by Pam Godwin
The Drone pulled back and rose to his feet, adjusting his cape as he glared at Michio. “That’s my decision, Dr. Nealy. Not yours.” After a pause, his eyes hardened. “Of course, he is. You’ve been thinking of nothing else for the past four months.”
My head swam as I listened to the one-sided conversation. Dr. Jaffer kept his eyes on his lap. The six spiders along the wall stared at jack shit like silent statues, empty men without opinions, because the Drone had reprogrammed their frontal lobes. The same thing he intended to do to my child.
My child.
“What is Michio saying?” I gathered his dead weight into my arms and settled his face on my chest, my fingers stroking through his hair. “Let him talk.”
The Drone ignored me, turning his attention to Dr. Jaffer. “I want an ultrasound.” His eyes flicked to Michio and returned to Dr. Jaffer. “Transvaginal.”
My breathing accelerated. The IUD was there. It would show up on the ultrasound, just like last time. Wouldn’t it?
Uncertainty hardened in a pit in my stomach. What if I was already pregnant?
My thoughts tangled, and my body shook maliciously. I was so fucking scared, but I felt something else, too. Something stronger, buzzing with energy and life and purpose. I couldn’t explain it, but all I could think was, This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning.
As Dr. Jaffer pulled the machine from the bag and plugged it in, the Drone paced beside us, arms crossed, tapping his lips with a long finger.
“It would be more efficient if you asked her those questions directly.” He glared down at Michio’s face, where he lay on my chest. “Just remember, I’m only keeping you alive for your knowledge. I can just as easily pull your thoughts while Elaine is bouncing on your dick.” He bent down and flashed his fangs. “The first whimpering, off-topic comment that leaves your mouth, you’re done.”
My arms banded tighter around Michio, my heart aching for him. How many times had the Drone threatened him with Elaine? How often had she raped him?
Blood overran my vision. I was going to kill her, slowly with my hands while they empurpled her flesh and snapped her bones, then brutally with my blades, bleeding her until her vicious poison drained from her eyes.
Michio’s jaw moved against my chest. “When did you first have sex with Jesse?”
My hackles went up. Not because of the question. I knew it would be the chief thought on his mind. It was his flat voice. The lack of inflection didn’t belong in this delicate conversation. He would be upset, seething with jealousy, and he couldn’t express himself. It wasn’t fair to him.
I tipped his face toward mine and kissed his forehead as I said to the Drone, “Give him control of his face. Or let me hear the pitch in his voice. He sounds like a fucking computer.”
“No,” the Drone snapped. “Answer the question.”
Goddammit. I would, only if Michio had asked it. “Is it his question or yours?”
“His. I’m allowing it because I want the answers.”
I held Michio’s strong jaw in my hand as I thought back to my first time with Jesse. Two weeks in the cage. Another two weeks traveling from Charlottesville. “Four weeks ago, give or take a few days.”
The Drone hissed, his grotesque features distorting around his fangs.
I pulled in a ragged breath, my gaze on Michio. “We used an ultrasound before we had sex, and the IUD was still in position.” I kissed the smooth skin between his brows, lingering there. “I’m so sorry you can’t show me how you feel. This is not how I wanted to tell you.”
His eyes stared off somewhere behind me. “Have you fucked anyone else?”
There it was. His voice sounded electronic, his demeanor benign, but the way he’d phrased the question conveyed his anger. He was showing me how he felt the only way he could.
“I’ve been with Roark.” My voice cracked, not with regret but with longing. “Only my guardians, Michio.” God, I missed them.
The Drone returned to the stool and perched on the edge. “The priest is sterile.” His eyes simmered with shadows. “If she’s pregnant, this is the prophesied child.”
The energy inside me swelled, spreading out and igniting my body.
Michio’s monotone droned against my chest. “Have you experienced any changes in your body?”
Could he feel the strange power rushing through me? Did he know about my ability to kill aphids with a thought?
No way would I mention these things in front of the Drone. “No.”
I wanted to covertly pinch Michio or give him some sign I was lying, but if he knew it was a lie, so would the Drone.
The Drone regarded me for an unnerving moment. “You walked out of a cage after two weeks of immobility.”
Wait till I blow up your pets, asshole. Not sure how that little trick would help me, but right now, it was the only ace I had.
Dr. Jaffer held up a skinny probe that attached to the ultrasound machine by a cord. “It’s ready.”
He pulled my legs open. I didn’t fight him and instead wrapped my shaky arms around Michio’s shoulders, my chest hitching beneath his head.
I felt a slight pressure between my legs. The machine chirped and beeped. The doctor studied the screen, and my breath stuck in my throat as I waited for him to speak.
“There’s definitely no IUD.”
“How?” My stomach buckled. “Where would it go?”
The Drone stood and strode over to the machine, crouching for a closer look, his expression as indecipherable as the screen.
Dr. Jaffer kept his eyes on the monitor, shifting the wand inside me. “They can fall out. It’s rare, but I’ve heard it could happen during urination. If you peed outside in the dark, you wouldn’t have noticed it.” He glanced at the Drone, back at the screen. “It’s difficult to tell at this stage, but given the size of the gestational sac, I estimate her at around four weeks pregnant.”
The world slammed to a crashing halt. A sharp burn lit behind my eyes, trailing fire down my throat, and swelling hard and powerful in my chest.
I was pregnant.
Jesse’s child.
My daughter.
The prophecy.
The doctor removed the probe, and I rolled against Michio’s body, shoving the skirt over my legs. I enveloped him in my arms, holding him as tightly as I could, imagining his agony, his fears, and his regrets, all of it centered on my prophesied death.
“Michio, it’s going to be okay.” I choked, aching to hear his voice. “It’s going to work out.”
This was supposed to happen, decided ahead of time. A fate that couldn’t be altered. I’d known about it, and deep down, I’d even believed this moment would come, but the shock of it and all the implications it brought curled my body into a trembling, conflicted mess.
The Drone spun toward us, the fire in his eyes aimed at Michio. “You do not have an opinion!” he roared. “That was your final warning.”
Michio twisted out of my arms. I tried to hold on, but he was an unstoppable machine, the sharp movements of his legs wrenching him to his feet, jerking him toward the door, into the hall, and out of view.
I crawled after him, straining against the shackles and digging my knees into the mattress. “What are you doing with him? Bring him back!”
The Drone stormed toward the door, pausing to watch Dr. Jaffer collect his bag and hurry out. Then the six spiders followed suit.
Standing in the doorway, the Drone turned his glare on me. “Michio will be in Elaine’s bed…indefinitely. I may not have control over his reflexes, but the body has a way of giving in to persistent stimulus. And Elaine is very persistent.”
I launched forward, my arms snapping behind me, as the shackles yanked me back. “That’s rape, you son of a bitch! Don’t do this! He doesn’t deserve this!”
“Rape.” The Drone licked his lips as if savoring the word. “Do you think you’ve dodged your own rape, Eveline?”
What? Would he send Dr. Jaffer back in for the man’s own enjo
yment? He wasn’t that charitable with his employees. Every action served his purpose.
He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms. “I could bite you now and make that fetus my own. Or I could dispose of it in any number of ways and resume where we left off with Dr. Jaffer.”
I sank back into the mattress, my arms winding protectively around my belly, around the energy surging through me. What would happen to him if he bit me? Would the child hurt him? Or would he gain her power? I didn’t know, and by the look on his face, he didn’t either.
“I need to think.” He swept out and slammed the door.
My heart hammered away the minutes as I waited. Minutes pulsed into hours, and hours became days. Eventually I lost track of time, locked within four walls, isolated inside myself, like Michio.
Every day, the Drone’s spiders fed me rice and unrecognizable meat and swapped out the shit bucket. No more toilets. No more showers. No change of clothes. The shackles never came off my wrists. I wasn’t allowed out of the room.
And Michio never returned.
I spent days stumbling through my thoughts, staring at my flat belly, and agonizing over people. People I wanted to kill. People I wanted to meet. People I missed with the entirety of my being.
Jesse and Roark. I was desperate to tell them I was pregnant, and my stomach ached and festered at the possibility they might never find out.
Michio. I trembled and raged, thinking about what Elaine was doing to him. I didn’t know how to reach him, didn’t know what I could do to take his pain away.
Annie and Aaron. Sometimes I dreamed of them holding their new baby sister, and it filled me with the sweetest, most harrowing ache. I couldn’t bear how much I missed them and wasn’t sure I would survive those lonely moments of longing. I just wanted to hold them so tightly, but they weren’t here…they weren’t here…
Joel. He’d told me to listen to the song. To love again. I was so grateful I had, but I hoped, wherever he was, that he knew I would never stop loving him.
The Drone. His presence was a constant pulse in my gut. I could feel him moving around the dam, his oily aura rioting my nerves and swelling my throat with dread. Would he bite me? Would he find some horrible method of abortion? How long would it take him to decide?
Me. A mother again. I was overwhelmed beyond all reason. Stunned, terrified, and so fucking overjoyed. The longer I lay there, imagining what she would look like, laugh like, fight like, the more attached to her I became. Even as I knew I wouldn’t live long enough to experience any of those things.
My daughter. She was the power buzzing inside me. Her existence changed everything. For my guardians. For the Drone. For the world.
My ribcage felt too weak to contain everything I felt. There were moments when I thought it would burst open, and all of my darkest thoughts and most hopeful dreams would explode in a terrible, beautiful wail of tears.
But that didn’t happen. So I thought about blowing up the aphids. It would cause a frenzy in the dam and the Drone would come. I was tempted. Fucking hell, I was tempted to end this godawful waiting, this not knowing, this mind-fucking game the Drone had forced upon me.
If I killed all the aphids now, though, how would that help me? The Drone could not only block my ability to control his pets, he could sense whenever I tried. He and I and the aphids, we were all connected by invisible threads. If I plucked those threads and signaled the aphids while the Drone was nearby, it would alert him as well.
I needed him distracted when I attempted it. I needed to do it as a way to magnify that distraction. But how and when would that happen?
It was in one of those moments of deliberation, when the door to the hall opened. I expected the spiders, a clean bucket, and a bowl of rice.
But it was Michio. A thinner Michio, with dark circles beneath his eyes and a bundle of rope dangling from his hand.
I scrambled to my knees and jerked against the shackles. “Michio?”
Deep longing throbbed in my chest at the sight of him standing in the doorway of my prison, alone. No visual or telepathic trace of the Drone. No other guards. Had he come to free me? Had he somehow escaped the Drone’s harness on his mind? His expression was unreadable, which it often was when he was tempering his emotions.
The rope in his hand restricted some of my hope.
He strode through the room, his long gait making a direct path to me. Black fatigues hung loose and low on his narrow hips, his chest bare, the cage of his ribs visible along the sides of his abs. Were they not feeding him? Or was he somehow refusing to eat?
The steep ridges of his torso jutted against his stretched skin, as if dehydration had severely cut away his honed physique. He was still beautifully built, but his body was harder, sharper, like his muscles had been replaced with razor-edged steel parts.
My thoughts leapt to Elaine, torturing me with images of her fingers tracing those lethal edges, her hands and body violating him while he lay in her bed, unable to fight her off.
I balled my hands into fists and willed him to meet my eyes, to say something, to frown or smile, to give me some sign he was here on his own and not under the command of the Drone.
When he reached the mattress, his sunken cheeks, his too-narrow face, and the remoteness in his bruised eyes forced me to face the cruel reality. Michio was still as enchained as I was.
He knelt at my feet and unraveled the rope, staring over my shoulder. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
God, I hated that terrible, insentient tone in his voice. I knew the Drone had moved his mouth to taunt me with those words. And in the next few minutes, the Drone would make him do something worse with those ropes.
Michio looked past me like I didn’t exist, making it hard to believe he was still in there and still loved me. But I felt him, the vitality of his life force caressing beneath my skin. I had to believe his dreams and fears and the heart of who he was hadn’t been starved and raped out of him.
The chains clanked as I sat back, closed my eyes, and drew a determined breath. I wouldn’t give up. I owed it to my guardians and my unborn child to survive this. The energy in my blood charged at the thought, my womb pulsing and stretching to contain the power growing inside.
“We have an unbreakable bond, Michio.” I knew the Drone could hear me through Michio’s thoughts, but I refused to filter my words. “A bond that doesn’t require touch or voice. Even when I can’t see or hear you, I feel our connection in the electricity humming between our souls. We are one in our suffering, our resistance, and our love. You know what that means to me?” I opened my eyes and hardened my expression with conviction as I stared up at his distant gaze. “It means I will never abandon my heart. I will never forsake you. No matter what happens, I will protect our bond and this child.”
In a blur of superhuman speed, he coiled the heavy nylon around my ankles and wound it up my legs, locking my thighs together in a net of elaborate knots. Stunned at the swiftness of his movements, I tried to jerk away, but in that single breath, he’d bound me from feet to hips and removed my ability to walk. Even if I could’ve physically fought him off, I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t allow the Drone to use Michio’s body to hurt us.
He rolled me, his hands flying through the knots as he transformed the bindings between my legs into some sort of rope seat. The harness looped around my upper thighs, cupped my ass, and cinched beneath my stomach. What the hell was he doing?
I didn’t see him pull out a key, but the shackles suddenly fell from my wrists. Before I could snap my arms up, he’d replaced the cuffs with a row of zip snare knots from my wrists to my biceps. The rope laced my arms together in a straight line and fastened them to the harness at my pelvis, preventing me from lifting my hands.
He leapt to his feet, and his grip on the rope around my arms jerked me with him. With my ankles locked together, I wobbled as he tied off the ends at my back and wrapped the remaining length around his forearm.
My God, he’d finished the binding
before I’d even had time to panic. I stared down at my trussed-up body, unable to move a limb, barely able to breathe. If I tried to move, I was certain I’d topple over. How the hell would I go to the bathroom?
The blue cotton wrap I’d worn for days—weeks?—bunched beneath the maze of ropes, the cotton soiled with sweat and frayed along the edges. Evidently, I wouldn’t be changing clothes. Not that it mattered. It was the only thing I owned. No, even these tattered rags belonged to the Drone.
Michio had tossed my bow and quiver in Missouri, and my arm sheathes were probably discarded when he’d locked me in the cage. The sheathes Joel had given me were all I’d possessed from my life with him. My chest ached.
I owned nothing.
Except control of my mind. Thank fuck I still had that.
Michio gripped my hips and slung me over his shoulder. The bent position strained my insides and trapped my arms beneath me, my legs uselessly hanging against his chest. Every inhale squeezed the ropes tighter, constricting and pinching.
It would’ve been a waste of breath to ask where he was taking me, so I let my forehead rest on the hard expanse of his back and pressed my lips against his skin. My kiss expressed all the emotion surging through me, every pang of worry and ounce of love I felt for this man, who was confined by restraints that were tighter, harsher, and more damaging than mine.
He strode into the hall, and six men peeled away from the walls, surrounding us. I craned my neck as the hollow-eyed spiders moved into two rows of three, staring without seeing. Michio stared straight ahead. I stared at the floor. Christ, we all stared at fuck-all, moving in silence, as if desensitized to one another, numb and dumb. Was this what the future would look like? A planet of fissured brains, where individualities were ripped away and the husks of bodies mindlessly marched to the beat of a whack job? I shuddered.
We drifted along the tiled passageways, through the generator room, then veered into the cavernous tunnels of natural rock, up metal stairs, ascending elevators, and more tunnels. The clomp of boots filled every crack and cranny of the damp spaces with an ominous, synchronized march of dread.