43 - 5 - Acquires Taylor

I stretched out my talon. I gripped the fleshy fingers of her real hand. Then I closed my eyes, shut my ears, shut it all out. The animal screams, the grunts, the human shouts. The horror of reliving a nightmare.

Acquire her. Acquire her. Become her.

A nauseating idea. Necessary.

I clutched her fingers tighter. To Taylor, it must have seemed like a pitiful attempt to fight back, but she didn't know the truth. She didn't know that I felt her DNA flow into me. Felt her body relax, slacken under the acquiring trance.

The gaseous powder stung and tingled, pricking my skin like invisible nettles.

But Taylor, too, was immobile! Paralyzed! For an instant, I'd slowed her down. Incapacitated her.

Not enough. Not nearly enough.

My talon went limp. My body fell numb. Taylor's eyes buzzed back to life just in time to watch me realize that this gas was different from the stuff I'd experienced before.

"Version 2.0," Taylor laughed. "Enough general anesthetic to knock you out completely."

Blackness rushed in from all sides as my vision dimmed.

<Rachel?> I called weakly. <Jake?>

If they answered, I didn't hear them.