MEETING BY THE RIVER

Mark had been a damned fool to let Gina go after Kelly alone. She was capable enough but ill-prepared and untrained, so why hadn’t he stopped her? To destroy the only person he loved, perhaps, out of loathing for both of them and what they were.

His urge to destroy hybrids certainly included himself—he despised himself—and as much as he loved Gina, for this reason she also made his flesh crawl. He loved her and he loathed her.

He moved through the forest, knowing that he was under close hybrid observation. But why weren’t they attacking?

He went a little deeper, then stopped. Eyes watched from nearby, gleaming here and there in the shafts of sunlight that penetrated the forest.

He was not so deep yet that he wouldn’t be able to fight his way back to the road from here. Much farther in, though, and he would have no chance.

The problem was that the easily followed trail the two women had left went deeper. In her terror, Kelly must have run wildly. Gina, in her effort to reach her, had risked too much.

He feared that they were both dead or down in those tunnels, enduring what sort of suffering he did not wish to imagine.

He increased his speed, striding along the path, no longer bothering to move silently. With all the attention he was getting, there was no point in stealth.

Then he saw blood, a lot of it, on the ground near a tree. One or both of the two women was dead.

He felt fear for Gina, but he also felt forced to suppress it. What he needed to do was to save the human being. The hybrid could fend for itself.

He picked up a snatch of conversation, a man speaking low and urgently, and not a hundred yards away. A word came, “magnetic.” He listened, but heard no more. Then he saw coming through the trees a quick form.

Despite himself, his heart leaped up as his eyes drank her in. “Gina.”

She stopped. Her body was stiff, arms straight, fingers spread. She was cocked, ready for an attack.

Mark stepped into her field of view. As he approached her, his arms seemed to open almost of their own accord, and in an instant she was pressing herself against him. She was silent, and when he looked down at her, he saw tears on her smeared, lovely face.

“Kelly didn’t make it.”

“It’s a miracle either of you is still alive.”

He tried to prevent her from seeing the remains of Kelly, the blood on the tree and what lay behind it, but she stopped, then reached trembling fingers and touched the devastated body of the girl.

“She was nineteen, Mark!”

“They do not care.” He took her elbow, gently urging her on.

She pulled away. “Mark, we need to go back.”

“Why?”