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Oh. It made a convenient tracking device, which explained why the Drone had sent him to retrieve me from Missouri and why Michio was so bitter about being able to sense me.

I rose on shaky legs and stepped toward him, aching to wrap my arms around his rigid frame. But his brown eyes drilled into me, warning me to stay back. He glared as if the mere sight of me caused him deep pain.

My heart clenched with yearning, to comfort him. To protect him. I needed to reconnect with him on both a soulful and carnal level, but to do that, to reach him, we needed to scrape away all the regrets and heartache.

“Michio—”

A voice boomed in the distance, the familiar baritone echoing from somewhere near the entrance of the dam. “Whaaaaaaa-hoooo, motherfuckers!”

Link was here. Maybe Shea, too? A sense of peace settled over me. Despite Michio’s turmoil, the flutter in my chest told me everything was going to be okay.

“The Drone has hundreds, if not thousands of spiders across the country.” Michio turned away from me, facing the ledge, his hand gripping the back of his neck. “All of them are programmed to bite and breed until there are no humans left. The babies already conceived are programmed to do the same.” The guttural quake in his voice punched all the way to my core. “As you already know, these creatures are harder to kill than the aphids. And they can reproduce.”

I touched my belly and the future I held there, my mind spinning with questions about the women and the breeding. But the pain in Michio’s voice ran much deeper than the Drone’s plans.

“Michio, look at me.” I stepped closer, reaching for his back.

“Evie, I—” His shoulders hitched with the start of a sob, but he cut it off and spun away before my hand made contact with him.

Deep, nasty gashes covered his arms, neck, and bare chest. Most were already healing, but his physique was too thin, his skin too pale, and there was so much blood clinging to his body, he looked like he’d crawled out of the bowels of an exploding aphid.

His muscles twitched as he paced before me, his eyes flickering with fire and refusing to look at me. “I can’t—”

He pulled at his hair, crumpling over, and made a bone-rattling, keening noise in the back of his throat. Then he straightened, and his feet pounded the pavement as he resumed his furious pacing. Sinews stretched in his neck, his biceps contracting as he removed the remaining rope from his arm.

My eyes burned, and my hands trembled. He was working through something in his head, and I wasn’t sure whether to stop him with a hug or stand out of his way.

Another sob crawled from his throat, but he growled over it. “I can’t face this. I can’t…I can’t live with what I’ve done to you.”

I stepped in front him and placed my palms on his heaving chest. “You can’t face this? Me, standing right here, breathing and desperate to hold you? You can’t live with you being the reason I’m not splattered at the bottom of this cliff?”

Dark, haunting pain shadowed his face as he touched the gouges in my cheek. “I can’t face this.” His hand lowered to the puncture marks on my neck. “Or this.” He crouched, lowering until he was eye-level with my stomach, his hands separating the shredded strips of cotton to reveal the yellowish bruises on my torso.

“Michio—”

“I can’t live with this.” He reached out to touch the marks then yanked his hands away to gingerly hold my wrists, his dark eyes glaring at the raw skin from the shackles. “Or this,” he choked, his fingers moving to my belly and the life that grew there. “This…” His sob broke free, and his shoulders curled forward with an abusive shudder as his forehead rested on my stomach. “This child…she’s going to…” He stared up at me, his tears streaking white lines through the blood on his face, his palms framing my flat belly. “She will be the end of us.”

“You’re wrong.” I squatted before him and cupped his stubborn jaw, my heart hurting and soaring at the same time. “She will be your beginning.” I pulled him against me, curling up in the power of his embrace. “This…this new world was never about me, Michio. She is your future.”

He tensed against me, the storm inside him vibrating and shaking, until finally, it exploded with a roar. “I drugged you, beat you, and locked you in a cage. All while you were pregnant!”

“Aiman did those things, dammit. And from what I can tell, it hurt you more than it hurt me or the baby.” I drew in a calming breath and narrowed my eyes. “Where’s Elaine?”

His teeth snapped together, the grief on his face buried beneath a fog of fury. “He sent her to one of the facilities this morning.” His eyes came back to mine. “He was going to let me follow you over the cliff. The only mercy he was willing to grant me.”