He crouched in the forest undergrowth and watched the girl sob on the porch. She shook like a parvoed dog.
Her again.
A heat thrummed inside Abraham's stomach like moth wings. Nearly sexual, but not quite.
It was the same feeling had made him panic when he first felt her at the house. He'd gone there to scavenge for anything useful. Scrap metal. Cookware. The necessities of life as a fugitive.
He could have fled while she snapped pictures in the front of the house. Leapt from the open window and landed with ease on top of the outhouse.
Flee from the eye of discovery, you poor half-person. They have dominion over you, no matter how special you are.
But he didn't. Abraham sometimes wondered if part of him wanted to get caught.
So many possibilities had snapped through his mind when he saw her sprawled out in the cellar like a castaway doll. Leave her. Help her. Smother her with one of the pillows from upstairs.
The last thought had made Abraham feel ashamed.
I'm no killer, no matter what happened with Gasper.
Gasper, who looked more human than he, but was not. Gasper, who had almost died bleeding out like a slaughterhouse beast while Abraham fled with others into the Virginia forest. Away from stability. Away from regular meals and solicitous doctors with clearances above Top Secret.
Instead of killing her, Abraham carried the strange girl for miles like a careful groom. He drank in her dreams and stray sleep-thoughts.
After he placed her in the car, he watched over her for a good half-hour. In his heart rose an urge to wake her. To introduce him as he was, appearance be damned.
A foolish thought. They own this kingdom. Not I.
But what if she wasn't horrified?
He pushed the thought aside. He had already committed one irrational act. Even if he survived this one, the next could get him killed.
*****
When the crying jag was over, Beatrice got back on the trail and headed Southwest.
Abraham moved in the shadows.
YOU ARE READING
The Hybrid Cycle: Volume 1
Ficção CientíficaBeatrice Butler - a stylish, nerdy Bostonian - gets her fix from documenting abandoned places and posting the footage online. Neither past trauma nor her mom's disapproval can keep her away from a ghost town deep in the Appalachian mountains. Abrah...
