Page 20 of Monster Queen Rising

Her hand stays on her stomach. "And the egg's yours."

"My egg. Fen's sperm. Put in you because your blood scored right. None of it was anyone's choice but theirs."

"How many did they get to work? Before me."

"You're the first human they've run this accelerated cascade on. That's the part nobody has numbers for, including Vance."

Madison presses a hand flat to her stomach. "The baby runs warm. Not fever-warm. Like a heater somebody left on." She doesn't wait for me. "Is she going to live?"

"I don't know. Nobody does. The protocol's new and you're new. First thing is getting you to the cabin and figuring out what your body needs in the next ninety-six hours."

"Ninety-six hours."

"Four days. That's the cascade to viable baby."

She lifts her head.

"Okay. I have most of the picture now. There's more I'll want — about him, about her. But I have enough to say one thing, and-–. This . . . this is my body."

"Yes."

She has been strapped to a bed for weeks with a clock ticking in her that nobody let her set. I hold still.

"I've been carrying her. My body is doing the work. You can tell me she's half yours. You can tell me she's half his. I'm the one deciding."

I nod with tears in my eyes now.

"I haven't decided."

"Madison, I want you to have every option we know about before you decide. You don't have to choose tonight. But if you don't take the reversal, the accelerated cascade keeps running, and you'll deliver in four days. If you do take it, the cascade stops and the pregnancy drops back to its previous pace—about three more weeks. The reversal's never been used either. Either way, it's your decision."

"I don't know. It's — it's all too much right now."

"Then it waits."

"What does he think about it?"

"I haven't asked him what he'd choose. But I know he'd never take the choice from you, and I know the only thing he's wanted since the cell is for everyone to come out alive. That much I can tell you."

"I want to talk to him before I decide anything."

"Okay. There's a rest stop in about two hours."

Two hours later we pull off the highway into a stretch of forest. Daron radios the second truck. It pulls in behind us. Crull and Dean take the perimeter. Daron and Harek stay with the lead truck.

I climb out.

Fen comes down out of the sky a minute after the trucks stop. He's been with us the whole drive — riding the ridgelines off the road, never letting us get more than a mile ahead. Close enough that I felt him the whole way.

He sees me. He sees Madison through the windshield. He waits.

I cross to him.

"She wants to talk to you."

He looks at the lead truck a long moment. Then he follows me.

Harek is at the back door. He takes me in, takes in Fen, and steps clear.