I didn’t know he’d lied about Roark’s death to protect me. He was my captor, and I’d hated him vehemently. I wanted to die in that prison.
Roark met my eyes over his shoulder. “He might’ve caused ye that pain, love, but he didn’t give up on ye.”
No, he’d pulled me through those dark days on Malta. My lips touched Michio’s cold ones, his heart a faint beat against mine. I wasn’t about to give up on him now.
“You’re not escaping hell without me, Michio.” I hovered there, a breath away, until Roark gripped my arm, drawing my attention to the pouch of QuickClot in his hand.
He squatted on my other side, closer to Michio’s head, and pushed Jesse’s hand away to lift the sopping-wet compress.
Beneath the slick of blood, the injury seemed to…distort. My head swam. Not just from waves of panic and adrenaline. My brain wobbled and lagged with hallucination, like I was submerged in a dream. But it wasn’t a dream. His wound was transforming. Shrinking? No, that couldn’t be right. Had it stopped bleeding?
I blinked and leaned closer. “Water. Does someone have water?”
Jesse’s shadow moved away and returned a moment later. He twisted th
e lid off a plastic bottle and emptied it on the wound. The hole shriveled, paled.
“What the…” I shook my head and licked cracked lips. “Do you see this?”
Jesse reached across Michio’s torso, pushing me out of the way, as he bent down for a closer look.
Crouched beside me, Roark wasn’t looking at Michio’s chest. I followed his gaze to the tiny white points protruding from between Michio’s lips.
Nausea turned my stomach as my mind flitted in and out of memory. The Drone’s superhuman speed, his wings, his fangs…
Beside me, Roark lowered to his knees and put his face in Michio’s, a breath away.
Michio’s eyes shot open. “What are you”—he sucked in wet breath—“doing, Priest?”
Hope and disbelief collided inside me then poured out in a rush of exhales.
With a sudden jerk, Roark straightened and pulled me with him. “Bloody hell, Doc. Wanna explain wha’s poking outta your trap?”
A groan gurgled in his throat. “Not…at the moment.”
“Michio, something’s happening.” I swatted away Roark’s attempt to pull me back and touched the pockmark on Michio’s chest with a tentative finger. “I don’t…understand…it’s…”
No longer a well of blood, the thin bubble of skin stretched and expanded over the hole. Holy Mother. I jerked my hand back.
I’d seen that before. Right after my husband died, I took my grief out on an aphid. I dissected it…while it was alive. It couldn’t regrow limbs, but the efficiency in which it repaired injuries was inhuman. Just like this.
My ears rang, and my pulse whooshed loudly in my head. Had Michio contracted the infection? But when…how… Oh fuck, no.
“The Drone,” I whispered, as if saying the name aloud would conjure his ghost. The hairs on my nape rose, and I shivered. “He bit you in Iceland.” I scooted back, apprehension scratching up my throat. “He passed along his mutation?”