{Earth}

Silence, fed and sated, sat atop the black table in the little room. Cold white tile floor. White walls. Black ceiling. Great air conditioning. The three men in the room—one human, one Progeny, and one Icarus—swallowed the deficit of space. Their dispositions and spicy scents quickly warmed the room.

The human, Dr Suarez, tapped his shoe and pinched the bridge of his pleasantly brown nose. His kind voice sounded hoarse, as if he recently lost it while shouting, “Why… of all the residents… did you choose Twenty-One?”

Censure. Misplaced.

Before she left the prisoner’s cell, Silence retrieved the pants the golden-eyed Icarus lent her and braided the suspender straps along her midriff. They preferred her less exposed. With her legs folded beneath her, Silence centered herself on the tabletop.

Said generous Icarus with beautifully gilded eyes searched her own as he crossed the room. Steady with his hands free. He knew how to treat a lethal threat when he saw one. “My dear—”

Silence liked his familiar way of speaking to her.

“—We’re only concerned about your wellbeing. Your health. Some residents here are ill. This is a hospital, after all.”

His words rang with partial truths. The deception bored her. Silence needed no lies. No hiding. She stared into his molten gaze and answered, “I liked the size of him.”

He recoiled at her brazen honesty. Though she figured from the fit of his pants that the sandy-blond Icarus was perfectly familiar with that quality in a male.

A smile fueled by her audacious pride spread across her lips until she glimpsed the Progeny male behind him. Kyle watched her with a sorrow hidden in the green depths of his gaze.

Each of these men interrupted her feeding. At the time, the Icarus’ cell filled with the scent of their mating. Citrus and lilies. But when Story Taker entered, another scent followed. Sharp cedar.

She liked it. Wanted to smell it on her skin. But the look on his face now…

The strong Icarean female reflected on her brief encounter with the massive Icarus named Twenty-One. So lonely. So lost. Why should she explain herself? How could she confess that she saw in the male a kindred isolation from the ways they both knew? It was more fun to punish them for interrupting.

And yet…

“I want to speak with Kyle. Alone, please. Now.”

He started at his name on her lips, but Story Taker recovered quickly. To Dr. Suarez he muttered, “Let me talk to her alone. I’ll see if she remembers any other motives.”

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The generous, golden-eyed Icarus followed the human out with one look over his shoulder at her. Such a strange expression. Measuring and calculated.

Familiar… It looked familiar. She almost recognized—

He shut the door behind him and the memory she tried to grasp.

“I want you to know that we’re not angry with you,” Kyle started.

“Dr. Suarez feels anger.”

“Okay. So, not all of us are angry with you.” He took a step closer. “Silence, he’s not actually mad. You accidentally—or at least I think accidentally—placed him in a tight spot. Do you understand?” Another step closer.

She nodded once, curtly. “It upset him that I stole his blood and fed on one of his prisoners. One of my people.”

Frustrated, Kyle shook his head and raked a hand through his hair. “Twenty-One and the others are well cared for. Their prisoners of the war you read about. And they volunteered to stay with Dr. Suarez. They like the man.”

Silence let his words in. The feeling behind them. The stress in his shoulders. This mattered to him. “You worry what they think of me.” Not a question.

He stared at her a minute before answering softly, “Yes. I do.” Taking a step closer, he searched her face. They met at eye level with her on the table. “Because if they decide you’re dangerous, they may not let you back outside. But if they think of you as I do—”

“How do you think of me?” She blinked at him. The men here mattered to the people outside. Important authority figures. They could help with her memory. If only she controlled her appetites better.

“I think you need to feed. A woman with your needs, unmet as long as they were, could only resort to instinct. You are dangerous, Silence. But I don’t think you’re a danger to us.”

She smiled.

Kyle reached his hands out to either side of her face. He raised a question with his open, honest expression. “But will you let me check to make sure? For their sake?”

Silenced assented with a single nod.

He touched her, closed his eyes, and concentrated. She could tell by the wrinkle between his eyes.

A road opened to her. A path lined in moving images. Her memories. Kyle’s hand took hers and led her down the path. To several hours ago when she bumped into Pablo.

Silence drowned in her desire. Rational thought barely registered. Feed. Her body needed to feed. So neglected. Starved.

Icarean. Male. One heavy enough to pin her to a wall and fuck her into oblivion. Hours. Days. She wanted so much.

The bright, fresh floral scent of lilies permeated the room. It distracted her even now.

She couldn’t recall the atrium. The conservatory. She barely remembered the cafeteria. Fog surrounded these memories. Hazing the images.

Silence recalled seeing the male she sought on the way to the Imminent prisoner’s interview room. That image was more clear. Dense fog blanketed the memory of her coating the seal in Dr. Suarez’s blood. She’d almost forgotten it.

She did not forget what happened next. Twenty-One, as they called him, satisfied her. Unsurprisingly, Kyle skipped the details. He fast-forwarded to the end and recoiled…

The memory blacked out after the men rushed into the cell. Just emptiness.

Story Taker released Silence and stepped back. His face drawn tight in a confused frown. Deep green eyes wide with shock. “Silence,” he breathed.

She cocked her head to the side. “Yes?”

“Do you remember what you said? What you said when I came into the cell?”

Silence frowned. The men came into the cell and… she left with them. That’s it. “I said nothing.” As his furrow deepened, she pressed, “Did I not?”

“There is less time than you think.”

Silence and Kyle whirled on the third person unexpectedly in the room. A frail woman with black skin and purple Atramentous eyes stood there clutching the unconscious Imminent prisoner.

Kyle stared at her with his mouth and eyes gaping open. Shocked, he whispered, “T.a.o.”

The small woman peered between them before adding, “She was right. And now there is none left.”

Then she vanished like the pretty blond Progeny girl Silence met at the fortress. Only with less pleasantness in her wake.