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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.”