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With a hand on my waist, he turned me toward the bed of the truck. A small deer bled from a fresh wound in its flank, its lifeless body surrounded by a bundle of arrows, a bow, canned goods, and bags of clothes. Michio shoved a hand in one of the bags and held up a flower-printed dress. And another woman-sized dress. And another.
I opened a second bag and found more frilly garments, hair ties, earrings, and…fingernail polish? I shared a look with him and stepped back to the window.
The aphid’s bulbous head swung side to side, the sharp tip of its humanoid mouth ripping the hell out of the dashboard and seat. A scruff of hair dusted its distorted jawline, and a large silver belt buckle flashed beneath its mutating abdominals, the skin there hardening with scales as I watched.
Distress wasn’t just apparent in its wide eyes. I felt its confusion and pain shuddering through the link between us. “He was man not too long ago.” It only took a couple hours to mutate after a bite. “He must’ve been overrun by the aphids we’d just killed.”
Michio braced an arm against the truck beside me. “A man gathering food and women’s clothing.”
Tiny pupils flickered as it opened its mouth and bared the insectile mouthparts in its throat. The man might’ve escaped to his truck, but not without a puncture wound in his neck. The bloody hole no longer leaked, and it would solder completely closed by nightfall thanks to its new healing abilities.
“Take a look at the photo.” Michio pointed at the picture taped beside the gauges on the dash.
Unable to see it from this angle, I jogged around to the driver’s side. Jesse strode toward us, his bow gripped in the hand at his side, but I kept my attention on the aphid as it skittered to the other side on double-jointed legs and arms. When I reached the window, it smashed its head against the glass, splintering a crack through the pane.
I flinched, and my fingers tightened on the carbine. Another good whack, and it would break through. But there was a reason Michio hadn’t killed it yet.
The photo on the dash showed a man and woman, arms around each other, her head tilted up and her smile pressed against his whiskered jaw. Both had dark skin and black hair, but it was the silver belt buckle at his waist that confirmed the aphid in the truck was the man in the photo.
If she was still alive, caged somewhere as a nymph, he must’ve been protecting her, feeding her, and collecting pretty things for her. It was kind of sad. And hopeful.
“What are we looking at?” Jesse mirrored my lean, his face inches from mine as he took in the aphid and the photo.
“He was either a cross-dresser or he was gathering supplies for a woman.” As I gestured toward the bed of the truck, I had a panicky thought. “All the aphids we killed on this road were fully-mutated, naked, and hairless, right?” A freshly-turned female in clothes would’ve stood out amongst the monstrous faces we’d slaughtered our way through. Fuck, if we’d killed her by mistake—
“None were recently turned.” He glared at the aphid and cocked his head. “Let’s say he’s holding a nymph somewhere. How do you propose we find her?”
Michio tapped on the side of the truck, where a logo was airbrushed in faded paint. PINE MOUNTAIN ANIMAL SAFARI.
Okay, but the man could’ve stolen the truck. If he hadn’t, we didn’t know the area, didn’t have the luxury of Googling the addresses of local safaris. Besides that, he might’ve traveled half the country looking for supplies.
Michio gripped my hand. “Command the aphid to take us to the nymph.”
Uh huh. I could control the aphids with simple orders and a lot of concentration, but I didn’t know how to direct them beyond Stay, Come, Go. And did new aphids even understand commands? This one seemed torn between its humanity and its mutation.
He pulled my carbine from my grip, leaned it against the truck, and nodded at Jesse, who smirked and nodded back. What was this? Some kind of silent bro code? I’d spent enough time with them to know when they were ganging up on me. As Jesse nocked an arrow and trained it on the aphid, Michio stepped behind me.
His bare arms wrapped around my mid-section, sliding beneath my tank top, his skin warm and soft against my belly. “Try.”
My stomach clenched, the dread of failure taking hold. But it was worth a shot. I relaxed my back against Michio’s chest, pressed my cheek against his, and closed my eyes. His heat, his breaths, his exotic essence flooded my senses. I opened my mind to it, to the bright light I could feel but not see, to the weightless energy creeping down my spine with purpose. He called it Yang. It felt like fire and blood, electrifying every point of contact between us.
