“In that case, hi.” She extended her hand. “I’m Kira Walker.”
“That explains a lot. Last I heard, Morgan had found you.”
“Her experiments didn’t pan out,” said Kira. “I left her labs a week ago.”
Green’s voice was quiet. “Damn. AWOL or not, I was still hoping she’d find a way to cure expiration.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“My whole squad left,” said Green. “We figured we’d join one of the other factions still holding out from her authority, and the Ivies seemed like a good choice. You can see how well that turned out.”
“But why?” asked Kira. “You’d been with her for so long.”
Green didn’t answer.
Kira drummed her fingers on the damp carpet. “I found another Partial out there,” she said, “on a dock on the lake’s edge. I assume he was one of yours.”
“Still alive?”
“Only barely. Probably not anymore.” She put her hand on his. “I’m sorry.”
“That might be Alan,” said Green. “He tried to swim for it about five days ago. I saw them pull him under, and then . . . well, he was the last one. I’ve been alone since.”
Kira couldn’t bear to tell him the grisly details. “I tried to help him, but it was too late.” She sat up suddenly, remembering his final words. “He tried to warn me—he said something about ‘the Blood Man.’”
“That’s what we call him,” said Green, nodding. “The gilled soldiers seem to obey him, though he’s not one of them, as far as we can tell.”
“That’s a pretty dramatic name,” said Kira. “I didn’t realize Partials were superstitious.”
“We’re not,” said Green. “We call him the Blood Man because he literally takes blood from us. We think he collects it.”
“What does he look like?”
“We’ve never seen him,” said Green. “The Ivies, or whatever they are, came and took some of our group, one every few days. Our sergeant, our driver, and one of the infantry.”
“One each of the surviving Partial models,” said Kira.
“Exactly.”
“That sounds like he’s collecting DNA,” said Kira. “And no one’s ever talked to him? The Ivies didn’t say anything about him?”
“Just that he needed their blood,” said Green. “And then they told us he’d left to find more.”
Kira’s heart sank. “Don’t say he went south.”
“Where else?” asked Green. “They told us he had all the Partial blood he needed, and it was time to visit the humans.”
“He’s going to hunt humans now? Why does he need their DNA?”
“Why does he need anybody’s?” asked Green, his calm exterior cracking with fear and frustration. “He’s a psychopath with a blood fetish, and an army of super Partials to back him up.”
“We have to stop him,” said Kira, but her words froze in her throat when she heard a loud, sharp click from somewhere below.
“That’s the door,” Green whispered. “They’re here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kira looked to Green with wide eyes.
FEAR.
“Come out,” a voice called from downstairs. “We only want to talk.”
“What do we do?” Kira whispered.
“They’ll be armed,” said Green. “And probably wearing body armor.”
Kira nodded, remembering the fight in Chicago. “They’ll link you and know we’re up here. Is it worth trying to fight?”
“If they wanted you dead, they would have killed you already.”
“Or they’ll kill me after they interrogate me,” said Kira. “With the Blood Man gone, they have no reason to keep us alive.”
“That we know of,” said Green. “They haven’t killed me yet.”
“So you’re just waiting until they do?”
“Don’t make us look for you,” said another voice. “You know that only makes us angry.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Green hissed. “Even if we can overpower multiple armed soldiers, what then? For all we know, this whole lake is crawling with them—there could be hundreds more just under the water.”
A stair creaked, loud and haunting.
“Wait,” said Kira. “You said they’re armed, right?” She thought back to the soldiers in Chicago, who’d been carrying both tranquilizer darts and standard assault rifles. “The Ivies might be fine underwater, but their guns aren’t. Normal firearms can’t fire when wet.”
“We had waterproof rifles in our armory in the Isolation War,” said Green.
“Have you seen any since then?”
“Maybe these guys have them all.”
“Or maybe those weapons are too rare, and the Ivies are carrying the same thing as everybody else.” Kira grabbed his shoulder, whispering urgently in his ear. “They have to store them on land, and they’ve got to transport them somehow.”
Another creaking stair. Green stared at her. “You think they came in a boat? Sometimes they have one when they move prisoners, but—”
“Not only do they have a boat,” said Kira, “but any more of them watching from underneath the water won’t think twice when they see that boat leave the island. We only have to make it what, two hundred feet, to the other island? There’s a causeway from there to the mainland, if I remember the map right. Then we’re on solid ground again and we can make a run for it.”
“Until they realize what’s going on, and the whole lake rises up to get us.”
