Page 68
Shea pulled in a sharp breath. Her body swayed, as if the wind was rocking her, but there was no disturbance in the air, nothing blowing the hair from my face.
Would she pass out? Elaine’s first encounter resulted in a convulsion of spasms, eyes rolling back in her head, and a dramatic collapse on the ground.
I held the aphid immobile, thoroughly pissing it off, given the hissing snarls and clawing buzz in my stomach. Shea watched it, locked in a stunned, unblinking stance, the carbine forgotten in her grip as the barrel dipped toward the ground.
Her gaze shifted toward mine, and her eyes bugged out. “Your…your…”
“Black eyes?” I gave her a small smile. “My pupils dilate when I’m controlling them. It’s normal.”
“That can’t be your pupils.” Her chest heaved. “There’s no whites in your eyes. That’s…that’s not normal, girl.”
I had to give her credit. She didn’t put a bullet in my head and run away. Instead, she lifted the carbine and retrained it on the aphid.
Something tickled my arm and the back of my leg. Fucking flies. I slapped at them, too slow to squash them.
“Jesus, you described what they looked like.” Her voice lowered to a whisper, rattled and reedy. “But nothing could’ve prepared me for this, you know?” Her finger trembled on the trigger. “And what in the name of God is that smell?”
“Some bang of odour off the buggie.” Roark grinned, but the vigilant way he watched the aphid over her shoulder was anything but amused. “The smelly cunt doesn’t shower. It feasts on blood and death. And I bet the dirty growler between her legs is leaking some rotten fanny farts.”
“Roark.” I gave him a disgusted glare.
“That thing is female?” Shea’s chocolate complexion took on a grayish hue. “How can you tell?”
Good question. Not a scrap of clothes on the aphid’s dome-shaped body. No distinguishing characteristics either, like remnants of hair, tattoos, or ear piercings. Genitalia were among the first things to recede in mutation, followed by lips and fingers. But there was a small trace of her human life.
I pointed to the bulging chest. “See the two hanging lumps of flesh?”
Shea cocked her head and wrinkled her nose. “Tits?”
I shrugged. “Silicone implants.”
“An insect with a boob job.” She let out a strained laugh. “Now I’ve seen it all.” Her teeth sank into her bottom lip. “Can they reproduce?”
“No.” Jesse shifted behind me, his fingers tightening beneath my breast. “Dr. Nealy studied their physiology. They don’t have working reproductive organs.”
In two years, I’d never seen aphids mating. Never encountered a baby bug. They were driven to do one thing: Feed. And if they devoured every mammal on the planet, what then? If their adaptable bodies couldn’t starve, would they just wander the earth in an eternal stupor, unable to feed, unable to die?
The aphid pulled on our connection, testing its strength. As long as Jesse stayed put, I had an inexhaustible energy supply to hold it.
I turned my chin toward Jesse. “Do you feel an energy drain?”
“No, darlin’. I feel you. Like a subtle vibration beneath my hands, but nothing threatening.”
Roark and Michio had said similar things before. Evidently, they didn’t run out of power the way I did.
The bug seemed to realize my control over it was endless, throwing back its head and releasing a thunderous buzz that resonated through the clearing like a million wasp wings. Tubular parts writhed in its throat, flinging strings of black snot as its hooked hands clawed at the ground.
Shea watched in open-mouthed horror. “Do they feed on each other?”
Oh, how I wished they did. “Mutated blood is poisonous to aphids and nymphs. It kills them, and I guess they instinctively know this, because I’ve never seen them turn on each other.”
“But if I had bitten a human, I would’ve turned into that,” she mumbled to herself.
If she’d turned into that, she would’ve been beyond saving. Nymphs could only bite once, the bite instantly turning them into aphids.
I sent a silent thanks to her dead husband for keeping her locked up for two years. We needed her. Mankind needed her.
She confronted this creature remarkably well and would make a hell of a fighter. Shoulders now squared, chin up, she planted her sneakers stubbornly in the dirt. It was hard to believe only a week ago her body had undergone a drastic transformation, reforming bones into human ribs and dissolving tubular mouthparts designed for piercing and sucking blood.
The ashen tint of her brown skin and the bags under her eyes were the only hints that she wasn’t at full health.
I nodded to Roark. “It’s time.”
Shea glanced between me and the agitated aphid and tucked the butt of the carbine tight against her shoulder. “I want to kill it.”
Roark moved to her side, scrutinizing the way she held the gun, the pull of his brows drawing worried lines around his eyes. I knew his concern. The boom of the carbine could draw attention, and he could kill the bug quietly.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68 (Reading here)
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237