Chaos ruled.

Sawyer sprinted along the corridors, steering the gurney to get Fox to the medical bay. The relentless flashing blue light of the alarm continued to blaze against his eyes. Julia ran in jagged steps on the other side of the stretcher, her hands still pressing her t-shirt to Fox’s abdomen. Her arms were dark with blood, her belly and the curve of her breasts, a black sticky mess. A thick smear marred her forehead where she’d pushed her hair out the way.

Everything within him fired harder now that he knew she was safe, but his stomach remained contracted into a hot, painful knot of anger, and his hands gripped the gurney handles too tight. Seeing her like this made him crazy; it was no way to live. Julia had nearly died and the Chittrix had invaded the one place where they were meant to be safe.

The ground-level entrances to the base were hidden either in decoy buildings or under the cover of natural screens, and secured behind inches-thick steel doors. Since the destruction of the primary Chittrix hive in London six months ago, they had all rested a little easier in their beds.

Foolishly, it seemed. The water was their vulnerable spot. The one area they’d thought was secure because it was an underground river and, seriously, how the fuck would air-breathing insects like the Chittrix make their way through miles of subterranean water?

The gurney bumped the swing-doors of the infirmary unit. They hustled through, meeting Jamie Edwards their chief medic as he pulled on blue sterile gloves and shouted at Mary, his nursing assistant. They pushed the gurney up against the wall, next to a small bank of medical equipment. Edwards placed his hands on top of Julia’s, maintaining pressure on Fox’s wound.

His voice was calm and authoritative. “I can take it from here.”

Sawyer unwrapped his hands from the stretcher bar, his fingers white with tension. Edwards barked out commands, bending low to assess the damage the Chittrix had inflicted on Fox.

The medics swung into action, calling out long names of drugs and obscure procedures. Sawyer retreated, his mind flashing to another time when he’d stood, useless, as doctors had fought to save Beth, to bring her back from the brink of a drug overdose so she could repeat the whole stupid thing over again. He remembered standing beside the starched white of her bed sheet, her skin dusky blue, her fingernails tinged indigo at the root, and white oxygen tubes taped to her nostrils and lips.

His nails cut into his palms as raging inadequacy washed over him. He swallowed, staring down at his feet and counted to ten. He was an expert at dismissing the memories, but unable to stop them assailing him in the first place. When he looked up, Julia was at his side.

She took his hand, her fingers sticky with blood. This was his life now. This was what was important. This woman, and these people with whom he was forging a new life. He was damned if he was going to let the Chittrix take that from him. He tugged her hand.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Julia resisted his pull, her ashen face fixated on the blur of medical activity around them. “Do you think he’s going to be okay?”

Sawyer was silent. Every surface surrounding the bed was splattered with black blood.

He had no answer to her question.

* * *

He took her to her room and put her in the shower, stripping off and stepping in behind her. He washed her back, belly and breasts, tenderly rinsing pink-stained soap from her skin. She pressed her hands to the tiled wall, her thighs trembling with shock.

Finally, he turned off the shower and wrapped her in his bath towel. She hugged the terry cloth to her face, and when he smoothed it from her cheek, her skin was damp from hot tears. A small, sob escaped her lips in a tiny hiccup. He brushed her hair from her cheek and kissed her on the forehead, then pulled her into a tight embrace.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Her head shook in disagreement. “No. It’s not, Sawyer. It’s not. Nothing about this is okay. Fox almost bled out right in my arms. His blood was pulsing through my fingers. I felt it. I actually felt it.” She hiccupped again and buried her face in his chest.

Sawyer closed his eyes and rested his face against the damp softness of her hair. They had been lulled into a false sense of security by the destruction of the primary hive. They’d known the Chittrix weren’t gone, but the respite had been so amazing they’d convinced themselves things had changed. But the Chittrix weren’t gone. They’d adapted, just as they’d adapted to everything else the human race had thrown at them.

He squeezed the top of her arms. “Let’s get dried off and find the others.”

Sawyer left Julia to find herself some dry clothes while he pulled on some he’d snatched as they’d made their way down to the residential quarters. He dressed silently, lost in the shock of the attack, then left, wanting some time alone to gather his thoughts.

When he made it down to the basement, the lights were back on. Sawyer was relieved someone had managed to turn off the goddamn strobing alarm that had turned the Chittrix attack into some surreal nightclub killing.

Hardy paced the room, pulse rifle cocked and armed. He looked ready to nuke a mouse if it blinked at him sideways. Foster was motionless on the floor, his head resting on his knee, weapon still propped upright in his hand. Violet knelt next to him, smoothing her hand across the soft, blonde buzz of his hair. She nodded at Sawyer as he entered the room and mouthed one word. Fox. Sawyer shook his head and made a balancing motion with the flat of his hand. Her eyes closed, and her hand stilled at the back of Foster’s head.

Sawyer hesitated, halfway across the room. He’d never seen defeat on V’s face before, but he saw it now.

Fuck. How could they have misjudged things so badly?

Foster raised his head and lifted one hand in a half-hearted greeting. He began to stand, but Violet pressed on his shoulders then pointed Sawyer in the direction of the railing.

Sawyer walked to the edge of the room, reluctance dragging heavy on his boots. He glanced down. The dead Chittrix had been pulled from the water and Anna half-knelt in front of it. Garrick paced up and down the edge of the platform, weapon at the ready, along with two men Sawyer didn’t recognize.

Sawyer climbed down the ladder. He approached Anna, crouching over the dead Chittrix. Its exoskeleton glistened under the artificial lights, a play of shimmering orange, green, and azure. Up close, the stench was appalling, acrid and nauseating, scalding the back of his throat. Anna had tied a white surgical mask across her face, but Sawyer doubted it made much difference.

She straightened, concern etched on her face.

“Fox?”

Sawyer frowned. “They’re working on him right now. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“And Julia?”

Sawyer bobbed his head. He found it difficult to form coherent sentences as anger and a hot desire for revenge burned through his body.

“Shouldn’t you be with her?”

Sawyer shot Anna a glance, but she stared right back. Her eyebrows were raised in a questioning arc that took no prisoners.

Did she know?

He was saved from answering when Hardy strode over. He kicked the Chittrix with one heavy-booted foot and swore.

Anna grabbed Hardy by the arm, stepping up close to speak firmly in his ear.

“That is not helping. We’ve never seen one like this before, and I have only a short time to examine it before the acid in the poison sacs disintegrates the entire body.”

“Bastard swimming bugs.” Hardy spat out in disgust.

Sawyer looked down at the Chittrix. Hardy was right. Swimming. The basic shape of the Chittrix was similar to the many he’d seen dead, but there were subtle differences.

Like the others, it had powerful haunches designed for leaping incredible distances and running faster than a man. It also had two sets of clawed upper limbs, one set low in the abdomen, the other high in the chest. That was where the familiarity ended.

Anna squatted beside the main arms and spread the digits. She pointed with the tip of her scalpel at the dark green skin that webbed between the fingers of the beast, creating wide paddles for powering through the water.

Sawyer didn’t like to think how fast a Chittrix might swim with those big webbed hands and its streamlined, powerful body propelling it.

“They’ve adapted,” Anna said simply. She let the scalpel hang. “I’ve never seen this mutation before. I’d hoped that with the destruction of the primary hive, we’d made a permanent dent in the local population. Now I wonder if they didn’t just relocate somewhere else until they got themselves back up to speed. Under London. In the sewers. In the rivers. I don’t know.” She blew out a huff of frustration.

“Which do you think is most likely?”

Anna’s blue eyes were bright with intelligence. “I suspect this is a recent mutation. The Chittrix are insect life forms. We know there are seven days from egg to larvae, and another seven days for the larvae to gorge themselves. Then they form pupae for around ten days before emerging as fully-grown Chittrix. These things grow at such a phenomenal rate, they can go through many generations and adapt to their environment in an incredibly short space of time. Garrick and I saw evidence of this before, in the Chittrix we killed in the mortuary. It had earth-based minerals incorporated into its exoskeleton. This—” She picked up her scalpel again and pointed with a flick of the blade. “This is just the next stage in evolution, adapting to a new planet and its environment.” She indicated lower on the body. “Even its hind claws are webbed.”

She raised her eyebrows. “There’s more.”

“Don’t need to see anymore.” Hardy shook his head and walked away in disgust. “Just point me in the direction of the next watery bastard, and I’ll blow it up for you,” he shouted over his shoulder.

Anna’s shoulders sagged as she wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. Lines of exhaustion and tension marked her face.

“We’re meant to be safe here.” She stabbed the metal grate with the point of her scalpel. “People are camping near the exits because they think it’s too dangerous to return to their quarters.”

Sawyer circled the corpse. Even lying on the floor, it was immense, the jut of its thorax drawing level with his thigh.

“Show me,” he said. “The more we know about what’s going on here, the better we’re equipped to deal with it.”

Ann knelt at the head of the Chittrix. Its mouth hung open, needle-like shards of teeth glinting with lethality even in death. She pressed her gloved fingers into the side of the alien’s neck. Sawyer dropped down on his haunches beside her. As she pressed, slits appeared.

His stomach lurched. “Gills?”

Anna nodded. “But it can still breathe air too. It can choose. There’s a flap it can move across the gills to seal them off when it’s in the air. That’s how it bellowed at us when it was out of the water. It needs proper air-breathing lungs to do that.” She stood and went around to the back of the Chittrix and lifted what Sawyer assumed was a wing. She stretched her arm, drawing the spiked fin to its full extent.

“Retracts into a groove along the spine when in the air, expands and helps steer them like a torpedo when in the water.”

Sawyer straightened. “Shit.” He ran his palm across his face and took a breath. “They’re always one step ahead. How are we supposed to keep up with this speed of evolution?”

Anna’s voice was hushed. “Right now? I have no idea.”

Boots thumped onto the metal landing behind them. Sawyer glanced over, his heart aching just a little to see Julia, her usually beautiful features pale and pinched. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and make it all better. He rubbed his hands along his thighs, keeping them under control.

Julia walked up to them, her steps unfaltering.

She cleared her throat, and when she spoke her voice didn’t waver. A sharp burst of pride lanced through Sawyer. His girl was strong.

“Fox is dead.”