Ross moved quick and quiet.

He didn't want to alert Savannah of his presence, not until a clean shot opened. Darts lose velocity much faster than bullets. At this range and angle, he didn't know if it would hit its mark. Besides, he only had two left in the magazine.

Even while he skirted through paths in the tall grass, half a football field away from the girls, he heard Savannah's teeth snap. Headlights from the truck lit the two. Fear exuded from Teagan's posture. It bore deep into his heart.

I can't let it kill her. His thoughts always and effortlessly turned to his own daughters. What would he do if he'd found his girls in the same situation? No doubt he would do everything he could to draw the assailant's attention.

On the ground, next to her car, he noticed Alexa. She writhed in a perpetual state of half-awareness, attempting to sit up but unable to complete the task. She'd been tossed a considerable distance and Ross figured she had to have at least a concussion, if not a couple of broken bones.

C'mon lady ... hang in there.

To have a good chance of stopping Savannah he had to hit her in one of their known soft spots. Because she had clothes on, his first choice went out the window. What if he shot her in the eye? It would ensure quick absorption of the agent.

Sweat dripped from his forehead and drenched under his arms and back. As he moved through the tall grass, he stumbled on a thick clump and fell on his face.

"Goddammit."

Mud caked across his forehead and eyes. After he wiped the muck away with his jacket sleeve, he had to refocus on Teagan's position. It didn't look good. Blood streaked across her face.

Savannah ran almost faster than he could see, appearing next to Alexa, and in range. With a keen eye steadied down the barrel of the gun, he took aim and shot. Savannah caught the dart inches in front of her right eye. Before he could take aim again, she had him by the throat with one hand and lifted him off his feet.

Ross coughed and gagged until she decreased her grip on his throat.

"Savannah. Stop." It felt like she stuffed a rock down his gullet.

Her white-blonde brows crinkled. The expression on her face flattened as if she had no idea what to do next. She dropped him to his feet and kicked him in the chest. The force of her barefoot sent him flying. Mud and grass cushioned his fall. A shock of pain traveled through his body.

Holy hell. Where'd the wrecking ball come from?

When he attempted to sit up, a brick wall fell on his chest in the form of Savannah. The earth around him dented into the shape of his body, like an outline of a dead person at a crime scene. Her legs locked onto his waist, claws poised to rip out his Adam's apple. If he moved, they would.

After an eternity of waiting, she leaned over his face.

"This object ..."

His eyes crossed and he realized what she had between her fingers. The dart almost touched his nose.

"... it's not the same as what the other weapons fire. What is it?"

Ross wasn't sure what to tell her. She'd dropped a nuke on him--she spoke.

"Tell me." Her nails dug deeper into his skin.

Blood trickled across both jugular veins, traveled around his jawline, and pooled in his ears.

"It's a tranquilizer."

"What's a tranquilizer?"

He forgot her vocabulary couldn't be completely developed. Though she sounded advanced, some of her understanding seemed child-like.

"It helps relax an individual and they go to sleep."

"Why?"

Ross winced as her claws dug even deeper.

"It's easier to examine someone when they're asleep."

"Why do you need to examine us?" This time her claws retracted a hair, which almost stopped the bleeding.

"We need to know who you are and why you're here."

"And how to kill us?"

"No." He struggled to breathe. "How to save you."

"Maybe we don't want to be saved? Maybe we're exactly how we're meant to be?" Her claws retracted from his throat the rest of the way and her eyes, while still glowing from the angle of his flashlight attached to his shotgun in the mud next to him, changed color.

"Do you even know what you are?"

Jesus, how much does this girl weigh? Can't be more than a buck ten? So, why can't I move?

Savannah looked at the horizon. "I'm not sure. But the answer is out there ... waiting for me."

"Are you somehow being controlled?" The line of questioning felt right to him. He still couldn't believe he had started a conversation with the creature. Though, his questions did have one purpose-to buy time.

Her eyes closed.

She breathed deep, pondering.

"I don't know. I don't think so."

The answer didn't ring completely truthful to Ross. His instincts for such things usually hit spot on. In this instance, he felt a moment of doubt. It shone in her eyes as if she had an idea of some higher being holding her ethereal puppet strings.

"Do you have a purpose?" he asked.

"If there's a purpose for us, I don't know what it is."

"And...I still don't understand how you can talk?"

Her eyes climbed back, not a teen eye roll, more of an internal reasoning. After a few moments, her eyes became eagle-like again.

"I learned by listening to others and from the television."

Not what he'd expected at all. She did have a handle on the language. She'd also grown into a young woman, about the same age as Teagan, maybe a little older.

"What about the males? They don't seem to be as smart as you." He thought about his time with Guy and how stupid Curly had to be to attack a girl without his main weapon.

She interrupted his reminiscing. "Our gathering has commenced. More are on their way."

"Gathering? There are more males coming? Why gather them to you? To mate?"

"Procreation is a must." She shifted her hips.

Ross sensed a higher purpose than procreation. The way the Trills killed humans was surgical.

Tactical.

Military.

"Why didn't you kill Teagan?" Another point he couldn't quite figure out.

"Teagan?"

"The girl over there." His arms remained pinned as he attempted to point.

"She's special."

He raised an eyebrow. "Special?"

"One of us grows in her womb. Childbirth will kill her in a couple of days. No need to speed up the process."

Teagan's pregnant? He couldn't think of a worse way to die. He'd seen footage from a few of the hospital massacres. Ross inched his hand toward the dart gun. It had landed out of his reach but not impossible to get to. His questions had distracted Savannah so far.

Almost there. Keep her talking.

"Why haven't you killed me?"

Savannah shrugged. "I'm considering it."  

Gooseflesh lumped up his spine and into the nape of his neck.

"Killing me?"

She licked a dribble of his blood from her fingertip. Her eyes glowed with anticipation.

"Got it, we're food. Do you drink our blood?" If she's a vampire, I'm going to burn my daughter's collection of 'Twilight' ... books and movies.

"It's palatable. But we require the thickest of human tissue for sustenance."

"That's why you eat the human heart?"

She leaned down and gritted her teeth. A shrill laugh seeped through her full, blood-covered lips. Her nose crinkled and she drew in a deep whiff of his chest. "Your heart smells delicious."

"If you're gonna kill me, get it over with. Your emotions are ... just plain confusing." Exhaustion had taken him over, even his mind.

"You don't think I'm confused?" She pulled her face away from him and sat up straight. "I learn everything I see and touch. Words. Items. Objects. People. Things. Places. All I had to do was listen to someone speak and I knew the language. It's overwhelming. Then I have these urges; an urge to seek out the males and an insatiable urge to kill your people, eat their hearts, wipe them out." She licked her lips and ground her hips against him.

Instead of a creature on top of him, he became painfully aware of the young, beautiful woman, riding him. This made him extremely uncomfortable. But her hip-grind had worked in his favor. It moved him closer to the gun. And brought more questions to mind which he had to explore.

"Can females of your kind mate with human males? We sure as hell know your males can't with our females."

"I don't know. Want to find out?" Her tongue flicked against her bottom lip. 

"Not particularly." This wasn't seventh grade anymore, he had a modicum of control.

"Human males are food, nothing more." she snapped.

Thank God. His mind and body calmed. Why? Curiosity waned in him heavily. More than fear. More than lust. The gun. He touched it.

"Why do your males sexually assault our females?"

"They're mindless. Puppets."

"Are you the only female?"

"No. There's another, maybe more." Again, she pondered, nose high in the stratosphere.

His fingers slipped under the barrel of the pistol. He let them do the upside-down walking and twisted the gun until his palm hit the handle.

Savannah came out of her trance. "She's close ... very close."

"Another female?" The thought made him cringe.

"Yes."

"Jesus. What about males?"

"The gathering has started."

Savannah's head jerked to the right. Ross grasped the handle of the gun but still couldn't lift his arm.

"I need to leave. Don't come after me. Take the dead males for your research. If I see you again. I'll kill all of you."

Ross lifted the pistol from the mud and pointed. Savannah had disappeared into the dark field, a thin trail of matted grass left in her wake.

"Shit!"

Alexa hobbled toward him in the road, her lab coat tattered, blood dried to her forehead.

"Teagan's hurt," she said.

"I know."

"Why didn't you shoot it?"

"I have no idea what happened."

His head throbbed.

Chest ached.

Teagan looked unconscious lying by the wheel well of the overturned semi. He stood and limped toward the girls, meeting Alexa on the street.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Alexa rubbed the back of her head.

"The Trills are strong, that's for sure."

Ross took Alexa by the elbow and helped her steady while they made their way to Teagan. She had a large hematoma on her right arm and her blouse had shredded around her shoulder from the impact and road rash.

Oh shit. "I forgot about Beef."

Alexa squinted at him. "Beef? You're hungry?"

"No. Beef's the firefighter we came here to rescue. He's been waiting patiently for us." He checked his hip. "Damn. I lost my radio."

She frowned. "Hopefully he's still alive."

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