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My muscles ached from strain and my hold on the threads slipped. The Drone leaned over his perch and bellowed, “Nooo.”

I pushed harder, reaching through the electrical veins invading my mind. And there, at the center of the intangible web, the Drone fought me. For every link I grasped, he pulled three away. Nausea swished in my stomach. The threads untangled, snapping free from my hold, and the thrum in the air gathered strength.

“What’s happening?” Jesse’s hand in mine clenched to pain.

“The Drone.” My lungs labored. Arms held me vertical. “He’s out-Yanging me.”

Roark cupped my face. “Deep breaths, love. Most of the snarlies are dissolving in the river.”

The soft pads of Michio’s fingertips glided along the strap of my sports bra, followed it over my shoulder, and traced new spots. “Let them go. The rest are scattering—”

A woman’s scream followed the rush of water down the crag. A black flash blotted the sun. Then Frida’s body plunged headlong over the highest fall. “Helllp meeee.”

Her plea sent me barreling from the iron grip of my guardians. The terror in her eyes, as blood spurted from the puncture marks in her throat, arched my body into a dive.

I tensed for the frigid onslaught of water. It never came. The howling river rushed away as I was yanked into the sky in a whir of wings.

Beneath my dangling feet, Frida’s body slammed into the cliff and battered back and forth against boulders, bloody and broken.

Numbness encased my heart. I bucked, pulling up my knees to bring the carbine closer.

It wasn’t there. I scanned the rapids, a useless search, fighting back the scream in my throat as my hands twisted in the Drone’s claws.

He dropped from the sky and my stomach bottomed out. Moments before hitting ground, he rose again, wings pumping, his grasp digging into my arms. He bobbed through the air and righted his flight. With each wrench of my arm, his grew tighter, more painful, until it hurt to breath.

Panicked shouts chased us toward the tip of the sun as it began its six-hour repose. Without the carbine, vulnerability fisted my throat. If I could free a hand, I could reach a blade.

The Drone’s talons dug deeper, rending my wrists. The arctic wind enveloped us, carried us up and away from the black sand terrain and the ripple of aphids following by segmented foot.

I strained to see my companions as they fought through the throngs, maintaining their pursuit. They were but tiny dots, growing smaller as my captor followed the slope of the earth. He soared higher over dikes and trails etched into the steep faces of rock, darting into the maw of the volcanic mountain.

Sulfuric gas steamed from fissures, filling my lungs and burning my eyes. The closest ledge waited hundreds of feet below. Why hadn’t he bitten me yet? Was he haughty enough to think he’d made it? That he’d have plenty of time to consume his precious serum?

If I twisted free, if I injured him, I would fall to my death. But as our elevation dipped, I knew my chance was moments away.

We rounded a tabular rock cliff and I rolled in his hold to face him, my arms twisting in an awkward way. Arrogance arched his brows. He knew I had nowhere to go and adjusted his hands to my nape and backside.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and breathed through the queasiness brought on by our intimate position.

The violet bands of dusk sharpened the angles of his face. Unruly black curls whipped around his head. And his eyes, cruel in their complexity, sucked me in, attempting to devour the last of my bravado.

I held my arms still, wrapped around my waist, as to not remind him of their unbound state. “Watch where you’re flying.”

Too much intelligence worked in those eyes, colder than the wind itself and fixed on me. “We’re almost to my plane. Just the other side of the mountain.” A vile curve transformed his mouth, yanking back his lips and revealing a jaw full of inhuman teeth. “Prayer time has come. Once on board, we will exult in Allah together.”

He was panting from exertion when we reached a gorge, where the earth’s crust fractured and wretched apart. Beyond it rose a massive basalt bluff. I sucked in a breath. “The only prayer I’m reciting is the Hail Mary.”

A vein bulged in his forehead. “Mary?”

The bluff passed below. Plumes of gas billowed, engulfing us in a blinding smog. I gripped my opposing forearms, released the daggers, and drove them into his neck.

Silence. A sulfuric haze of agonizing silence. Then the cloud cleared.

His eyes blazed as my name gargled low in his throat. Dagger hilts protruded from each shoulder. I didn’t have time to curse my aim before I was free from the cage of his arms and falling.