Sarah looked up to where he was gripping the arm of the woman and holding the source of the blood to his mouth. Before her very eyes, she saw his elbow distort under his skin, the bony protrusion seeming to curl into a fist and twist before—snap! It was in a different position.

The same thing happened to his jaw. Initially, she assumed the disfiguration of his face occurred because his mouth was wide open due to being latched onto that wrist—but soon she realized that whatever was happening to his legs and his arms was affecting his entire body. He was growing.

Not by millimeters. By leaps and bounds—

Abruptly, his forehead seemed to bubble forward, his brow ridge undulating under his skin, his ears moving outward.

More popping.

Sarah felt something wet on her hand and looked over at where she had gripped the commando’s bare arm. Her fingernails had sunk so deeply into his skin, his blood welled in crescents.

When she looked at him in alarm, his eyes were remote. As if what was going on across the room was no mystery at all—but her reaction was what concerned him.

Sarah snapped her hand back and wiped it on her pants.

She had spent all her professional life on the lookout for revelations about the mysteries of the human body, her days and nights devoted to the pursuit of breakthroughs in knowledge and lightning strikes of hyper-deductive reasoning that ultimately relieved suffering and cured disease.

She had never, ever expected that the biggest discovery of her career would not be about humans at all.

Sarah had no idea how long it took. Hours could have passed. Days. Who knew.

But she sat through the entire … whatever it was … not feeling the chair under her, not caring that she had to go to the bathroom, not aware of anything other than the boy’s maturation process.

That was the only framework into which she could fit what she witnessed.

Nate had started out looking like a nine or ten year old boy. Then some kind of craving had come over him, and that woman had arrived. She had bit herself in the wrist, put the open wound to his mouth … and somehow as he drank from her, his arms and legs grew by inches upon inches, and that wasn’t the only change in him. His face became that of a man’s, growing a jawline and brows. His hands elongated, his shoulders widened, his throat thickened. His chest doubled, then tripled in size, until it split the small hospital johnny down the middle.

There was incredible pain. Horrible pain. Then again, it was clear that the process wasn’t coordinated, some bones and muscles growing before the joints did, others lagging behind. It was impossible for her to tell what was going on internally, but his organs—his heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, liver and kidneys—had to be doing the same.

Sometime in the midst of things, the woman took her wrist from Nate and seemed to seal the raw wounds with her own mouth. Then she bowed deeply to the commando and removed herself from the room. She appeared exhausted, her skin pale to the point of snow, her gait a shuffle rather than a walk. As she stumbled out the door, there were people waiting in the hall to catch her, and soon thereafter, the medical staff came in and checked on Nate. They listened to his heart, took his blood pressure, ran an IV—for fluids? Sarah wondered.

No one said anything. Everybody was tense.

Instinct told her it was a dangerous time, given how nervous the doctors were. And then hello, there was all the obvious stress on his body.

After the woman left, Nate continued to change on the bed, his legs sawing as they kept growing, his torso twisting and flopping back, curling in and releasing.

At one point, he gasped and threw his head to the side—and this time, as she caught sight of his eyes, he had pupils again now. Pupils that stared out of a man’s face.

And they locked on her.

“Help …” he said in a rasping voice that was a full octave lower than it had been at the lab. At the farmhouse. In the van on the way here. “It hurts …”

A tear escaped, rolling out and trailing down the cheek that was no longer that of a child.

The boy was still in there, though. And he was begging for her to go to him, even though there was nothing she could do for him.

As he implored her for help, time slowed down—and in the swirl of her own confusion and panic, a thought crystalized with the clarity of church bells ringing through a foggy night: If she went to him, if she sat with him, if she tried to ease his suffering, she was going to lose a part of herself forever.

Because she did not belong in this world. In his world.

She was not supposed to be here. She was not supposed to know any of this. And somehow, she wasn’t sure exactly how, they were going to make sure she went back to where she belonged with all her previous ignorance front and center.

There was no way she was going to be allowed to keep this information, this experience. All she had to do was remember their escape from the lab and the way the commando had seemed to put that guard in a trance, and control Kraiten, and make things happen with people’s minds.

He was going to end up doing the same to her.

Except … she was willing to bet emotional ties were not going to be as easy to get rid of. And there was nothing more powerful for the heart than the mother/child bond—which was the way Nate implored her now.

He was a child. He was in pain. And he needed somebody to nurture him.

What are you going do, Sarah, she thought.

“You don’t have to,” the commando said gruffly.

Sarah gripped the arms of the hard chair and slowly stood up. As her legs let out creaks of protest, her muscles stiff from however long she had been sitting, she thought of what Nate had been through—was still going through.

She looked down at the commando. “I know what you’re going to do to me.” When he opened his mouth, she shook her head. “Just stop. Don’t lie to me. You think I’m not aware of how you work? The only thing I ask is just warn me when you’re going to take my mind over and let me say goodbye to him before you make me leave.”

The commando’s eyes dropped. “Sarah …”

“Swear it.”

He took a deep breath, his chest expanding. Then his beautiful peach stare lifted to her. “I swear. On my honor.”

Oh, God, she was right. She had guessed correctly.

Sarah cleared her throat and looked over at the bed. “Just let me say goodbye to him.”

Straightening her spine, she walked over and gingerly eased her hip on the mattress. As another tear escaped Nate’s eye, she reached out and snapped a Kleenex free from a box. Even though she dabbed ever so carefully, he winced as if she had struck him with barbed wire.

“Your skin is sensitive?” she whispered. When he nodded, she nodded back. “I would imagine it is—”

“You think I’m a monster.”

As his deep voice came out of his mouth, her heart stopped, and she had to catch herself before she recoiled. It was all just so hard to comprehend. But what she was clear on? None of this was his fault or something he had volunteered for.

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think you’re a monster.”

“Yes, you do. I can see it in your eyes.”

She refused to lie to him. “I just didn’t know …”

“About us.”

She wanted to ask what exactly “us” was, but she had a feeling she knew. And the reality frightened her.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, as if he read her mind. “I promise.”

“Now, that I completely believe.”

“I might still die,” he mumbled. “It’s not over yet. I just … I’m scared.”

“What happens now?” God, she was suddenly terrified for him, and she took his hand in her own as if she could keep him alive by the contact alone. “Do you need the doctors?”

“I don’t know.”

The commando got up from his seat. “I’ll go get somebody.” Something in her expression must have gotten through to him because he just shrugged helplessly. “Sometimes things just stop working. All we can do is wait and see what happens.”

As he left, the door eased shut.

Left alone with Nate, Sarah leaned up and brushed his hair back. It was darker, thicker … wavier. A man’s hair, not a boy’s. And his eyelashes were the same, longer and thicker. And he had the shadow of a beard.

“It happens to all of us,” Nate said. “This is how … it happens.”

She nodded because she wanted to calm him down, but under her skull, her brain was racing. “You’re different from me.”

“I am.”

“But that does not make you a monster to me.” Strength entered her voice. “Do you understand—you are not a monster.”

He stared at her for the longest time. Then he took a deep breath of relief. “You didn’t know about us, did you.”

“No.”

“So how did you come and get me?”

She thought of Gerry, and felt a fresh bolt of anger at what he had done, what he had been involved in. “I, ah, I found some of your lab results. They weren’t meant for me to see, but … once I did, I couldn’t not investigate. I couldn’t not … try and find you. I wasn’t even sure where … to go with any of it.”

“I’m glad you came. And I’m glad they let you stay with us.”

Sarah nodded. “Try and rest.”

“You’re not going to leave, right?” Before she could reply, his eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Of course, I want you here. Even if you’re not one of us, you came to get me out when no one else did. I trust you.”

“Do you trust them?”

“You mean, do I trust the male with you. That’s what you really want to know.”

“Do you read minds?”

“Not really. I’m just putting myself in your position. And to answer your question, yes, I do, and you can, too. He’s bonded with you. He will not let anything bad happen to you and he will die trying to protect you.”

This time Sarah could not hide her reaction. She felt the shock hit her face—and was aware that something else was with it. Something closer to …