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Poppy glares at me like I’ve just committed a crime. “She needs her bag. Why did you take it from her?”

“Shifter took the other two,” I defend.

“Because they’re camp gear, not her stuff,”

Shifter mutters.

Poppy scans Sefina’s pack with radiant swirling bars projecting from her eyes. “Females are very protective of their things. They don’t have a lot, but they need supplies we don’t. Sefina is one of the few females here healthy enough to have monthly cycles.”

My core heats and swells with stronger mating urges. Sefina is fertile?

“And medicine? You really don’t want her to have that?”

Poppy growls at me. I can’t recall a time she ever growled at anyone.

“She’s not sick that I’ve ever seen,” I admit.

“Because she’s been taking it. And stars in the void, Menace, it’s medicine. Who cares what it’s for? It’s hers. She knows she needs it. That is all that matters.”

Poppy hisses and punches me in the shoulder with enough force that it actually kind of hurts.

“Ow.”

“Oh, switch off!”

Poppy moves behind me to continue scanning the bag. She’s clearly looking for something and knows something about Sefina that I don’t.

Shifter runs a hand down his face. “Have you really forgotten basic human needs? Is your human assessment programming not running?”

I glower at him. “No. It hasn’t in years.”

“Then you need to visit Rebel.”

“I am not broken,”

I sneer. I just wanted to help her. “She has carried too much weight for too long. We cannot afford to have her injured. My probability programming is running without error.”

“And yet she ran off when you refused to give her the bag.”

Shifter shakes his head. “Is she really safer now?”

“I didn’t know she would do that.”

Poppy sighs. “For a stealth model, you can be a real misfiring thruster sometimes.”

“And you’re a hunk of ballast out here.”

Shifter nudges my mind like he disapproves.

Poppy gasps. “Ouch.”

A rustling noise down the tunnel Sefina took makes us all look.

Catching the scent of welvir blood, I blow past them and charge through the corridor, following Sefina’s scent. It’s not a choice. My body doesn’t give me one.

I get that I’m everyone’s least favorite Brother and Titan and that I’m messed up in the head, but I still recognize a capable soldier when I see one. We have so few that we have to protect each other.

But it’s instinct as much as it is a necessity to search her out.

When I get to the tunnel, Sefina straightens from above a dead welvir. Blood drips from a knife she carries in the strap across her voluptuous chest. It doesn’t fizzle or burn like it’s impervious to the acidic mutant blood. And there’s an odd sheen to her eyes in the darkness, something I’ve only seen a few times in animals like myself.

She continues on, leaving me standing over the dead animal. “We can’t keep closing the tunnels. I think they’re feeling the vibrations and following them.”

“They’ll follow the blood scent, otherwise,” I reply.

“Takes longer to travel.”

Sefina stares coldly at me. “And we can’t escape that completely anyway between our injured and the meat on your back under my pack. At least, we can stop sending out a damned beacon. If Solcrue are watching seismic activity, they’ll see the explosions.”

“Commander Savage has spread out Titans to ensure causing such tunnel collapses all over will make it look like we’re scattered.”

“How do you know we still are, especially with the escape plan getting closer by the day?”

“She has a point,”

Shifter cuts in.

Menace>>Shifter: You’re not helping.

Shifter>>Menace: And you’re not accepting that she’s right. Why?

Menace>>Shifter: Because if our Brothers aren’t closing them like we are, then that means open tunnels toward camp and a vulnerability I don’t see Savage accepting.

Shifter>>Menace: But we’re no longer boxing ourselves into a corner. Drillbit has to rest sometime. Sefina is smart like Leah, resourceful like Cara, and strong like Keanna and Kelta. If you don’t see the value of what you’re abusing, you’re going to put us all in danger.

Menace>>Shifter: You’re just taking her side because she gave you a gift.

Shifter>>Menace: I can hear the jealousy in your voice. And gloves aren’t a gift. The gift is the ability to touch others. Stars, you’re a dry gear sometimes.

Menace>>Shifter: You just want to touch females.

Shifter>>Menace: And you don’t? Ha!

I glower at him.

Shifter>>Menace: Don’t give me that look. I know you want Sefina as your mate. I can smell it and see it in your eyes. And don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you steal every chance to be close to her. The Iridithatium mission to Vessna? The Iron Rain battle?

Oh, crap. He’s figuring me out.

Menace>>Shifter: You’re fabricating details from situational coincidences.

“Guys.”

I tear my eyes from Shifter’s narrowed violet eyes to Sefina’s shiny black hair and the pissed-off furrow to her brows. I don’t care if she hates me and never smiles at me. Something about her eases the misery of being an outcast. She is strong enough to put up with someone like me.

I’ll never be a capable lover like Chaos or tender-hearted like Thruster or Rebel. I have no personality traits that are good for mating. Fury got lucky with Keanna.

I’m certain Sefina will never accept me, so I antagonize her to make it easier to stay close but not too close. And yet, I still get raging hard when we are in the same room or if I so much as catch a whiff of her scent. It’s different from the other females: lighter, muskier, sweeter, and damn addicting.

I don’t believe what Shifter says. I am an animal, not a Titan. I am rougher around the edges than Savage, though he is more focused, more deadly. I can never touch Sefina. She can never touch me. I don’t think I’ll be able to control the monster inside. I’m afraid I’ll hurt any female that comes too close.

I was built to destroy life, not protect it like the others. Only Morbid really understands. He doesn’t touch anyone unless he’s skinned up or he wants them dead.

Sefina hugs herself like she’s cold. “Do you have any idea how annoying it is when you talk in your heads, and we can’t hear you? It’s like you’re sharing dirty secrets right in front of me. That’s a good way to earn the distrust of humans.”

“Sorry,”

Shifter apologizes. “Sometimes we just need to communicate quicker than speaking can.”

“And what did you decide?”

“That Menace will let you have your bag back. He will carry one of mine.”

I look over at him but keep my face blank.

Menace>>Shifter: We did not discuss that. You lied to her. And I won’t let her carry her gear. She is strong for a female but still fragile compared to us.

Shifter>>Menace: Tell her why you took it. Be honest. If you want an in with Fin you have to show her you respect her and what she wants. You might need to carry her bag later. I’m trying to get you back on her good side.

Menace>>Shifter: I have never been on her good side. And stop meddling in relationships like you know anything.

Shifter>>Menace: You have forgotten who I served.

Captain Nethois, a female human in charge of several recon units that specialized in Solcrue headgames.

Shifter nudges my mind. As I’m about to take off the pack, a scent catches in my nostrils, paired with claws scraping rock. “Packs!”

We rush ahead with the other Titans and human guards, forming a barrier against the back end of our camp. Tumble and ZipZap encourage the females faster after our leaders, while Bomber hangs back with us. Poppy comes closer, her rifle in her radiant hands.

Shifter, Sefina, Poppy, Bomber, and I form a wall behind the group, firing at every welvir that appears on our scanners. It’s a shit plan, but it’s all we’ve got.

When we run out of ammo, we’ll be down to the few of us with the balls to confront them head-on. But I can’t take on three packs at once, throwing blades. There have to be a hundred mutants raking their way over each other to get to us.

The Welvirs pour over each other until we are firing with no break, and the tunnel is as bright as day.

Poppy>>Local: Where are they all coming from? There are too many!”

“I don’t know but I’m almost out!”

Shifter sounds frantic.

“Same!”

Bomber’s already piecing together another explosive to close the tunnel.

And then, out of nowhere, Sefina stops. She lowers her rifle, slumps, and clutches her head.

“Fin, we have to go!”

Bomber stops what he’s doing and reaches for her.

Sefina shies away from him and cries out, her eyes wrenched shut.

Poppy runs to me. “She needs her migraine medicine!”

“Migraine medicine?”

I take down three more mutants with flaming blue bullets.

“I do not have a ship to manage. I know every female’s injuries, medicines, jobs, and traumas.”

Poppy frantically digs through the bag and frees a pouch with some soft twigs inside. She drags Sefina after the survivors by a shoulder strap of her armored vest as we retreat, Bomber, Shifter, and I picking of the welvirs that advance fastest.

Sefina curls up in a ball and screams the most horrendous sound of pain I’ve ever heard. It even makes me grimace as the shrill racket pulses through my thoughts, stalling lines of code. A blue wave rips out from her forehead. I see it in my scanners the same way I see the wolves, the humans, and my Brothers.

The welvirs scramble back, whimper, and scatter into the tunnels.

Sefina’s hyperventilating. Tears streak her face. She stares blankly up at Poppy from where she lies on the ground. Poppy breaks off a piece of whatever is in the bag and tucks it under her tongue, which takes some effort. Sefina cries out again and clutches her head.

Other females stop and look back.

Sefina gags and blacks out.

Poppy sighs and hangs her head. “Menace!”

My ultromotor skips a cycle. I’m in deep shit.