I raised my chin. “Given his skill set, I assume he’s sketching my escape and his revenge as we speak.”
“Is that how you want to play this game?”
Fists clenched at my sides. “My husband’s dead.”
He didn’t reward my honesty with a reaction.
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No. Did you have children?”
A burn penetrated my chest. “Yes.”
Questions crowded my mind. I needed to know as much as I could about the army. “What was in the dart that smoked the aphid in the hall?”
“Blood from a nymph.”
A slick sweat of unease glistened my skin. Don’t freak out. Keep him talking. I mirrored his casual stance. “Uh huh.”
“I assume you know a nymph is a partially transformed woman. One who didn’t fully mutate.”
“Yeah.”
“Her blood is poisonous to an aphid. The Imago uses it to control the army. One drop burns the aphid from the inside out and explodes the heart.”
Fuck. That explained the bursting body parts. Fear of it alone controlled them? But that was a human emotion.
His eyes probed me, unraveling my composure. “How did you know the Drone?”
Damn his questions. “I didn’t.”
“Recognition lit up your face when you saw him.” His glare hardened. “Lie to me again and I’ll take the answers through whatever means necessary.”
What, did he carry truth serum in those damn vials? Or would he just beat it out of me? Fuck it. “He visited me in dreams.” I leveled my eyes with his empty ones. “Explain the human bloodbath in the hall.”
“The Drone is Muslim and has a flair for theatrics. Hence, your ceremonial gown. Which reminds me…” He walked to a closet across the room and removed flowing blue garments. “He’ll have you veiled from now on.” He tossed a long skirt at me through the bars. “This is a daaman.” Next came a blouse. “Pirahan.” Something like a headscarf landed on top. “Hijab. Put them on.”
Was he kidding? “When you eat an aphid dick.”
He put his face between two bars. “You might be doing just that in the next demonstration if you’re not covered.”
Nausea waved through me. “You still haven’t explained the last demonstration.”
“The humans were a test to determine if you were infected. They were injected with antiandrogens.”
I met his hard stare and shook my head.
“Antiandrogens make aphids crazed with hunger. Even a nymph can’t resist it.” He shrugged. “But you did. So the Drone no longer considers you a threat.”
Good. Let him think that. The smell of the men’s blood in the hall did stir me. Maybe it was the antiandrogens. “So you let four innocent men die? The absence of a spear in my mouth didn’t provide enough evidence?”
He watched me through the bars, his body motionless. “Did the virus kill your children?”
“Yes, you unfeeling asshole.” Even as I derided him, I suspected he asked to satisfy a medical curiosity. He probably wondered if my children carried the same immunity as me. Still, I wanted to use my dagger to carve a permanent frown on the blank canvas that was his face. “Explain the mutation differences between nymphs and aphids.”
“There are two ways to become an aphid.” He uncrossed his arms and ticked them off on his fingers. “One. You’re a human bitten by a nymph or an aphid. Two. You’re the nymph that does the biting.”
“Wait. So a nymph can become an aphid?”
He nodded, eyes glinting. He fell so easily into that line of questioning, as if he’d forgotten I was his prisoner. I hadn’t forgotten.
“When the nymph feeds from a human, her blood merges with her victim’s and completes her mutation to aphid. She also releases a poisonous compound that mutates her victim into an aphid.”
So when a nymph feeds from a human, they both turn aphid. Which meant aphids came from men and women. Did they retain their gender? Could they reproduce? The questions piled up. How many more could I ask before he ended the game? Make them count. “Do aphids and nymphs feed from each other?”
“It’s not a common occurrence, but it happens. The result is death for both. Their blood is poisonous to each other, as is the compound they release.”
Too bad we couldn’t just lock them all up and let them kill each other. Except I didn’t want that for the nymph in the cabin. If she never fed from a human, she would never become an aphid. How did she avoid it? Did her reclusive home keep her suspended in transition? But I was there. She could’ve attacked me. She seemed more interested in protecting her dead children. “Do you think will alone could keep a nymph from attacking a human?”
“Don’t know. But we know nymphs are extremely rare. The Drone has sent his messengers across the planet looking for them. And women.” He studied my face. “You’re the only woman he’s found. Your blood test confirmed your high testosterone level, which has something to do with your immunity.”