“For now, you run. You learn. You let the tonic complete its work.” He begins backing toward the water. “Eventually, you'll understand what your body already knows.”
“Which is?”
He slips beneath the surface until only his eyes show above the water line. Reptilian. Patient. Absolutely certain of the outcome.
“That running is just the prelude to being caught.”
Then he's gone, vanishing into water that's suddenly still as glass. As if he was never there at all.
I sit beside the spring for a long time, trying to process what just happened. A conversation with my hunter. An alien male who claims genetic compatibility like it's established science. My own body's traitorous response to something that should terrify me.
But underneath the fear and confusion, one thought keeps circling back.
He didn't take me. Could have, easily. I'm alone, exhausted, armed with a toy knife and surrounded by walls I can't climb quickly. He could have claimed me in seconds.
Instead, he chose to talk. To let me drink from his water source. To give me information I didn't have.
That feels important, though I'm not sure why.
The water tastes the same when I drink again, but now I'm aware of the mineral content, the trace elements that might be changing me in ways I don't understand. The tonic was just the beginning. Everything on this planet is designed to transform human biology.
Including the spring water. Including my hunter's proximity.
Including whatever's happening to me right now as I sit here, no longer thinking of him as an “it” but as a “him.” As someone with motivations and patience and rules I don't yet understand.
Someone who's giving me exactly enough time to become what he needs me to be.
The realization should horrify me. Instead, it fills me with something that might be anticipation.
I refill my water containers and leave the spring. But as I walk away, I can feel eyes tracking my movement. Somewhere beneath that still surface, he's watching.
Letting me go. For now.
MARA
Day 3
The oasis shouldn't exist.
Two days I've been stumbling through this hellscape, finding nothing but sulfur-tainted springs that burn my throat and dried creek beds filled with the bones of things I don't want to identify. My lips are split open, bleeding despite the tonic's healing properties. Sand has worked its way into every joint, every fold of skin, grinding me raw with each step. The suit is destroyed—more suggestion than clothing, held together by sweat and desperation.
And now this—a perfect circle of clear water surrounded by those strange metallic plants, their leaves catching light like chrome but bending soft in the wind. The leaves overlap to create actual shade, the temperature beneath them probably twenty degrees cooler. The water is so clear I can see the bottom, volcanic rock worn smooth as glass by centuries of flow. No sulfur smell. No questionable floating things. Just clean, pure water that makes my dehydrated body scream with need.
It's absolutely, obviously, definitely a trap.
But I'm beyond caring.
Three days without real water. Three days of the tonic working through my system, changing me, making me need things I shouldn't need. The physical changes are obvious now—my skin has that subtle shimmer, catching light wrong. My nails are harder, longer, with an iridescent sheen like oil on water. And between my legs...
Between my legs is a constant, humiliating disaster. The tonic has turned me into exactly what they promised—a creature in permanent heat. The need builds constantly, an ache that goes deeper than physical discomfort. My body produces responses I don't want, reactions that follow me everywhere. The smell of my own arousal mingles with sweat and desert dust.
I circle the pool three times, looking for signs of him. The sand around it is unmarked—but wind could have erased prints. The metallic plants show no broken branches. Even the water sits perfectly still, surface like a mirror reflecting the orange sky.
Too perfect. Too convenient.
I strip anyway. The fabric tears like wet paper, destroyed by sweat and sand and those thorny plants I pushed through yesterday. My boots are the worst—completely full of that obsidian sand that's ground my feet bloody. When I pull them off, skin comes with them, my socks fused to the wounds. The pain is sharp, clean, almost a relief from the constant ache elsewhere.
The first touch of water on my ruined feet makes me moan. Out loud. The sound echoes off the rocks, announcing my position to anything listening. Don't care. The relief is too intense.
