Kevina shuddered as Breez’s small hands pulled Michaela’s trachea out, stretching the skin on the woman’s neck. Michaela’s eyes bugged, her mouth open, lungs sucking as Breez crushed her windpipe. No matter how Michaela bucked, she couldn’t dislodge the clinging and squealing Breeze.

An eerie howl came from behind. Kevina whirled, seeing Felicity. Or what might have been Felicity. This time it was instinctive. Moments before the girl—her hands clawing before her—could connect, Kevina triggered the gun. At the large-caliber bullet’s impact, Felicity’s body spasmed, dropped nerveless. Arms, head, and legs bounced flaccidly on the unforgiving floor.

“Sheena!” The boy’s scream from behind caused Kevina to whip around. Blink.

Her first thought? Her son had been in green paint, maybe dabbed some white on his under arms. He was naked as he charged from down the hall, slid to a stop, and leaned over Sheena. He took the girl’s hand. Clutched it to his chest. Tears welled in his large, dark eyes.

“Baby?” she asked, heart melting. “Sweet one?”

Felix looked up, his face working. “Gonna kill you now.”

Kevina vaguely noticed the hatchet in his other hand, “Felix it’s me! I love you! You’re my baby! Please, sweet . . . let me help you.”

Vik’s rifle thundered from the lab door down the hall, and Kevina barely registered the bullet’s popping impact as Breez jerked and flopped onto Michaela’s motionless body.

Kevina tried to lift the rifle, memories of her son’s face swimming before her eyes. This was her boy, the only being she’d ever loved with all her . . .

He leapt, the hatchet raised as an inhuman howl burst from his lips.

Kevina froze, eyes on the raised blade, at the dried blood on its sharp bit.

The words, “No, baby!” shrilled as the hatchet swung in an impossible arc.

Even as it split her skull, she didn’t believe it.

90

When Felix held Sheena’s hands, they were cold. Didn’t matter how warm and slick and wet his palms were, nothing came in return. He heard and felt that distant and hidden part of him, knew it was shrieking, kicking, wailing out its misery and the injustice of it all.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He wanted to cry. Couldn’t. The Voice told him not to. That it was all right. In the end, it didn’t matter. Only the little children mattered. And they were down deep.

Safe.

Growing with the One.

Becoming.

Felix squatted on the floor, heedless of the blood, the bits of brain that leaked out of Sheena’s broken head. He wished her one eyeball wasn’t staring at him, all empty, where it lay flopped loose in the wreckage of her skull.