I forced myself to take it slow. I was hunting now. A hunter in a hurry never brought home a deer. I tried to make myself invisible. Just another piece of the land.
The terrain opened up, a break in the trees exposing me to the midday sun and any eyeless faces below. I moved in bursts, crawling a few feet, then pausing, breathing hard. My face pressed to the dirt, I’d strain my ears. If I heard nothing above the breeze, I’d continue. It was brutally slow going. Every ten feet or so, I’d risk a peek to make sure I was staying on course.
Thump. Squelch.
Somewhere on the hillside up above, Patrick and Alex were in position waiting.
And somewhere down below, kids were being killed.
The gravel pile remained ahead, though it was only half the height it had been before. The Drones must have made use of the gravel in their construction or repairs. The sun inched its way up, baking down on me. My clothes felt itchy. The start of a sunburn tingled across the nape of my neck. The backpack straps chafed my shoulders.
It took me two hours to come into range of the storage warehouse, but at last I was safely behind the gravel.
I gave myself a minute to stretch my aching limbs, then peered around the edge.
The Queen was in her position at the end of the assembly line. Her squirming stinger rose, then plummeted into the midsection of the girl secured before her. Though a variation of this scene had been playing through my head on a near-continuous loop for day and nightmare-riddled night, it felt as fresh as a cut. My chest cramped, and I had to concentrate to slow my breathing. It wasn’t a sight you could get used to.
Nor was the sight on the foundation.
Countless floating slabs of sheet metal, each supporting a kid’s deadweight, now covered the majority of the vast concrete plain. The closer kids, those who’d been more recently implanted with offspring, looked like the ones I’d seen last time I was here. Their stomach and lower chest areas were swollen, the humps ranging in size.
But the kids at the farthest reaches of the foundation, those who’d first been turned into cocoons, were no longer recognizable as humans. The entire front sides of their bodies ballooned upward, in some cases even higher than the kids were tall. Their clothes had ripped, their skin stretching to conceal whatever was growing inside them. Broken ribs floated beneath the skin, visible like sticks pushed through latex. Worst of all, their flesh pulsed erratically.
As if ready to hatch.
Thump. Squelch.
From where I lay, the Queen was at least six hundred yards away, too far for me and the Hawkeye.
I had to move fast. And yet that was the one thing I could not risk doing.
Ignoring the sounds rising to me, I continued crawling cautiously down and across the hillside. Progress was slow, but I was able to pick up the pace a little as the trees thickened.
At long last I reached the giant hollowed-out tree where I’d stashed my backpack last time.
Thump. Squelch.
I passed it. The earth swelled into a knoll between two trees and then dropped sharply away, providing a clean line of sight down to the Queen below.
I took my position at the top of the rise, setting the rifle in front of me and fishing two extra rounds from the backpack. I placed the bullets on end on a flat rock. If I missed with the first shot, I’d be lucky to get off a second. There’d be no way I’d have enough time to fire a third, but I wanted the bullet right there within reach as a comfort.
Then I set my eye to the scope.
Thump.
The Queen’s faceless helmet loomed into view. It dipped forward with a plunge—Squelch—then leaned back again, filling the crosshairs.
It took all my control not to rush off a shot.
Reading the wind and my distance, I forced myself to account for drift and holdover. My elbows sank into wet moss. Sweat stung my eyes, and I blinked them clear, arming it off my forehead.
Thump. Squelch.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the kid floating off across the plain to join the others.
I set my eye to the scope. Closed my other eye. Flicked off the safety.
Thump.
The shiny black mask dipped forward out of sight.
Squelch.
I didn’t dare move my lips now, but the words cycled through my heart, my brain: I’m sorry.
I eased out a breath through my teeth. Took the slack out of the trigger. Moisture from the moss seeped through my shirt at the elbows.
The seconds stretched out.
The Queen’s head reared back up, filling my scope, the world.
I fired.
The bullet rifled past her head.
She paused, looked to her side. Her mask held no expression, but her body language conveyed puzzlement.
Forcing myself steady, I worked the bolt, the empty cartridge ejecting with a faint pop. As I reached for the flat stone, my hand nudged the nearest round, knocking it into the one beside it. The first bullet tumbled off the knoll, ping-ponging down the slope ahead. The other spun at the very edge of the rock, each turn rotating the end out over the open air.
I plucked it up.
Thumbed it into the chamber.
Worked the bolt.