by Pam Godwin
The Drone slid his gaze to Michio, who then stepped around the cage and unlocked the padlock. The door swung open.
That was weird. He’d looked at Michio, and Michio opened the cage. I was certain something had passed between them. Something I couldn’t sense beyond the persistent hum. Whatever it was confirmed my suspicion. The Drone was commanding Michio and all the fanged men the way he silently controlled the aphids.
My stomach turned with worry for Michio. But I held onto hope. If the Drone really was using some kind of coercive persuasion, that meant Michio’s mind was still in there, trapped somewhere behind those dead eyes. If I managed to kill the Drone, Michio would be free. Right?
But in a room of fanged men, outnumbered and unarmed, it was difficult to believe the monster, who had survived all my attacks before, would easily fall now. Then again, I stopped subscribing to easy a long time ago.
“Go ahead.” The Drone made a shooing motion. “Come on out.”
Was it a test to see how much strength I had? I could crawl, but could I walk? I shouldn’t be able to, yet I felt hyped-up, bursting with energy. I bet I could run.
I took my time crawling out, deliberately dragging my legs behind me and contorting my face in pain. Some of it was real as joints I hadn’t used in two weeks protested against the effort to support my weight. The rest I drew out, rising to my knees, falling on my ass, and whimpering before trying again.
Had I emerged without an audience, I would’ve staggered to my wobbly feet by now. Instead, I climbed up the outside of the cage and moved to drop again.
Michio’s arm swung out, and the back of his hand crashed against my face.
I slammed against the floor on my back, biting my lip against the impact, my hands flying up to clutch my aching cheekbone. A backhanded hit to the face stung like a son of a bitch, but a hit from Michio struck deep, far beneath the surface of tissue and bone. I felt it like a blade through the heart.
I glared through blurred vision at the Drone. “Why?”
But I knew why. He was displeased with my performance and what better way to hurt me than through the fist of the man I loved?
Crawling to Michio’s boots, I gripped his legs and lifted my gaze. “I know you’re in there, trapped and fighting. You’re not alone, Michio. I won’t give up on you.”
He stared at the wall across the room, still as a statue, his nonresponse constricting my chest.
The Drone circled the cage, hand in the pocket of his black slacks, and stopped beside Michio. “You’ve gone soft, Eveline. And so has Dr. Nealy.” He reached over and palmed Michio’s groin, vile fingers stroking and squeezing. “But Elaine’s been working on his softness. She’s quite smitten.”
He was baiting me, but I couldn’t control the burning sensation in my stomach or the rash decision to jolt to my feet. I shot to my full height, swaying on jelly legs, and smacked the Drone’s hand away from Michio’s cock. He let me, grinning as he stepped back, evidently thrilled I’d proved his theory that I held some sort of inhuman energy.
I stood on shaky yet dependable legs. “Why am I here? What do you want?”
“I want you showered and dressed to my specifications.”
I set my jaw and planted my feet in a wide stance. “I won’t fight you if you release Michio from whatever spell you’ve put him under.”
He tsked. “No, Eveline. You’ll cooperate because you want to know what happened to your Lakota friends in the mountains. You want to know what I’m doing with the women outside of the gates, and what will become of Elaine’s child now that Michio’s bitten her.”
My skin tightened, and my stomach heaved, burning a fiery trail of acid through my throat.
He studied his razor-sharp nails, his tone callously conversational. “You’re going to do as I say, because if you don’t, Dr. Nealy will kill your lovers, after I’ve sucked every drop of power from your veins.”
I rubbed my upper arms, my mouth dry and throat tight. Dammit, the Drone was right about my thirst for answers. By threatening Jesse and Roark, he’d confirmed they were alive and knew where they were or how to find them.
And if Michio had bitten Elaine, where were her fangs? Maybe they were retracted, but why weren’t her eyes glazed over like the others?
Had he given her a seductive bite? I clenched my fists. Did he fuck her while he sank his fangs into her?
At my side, Michio stared off into the distance, his eyes as unmoving and stiff as his posture. For all I knew, he was thrashing and screaming inside his head, perpetually isolated, unable to communicate in any way.
Maybe he’d left me in Georgia because of the bite, because he hadn’t been able to resist the pull of the Drone. But there had to be a limit to the Drone’s persuasion, a boundary he couldn’t force Michio to cross. And Michio was stronger than most people. Even under the influence of the Drone, would he actually try to kill Jesse and Roark?
Michio knew I would survive the physical beatings, but if he retained any memories or feelings at all, he also knew my guardians’ deaths would destroy me. He would fight that with every ounce of strength he had, and I intended to fight right alongside him. Not with muscle and weaponry. Neither of those worked against the Drone in the past. Instead, I needed to understand and outsmart the monster who’d taken Michio’s mind.
I stood beneath the press of his black gaze, my skin itching to draw away from the thick, malicious aura that slithered from him. The bottomless holes of his eyes, the gruesome hang of flesh that comprised his expression, the arrogant way he looked down his bubbled nose at me, all of it effective in making me feel smaller, weaker. But I refused to cringe.
Fuck, I had so many questions I trembled with the need to puke them all over his polished shoes. But I didn’t want to hear his litany of carefully filtered answers. I needed to see beneath the caviler facade. To do that, I needed to surprise him.
“Are you happy?” I gestured around the room, indicating the audience of vacant men. “With them, with whatever your plan is, does all this make you genuinely happy?”
His gaze reached deep into mine, prying and scouring, before turning inward, thoughtful, his hand lifting to touch the hanging flab of his cheek. “True happiness is a destination, is it not? I still have more to accomplish. Missteps to correct. But that’s where you come in.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that response, but I reminded myself that his pretentiousness served to hide his weaknesses.
“The shower. Come.” The Drone strode out.
Michio and the six other men in the room turned as one toward the doorway and formed a horseshoe at my back, prepared to usher me using whatever force necessary.
Their auras hummed beneath my skin, Michio’s included, but I couldn’t discern him from the others, which terrified me. How different was he from these mindless droids? How much of him remained, locked up inside that head of his?
I followed the Drone into the hall and looked left and right. I could run. Could count exactly how many steps would take me to the next turn and the turn after that. I could blow up every aphid in the dam and momentarily distract the Drone. I could find a loose pipe, a hammer, something hard and lethal to swing at the men who tried to catch me. I knew how much force it would take to smash the skull and terminate the brain. I knew it would take me about thirty minutes to climb the tunnels and sprint away from the dam. And I knew if I escaped, if I ran away like a scared little girl, I would be leaving Michio behind and sentencing Jesse and Roark to death.
With a deep breath, I jogged after the Drone and caught up to his side, the muscles in my legs and back complaining with each step. “You said you could suck my power. How? With a fang in my vein? Or some sort of psychic mind tap?”
If he could truly drain my abilities, why hadn’t he done it already?
The Drone strode beside me, hands in his pockets, watching me out of the corner of his droopy eye. A slow smile scrunched the folds of skin, and his tongue curled around one fang, answering my questio
n on how.
My stomach twisted and tumbled.
Three of the men from the room slipped ahead of us. The other three remained at my back, while Michio stepped to my side, caging me between him and the Drone. Together, the nine of us marched beneath the yellow glow of the overhead bulbs, three rows of three, me in the center.
Subway tiles covered the floors, walls, and ceilings, and more tiled passageways veered off at every turn. We passed open doors that gave way to concrete rooms filled with cots and bunk beds. No other furniture. No personal belongings, memorabilia, or framed photographs. No women. No people.
I stared at Michio’s hand, where it hung at his side so close to mine. If I reached for it and laced our fingers together, would that make me as desperate as Elaine? What if he jerked his hand away? I wasn’t sure I could take much more rejection.
Whoever was walking beside me, this zombie-like creature wearing Michio’s skin, wasn’t the man who had revolted against the Drone in Malta, who rejected Elaine’s affections in the mountains, and who loved me so much he couldn’t be near me without touching me in some way.
Positioning me between himself and the enemy, not linking our hands, not kissing me, refusing to even look at me, all of it went against every instinct he had.
I gripped his hand, his skin cold, and his bones unresponsive between my fingers. When he didn’t pull away, I squeezed tighter, my voice cracking as I glanced up at the Drone. “You’re controlling his mind, aren’t you? And the others, too? But not Elaine?”
The three men ahead of us turned into a doorway, and the Drone paused at the entrance, gesturing me to follow inside.
How many men could the Drone command? How immense was his power to be able to control the minuscule actions of so many?
Still holding Michio’s hand, I shuffled into a large tiled bathroom and hoped the Drone would follow, only because he was the only one here who seemed capable of talking.
Four toilets lined the back wall, the privacy stalls removed, leaving behind broken bolts and faded marks on the floor. Small sinks hung beneath mirrors on the left, and a shower head dangled from one of the pipes in the center of the ceiling. The chrome finish was shinier than the other fixtures, suggesting it had been recently attached.
Michio pulled away from my hand to reach up and twist two small wheel valves on the overhead pipe. The steel joints and fastenings groaned, and with a sputter, water burst from the fixture and sprayed the drain in the floor.
The sound of running water triggered a forceful pressure in my bladder. I pointed at the toilet and raised a brow at the Drone.
When he nodded, I plodded across the room, unzipping my jacket and dropping the smelly thing on the floor. The white tank top beneath was now stained yellowish-brown with sweat and dust. Ugh. I dragged the leather pants down my sore hips and sat on the nearest toilet.
While seated, I unlaced my boots and removed the rest of my clothes. The absence of talking in the crowded room made the stream of my pee sound louder than it should’ve been.
Three of the men stood in the hallway, barricading the door. The other three took posts around the bathroom, and Michio remained at the center, staring at exactly nothing and seemingly oblivious to the fall of water drenching his boots and black fatigues.
I used toilet paper, flushed, and in five steps, stood nude beneath the warm cascade of the shower. Holy shit, that felt incredible. I was hyper-aware of every drop that hit my matted hair, each trickle across my scalp, and every tingling river that coursed between the valley of my breasts, zigzagging down my torso and sluicing around my legs.
The only man in the room capable of expression was difficult to read thanks to the disfigurement of his face. But as he scrutinized my nudity, it wasn’t with lust. I needed a dick and a branch on his family tree, like his brother, to earn a look like that from him.
Instead, he pressed a hand against his stomach and stared at me with…pity? “You look unwell.”
I glanced down the length of my body. Yellow and purple bruises blotted my torso from Michio’s fists. My hipbones protruded disgustingly against my pallid skin, and blisters covered my feet from two weeks in damp boots. The Drone had already said he expected me to arrive in bad shape, so what was with the comment? Did he actually feel bad?
Oh, the irony in that was so painfully ridiculous I actually smiled, albeit sadly. I held onto the edges of that smile as I let the water smother my face. It felt euphoric, purifying, like an emotional shedding of torment. I could actually feel two weeks of grime sloughing off my body and swirling down the drain.
I wanted to get lost beneath the cathartic sensations, but I had a mouthful of questions and the Drone’s attention. “What happened to Michio? Are you controlling his mind?”
“No, not his mind.” The Drone stepped behind Michio and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I control his body, or technically speaking, I command the motor cortex of his brain and all the peripheral nerves attached to it.”
Adrenaline charged through my blood, ramping my pulse. I jerked my head out of the spray and faced him. “The motor cortex? What does that mean? That you control his actions? But he can still think and feel on his own?”
My gaze traveled over Michio’s frozen stance and locked on his dull eyes. Was he trapped inside his body, silently screaming for me to help him? If the Drone could do that, could the motherfucker stop the beat of his heart with a thought? Or simply make his lungs quit working? A heavy, horrified feeling sank into my stomach.
The Drone caressed a hand over the cropped hair on Michio’s head. “The motor area only controls the voluntary muscles. I haven’t been able to overpower the brainstem and other lobes of Dr. Nealy’s brain.”
My heart hammered so fast I struggled to focus on what that implied. “The other lobes? The parts that regulate breathing, heart rate, consciousness, language…reflexes?”
Reflexes were involuntary. If that was the case, Michio would be able to control the functions that kept him alive, right?
I reached up and cupped Michio’s face with both hands. “Can you hear me? See me? Michio, please look at me.”
“He perceives everything, Eveline, but he can’t look at you unless I allow it. He blinks on his own. His lungs work because they have to. His heart will flex and contract until it no longer can. But I control the voluntary muscles, the actions that require conscious thought.”
Beneath my hands, Michio’s face contorted into a vicious scowl. His lips drew back, his fangs jutted out, and his breath hissed against my face.
I yanked my hands away and stumbled back. I couldn’t help it, even though I knew the Drone mentally molded Michio’s expression. I’d never seen him look so terrifying. “This is how you control them? You bite them, and it gives you access to their brains?”
“Yes and no.” The Drone stepped away, kicking drops off his shiny black shoes and shunning the water like an aphid. “Wash your hair.”
What would happen if I splashed him? His hands and face were the only parts of him exposed. Maybe his skin would bubble and boil, but was it worth his wrath and the certain end of this conversation?
My head swam as I looked around for soap, willing to do anything to keep him talking.
Michio’s expression returned to vacancy, his hand reaching down to grab a bottle from a bucket against the wall. Mechanically, he squeezed a dollop of shampoo on my head. I rubbed it in with shaking fingers, knowing the Drone had commanded every movement Michio just made—every movement he’d made since he’d snatched me in Missouri.
None of the beatings had been initiated by Michio. If he was consciously aware… Oh God, he would’ve watched with horror every time his fist reared back, would’ve felt each time my body gave and buckled beneath his strikes. It would destroy him.
I looked at the Drone with disbelief. “Your control must be limited by distance. And how many men can you realistically direct at one time?”
“There is no limit.” He licked his shriveled lips. “When
a man is bitten, it doesn’t matter if he’s on the other side of the planet. The venom hits his brain, and it instantly and permanently belongs to me.”
I struggled to digest that. “There’s no way you can coordinate all of the movements of that many men.”
There would’ve been long periods where most of them just stood around, as if in sleep mode.
“I give them a series of basic commands, like a computer programming language, if you will. They can do what they want as long as they don’t deviate from the orders I set in their brains.”
Shit. These men were like robotic extensions of his body. He didn’t have to ever leave here. Didn’t even have to wipe his own ass, if he didn’t want to. I felt sick.
“If anything happens to me, the programming lives on.” The Drone paced around me, avoiding the spray of water, his hands folded beneath the cape on his back. “I’ve programmed the entire brain of every man who’s contracted my venom through a bite. That is, every man but Dr. Nealy.”
A dark-haired man with a snake tattooed on his neck stepped away from the wall. Without warning, he began to choke, his mouth gaping as if the air had been vacuumed from his lungs.
I wrapped my arms around my waist, my breaths escaping in spurts. “You’re strangling him?”
The man’s body held completely still, hands at his sides, as his face turned purple and blood vessels popped in his eyes.
“I stopped his lungs.” The Drone cocked his head, calmly studying the stages of suffocation.
Oh God. Did I want this stranger to die? Was he a good man who had been brainwashed? Or an inherently evil man who willingly signed up to kill for the Drone?
A moment later, the man gasped and stepped back to the wall like nothing had happened.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “How do you recruit them?”
The Drone resumed his circuit around me, the cloying scent of his insanity burning my nose. “I have hundreds of spiders across the country—”
