Desperation poured from my throat. “Michio! Don’t…don’t let him do this. Fight him. You’re strong…dammit, you’re stronger than him!”
The Drone’s smile oozed with calm confidence. “Dr. Nealy believes he can outsmart me by not thinking about rescue attempts. But how does one make plans without thoughts?” He studied Michio’s impassive expression and looked back at me. “I’m afraid he has nothing to offer you.”
The Drone hadn’t broken him. Not Michio. Maybe he’d found a way around the mind-reading? My head spun, my breaths wheezing. The only thing I could count on was death if the Drone let go.
I closed my eyes to fight down the urge to puke, certain he would drop me if I spewed on his cape.
After a few heavy breaths, I glared up at him, my skin tearing in the grip of his claws. “We wouldn’t be here, on the brink of this cliff, if you didn’t know about the prophecy.”
“Are you certain? I determined this location long before I discovered the predictions. Whether or not I would’ve killed you here is a matter of assumption. But think about it, Eveline. If the cliff or the child are necessary causes of your death, then your death necessarily implies the presence of one or the other. I can’t ignore the fact that both the cliff and the child happen to exist, right here, beneath my fingertips.”
My insides revolted, shooting acid up my chest and into my throat. I gagged and lost the battle with my stomach as vomit trickled over my cheek and fell into oblivion.
He released his claws from my face and stepped away. The world moved in slow motion as I suspended there, my legs clenched around the edge and gravity pressing me backward. My muscles strained and my stomach contracted against the gorge’s determined pull.
Michio grabbed the rope on my arms and swung me up, stabilizing my body on the ledge. Dizzy and terrified, I gasped, panting for air. I didn’t fall. I didn’t fall. For a hopeful moment, I thought Michio had snapped his invisible chains to save me, but one look at his empty face told me otherwise.
The Drone curled his disfigured lips, letting me know I was still alive because he willed it. “The prophecy is either something or nothing. Which leaves me with the conundrum of Plato’s Beard that argues nothing is something.”
Fuck, was this why he’d left me in that room for so long? Had he spent all that time talking himself into tangled circles?
Saliva collected in my mouth, my stomach threatening to heave again. I spit on the ledge, breathing past my lips, and glared at him out of the corner of my eye as I wiped my cheek on my shoulder.
His smile flattened, and his pupils dilated. “The fetus in your womb will not be born.”
My heart stopped.
He glanced at my neck and returned to my face. “But before I destroy it, I will drain it of its power. And yours.”
“She’s a her, you sick son of a bitch.” Horror trembled through my body and quivered my voice. “She’s stronger than you. She’ll kill you. Stick your fucking fangs in me, and we’ll see who’s left with the power.”
It was all conjecture. I didn’t know shit, and my fucking panic was seeping through the cracks of my composure.
“Once I bite you and pull the power from your body, you’ll become infertile, weak. You’ll no longer be of any use to me.” He stretched out his arms and looked around the canyon. “So here we are, fulfilling the prophecy. No matter what becomes of the bite, Dr. Nealy has been ordered to push you over the moment I release your vein.”
I shook my head in denial, even as I knew I’d reached the end with no way out. It didn’t matter if the bite backfired and I imbibed his power. I would already be on my way to the bottom of the cliff. He probably would’ve flown me over the gorge and bitten me high in the air if he was certain he wouldn’t lose his power. But he didn’t know.
Which was why he’d chosen this location to do it. Bite me and push me.
My fear was sudden and manic. Ferocious energy pummeled through my limbs as I thrashed forward, bucking against Michio’s hands on my hips. I needed down, needed off this fucking ledge. “Let me down. Let me the fuck down!”
I had no defense. No mobility. No weapons. I was out of time and out of options. Feverish breaths pumped my chest as desperation seared my nose and closed up my throat.
The Drone stepped toward me, his fangs pushing past his lips and his jaw stretching open. Fucking hell, he was leaning toward my neck. I tucked my chin and jerked away, swaying on the narrow peak, my hips pinned down by Michio’s unforgiving strength.