Her only power was to raze her earth with unapologetic promiscuity, junk food, and heavy alcohol use. Now, something else owned her, too. She had tasted control when she pulled scissors on Doc, but even violence came from desperation, no different than a snared coyote forced to chew off its leg to survive. The whole day had been a bear trap, its jaws clamping on Yaya’s life.

A peaceful Yaya would’ve never jammed scissors against anyone’s neck.

~

Her eyes shot wide open. It was still dark, still night. She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep.

Scared.

Her spine burned, and everything else itched. She limped into the bathroom and slid the door shut. A twinge shot through her limbs, worst in her injured leg.

If she left her underwear seated over her lower body, she could pretend everything was fine. Out of sight, out of mind—except she could still feel movement below, and it didn’t feel right. She had to look. She stretched the waistline toward the sink, swallowed hard, and peered down.

Dark curls parted to either side of a slender crease, climbing just past the lower edge of her mons pubis. To anyone else, she might’ve had a taller vulva than usual, but she knew her body better than any doctor or corporate goon. Her outer labia shouldn’t climb this high.

She waited for her body to unzip and organs to spill out, but the crease didn’t climb any higher. Not yet, anyway. How long until Sibs split her down the middle, a genetic axe chopping her in half? Time was running out for the planet Yolanda.

Scared, the voice said again.

Fire tore across Yaya’s back. Cold bathroom tiles against her feet didn’t help, but water would. She tore off top and underwear, clambered over the tub’s lip, and laid herself inside. Her leg couldn’t handle any more trauma right now, still swollen and purple from the jump out her apartment’s bathroom window.

She reached over her shoulders and twisted the cold water and shower knobs, raining ice across her back. Every drop stung, but the fire shrank. Her swollen leg seemed to like the cold, too.

Everything itched between her legs where, hours ago, a mass of muscle and bone had pushed through and wrapped around an ABP goon’s neck. Had her vagina killed him? Ludicrous, but she’d seen the coils with her own eyes, and now the skin took on a pinkish tinge as if infected.

Scream, the voice hummed, and then a high-pitched mewling filled Yaya’s head.

“What’s the matter with me?” She thrashed at the back of her head, where damp hair tangled around her fingers.

Me. Me. Me.

The sound reminded Yaya of when a character on Looney Tunes was

readying to sing, and she giggled for a split-second.

The voice giggled back. Scared.

Yaya arched her spine, letting ice water run across her face and down her neck. The voice wasn’t in her mind. She heard it, a thrum that climbed her spine and tickled her inner ear, an intimate whisper from somewhere inside her body.