by Pam Godwin
I met his eyes, the visual contact so unnerving I ached to look away, but I held firm. “You said I wouldn’t appreciate your methods unless you explained it from the beginning.”
“Yes.” He leaned forward and rested an arm on his knee. “The prophecy, the evolving species, the powerful child, all of it changed the course of my plans.”
The evolving species troubled me the most because I couldn’t make sense of its meaning. I tried to recall the conversation I’d had with Jesse the night he told me about the prophecy. The creatures would evolve…you won’t be able to save future generations from them…but our daughter can…without her, there will be no human race.
My fingers moved restlessly over Michio’s arm. “Surely you already knew the aphids were evolving?”
“The aphids have nothing to do with the prophecy. Dr. Nealy believes…” The Drone passed a glance at Michio. “Yes, he still believes the prediction refers to the evolution of my newest creation.”
“The spiders?”
“The hybrid spiders currently being conceived.”
My stomach roiled with lava and acid. “You still haven’t explained why you’re so certain your hybrids will be fertile.”
He grinned. “Why would the world need a powerful child to save it from a species that couldn’t reproduce?”
Shit, he was right. Jesse assumed the predicted threat was aphids because they didn’t age or starve. But that was before he knew I could kill them with a thought. And a single generation of spider hybrids wasn’t enough to threaten the future of mankind. But if they could reproduce, would they take over the planet and devour what was left of the human race?
I swallowed. “Why do you have so much faith in this prophecy?”
“Because Dr. Nealy does. As much as he continually disappoints me, his conclusions are never wrong.”
I tightened my arms around Michio, knowing he could hear this conversation and hating that he couldn’t participate. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to achieve. You created nymphs. Now you’re curing them to create a new species? Was the nymph virus one of the missteps you referred to?”
He touched his face, something he did often. I supposed his fall into the lava river would be considered a misstep.
“As you witnessed on Malta, the nymphs cannot successfully reproduce. But the prophecy assures me the hybrids will flourish. You see, missteps and flaws are necessary to learning.”
Ugh. Was I wasting my time trying to reason with him? “Sometimes our flaws are the very things holding us back from true happiness. They can warp our views and limit our understanding. They make us stubborn and scared. You must know that? And you’re smart enough to know that the prophecy is against you.”
The Drone stared at the floor, such an uncharacteristic mannerism. Was I getting through to him?
He shifted his pensive gaze to me. “What are your flaws and warped views, Eveline?”
Since he had access to Michio’s thoughts, he already knew every damned one of my insecurities and weaknesses, the most detrimental being my failure to fulfill the prophecy.
If I’d slept with Jesse two years ago, if I’d been more convincing about my feelings for him and removed the IUD, the prophesied child would’ve already been born. I wouldn’t be here, probably wouldn’t have met Roark and Michio, and wouldn’t have cured the nymphs. But Jesse would’ve been raising our child right now as a weapon against the Drone. A child that could’ve cured as well as saved humanity.
It was a heaping pile of what-ifs, and none of them felt right, but they were a helluva lot more optimistic than what Michio and I faced in this room.
My chest squeezed, aching to talk about it. What kind of desperate loser voiced her concerns to a genocidal nut-job? Well, I wasn’t that desperate.
“You don’t have to tell me, Eveline. Dr. Nealy just answered it in his head.” He smiled, sickeningly. “Let’s see…you believe your biggest flaw is your refusal to get pregnant. You can’t stomach the thought of bringing a child into this world. And you’ve been hiding behind that excuse as a way to ignore an impossible decision. The prophecy predicts your death, which means this child dooms your guardians to a life without you. But by not having the child, you’ve doomed the human race to extinction.” He leaned back, folded his hands on his lap. “How’d I do?”
Michio knew me better than I knew myself. And now the Drone did, too. I expected exactly zero sympathy from him. He initiated the extinction of humanity and didn’t give two shits about my guardians.
He stared at Michio’s slack face. “Dr. Nealy is conflicted about this, as well. But I have a solution for both of you.”
Oh, fuck. I was just bursting with high hopes.
He brushed the fabric on his thigh, watching his hand straighten invisible wrinkles. “I find no pleasure in the death of anyone.”
Seriously? He wanted to offer a solution and began with that?
He lifted his gaze to mine. “You know as well as I do, nonviolence doesn’t stand a chance against its adversaries. Pain and death will always sit at the heart of peace. And I want peace, Eveline, which is something that would’ve never been achieved among humans. A new species was necessary in removing man’s imperfections.”
“You’re creating a mindless species. That in itself is an imperfection. You’re trying to play God, except God gave his creations freewill.”
He compressed his lips then rubbed them with a talon-tipped finger. “I’m not playing anything. I’m simply choosing not to turn my cheek. It would’ve been a morally grave action to allow humanity to continue as it was. You said it yourself. Human flaws are the very things holding mankind back from happiness.”
Oh, good grief. “A sane person would try to teach, convert, heal, or reform flaws not wipe the entire flawed species off the planet. Why did you kill the Lakota? They were as close to peaceful and flawless as humanly possible.”
“I needed a cured woman. After scraping Dr. Nealy’s mind, I chose Elaine over the one you found in Georgia because she was healthier. When I collected her, your friends fought to keep her. I did not wish to kill them, but they were in the way.”
My throat tightened painfully. “You’re a monster.”
“I accepted the path Allah chose for me and am fully prepared to bear the responsibility of it.”
I pulled Michio closer to me, knowing my next question would trouble him. “Why didn’t you just take me the night you found me, instead of Elaine?”
Then the Lakota would still be alive.
“I wasn’t ready for you, Eveline. I didn’t have an army, didn’t have a place to secure you, and I’d only just learned about the venom’s effect on the brain. And Elaine…well, she’s much easier to manipulate than you.”
“Is that why she roams freely around here?” I stroked my thumb in slow circles against Michio’s arm. “What did you do? Promise her Michio in exchange for her obedience?”
He nodded, smiling his lava-licked smile.
“You made Michio follow you that night, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I controlled him through the power of suggestion. He didn’t know it was happening until he found me in the mountains with your dead friends.”
I glared at him with Fuck you eyes. Fuck you for killing the Lakota. Fuck you for forcing Michio and me to come here. Fuck you for putting a thousand miles between us and Jesse and Roark. And fuck you for curing nymphs by hanging women on posts.
“I suppose I should thank you for not killing my dog.”
The skin where his eyebrows should’ve been dug together. “Dog?”
Weird. Darwin must’ve left the mountains for no other reason than because he missed me. My stomach sank as I pictured him with Jesse and Roark. Where were they? How long would it take for them to arrive?
I buried those questions before they consumed me. “Where are all the women you’ve cured? Are they caged beneath the dam in a dirty dungeon? Please tell me you’ve outgrown that nasty habit.”
He l
aughed, a hellish sound of nightmares. “You and Elaine are the only women behind the gates of the dam. I have breeding facilities all over the country. The women up top were only here long enough to see you arrive. They’ve since been moved back to their nests.”
I stopped breathing. Breeding facilities? Nests? The women weren’t here? Oh my God, they weren’t here. That meant the nymphs would stop coming. Jesse and Roark wouldn’t be coming.
It felt like he’d just broken apart my chest, ripped out my hope, and replaced it with wretched devastation. How would I free Michio? How would I get his mind back? Locked in his paralyzed arms, I struggled to breathe, to hold myself together, as the Drone rambled on.
“Women are the blood of your blood, Eveline. With the exception of a few like Elaine, the majority have your…strong-willed traits. It makes it difficult to manage them. So I pulled a representative from each hive to witness their queen arrive in a cage. To provide a little discouragement for bad behavior.”
I clenched my fists around Michio. “You keep them in cages?”
“I keep them in shackles in rooms like this one. In nondescript buildings in various cities. It’s temporary. Which brings me to my permanent solution. The solution that solves both our problems.”
The door to the hallway swung open, and a black-haired man of Middle-Eastern descent strode in carrying a large black bag. His eyes darted around the room and locked on mine, his lips twitching at the corner as if he were trying to stifle a smirk.
He wasn’t controlled through a bite, but he was here, seemingly voluntarily.
The Drone straightened on the stool. “This is Dr. Jaffer. He’s going to remove your IUD. Then he will have intercourse with you until you conceive.”
My chest heaved as panic gripped my body. “That’s not a solution. It’s fucking rape.”
“I’m giving you a child, Eveline. A child that won’t seek to destroy everything I’ve created. I would inseminate you with my seed, but as you know, infertility is a side-effect of the venom.”
My stomach clenched, and heat swelled through my muscles as my anger exploded. “You can’t do this, you sick fuck. The prophecy said my child would save mankind. You’re fucking yourself if you get me pregnant.”
Technically, a lie. The prophecy stated only Jesse could father a world-saving child.
The Drone cut sharp eyes at Michio, and his melted lips drew back in a vicious snarl. Was he reacting to Michio’s thoughts?
Michio was listening to this shit, living this hell alone in his head, unable to outwardly express himself. But he wasn’t alone, and neither was I.
The chains rattled as I molded my body around him, his frame fitting perfectly against mine. Holding him, comforting him, wanting to protect and save him, I felt all of it reciprocated, not in the physical sense but through the bond we’d shared for so long. If given a choice, I wouldn’t want him anywhere near this place, but fuck, if he hadn’t been here, I would’ve been uselessly tearing my wrists up trying to get out of these chains.
The Drone folded his arms, studying us. “The prophesied child will not come into existence. Once you conceive, I will bite you. The venom will give me access to the fetus’ brain, and it will become my child. Then, together, my child and I, will drain your power.”
The ache in my chest was unbearable. My body shook violently, and bile rose to the back of my throat. “Why can’t you just let Michio and I go and leave us the fuck alone? Michio was your best friend, Aiman. You have a deep and defining history together. Like family. Have you forgotten that?”
For a flickering moment, his eyes softened and the cruelty slipped away. Then he blinked, and the hard, razor-sharp eyes returned. “I need an heir. I can’t control the women because of your blood. I can’t silence Dr. Nealy’s vexing thoughts because of your blood. There’s power there. The child you birth, my child, will be the ultimate hybrid between your power and mine. You will give me a child that can’t be defeated, one I will groom to follow in my footsteps.”
Everything inside me choked. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t move a fucking finger. My outrage was so visceral and painful it took over my body. I’d never felt so helpless.
My torment reached rock bottom when Michio sprung away from me. As if yanked by strings, his body jerked mechanically, shuffling backward, and slammed against the wall by the door.
The Drone turned toward Dr. Jaffer. “Remove the IUD.”
My muscles shook, a full-body spasm that clattered the chains. I lay on the mattress, legs squeezed together, arms folded around my torso, as sweat gathered beneath the layers of wrapped cotton.
The heavy thump of Dr. Jaffer’s bag dropping on the cement floor echoed my heartbeat. As he opened it, the sound of the zipper scraped down my spine. The lingering look he gave my chest, his kneeling position at my feet, his hands resting on my ankles, every movement promised certain hell.
The removal of the IUD alone would be painful. Worse would be the rape that followed. To go through that again, while the man I loved watched helplessly, would be like reliving the hell in my father’s basement all over again.
With my feet unrestrained, I could land a hard-hitting kick to his temple and knock him out. Maybe he would be less inclined to touch me when he woke. But I couldn’t. Michio had been kept in the room for a reason, and I’d promised him I wouldn’t make the Drone use him as an enforcer again. I was going to have to find another way out of this.
I looked around the room, taking in the blank-faced men along the wall. Six more obstacles.
“This is rape.” I glared at Dr. Jaffer, my voice strained. “There’s no going back from it. Once a rapist, always a rapist.”
Digging through his bag, he paused to flash me an oh-it-won’t-be-so-bad smile. My foot twitched to break his pearly-white human teeth.
The overhead light cast a pukey glow across his mahogany-brown complexion and round facial features. In his thirties, he was lean and average-looking with dark eyelids, thick eyebrows, and a shadow of stubble above his lips. If he grew out his black hair, he could’ve been the Drone’s twin.
I angled my neck to see around him, trying to find the Drone’s gaze. “Are you two related?”
“No.” The Drone leaned sideways until those sinister eyes filled my view. “But the resemblance is deliberate. The child will be of my venom not of my blood, but our likeness in heritage and features will serve as a visual reminder that I am the father.”
My insides writhed with hatred. I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the monster. But I couldn’t escape my surroundings, couldn’t slip away from the restraints, the stale air, and the hopelessness. All of it reminded me I was going to die in this dam, that Michio would be given to Elaine, that I would never see Jesse and Roark again, and that my child would be raised by a madman.
It took Dr. Jaffer forever to collect his tools from his bag, but forever wasn’t long enough. When his cold fingers dragged the cotton skirt up my legs, my eyes snapped open. He forcibly ruched the material around my hips, and I squeezed my knees tighter, my breaths wheezing out of control.
My soon-to-be rapist shoved a wedge beneath my hips and gripped my thighs. “Open your legs, Ms. Delina.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. My ribs compressed, restricting my lungs.
Michio stepped away from the wall, arms hanging at his sides, but they wouldn’t remain there for long if I fought this.
I wanted to die, yet I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t do anything but lay here while Dr. Rapey shoved his hand inside me.
“Aiman!” I strained my neck to see the Drone. “Let Michio sit by me. The least you can do is let me hold his hand.”
Being separated would make this worse. Even if Michio couldn’t control the grip of his fingers, the linking of our hands might soothe both of us. And maybe, just maybe, I could free him through that connection. I held onto that idea because, dammit, I desperately needed to hold onto something.
When Michio knelt robotically a
t my side, I grabbed his fingers and laced them with mine, the four-foot chains allowing me to hold our hands against my stomach.
His ever-present hum caressed the underside of my skin, and slowly, my breaths evened out. I focused every thought on Michio as the doctor spread my legs and flicked on a penlight. I soundlessly spoke to Michio as the cold metal of the speculum stretched my entrance. You can fight this, Michio. Break his hold. Dig deep. I clenched the hell out of Michio’s hand as the doctor’s fingers invaded where I was open and vulnerable.
Each pinch and scrape along my inner walls ratcheted my pulse. Every second that passed felt like it would never end. By the time the doctor removed the speculum and leaned back, I’d squeezed Michio’s fingers so hard our knuckles were white.
“Her cervix is blue.” Dr. Jaffer looked over his shoulder at the Drone. “The uterus is swollen, and there’s no IUD.”
Shea said the string could hide during a vaginal exam. But what was wrong with my cervix and uterus? Was this guy even a doctor?
The Drone leapt from the stool and slammed against Michio, wrapping fingers around his throat, choking him.
I grabbed at the Drone’s hands, but they were iron claws around Michio’s neck, and all Michio could do was lay limply beneath the strangulation.
“Shut up!” He shouted at Michio, his sagging face livid red, his lips curling back to expose the razored points of his rage. “If you don’t calm down, I will put you back in Elaine’s bed and leave you there for the rest of your miserable life.”
“You’re choking him.” I pried at the Drone’s fingers as panic flooded me. “Let him go!”
Why the fuck was the Drone attacking him? And these threats about Elaine were tearing my insides apart. The Drone wouldn’t even have to chain him to her bed. The motherfucker could control his body, make him touch her, pleasure her.
