Her gaze moves over me her confusion and suspicion growing but I’m caught in the grasp of my own tangled web of thoughts.

“It takes those who fight?” I whisper.

The woman gulps and nods slightly.

“It takes those who fight.” I repeat the words as a plan hatches in my mind.

I’m standing now, my gaze travelling over the roof of the chamber.

Across from where the women sit, across the barrier, there is the usual tangle of vines.

I do not know if any Feeders are alive over there. I doubt it.

But my plan wouldn’t have included them anyway.

I don’t have much time left.

Fer’ro and the others must have realized something is wrong by now since the Scrit is continuing on its way.

I have to try and do something now before they blow their cover.

The entire human race depends on me.

This is pressure that I do not need…but I’m used to pressure.

“Back before you came, I was a doctor.” I speak loudly as I stand tall.

The sway of the Scrit does not even affect me. “I know pressure. I’ve dealt with pressure.” I’m not sure who I’m talking to, but hearing the words come from my mouth strengthens me somehow. “I wrestled a pet anaconda once.” I speak louder. “I snipped tiny rabbit bits!”

Pressure? This is no pressure.

I take a deep breath and feel the small energy bomb in my hand.

It’s about the size of a golf ball and warm.

I squeeze it as I look at the roof of the chamber and…I roar.

The sound echoes against the walls, bouncing back and forth, hurting even my ears, and I hardly note the alarm that spreads over the women’s faces.

I throw my head back and roar again.

But the Scrit walks as if nothing is happening within it.

I have to do more.

Something!

Taking a few steps back until my back touches the barrier to the outside, I take a breath and charge forward to land a kick on the other side of the compartment.

“Do something!” I kick the wall again before slamming my fist into the metal.

“I said do something! Do something you fucking asshole!”

My shouts echo as my labored breathing floods my ears.

Someone grabs one of my legs. The woman I spoke to. Her wide eyes are on me, terror etched in her features.

“What are you doing?! ARE YOU INSANE?!”

“She’s going to get herself killed,” one of the others says.

“She’s going to get us all killed!”

I shrug out of the woman’s grasp and rain a few more kicks into the wall.

“Am I alive enough for you?! Huh?!” I scream at the Gryken I now know is listening. “You might have taken everything I have, but I’m not dead yet! What are you waiting for you ugly motherfucker?!”

At the center of my back, my ba’clan pulse, and fear hits me like a brick.

The ba’clan continue pulsing and for a moment, I lose the fight within me.

This fear I’m feeling…it’s not my own.

It does not belong to me. It feels…secondary…like contracting the emotions of someone you empathize with.

My eyes widen as it hits me.

The ba’clan are pulsing so hard now, I have no doubt about it.

Fer’ro.

This is Fer’ro’s fear.

I don’t know how I know it comes from him but it’s as if I can see him in my mind.

Feel him.

But he’s on the ground out there somewhere, depending on me.

I have to make this work somehow.

“I know you are watching me!” I scream again. “I know you can hear me! I know what you are and I know why you’re here!” I turn in a half-circle as my gaze searches the roof of the compartment. “You came here and destroyed everything. Everything! You’ve taken everything from me.” I choke on those words.

It’s taken everything except my hope that we can survive this.

Before, I had nothing.

I have Fer’ro by my side now.

“Why don’t you finish the job you slimy piece of shit!” I slam my fists against the wall one more time. “Finish the job!”

Time stills as I hear a whirr above me.

My heart stops then slams against my chest as a hole in the top of the chamber opens and I see the long, all-too-familiar metal arm descend.

One of the women behind me screams and I hear them shuffle away, but I stand with my back straight, staring at the thing.

The ba’clan against my back bristle hard, as if they too are trying to get away, but somehow, I manage to stand and face the thing.

“Do it,” I say. “Take me.”

For the first time ever, I see the arm pause.

It doesn’t move to grab me immediately and fear creeps through my bones.

What if it knows?

What if it knows this is all a trap? That I’m attempting something incredibly dangerous but something that might take it down?

What if it can sense the ba’clan against my spine?

But the arm starts moving again and grasps me around the neck.

I don’t even flinch, even though my skin is crawling and every fiber of my being wants me to scream and fight.

This is a bad idea.

This is a bad, bad idea.

But I can’t turn back now.

I can’t back down.

This all depends on me.

The metal arm lifts me as the screams of the other women echo in the chamber and I swallow my fear.

I’m not fighting the claw.

I’m going willingly as my hand closes tighter over the last bomb in my hand.

I don’t know what’s on the other side of this hole.

I dread what the machine wants to do to me.

But I will survive.

I have to.

Chapter Thirty

ADIRA

It’s dark where it takes me.

The hole, the tunnel the arm snakes through, seems to go on forever, but I know it can’t be that long.

But time is distorted as I move. Wrapped in terror. My own fear.

I clutch on to the claw as it pulls me forward, dimly aware that before me, there is light.

It’s dim, but enough for me to see.

It illuminates the entrance of the tunnel and the thin, clear plastic covering that seals it.

But as the arm snakes through the seal, I realize it’s not plastic at all.

It’s like thin goo.

It coats my skin as the claw pulls me through the tunnel and then…

I don’t get the chance to take a breath before I’m pulled into the water.

Water.

The entire chamber is filled with it.

I. Can’t. Breathe.

The claw releases me abruptly and snakes away somewhere, but I don’t care to watch it go.

My first instinct is to find air.

My arms flash out as I try to swim upward, but even as my body rises, fear fills my soul.

I don’t think there is a surface.

It’s clear, the water. So clear that a part of my mind realizes the dim light is actually coming from outside the Scrit.

There are lights dotting the interior too but they don’t look artificial.

They look like some form of bioluminescent plant life.

I push through the water upward. I need to reach the top. Hope there is an air pocket there. But as I move, something floats by me that stops my heart.

It’s encased in a thick membrane of what looks like the same goo that seals the entrance of the chamber.

A body.

Female.

Her belly is swollen. Movement within it.

My heart slams against my ribcage.

The other woman.

It’s the other woman.

I thought she’d be dead—I’m not sure she is alive.

There are things attached to her and I realize she’s not free-floating at all.

She’s hooked to the wall by some fleshy tendons that sway gently in the water around them.

Fear shoots up my spine and I try to move backward as I focus on where the tendons stem from.

I’m sure I’ll see the Gryken materialize there in the shadows but I am wrong.

Sudden movement comes from my right and there is no time to react.

Something thin and slimy wraps around my neck and I open my mouth in a scream.