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Roark nodded, his eyes on Jesse. “He knows that. He’s just…frustrated.”
Fucking understatement. Jesse stood against the far wall, hand resting on the tomahawk at his hip and his glare shooting laser beams of frustration across the room.
Roark lowered his head and whispered, “He needs a release.”
A release?
“A blow job, hand job, something…”
Umm, was he suggesting I step up and take care of it? Roark wasn’t possessive like Michio, but his open-mindedness had my head shaking and my stomach flip-flopping. “How they ever let you in the seminary is beyond me.”
Michio drew my attention as he took a slow step toward Amos and the cage. “The genetic code that makes us human is dormant in the nymph. Evie’s blood will unlock it.” He raised the dart gun. “Move out of the way, Amos.”
Show time. I hopped down from the table. “We’ve done this twice, and we’re batting two for two.”
Didn’t need to mention the first nymph was murdered after we cured her.
Amos rubbed a hand on his pants, and his gaze bounced between us. With a trembling exhale, he shuffled to the side.
Michio’s finger stretched toward the trigger. The nymph’s head tilted back, and a wet scream ripped from its mutated gullet.
The ear-piercing squeal rattled through the room, and the invisible vibrations smacked me directly in the stomach. But the attack didn’t just come from the nymph. Its link grafted onto multiple telepathic streams coming from outside. My insides lit up with at least a dozen aphid signals, the familiar feeling waving over me and causing the hairs on my arms to stand up.
“Aphids.” My gaze flew to the doorway. “Twelve or more. Down the hill, I think.”
As Jesse ran out the door, the boom of rifles echoed in the distance. Georges and Tallis could handle them. In fact, the pulsing links were disintegrating with the blast of gunfire.
Amos stared at me like my skin had turned green. “Your eyes…they’re black.”
Shit. That was an annoying side-effect of my aphid communication. Good thing he couldn’t see the black spots on my back.
Michio used Amos’ distraction and raised the dart gun at the nymph.
It dragged its jaw along the bars, the fleshy parts in its throat worming, stringing snot from the stabbing spear. As it threw back its head, Michio let the dart fly. The tranquilizer casing hung from the nymph’s neck, and the creature slumped to the floor.
Relief washed through me. It was done. Finally, Amos would see—
He fell against the cage door and reached for the unconscious nymph through the bars, his cry strangled and angry. “What have you done?”
I ground my teeth. I’d only been half-listening, but I knew Michio had explained this part.
Outside, the fire of rifles ceased, as did the pinching vibrations in my gut.
I met Michio’s eyes. “The aphids are dead.”
“What?” Amos turned wide eyes on me. “You can feel them?”
Crap. He was already suspicious.
I nodded, slowly. “It’s complicated.”
His expression distorted into oh-shit-you’re-a-monster terror, the only warning I got before he withdrew a small pistol from his waistband and aimed it at me.
My heart slammed into my throat, and my hand went to the sidearm on my thigh. Then everything happened at once. Jesse appeared in the doorway, Roark’s boots squeaked behind me, and Michio flung himself across the room to reach me.
I raised the handgun. “Wait! I’m not—”
Michio plowed into me as the explosive bang of Amos’ gun reverberated the walls. I squeezed the trigger.
So many things went through my mind in that slow-moving second that hurdled me to the floor beneath the impact of Michio’s lunge.
I hadn’t checked Amos for concealed weapons, hadn’t questioned how he would react to my bizarre biology. I’d seen the change in his expression. I could’ve stopped him.
Next came the realization that I felt nothing but the hard floor at my back and Michio’s weight on my chest. The bullet hadn’t hit me.
I refused to accept that and gave my insides a thorough once over, searching for the burn of lead lodged beneath my skin.
No bullet wounds. Which meant…
Michio convulsed on top of me, and fear rose up, paralyzing my muscles in cold shock. Wet warmth seeped from his shirt to mine, and the bitter scent of blood saturated the air.
He’d blocked the bullet. With his fucking chest! Every cell in my body screamed in denial. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. He was going to die.
“Michio?” Blood drained from my face as I tried to shift him off me to the floor.
His bulk suddenly lightened and rolled with the help of Jesse and Roark.
Amos lay sprawled a few feet away, a red stain spreading from a hole in his shirt and his head hanging to the side. Passed out. Or dead. I didn’t give a shit.
Michio’s chest heaved in time with the noisy breaths wheezing past his lips. The crimson blot over his heart doubled in size with each rise and fall.
