Falling Apart (Barely Alive #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

could almost see the schematics running through her mind. Understanding spread across her face. “I’ve been looking for a similarity this whole time between the three of us, but I need to identify the differences and compare their locations. Did Dominic have any control at all over you or was it a placement of power?” Her brows tightened in concentration.
    Had he controlled me? I swallowed the meat I’d chewed. The topic of Dominic pissed me off and also put me on edge. “Yeah, he hypnotized us from the beginning, trained us before that to understand what to expect. He made it sound more glorious than it is, but at least he prepared us for the hunger. He claimed we would supersede humans.”
    “He hypnotized you. And now he has a specific connection to his victims. The markers might be in the same place, but constructed differently.” She pulled another piece of meat from the deer. “We might have to test Travis’s saliva.”
    “We don’t have enough test subjects, Connie.” Willing or otherwise. The copper-flavored, warm meat released stress I didn’t realize I’d carried around with me. “Isn’t it crazy, how attached to the meat we are? I can’t think about anything else when it’s been a few hours since my last bite. Dominic didn’t feed us for days – well, we had sugars and non-meat foods, but they were crap. I functioned, but not well.” And I’d been more susceptible to mutinous acts. Another peg in my plan to dominate the bastard who’d changed me.
    Connie sighed. “I wish all I thought about was eating. Travis is as horny as I am and we have to eat more just to keep up with our breaks between research sessions.”
    I stared at her, frozen in the act of filling my mouth once more. The meat didn’t want to stay down, but I swallowed it, forcing the lump back to the dungeons of my stomach. A deep breath didn’t calm my nerves. Ugh. “Connie. That’s gross. I don’t want to know about that, ‘kay? I might throw up.”
    Her face flushed – an ability she could attribute to the fresh carcass she’d almost finished. “Sorry. I’m not talking about it like we’re girlfriends or BFFs or whatever. I’m telling you on a strictly scientific level. I need to know the breaking point. What’s too far? Can we still procreate? And if we do, will we create another creature like us, or is there a chance the baby will be human?”
    I ignored the sex talk. Her questions had run through my mind, too, although in a different context. Heather was old enough to conceive. I wouldn’t push her to have sex – even though sex was a priority for me along with eating, more so than the normal teenage boy… I think. But the thoughts were there. For hell’s sake, she slept feet from me, separated by a slim wood wall. I could break through that crap in a second. But the thought had crossed my mind about reproducing. I just never imagined I’d discuss the questions with Connie. “Or can one of us have… um… that with someone uninfected? Add that one to your list.” Heat flooded my face. Great, I was embarrassed. Whatever.
    “That’s a good one.” She fell silent, absorbed in her eating. Knowing Connie, though, she considered my questions along with her own.
    But I couldn’t take another bite. Harsh reality needled me. “What if you could have a baby? What if you got pregnant, you’d only be pregnant for the three months you have left. That’s it. You’d condemn that baby to twelve weeks in your stomach. Is that worth it? You’d most likely have to watch as your body decayed around you. You’d see the fetus in your stomach.” I didn’t need to define the graphics, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t close my eyes and not see the potential of the situation. Sick and wrong and I had to… I clamped my bloody hand over my mouth and muttered through my fingers, “I’m sorry.”
    She shuddered. The terror of the possibility had dimmed my cravings for Heather. Because what I hadn’t said was the