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Michio had tossed my bow and quiver in Missouri, and my arm sheathes were probably discarded when he’d locked me in the cage. The sheathes Joel had given me were all I’d possessed from my life with him. My chest ached.

I owned nothing.

Except control of my mind. Thank fuck I still had that.

Michio gripped my hips and slung me over his shoulder. The bent position strained my insides and trapped my arms beneath me, my legs uselessly hanging against his chest. Every inhale squeezed the ropes tighter, constricting and pinching.

It would’ve been a waste of breath to ask where he was taking me, so I let my forehead rest on the hard expanse of his back and pressed my lips against his skin. My kiss expressed all the emotion surging through me, every pang of worry and ounce of love I felt for this man, who was confined by restraints that were tighter, harsher, and more damaging than mine.

He strode into the hall, and six men peeled away from the walls, surrounding us. I craned my neck as the hollow-eyed spiders moved into two rows of three, staring without seeing. Michio stared straight ahead. I stared at the floor. Christ, we all stared at fuck-all, moving in silence, as if desensitized to one another, numb and dumb. Was this what the future would look like? A planet of fissured brains, where individualities were ripped away and the husks of bodies mindlessly marched to the beat of a whack job? I shuddered.

We drifted along the tiled passageways, through the generator room, then veered into the cavernous tunnels of natural rock, up metal stairs, ascending elevators, and more tunnels. The clomp of boots filled every crack and cranny of the damp spaces with an ominous, synchronized march of dread.

Pinpricks tingled my bound hands beneath the weight of my body, and blood rushed to my head, pulsing behind my eyes. Hanging upside down, my view was hindered, but I didn’t glimpse a single man, spider, or aphid wandering the passageways. I sensed insectile vibrations, though, the threads strumming from above. From the surface of the canyon.

Not knowing where Michio was taking me or what would happen when I arrived made this long, miserable trip even longer and more miserable. Had the Drone made a decision? Would he bite me and drain the power growing inside me? Or would my child enervate his power and destroy him? Would he chance the bite? Or would he kill her in my womb? Or was there another option I hadn’t considered? All I knew was every tunnel, staircase, and elevator took us up. We were headed out of the dam. Why? Was he taking me to one of the breeding facilities?

My blood chilled, and tremors gripped my body, the edges of my mind fraying with every step Michio made toward ground zero. I wanted to scream and kick and freak the fuck out, but I held onto my wits as best I could, seeking comfort in the flex of his strength beneath me and in the knowledge that he wasn’t detached like the spiders surrounding us.

Even though this child wasn’t biologically his, he would fight for her as if she were his own. He maintained conscious thought, which meant he could reason, form ideas, and analyze. The Drone could read his mind and therefore learn any plan he might’ve constructed, but Michio was the most intelligent man I’d ever met. His brilliant mind was always ten steps ahead. If anyone could think his way out of this, it was him.

As the final elevator ascended, the aphid vibrations in my gut grew stronger. I raised my head, angling to see around Michio as the doors slid open.

Sunlight greeted me, the burst of warmth blinding my cave-dwelling eyes. I squinted, blinking, taking in the street, the daunting precipice of the dam, and the hundreds of waiting aphids.

A sea of green bodies crowded the street that traveled across the curved ridge of the wall. The thundering buzz rippling over their spines revealed their hunger, but they didn’t concern me. One thought, a wish I wouldn’t make until I needed to, and they would be nothing but bloody smears on the asphalt.

Unless the Drone’s power could block me.

My pulse accelerated then spiked into a frenzy as I gazed upon the enormity of the dam stretching to the gorge below. Hanging over Michio’s shoulder at the center of its peak, I was surrounded by endless, open blue sky. The only way off was down. And waiting for me at the destined edge was the man who would likely push me.

The Drone stood on a small concrete overhang that extended over the back of the dam. As Michio carried me toward the observation deck, the spider guards encircled us, ushering us along the half-wall of the ledge and away from the aphids.