gait a little stiffer than normal.
"What do you numbskulls think you're doing?" Laurell barked, her tone impressive. She carried as much authority as Caden in that minute.
They swung around, their skin beginning to darken to the color of wood. Little veins of green climbed their necks toward their eyes.
Laurell jerked back with a hiss.
"Help," one of them moaned.
The skin on their chest and hands was distended, lumps forming under it.
Laurell didn't hesitate, her blade clearing its scabbard as she sank it into the first's chest. He collapsed, gurgling. The lumps burst, yellow pollen spewing forth and dancing on the air.
Fiona was there in the next second setting the air alight as the pollen met the fire and ignited.
A rag was shoved into Eva's hand as Fiona shouted. "Cover your mouth. Don't breathe it in."
The two women worked fast, killing both and setting their bodies and the air around them aflame.
They backed up, Ghost and Roscoe flanking them.
"This is a whole new level of fuck-uppery that I'm not ready for," Ghost muttered.
For once, Roscoe didn't argue, instead nodding mutely.
"Lucky I was on hand, Laurell," Fiona said, propping a hand on her hip, the torch brandished as if it was a sword. "Otherwise you might have needed some pruning."
Laurell glared daggers at her friend. "Laugh it up, lazy britches. Maybe I'll tell the group about the time you got stuck in a fire beetle hive."
That had Fiona's expression sobering. "You wouldn't dare."
Laurell straightened. "Wanna bet?"
Fiona's lip curled. "Get to the back, invalid."
Laurell's eyes darkened at the reference to her wound. "Live it up while you can. This'll heal soon enough."
Eva waved her hands, distracting the two before the fight could carry any further. "Shouldn't we do something about those?"
Eva pointed at the two fist size bugs made of woody vines binding together metal legs and a metallic stinger.
"We've found it less dangerous to let them work it out of their system," Ghost whispered to Eva.
"That way we don't get roped into the ridiculousness," Roscoe added.
"I thought it was only Fiona and Hanna who fought," Eva responded as Laurell and Fiona poked at the bugs she'd pointed out.
"You'd think, but the three take turns being at each other's throats," Roscoe said with a shrug. "Men use their fists to work out their differences. Those three prefer words." His head tilted thoughtfully, and Eva was reminded of the way Fiona and Hanna had thrown down the first day. "Most of the time."
"It's dead," Fiona announced.
"The poor bastards managed to kill the thing that killed them. Good for them," Ghost said in sympathy.
"More like once it finished its task it died shortly afterward," Fiona corrected.
Ghost pulled a dissatisfied expression.
Eva couldn't help but regret the loss of the two warriors and wondered if there was something more she could have done.
"The poultice wouldn't have worked," Fiona said, reading her expression. "They were too advanced. Hanna made the right decision. This infection or whatever you want to call it is moving much faster than Reece thought. Those spores would likely have infected us in much the same way the bug did."
Ghost grimaced. "What a way to go."
"Why didn't they go after us?" Roscoe asked suddenly. "We were both closer. Why them?"
"They went after the biggest threat first," Eva said softly.
Fiona gave her a sharp glance. "That's not the action of an insect."
Eva shook her head. "No, it isn't."
An insect wouldn't pick and choose. If anything, it would have been more hesitant to approach the two men and their flame, if only because it was afraid of fire.
That meant they had demonstrated conscious reasoning skills. That spoke of intelligence. Or someone guiding it from afar.
Laurell and the two men gave the bugs uncertain looks.
Eva didn't have to be good at reading people to know they were spooked. She was, too. There was a special sort of terror knowing you might become a puppet to someone else's whims. Alive, but not really.
It eclipsed the normal terror of beasts, perhaps because beasts might kill you but that would be the end. Not so with this.
Who knew how much the person those things used to be remembered of their lives? To be locked in your body, slave to another? Eva could think of no worse fate.
There was a sharp cry from a warrior near them and he stumbled back from securing the window as he clutched his hand. There was a slight scuttle of feet as one of the bugs finished crawling through, blood on its stinger.
As they watched, it seized