by Pam Godwin
My muscles stiffened and heated as I reached for the bow on my back and nocked an arrow. The hurried mass of movement propelled toward us with lightning speeds. Seemingly man-sized. Or aphid-sized? I didn’t feel aphids, but holy fucking shit, they didn’t move like humans.
They moved like Michio.
The flash of Roark’s sword glinted in my periphery. Jesse planted himself at my side.
“They’re not aphids or nymphs,” I shouted, loud enough for forty soldiers to hear.
Footfalls pounded around me. Men shouted. Knives and other weaponry sounded as they slid from their leather holsters. And one clear, baritone voice boomed, “Fuck yeah. Let’s fight!”
The sun shone in my eyes, harsh and glaring, but the thunder of fast-moving footsteps was clear as day. The approaching stampede reached my ears before I could identify exactly what was coming. The tremors in my hands shook the bow and the humming in my veins strengthened as the noise grew closer, and the blurring shapes took form.
Men. Hundreds of hard-eyed, snarling men leapt over broken fences and bounded across the roofs of cars, hurdling everything in their way to cover the distance between us.
Why did they make my insides hum? It had only been seconds since I first felt them, not enough time to evacuate to our vehicles. What did they want? They were charging too aggressively and urgently to have come with anything but the intent to kill.
Could we defend ourselves against their numbers? Some of the approaching men carried assault rifles and handguns, but most were armed with weapons like ours.
I stared down the shaft of an arrow as forty soldiers spread out around me with knives, axes, and crossbows at the ready. Jesse and Roark stood at the edges of my vision, flanking me.
“Don’t leave my sight.” Jesse stepped closer, his arm bent with the pull of the bow string, his elbow grazing my head.
My ears rang with the thump of my heart, my fingers trembling to release the arrow. But they weren’t close enough, and I needed to make all twenty of my arrows count.
Our circle of men widened, stretching outward, and suddenly, several broke away. They ran down the street, clutching hunting knives and hacking at the approaching men in their paths.
A rifle went off, then another, and just like that, arrows thickened the air.
It was easy to differentiate between the two sides. Our men shouted, made expressions, and gestured to one another. The others were strangely stoic, aside from their snarling, and didn’t make eye-contact.
I sighted a man with blond plaits of hair forty yards away, his jeans and shirt tattered and smeared with dirt. He trained his crossbow on me, no surprise on his face at the sight of a woman. But he hesitated then angled away and shot someone else.
A pained grunt hit my ears. I closed off my emotions to it, couldn’t think about the people dying or the bullets whistling past or the arrows skipping across the ground around my feet.
I focused on the target, took note of the wind direction, and released the arrow.
It punctured the blond man’s chest, and he stumbled back. As I reloaded, his lips drew back in a cruel snarl, revealing over-sized canines.
My pulse rocketed through my body. “Fangs!” I screamed hoarsely, and found Jesse’s eyes beside me. “I saw fangs. They might be able to heal themselves.”
Goddamned fucking Drone. He’d bitten others? Was this his assembled army? Oh God. An army of superhuman blood-suckers.
“They’re not dying,” someone called out.
Jesse released another of his black and red feathered arrows then thrust his chin over his shoulder, shouting, “Hit them in the head!”
Where was Michio? Was he involved? My blood buzzed with the hum of his presence. But it wasn’t his hum, was it? It was the hum of hundreds like him.
Die, die, die, I chanted soundlessly, but the blond fucker I’d hit climbed to his feet, ignoring the arrow in his chest, as he raised his crossbow.
Fuck. I waited for the breeze to still and fired again. The arrow sliced into his head, and he dropped to the ground. I reached for the quiver, anchored the next shot, and aimed at a horde of approaching men, firing at the fanged faces.
Darwin’s barking muffled from the van across the street. The coppery scent of blood tickled my nose, and the cries of wounded men pierced my ears.
My teeth sawed the inside of my cheek as I sighted a black man. He snarled with a mouthful of sharp teeth and swung an ax at a slower, fangless man.
Inhale. Exhale. Shoot.
My shot burrowed directly in the fanged man’s ear, and he collapsed to the ground. I grabbed another arrow.
Roark’s sword flashed beside me, and a decapitated head bounced off my boot. Blood drenched the matted hair, and fangs pressed against dead lips.
They all had fangs. They’d all been bitten.
The sword whistled out of sight as Roark’s footfalls scuffed behind me, his grunts alerting me that he was hewing down anyone who approached my back.
I fired arrow after arrow, keeping at least one of my senses locked on Jesse and Roark. They glided around me, remaining out of my firing path yet close enough that I could track the rasps of their breaths.
Everywhere I looked, men fought in a wild fury of bows, guns, and knives. And so many fell. Our men. The other men.
I released the next shot and killed a young, pale guy with black hair. How far away had he traveled? What had led him here? Had he been truly evil and deserving of death, or was there something more manipulative at play here?
I still couldn’t sense the Drone or any of his aphids. Around me, the asphalt, broken curbs, and overgrown grass glistened in red. The sight of so much death magnified the ruination of the sagging, neglected houses I’d once called my neighborhood.
The skin on my fingers abraded with each arrow I launched. Adrenaline soaked through my body. My muscles trembled. My breaths tightened, and my lungs strained and burned.
“Evie, you’re almost out,” Roark shouted behind me.
I reached for the quiver, and sure enough, I pulled the last arrow.
How many men did we have left on our side? Not nearly enough to take down the hundred or so fangy ones blurring around us.
I wouldn’t die here, not if the prophecy was accurate. But Jesse and Roark? The thought of them lying on the ground and staring back at me with sightless eyes was enough to re-energize my mind and muscles with determination.
Anchoring my final shot, I inched toward a heap of nearby bodies. I could collect five arrows there and a few more beside the car in the driveway next door. And I still had my arm sheathes.
“Evie?” Jesse fired one after another, his neck craning between shots to look for me.
“I’m at your seven o’clock.” About thirty feet from him and Roark, I bent down and plucked the feathered shafts, planting my boot on the skulls to pry them free.
“I’ll get her,” Roark shouted, but as he turned, five men charged him.
I trained the arrow on the closest one and let it fly. The man’s head kicked back in a spray of blood. I snatched another arrow from the skull beneath my boot as Roark swung the sword, lopping the head off the next one, then another—
“Evie.” A steady, achingly-familiar voice whispered over my shoulder.
I stopped breathing and whirled, stumbling over the bodies.
No one was there. A few yards off, a man I recognized from our crew fired his crossbow in the opposite direction. But no Michio.
A low, glowing hum trembled through me, the warm sensation stronger, more powerful than I’d ever felt. It lit up every cell in my body and slithered around my bones from head to toe.
I scanned the vicinity, my gaze darting in every direction. “Michio?”
Strong arms wrapped around me from behind, pulling my back against a hard chest. I glanced down at those arms, the musculature wrapped in olive skin and dusted with dark hair.
The warmth of his embrace, the beat of his heart against my back, the hum in my blood, all of
it promising that I’d finally found him. He was here. The guardian I’d been chasing.
My heart soared, and I tried to turn in his arms, but they tightened, allowing me no leeway to move. “Michio? Let me see you.”
“Shhh.” He breathed against my ear and yanked the bow from my hand, tossing it away.
“Wait!” I jerked against him, unable to wriggle an inch. “What the fuck?”
He hauled me higher up his body, and my feet lost purchase. He flipped me over his shoulder, knocking the wind from my lungs and wrenching the quiver from my back. I got a glimpse of his cropped black hair, then the ground was spinning. We were moving, racing away.
My first thought was that he was carrying me to safety like some chauvinistic barbarian, but when I lifted my head and found Jesse and Roark, dread sank deep into my core.
They sprinted after us, their devastated eyes locked on mine and their mouths moving, shouting… They were too far away, the distance between us stretching, the street blurring into the horizon.
They vanished from view in the span of a heartbeat, but I was already shoving, twisting my body, and screaming. “Put me down! I can’t leave them. They’re going to die back there!”
The neighborhood spiraled around me, morphing into commercial buildings, the main drag of Grain Valley streaking by. Fucking hell, he’d taken me too far from them.
“Put me the fuck down, goddammit!” I smashed my fists against the bare skin on his back, bucking against his clutch on my legs.
He was too strong, moving too damned fast.
I stretched for the sleeve of my jacket to yank it up and release a blade. “Stop. Stop right now!”
Before I reached my arm sheath, he stopped, and my neck whiplashed as he dumped me on my ass. Raising my head, I glimpsed nothing but corn fields, which meant we were miles from the battle.
My eyes traveled over his crisp, black fatigues, the ridges of muscle of his broad torso, and landed on his unreadable expression. He didn’t appear to be further evolved or mutated. No wings. His fangs were hidden behind the flat line of his mouth.
Wasn’t he happy to see me? Why was he just standing there, staring? Staring but not really seeing?
He was the master of blank faces, but this…this wasn’t the man I remembered. I wanted to hug him, kiss him, and tell him how much I missed him, but his eyes held nothing. No thought. No emotion. They were clear and brown and hollow.
My heart ached for agonizing seconds before I shoved it away with thoughts of Jesse and Roark fighting for their lives.
I climbed to my feet and gripped his hands where they dangled at his sides. “Michio? We have to go back.”
Nothing. Not even a blink.
“Are you okay? How did you find me? Who are those men attacking us? Have you seen the Drone?” When he didn’t respond, a tremor rippled through me, and my throat sealed up. “You need to take me back. Our guys are getting slaughtered. We have to help Jesse and Roark!”
Frustration burned up my cheeks. I yanked my hands away, fisting them at my sides. “Say something, goddammit!”
Slowly, he lifted his arms and cupped my shoulders. I searched his face for a glimmer of something. A twitch of humanity. A trace of love.
One of his hands lifted so fast I didn’t see it until it struck against the side of my neck. Shock gripped my body. There were nerves in the neck…lots of nerves…and pressure…
Stars blotted my vision, swallowing Michio’s heartless expression until there was only darkness.
I woke with a throbbing ache behind my eyes, lying on my side and curled in a ball. Chilly wind blasted my hair into my face. The rumble of an engine vibrated my bones, and the steel floor clattered with movement.
I was moving.
With a jolt, I sat up, dizzy and alone. Icy gusts slammed against the back of my head. I reached out to brace myself. My hands bumped into wire walls, and I blinked, groggy and confused.
Terror clawed through my insides as I looked around. I was trapped. Caged in a chain-linked box in the back of a pickup truck and speeding through the night.
Chains tethered the cage securely to the truck bed, and a padlock hung from the sturdy door. My heart raced, magnifying the ache in my head. No water, no blankets, nothing occupied the 3x5 foot space but me.
Grasping at the sleeves of my leather jacket, I yanked them up. My arm sheathes were gone. Tremors surged through my hands. Unarmed. Confined.
Michio had done this? Caged me in the back of a truck like a goddamned animal? No, Michio wouldn’t have done this. The man who had snatched me from the battle was like an unknown enemy, not one of my guardians. Panic rose, hot and angry, burning through my lungs.
Where were Jesse and Roark? Did they survive the battle? My chest tightened, and my breaths grew harsh and painful. They had to be alive. I refused to believe otherwise. Maybe they would catch up with me somehow? They could be out there right now, watching me like always.
The pavement blurred behind the truck, illuminated by the dim glow of the taillights and bleeding into thick blackness. No headlights trailing behind. No tracks for them to follow.
The hope of them finding me and watching over me was disintegrating, ideas left behind in a fleeting dream or on a hemorrhaging battlefield.
I clenched my hands. How did I end up here? Michio must’ve drugged me to keep me asleep until he reached the truck? I didn’t remember anything since the strike to my neck earlier today. Or yesterday? How much time had passed?
Rage surged through my veins, pumping to the clipped beat of my heart. What happened to Michio to make him do this? Where the fuck was he? I could sense him, could feel the hum all around me.
I spun and found the rear window of the cab open. Inside, the wide shoulders of two men filled the single bench seat. The driver wore a baseball cap, his blond hair frizzing around his nape. And the passenger… Despite the shadows in the cab, I could make out the perfect symmetry of his profile, the sculpted angles of his hairless jaw, and the seductive almond-shape of his eyes.
Gripping the support bars of the cage, I pulled myself to my knees and scooted to the side so that I could see his profile. The cold metal bit into my fingers as I yelled through the open window, “Did you drug me, Michio? Why the fuck am I caged?”
He stared toward the center of the front dash, maybe so he could watch me out of the corner of his eye, but there wasn’t a flinch in his expressionless features.
“Where are we?” I raised my voice, shouting over the wind. “Did you hear me? Where are you taking me?”
He didn’t twitch an eyelash. Didn’t acknowledge me at all. What was wrong with him? He would never put me in danger. Even under his imprisonment in Malta, he protected me, took care of me. This man was not Michio.
The Drone must’ve done this to him. But what? How? What had he been through to reduce him to this…this empty thing? My chest ached for him, my body tightening with worry.
Up ahead, a red trail of taillights snaked into the dark. At least a dozen vehicles traveled in some kind of caravan. Who were they?
I swatted the hair out of my face and scanned the surrounding darkness. Every few breaths, I felt the distant buzz of aphids, the sensations flickering as we sped in and out of range.
The terrain appeared flat and barren beyond the occasional abandoned car. I couldn’t see buildings or road signs. Were those fields? Kansas? Were we heading west?
Hazy clouds hovered over the moon, crisscrossed by the wire ceiling of my enclosure. I didn’t know how to navigate using moon phases or constellations, and the landscape was so dark I couldn’t see a damned thing.
I turned back to the cab. “Where have you been for the past four months? Did you find the Drone? Who’s in all those cars?”
Could Jesse and Roark be with them? Certainly not willingly. Not with me back here in a fucking cage.
Michio didn’t blink, didn’t give me so much as a sideways glance.
“Why aren’t you talking to me?” Frustration an
d hurt edged my voice, straining my words. At this point, I knew I wouldn’t be getting any answers, but I had to keep trying. “What happened to you, Michio? Please look at me.”
When he didn’t, I slammed a hand against the cage wall, rattling it, and shifted my attention to the driver. “Who the fuck are you? Did Michio bite you? Were you part of the group that attacked us in Missouri?”
I paused between each question. When he didn’t respond or blink, I continued with more, hoping something I said would finally break their torpid silence. “Where’s the Drone? Can you feel my presence the way I can feel yours? You know, the hum under your skin? I bet you can. I bet you can feel how fucking pissed I am right now!”
Nothing. They were stiff, unresponsive entities, like robots, driving the truck, following the snake of taillights, staring straight ahead. They didn’t communicate with each other, didn’t exchange a single look.
Were they mentally controlled? How deep did that control reach? Could the Drone hear me talking to them? Was he actively broadcasting commands or did he give them orders and send them off?
Thinking back to the battle, none of our attackers interacted with one another. While our guys gestured and shouted and worked together, the fanged men simply drove ahead, single-mindedly focused on killing.
What the fuck was going on?
The darkness of the cab seemed to cling to Michio’s apathetic demeanor. Shadows accentuated the slack outline of his profile. His strong hands lay palms down on his thighs, his athletic body calm and indifferent. What if he’d been harmed so badly his mind had been altered? What if he couldn’t come back from it? God, I wanted to wrap my arms around him.
Up and down, my gaze roamed every inch of him I could see, lingering on the most memorable attributes. His flawless skin had once felt like velvet beneath my hands. The cords in his thick neck used to stretch when he orgasmed. His full lips had tasted like the most exotic spice beneath my tongue. And his fangs, both imposing and erotic, were presently sheathed.