Roark gripped my arm and pulled me back. If I could see his face in the dark, I’d recognize the intent firing in his eyes. He wanted me to stay here.
I yanked my arm away. “Here’s a thought. I know this will eat at your overprotective soul, but how about you have a little confidence in me?” I stabbed a finger at the door even though he couldn’t see it. “Against them, I’m faster than you. Stronger than you.”
“And more stubborn than me.” A smile teased through his brogue.
“Count on it.”
I could command the aphids to run away, but how long before they returned? And if there was a nymph out there, would she run away with them?
I let Jesse and Roark sidle in front of me as I spoke into the dark. “Shea, you’ll stay here with Darwin, right? And watch over the nymph?”
We could’ve used her skill with the bow, but it wasn’t worth the risk. She survived a bite from a nymph, but we still didn’t know if she was immune to an aphid’s bite.
“Be careful.”
Her voice followed us into the temperate darkness. With two quivers on my back, I carried about forty arrows. Would I use them all? I’d have to remember to collect them as I went.
The property stretched several acres, dotted with thick groves of trees at every turn. Jesse led, his bow up and ready, and his shirtless muscles flexing in the moonlight.
Each time he glanced back at me, I pointed in the direction of the vibrations. My arteries felt near to bursting with adrenaline, my skin chilling in the cool breeze.
Roark stayed on my heels, his finger hooking in the belt loop on the back of my shorts whenever I ran too far ahead. I didn’t fight him. Poor guy needed some semblance of control.
A few minutes later, Jesse held up a fist and gestured at the low-lying brush on the left. Roark ushered me into the bushes and squatted behind me, pulling me down to crouch between his thighs.
Jesse sat on his heels beside us, his hand hot and heavy on my knee. “I thought I saw movement in there.” He nodded at the small clump of trees thirty yards to the right.
I traced the dozens of threads squirming inside me, each trajectory leading to the left. “They’re still gathered at ten o’clock.” I reached out my senses, scanning the circumference of my telepathic limits. “No stragglers. But I still sense some winking out.”
Roark grazed a thumb over my elbow. “Are they stepping out of your reach?”
“No. They’re too close.” And too quiet. My heart pounded, and my palms grew clammy. “Only twenty or so yards away. We should’ve heard their growls or their movement through the brush by now.”
“They’re stealthier.” Jesse’s profile cut a severe outline in the moonlight. “Especially if they’re being hunted.”
I followed his gaze to the clump of trees on the right. Men. It had to be. Men with quiet weapons.
The vibrations on the left shifted, the aphids moving with inhuman speed toward those trees. In the next heartbeat, their glowing neon bodies flickered into view, scattering over the open landscape.
I held my breath as the silhouette of a man stepped from the shadowed area Jesse had been watching. He stopped within eyeshot of the aphids, then another man joined him, and another, until five men stood beneath the moonlight, holding crossbows, huge hunting knives, and axes.
For a desperate moment, I thought Michio might’ve been with them. That he’d built an army of men and had come here to find me. I mentally reached out, searching for his warm presence. But I couldn’t feel him amid the riot of sensations.
Roark’s arm hooked around my waist, and Jesse moved to crouch with his back against my chest, effectively pinning me. Or shielding me.
With one hand on my bow, I gripped the other against Jesse’s waist as the aphids charged toward the men. I couldn’t hear the bugs, but I sensed them moving in a line, slinking through the overgrown brush, their hearts drumming, drumming, drumming for blood.
I wanted to warn those men, but Roark’s hand slammed over my mouth. Didn’t matter. When the first bulbous form blurred into view, the arrows flew and the men bolted. Not away. No, those crazy fuckers ran toward the horde.
Without the report of gunfire, I could hear every grunt, footstep, and whooshing arrow.
Jesse and Roark tensed against me, the sweat on their skin seeping into my shirt. They wanted to help them, but not with me here, their precious liability.
The connective strands in my stomach pulsed wildly. Some cut off, dying, dead, but not enough. There were too many. The bugs were too fast. I needed to command them.
I reached for the hem of my shirt and stopped. Feral quakes raged inside me, but stabbing through the network of noise was something steadier, saner, colder.