The farmhouse Rekkan mentioned had held up surprisingly well. Constructed of brick and mortar rather than wood, the walls stood firm against the wind. Instead of broken windows and a field of bodies, a red-painted door and floral welcome mat greeted us. I could almost imagine we would find an elderly woman baking cookies while her grandsons played with dolls.

The front door was locked, but the backdoor unlatched with a jiggle of the handle. Inside, a pair of workboots, a couple pairs of sandals, and a pair of child-sized sneakers lined the shoe mat. The absence of rain and wind somehow just made me shiver more, the unfulfilled expectation of true warmth.

Rekkan gripped my forearm and ushered me through the nearest door. We entered a bedroom with a shuttered window, a threadbare mat, and a bulky wooden bedframe. The patched-together quilt tucked neatly under the edges of the mattress. A few charred logs laid crisscross in a dusty fireplace like an abandoned bird’s nest. 

Without releasing my arm, Rekkan examined the closet and then knelt to peek under the bed. Finally, he fixed me with a stern gaze. 

“I’m checking the rest of the house. Lock the door when I leave, and don’t unlock it until I tell you to.”

“Seriously? I’m not that helpless.”

“Zaf… please.” He unzipped his backpack, retrieved the book, and pressed it into my hands. “Here, you can read this while you wait.”

I licked my lips, hesitating. Though I itched to explore the book, I didn’t like the idea of Rekkan exploring the house alone. The Freshly-Baked and Overcooked were not interested in him, but what if he encountered a Fully-Fermented? Or hostile humans?

When I glanced back up at Rekkan, he was studying the door, gaze contemplative.

“Rekkan.”

“Mm.”

“Are you considering how you can lock that door from the outside?”

He darted a guilty glance back toward me. “I… no, why would I consider that? Because you’ll stay here… right?”

I sighed. “I’ll stay. But be careful?”

He shot me a crooked smile. “I will.”

Rekkan slipped through the door, and then his footsteps stopped. In the silence of the house, I could even hear his breathing. Expelling another sigh, I strode to the door and turned the lock. 

When the footsteps departed down the hallway, I sank down on the bed and cracked open the book. I started in the middle, where the leather creased from use. Handwritten notes with arrows and cross-outs and tiny amendments littered the first half of the page. The second half was blank.

As was the rest of the book.

I backtracked, devouring the notes the way I devoured food the first time Rekkan fed me. My still-shivering shoulders and chattering teeth faded to a recess of my mind. The book started with vague allusions to a research group called the Sentries and their Peace Project, but the following pages focused on predictions… predictions which had all come true. 

All but one. 

Circled in the margins, I read the last words I had heard my mother speak: Even Ether will fall in the third phase.

Ether was the source of life and the connection between us all. What did it mean for Ether to fall? The end of humanity? The end of all life?

The notes gave unsettling but vague allusions to the Noble Forces. One scribble in the margin read: Create a better future for who? And at what cost? 

My eyes caught on several other notes that provided little clarification, and the back of my neck prickled with icy-hot unease. The Seven Sentries = humanity’s only hope. Three successful trials -> too soon for mass experimentation. Recommended course of action: exterminate trials...

A fist rapped on the door. I jolted, nearly dropping the book.

“Zaf, it’s me. You can unlock the door now.”

I slid off the bed and jogged to the door to unlatch the lock.

Rekkan’s eyes on mine spelled relief, and his twitching hands said he might like to hug me. Maybe touch my hair. Maybe even taste my lips.

You can touch me everywhere, I told him with my eyes.

My eyes were ineffective. 

He dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade similar to the one the Cutthroat Crew had confiscated from me. “Found this. I’m not giving you permission to endanger yourself, but in case I can’t protect you… can you use it?”

I nodded and accepted the blade, swallowing back a protest. Where did that I want to kiss you look go?

He nodded at the book still clutched in my hands. “Did you find anything?”

“Nothing useful yet.”

“Keep looking, and I’m sure you…” He trailed off and frowned at me. “You’re cold.”

I noticed then how badly my shoulders shook, and how the chill pierced through to an ache in my bones. “Yeah, a little.”

“I’ll start a fire,” he said.

But instead of moving toward the fire, he strode past me, sank down onto the bed, and began unbuttoning his pants. 

He slid his jeans down, revealing black boxer-briefs that hugged his muscular ass. The pants slipped over one muscular thigh and one perfect symbiosis of black and silver metal attached to an amputated stump. 

My mouth fell open with an audible parting of lips, and I blinked at him. “Wh-what are you doing?” 

“Gotta remove the bionic leg before I start the fire.” His voice came out harsh, but when my gaze flicked to his face, his expression appeared hesitant — even self-conscious. “If you don’t like what you see, then don’t look.”

His embarrassment baffled me. How could this perfect specimen of a man have any doubt about his desirability? My eyes dropped to his legs again and then inched up to the black cloth stretched taut over his hips and ass. 

Before I could help myself, I stepped toward the bed. I stopped a foot from him and extended a tentative hand, desperate to feel and see more. Then I bit my lip and fisted my hand.

“And if I do like what I see?”

His eyes fixed on mine and darkened, no longer stone but not quite human either. Something animal flickered across his gaze, and the bulge beneath his boxer-briefs swelled. Heat flushed through me, melting my core and relaxing my shivering shoulders.

He sucked in a shaky breath. “Fuck, Zaf…”

“What is the problem?” I leaned forward and unzipped his leather coat just a few inches, the slow scritch of metal exposing a little more of his broad, muscular chest. “Don’t you want me?”

He raked a hand through his hair, and his chest swelled with each breath. “Zaf… I just… I can’t risk…”

I itched to touch the few strands of loose hair that now hung over his eyes — not to fix the imperfection, but to memorize it. “Can’t risk what? If a bite didn’t Infect me, a kiss won’t.”

“Infection or no, I’ve hurt a lot of people.”

With one more step forward, my legs grazed his knees, one warm and one cold. “But you won’t hurt me. I know you won’t.”

A groan reverberated in his chest, and then he swallowed. “Zaf, stop. You have to stop, or I won’t be able to.”

Every part of me liked that threat, from head to toe and from skin to heart. I imagined clasping both of his thighs and leaning down to taste his lips. I imagined the part where he took over, when the lust overcame his self-control.

His hand darted toward my hip, fingers curling, twitching, then sliding up beneath the coat and shirt. At the brush of gentle, calloused fingers against my abs, I shuddered. 

His hand stilled, and his eyes darted up to mine. “You want me to stop?”

I shook my head before managing a croaked response. “No.”

His voice came out hoarse. “I better start that fire so I can take this off of you.”

But when he began to twist the attaching mechanism to remove the bionic leg, a question surfaced through the haze of lust — a question some distant part of me registered as important. I jerked one step back and fought for control over my tongue. 

“Rekkan… why would you remove your leg before starting a fire?”

His hands stopped mid-removal. I watched him struggle against the same tide of lust I had waded through, throat working and hands scrunching the quilt at either side of him.

“Uh, the… the microchip. In my bionic leg. It malfunctions around fire. That’s why I use electric heat in the fortress.”

For a few seconds, my mind swerved and spun like a car on ice. When I collided with a realization, adrenaline crashed over me. “That’s it,” I whispered. “That’s the answer.”

His brow furrowed. “What answer?”

“The Infection is not a virus. It’s a microchip.”