The energy coiled through my belly, wrapping around the invisible thread to the aphid. I mentally latched onto it, following it out of my body like a breath of air, and pushed my soundless transmission. Home.
A bang crashed against the door, and I opened my eyes. A spider-web of cracks spread over the window. The aphids eyes grew impossibly whiter, its pupils shrinking to nonexistence as its deformed face focused on me. A foot away, Jesse didn’t move, his arrow aimed and his stance stiff.
I reached under my shirt and rested my forearms against Michio’s. “I don’t know what command to give.”
His lips brushed against my cheek. “Ask about its girlfriend, wife. Try to get a reaction.”
I wrapped my thoughts around the ethereal connection, holding tight with imaginary fingers as I focused on the woman in the photo. Female. Nymph. Wife. Where?
A powerful hum slammed into my stomach, pulsing and stretching my insides. I buckled over Michio’s arms, gasping for air and losing strength in my legs. Tremors ricocheted through my body, and the connection strained, pulling with painful vibrations. Then it snapped.
Glass exploded from the window with the ram of the aphid’s head. Jesse let the arrow fly, and the aphid slumped against the car door with the feathered shaft protruding from its skull. The pulsing in my stomach instantly vanished with a whoosh.
“Shit.” I straightened and wiped the sweat from my forehead. “Well, we got a reaction.”
Michio untangled his arms from around me and kissed my temple. “With more practice, you’ll get better.”
I couldn’t argue against the possibility of it. The Drone, the monster who created and spread the virus, had commanded armies of aphids and sent messenger bugs on missions. If I could harness that kind of power, we would be unstoppable.
Jesse pulled the aphid to the pavement, collected the arrow, and rifled through its pockets. “No wallet.”
Which meant no address, no confirmation this man…aphid was even from around here.
Jesse gathered the bow and arrows from the truck bed and dropped them in my arms. “’Bout time you learned how to use a real weapon.”
Oh no, he didn’t. I carried a carbine on my back, four throwing knives on my arms, and a USP .40 handgun on my thigh. If I added any more weapons, I wouldn’t be able to walk. “I’ll stick with the guns—”
“The noise endangers us and ammo is difficult to find,” he snapped, dragging the deer to the tailgate.
It wasn’t what he said—arrows were easier to make than bullets—but how he said it. His pretentious tone made me want to fire an arsenal of middle fingers at his face.
“I use the knives—”
He put his palm up and closed his eyes. “Can you just”—he turned back to the deer—“not fight me one goddamned time?”
Was he peeved because I couldn’t control the aphid? Or was this really about my guns? I hadn’t fired a shot since we left the mountains.
I looked at Michio, who crossed his arms and shrugged. This, from a guy who fought with his bare hands?
Jesse hauled the carcass over his shoulders and strode toward the delivery truck. “I’ll check the maps, see if I can find that animal reserve.”
For the next three hours, we cut what we could eat from the deer, roasted the steaks on the side of the road, and filled our bellies. And Georges still didn’t have the motor running.
I sat on the hood of a smashed up Ferrari GTO, keeping guard as Roark rummaged through the glove box. My fingers drummed on the carbine, my patience thinning. “We’re going to have to keep walking and find another truck.”
Or several cars to fit us all. Which would delay our search for the nymph. How long could she go without food?
He shut the car door and stood by the front tire. Ropes of muscle outlined his shoulders and biceps, his bare chest hairless and broad, tapering to the carved V that vanished beneath the waistband of his black fatigues. He’d shed the cassock that morning, and though the sun had dipped below the horizon, I could still cut the humidity with a knife.
“Georges will get it running.” He loosened the belt and unzipped his pants, his eyes focused on his hands.
My pulse picked up. The others milled around the delivery truck in earshot, but no one was looking in our direction.
I grabbed his forearm. “What are you doing?”
“Having a piss.”
Yep. His cock was out, spraying a yellow stream at the tire below my dangling boots.
I spun my legs toward the front bumper, but my eyes remained glued on the thick, gorgeous girth in his hand. “Why do you do that?”
He looked at me, at his cock, back to me, and grinned. “It’s just piss—”
“You’re a fucking tease.” I looked away and skimmed the shadowed tree line for movement.
Loose pebbles crunched beneath his boots as he rounded the car and wedged his hips between my knees. “So I have to be modest around ye now?” His accent clipped with aggravation, reflecting my frustration.