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Although all the captives were unconscious, their bodies continued to change. Austin’s metamorphosis had kicked into high gear. Even worse, Clark’s triangles were hatching.

Tim had bailed, said he had other things to do. She was done arguing with him. Clarence, however, was there, right by her side.

“Margaret,” he said, “are you sure you have to watch this?”

She nodded. “I do.”

Someone had to be there with Clark, even if he was so doped up he had no idea what was going on. She’d exposed him to Edmund’s hydra-filled blood, naively hoping for a miracle. The hydras had begun to reproduce almost immediately. She didn’t know what, if anything, would happen next.

“Clarence, if you don’t want to watch, I understand.”

He shook his head. “If you’re going to endure it, then I’ll endure it with you.”

A n.o.ble gesture coming from a man who had left her. That was his nature, though — he’d have done the same for anyone he was a.s.signed to.

Her heart raced. Maybe that was from the Adderall, not the situation, but the situation was enough to give anyone a coronary.

Austin lay on the floor of his cell. Brown fibers were sprouting from all over his young body, slowly crawling across his skin, sticking to both the metal grate deck and the clear gla.s.s walls. If she stood still and watched carefully, she could see those fibers moving, see new fibers pus.h.i.+ng out of his body. It was like looking at time-lapse footage of a growing plant. At this rate, he’d be covered in a matter of hours. She was uploading a live feed of that to Black Manitou, making sure the information would survive even if things got really bad.

She was also sending live video of Clark. His triangles had started moving a few minutes ago. Blinking, twitching and jiggling as the tentacle-legs hidden inside him started to flex, to push, trying to drive the creatures out of the man’s body.

Margaret had seen a hatching once before, when three of the monsters had torn out of a woman named Bernadette Smith. Clark’s hatching seemed different … like something was wrong. The black eyes that had stared out with visible hate, visible intelligence, now widened, shut tight, widened again.

Almost as if the creatures were in pain.

The triangles started to lurch, to push against Clark’s pale skin. Out and back, out and back, a little farther each time, stretching his skin so taut it reflected the lights from above.

He lay there, unconscious thanks to the anesthesia — a mercy for his final moments.

Clarence shook his head. “This is awful.” His voice cracked with the strain. The horror show had gotten even to him. She reached her left hand out to the side, slowly, until it brushed against his. Without hesitation, he held her hand tight, their gloved fingers linking together.

The triangles jumped harder, so hard the man’s p.r.o.ne body shook, made his straps snap, made the solid metal table rattle like a snare drum.

This was the reason Perry Dawsey had cut into himself, over and over. He’d sensed this was coming and done what no man could do, what Clark hadn’t had the chance to do.

One of the triangles stopped jumping. It was on Clark’s left abdomen. The man’s skin sagged like a sock with a tennis ball inside. The hatchling wasn’t moving. Its eyes looked … lifeless.