by Pam Godwin
“Spiders? That’s what you call the men who are bitten?” I scanned Michio’s face, stark in its blankness, but still gorgeous in his fearlessness. He was not a fucking spider.
“Yes. My spiders are out there right now, offering superhuman abilities—speed, healing, strength—in exchange for servitude. Dr. Nealy aside, no man is forced to join me.”
“They join out of greed.”
His eyes darkened. “I call it ambition.”
“Do they understand the level of fanaticism they’re signing up for?”
The air writhed around him, sparking with his anger. “They agree to support my efforts in Allah’s name.”
“Okaaaay.” I realized I was poking an unhinged monster, but I doubted anyone had ever sat down with him and made him question his delusions. “You’re taking away their freewill. That kind of defeats the power of faith.”
“I’m removing their clumsy reasoning and replacing it with true knowledge.” He met my eyes. “I don’t know why the venom acts as a tether to mental processing or how I’ve gained access to reprogram their frontal lobes. I’m a biochemist not a neuroscientist. But the ability works in my favor.” His fanged smile was smug and sharp. “When I die, they will continue to carry out Allah’s will.”
Holy shit, that was way more fucked-up than I’d imagined.
I absently rinsed out the shampoo, my voice quiet, reedy. “What is Allah’s will?”
“It’s really very simple, Eveline. I’m creating a planet free of susceptibility, temptation, and weakness, one that will bring mankind into contact with Allah and fulfill His commandment in making La illaha ilallah the only law of the world.”
Whatever that meant. It didn’t matter whether or not I understood his religion. In his mind, he was the champion of his faith, striving for his version of a better world, just like everyone else. But unlike my guardians, who aspired to protect and free mankind, the Drone embraced violence and repression as a means to improve humanity. However deeply skewed that was, he believed his species of altered brains would bring him closer to feeling complete.
“But you said Michio was exempt?” My gaze roamed over Michio’s face. “You haven’t altered his frontal lobe?”
“I can’t.” The Drone’s eyes hardened amid the soft droop of his facial features. “Just like I can’t access the brain of a bitten woman. Why do you think that is?”
I massaged my temples, my head pounding. He could only control the motor area of Michio’s brain and none of a woman’s? What did they have in common?
Me?
Michio had never technically bitten me, never injected me with venom. His fangs had grazed my skin, but he hadn’t drank my blood. No, wait, that wasn’t true. He’d told me in Georgia he’d been consuming the blood leftover in my transfusion vials. So, yeah, my blood had entered his body. And every cured woman carried my plasma in her veins.
I gripped my throat. “My blood.”
“That’s right. Your blood. The potency of the venom is the same whether the bite comes from me or my spiders. I rarely sink my fangs into a vein anymore. I don’t get much pleasure from it. But for you, I will make an exception. Now ask me why I haven’t bitten you yet.”
My voice quivered. “Why haven’t you bitten me?”
He stopped behind me and dragged his despicable talons along my hips. The spray of water peppered his fingers, his skin sizzling beneath the droplets. Bubbled sores formed and disappeared just as quickly. He was allergic to water and able to heal the reaction.
The stale scent of his breath trickled over my shoulder, his nails on my hips pulling me away from the stream. “The venom from the bite makes both men and women infertile, my dear. If I bit you now…”
“I wouldn’t be able to conceive,” I said, numbly.
“Very good.”
The words he’d said when he visited me in a dark dream brushed the back of my mind. You shall become my queen. Together we will populate the world with Allah’s chosen.
I wrestled with my lungs, begging them to sound quieter. “Why are you sinking your fangs into the world, knowing they won’t be able to reproduce?”
He dragged his sharp teeth across my shoulder, instigating a belligerent shudder through my body. “I have a supply of unbitten men who impregnate the women. After the women conceive, they’re bitten.”
My breath burst in and out as I pulled away from his clutches, my voice shrill. “What does the venom do to the pregnant women? The babies?”
Did he intend to impregnate me by one of his non-spider men? Then bite me?
Suddenly, I felt unnervingly vulnerable. I needed clothes, protection, something. A towel and a pile of blue cotton sat on one of the sinks, so I darted for them, drying quickly. Then I wrapped the full-body-length semicircle of cotton—similar to Elaine’s coverings—around my body and neck. Behind me, the water shut off.
The Drone watched me with pleasure as I covered my body. “Every woman alive today carries traces of your blood, which acts as a vaccine against the venom. Women don’t acquire the superhuman benefits of the bite. They can’t bite others because they don’t have fangs. And unfortunately, they are able to block my attempts to alter their minds.”
Women like Elaine. So the only effect the venom had on women was infertility. But these were pregnant women.
I covered my mouth. “You get them pregnant. Then you inject them with the venom. And the babies…” I dropped my hand. “What happens to the babies?”
“When the women are bitten, their fetuses become hybrids. The venom in the mother gives me access to the entire unborn brain as it develops in the womb. This allows me to mold their minds before they’re born, whether they are male or female. And unlike other animal hybrids, they will be fertile.”
His plans for propagating a new race seemed ill-devised if every cured woman could only conceive one child.
“How do you know? Have any been born yet?”
“No.” He rubbed the scarred flesh on his chin. “Did you know I can read Dr. Nealy’s thoughts?”
The random change of topic had my head kicking back. “How can you read his thoughts? What thoughts?”
He lifted a shoulder, his gnarled mouth crooking up in a sinister smile. “I know everything he knows.”
My breath caught. “That’s how you found my house.” Through countless conversations with Michio, I’d explained every detail of my home to him. The location, the pool, the Japanese Maple out front. “And the Lakota… That’s how you knew where they were.” My heart squeezed painfully. “Why did you kill them?”
He sighed. “You won’t appreciate my methods unless I start at the beginning.” He strode to the door, waving at me to follow.
I drew a deep breath and shuffled after him, my legs kicking at the wrap of fabric. His six spiders and Michio formed their three rows of three around me, and we headed back the direction we’d come, presumably to the room with the shackles.
The Drone’s gaze traced the tiles of the corridor as he set the pace, his long-legged strides eating up the floor beside me. “When I visited you in Georgia, I could’ve taken you then. I’d planned to, in fact, but I learned a number of startling things that night. Things that altered my entire campaign.”
I dug through my memories, trying to figure out what he was talking about, and came up blank.
He slid a hand into his pocket. “I discovered I could read Dr. Nealy’s thoughts that night. You see, I hadn’t bitten anyone who had lived long enough to demonstrate the effects. I saw him move and heal like me, and through his thoughts, I learned about Elaine in the mountains and the woman you’d cured right there in Georgia. But the most enlightening bit of knowledge I gleaned that night pertained to the prophecy.”
The march of boots around me punctuated the heavy beat of my heart. Why the hell did he care about the prophecy?
“It’s just a hokey premonition. Doesn’t mean anything.” The lie rolled smoothly off my tongue, but I couldn’t stop the trembling in my hands.
; Beside me, Michio showed no outward signs of listening, but the Drone had said he could perceive everything. Was he moaning and screaming and mentally clawing inside his skin? My chest collapsed, aching for him.
Our group turned and entered the room with the shackles and mattress. The cage had been removed, and a stool sat in its place. The last man in shut the door behind us.
I did not want to be confined again, but if I fought my way out, I knew I would be fighting Michio’s possessed body.
I placed a hand on his forearm, seeking solace in the sinewy muscle and familiar olive skin. Maybe it comforted him, too, and for a fleeting moment, I imagined he was fully aware and in control, poised to stand by me, ready to protect me.
“I’ll give you two options.” The Drone lowered to the stool and braced his elbows on his thighs. “You can willingly lie on that mattress and lock yourself in. Or I can use Michio’s body to force you into the restraints. His fists will connect with your face. His boots will bruise your ribs. His grip will tear your skin. It will hurt you, but I assure you, it will hurt him far worse.”
Anger surged through me, shredding my throat and rushing out in unfiltered, furious words. “You’ve talked a lot of shit, goddammit! But as far as I can see, Michio is gone. Gone! Where the fuck is he? Because when I look in his eyes and—” I choked, reaching up to cup Michio’s face then dropping my hands and turning away, my chest heaving. “I can’t see him. Not a flicker or a glimpse of the man he was. He’s not fucking in there!”
Silence stuffed the room, pressing against my chest. It was a hopeless situation, one that ended with me in chains and whatever the Drone had planned next. Rape? Pregnancy? A baby with fangs? I didn’t know because we hadn’t finished the conversation.
“I’m here, Nannakola.”
The voice floated over my shoulder, lifting the hairs on my arms. Michio’s voice.
I spun toward him, and his expression…oh my God, his expression was anguish creased with fury, deep and open, grooved with heartache and glowing red with murder.
“Michio?” My heart banged wildly as I reached for him, my hand hovering beside his cheek, so close I felt the heat radiating from his skin.
His arms hung at his sides, his body relaxed. His stoic posture was such a contradiction to the thunderstorm contorting his face my brain struggled to comprehend the paradox.
“I’ve given him control over his facial muscles.” The Drone said, matter-of-factly. “And now his voice.”
“I’m so sorry.” Michio’s face twisted in horror, his deep timbre cracking with agony. “Oh Evie, I’m so fucking sorry. Sosorrysosorry. I can’t…I can’t— Fuck! I’m going to kill—”
His mouth slackened, and his expression emptied.
“Noooo!” My heart pumped frantically as I launched at Michio and hugged his torso. “Bring him back. Let me see him again!”
Michio’s body didn’t respond, his arms dangling in my embrace.
A few feet away, the Drone remained perched on the stool, watching us with his head slightly tilted, his eyes unfocused, and a smirk on his melted mouth. Fuck him.
I reached up, pulled Michio’s face to mine, and stared into his flat eyes. “God, Michio, I missed you so much.” I peppered desperate kisses across his blank face and wrapped my arms around his neck, touching our foreheads together. “I love you. I’m here. Right here. We’re together, okay? This isn’t your fault. None of it. Dammit, I know you can hear me. Just…just don’t give up.”
He didn’t move beneath my touch, didn’t meet my eyes. But he was in there, locked behind that terrible shell of an expression. Sweet fucking hell, he was still here.
A surge of raw anger made its way along my limbs, curling my fingers against his shoulders. We would get past this, starting with severing the Drone’s head. Or wrenching off his arm and stabbing him in the eye with it. If his death didn’t release the minds of his spiders, we would kill them, too, then save the women outside the gate. Then side by side, we would find Jesse and Roark.
I replayed the violent fantasy of our escape over and over until all I saw was a red haze of vengeance. My hands shook as I slid down Michio’s chest and turned toward the Drone, my gaze hitting my target like a sharp, flinging blade.
Operating purely on instinct and rage, I didn’t think as I flung toward him, fingernails aimed for his shriveled face with every intention of clawing out his eyes and tearing the flesh from his skull.
An arm caught me around the waist, halting my momentum mid-air, and wrenched me backward before I made contact with that vile face. I choked, losing the wind in my lungs as strong hands blurrily spun me around. Everything happened so fast, my fists swinging and dodging, my heart pumping rapidly, and the room whipping around me.
All of it came to a stop as Michio’s knuckles slammed into my jaw. Fiery pain jarred across my face, and star bursts dotted my vision as I landed on my back on the mattress.
Pinning me with a knee on my chest, Michio reared back to hit me again.
“Wait!” I panted, my face throbbing as my gaze locked on the Drone. “I’ll cooperate. Don’t make him hit me again.”
Michio rose in a blink of fluid motion and stood at the foot of the mattress. It killed me to think about the torment he must’ve felt watching his own fist connect with my face.
I stared up at the glassy eyes that couldn’t meet mine and said, softly, “I’m so sorry, Michio. I won’t make you do that again.”
With numb movements, I adjusted the wrap of fabric to cover my legs and torso. Then I collected the restraints near the wall and snapped the steel shackles around my wrists, each one locking with the sound of defeat.
The four-foot long chains gave me enough room to lie down or stand. Or to strangle the Drone if he came close enough.
But he wasn’t stupid. His guards didn’t carry weapons near me for the same reason he remained on the stool and out of reach.
“I’m restrained now. Can’t go anywhere.” Lying on my back and braced on my elbows, I jerked each arm against the chains to punctuate my point. “Let Michio talk. Give him control of his face or his voice again. Give him something.”
The Drone studied Michio, tapping his fingers together between his knees. “I can’t do that. He’s very…unhappy at the moment.”
Michio was probably detonating inside, which was painful to accept, and so fucking confusing, given the bland look on his model-perfect face.
Even as I despised the Drone for breaching Michio’s privacy, I had to know. “What is he thinking?”
A gruesome smirk rose amid the melted skin of the Drone’s visage. “He’s imagining all the ways he’s going to kill me. It’s sadly barbaric.” Lines formed across his mutilated brow. “And of course, I can hear his pathetic lamentations to hold you, to give you comfort. I’m afraid you’ve ruined him.”
“Let him hold me.” My voice was urgent, pleading. “What would happen? If anything, it’ll calm both of us down.”
Slowly, the Drone straightened on the stool and propped an ankle over a knee. “Very well.”
Michio crumpled to his knees and toppled over me. His expression didn’t change, but the muscles in his biceps flexed as he woodenly caught his weight, hooked his arms around me, and pulled me into the cage of his body.
His hand cupped the back of my head, and it was with that specific gesture that I finally felt him. His touch. Our bond. God, I hadn’t realized how much we needed that. It was such a small mercy that grip on my head, yet it meant everything.
I pressed a kiss to his sternum and found myself hurdling through an unexpected stream of visions. I imagined massaging his back after he’d spent a long day of providing medical care for a civilized world. In the next image, I made dinner—lasagna and bread sticks—of which Roark appreciated the most. Then I washed Jesse’s hair while we soaked in a tub. So fucking domesticated, yet there it was, filling my chest with longing.
I tried to hold on to it, to keep my guardians with me, but as Michio rolled us t
o our sides, chest to chest, I felt the essence that made him who he was vanish from his touch.
His arms locked into place around me like insentient steel bars, his breathing tempered into inhuman steadiness, and his fingers lay lifeless against my back. His muscles held me, but he no longer animated the movements.
The chains clanked as I trailed a finger down his arm, and goosebumps cropped up along his skin. Goosebumps! Oh God, Michio could feel me.
I settled against his chest, melting against the familiar lines and ridges of his body, and reached deep with my mind, seeking the man that hummed beneath my skin.
My fingers lingered on the crook of his elbow then traced the bulge of his bicep. With each caress, I showed him how much I missed him, that I’d been incomplete without him, and that I knew he was with me, even if he couldn’t show me.
For too long, I’d carried a deep empty space in my heart. He was the part that had been missing, and now that I’d found him, the other two-thirds of my heart were missing.
I glared at the man responsible. “Where are Jesse and Roark?”
The Drone shrugged. “Where you left them. I pulled the army out of Missouri after Dr. Nealy secured you.”
My pulse raced with hope. He’d already said he would have them killed if I didn’t cooperate, which was why he’d kept them alive.
“They won’t find you.” He rubbed at a water spot on his patent leather shoe then lowered his foot to the floor. “You were transported in a vehicle. There are no tracks. Nothing to lead them here. But if I need to motivate you, I have spiders and aphids covering every mile of the continent. I can find your guardians within hours. Would you like that?”
I didn’t bother responding. I suspected he’d burned my house so that I wouldn’t have anything to cling to, but it was just a house. My guardians were my home.
Jesse and Roark must’ve been out of their minds with worry. No doubt they were trying to find me this very minute, but how? Would they look for witnesses? Men we’d passed on the way here?
The nymphs. My heart skipped. The nymphs would travel in from every direction, attracted to the women outside the dam. If Jesse and Roark followed them, they would find me. It was scary to hope, but it fluttered through every cell of my body, lifting me, giving me confidence. I just needed to delay the Drone’s plans for me, whatever those plans were, until Jesse and Roark arrived.