Children of the Earth Read Free

of bruises decorating the stubbled skin of his neck.
    A knife marked the ground between them, its blade throwing slices of light from the drifters’ headlamps and gas lanterns.
    “Daphne!” Owen rushed to her even as crooked hands reached for his arms and tried to hold him back.
    “You don’t wanna do that,” someone warned. “We pulled her offa him, but it wa’n’t easy. Girl’s got a demon grip.”
    “Call an ambulance!” Owen broke free and rushed to her side. He wasn’t afraid of her, even if the rough-and-tumble drifters were.
    He knelt by Daphne’s convulsing body and slipped a gentle hand under her head. She stiffened at his touch, and her eyelids flew open. But the eyes that bored into his weren’t hers—they were barely even human. They blazed with fear and distrust so sudden and unexpected that he snatched back his hand.
    Daphne’s body jackknifed, her legs spasming as her hands flew to his throat. Steel-strong fingers closed over his neck, crushing the air from his lungs.
    “I told ’im not to go in,” he heard one of the squatters say, but it sounded like it was coming from far away, from another continent on another planet in another lifetime.
    He sputtered for breath. He was losing air, losing consciousness. The world telescoped inward, its edges black and fuzzy, static filling his ears like sand.
    He was going to die. The realization shot a cannonball of adrenaline through him, and with the last shred of his waning strength he brought his hands to his neck and closed his fingers over Daphne’s. He imagined strength pouring up his arms and through his hands, pictured Daphne’s vice-strong grip turning to jelly under his fingers. The vision squeezed through the choked-up passageways of his windpipe, rushing from nerve to nerve.
    My fingers are st
eel, her fingers are
jelly
. These words would be his last thoughts, he realized through a thick film of panic. If only they were true: if only Daphne’s strength really were waning, if only the crushing tension in her muscles would relax into flesh and beyond flesh, into jelly so soft he could spread it on toast. As he pried at her fingers, gasping for breath, he thought he felt her hands loosen under his, her strength give millimeter by painstaking millimeter.
    A sliver of air rushed to his lungs, just enough to give him a better grip. The refrain of
my f
ingers are steel, he
r fingers are jelly
pounded in his brain. He breathed in again, the sound raspy and desperate as he wedged first one, then two, then all of his fingers into the growing gap between her hands and his throat. With a final burst of strength, he freed himself and threw her aside.
    Daphne’s arms flopped in the dirt. Black dots floated in Owen’s vision as he rubbed his throat, the bruises tender beneath his fingers. Air had never tasted sweeter, and he sucked in giant lungfuls of it, the pain in his windpipe a stabbing reminder of how close he’d come.
    “Damn.” A nearby prospector shook his head, whistling air through his teeth. “That was close. How’d you do it?”
    “I don’t know.” Now that he was out of immediate danger Owen could feel power surging through his body, sparking from his mind down to the tips of his fingers in electrical currents that made his skin seem feel hot and too tight. His brain was on overdrive, the echo of
my fingers are st
eel, her fingers are
jelly
dancing there like a song that had stuck in his head. It almost felt like those thoughts, rather than his own strength, had saved his life.
    Daphne shot to sitting like a zombie rising from the grave. Her eyes flew open, and she looked around wildly, taking in the knife and the man lying unconscious and the circle of drifters. When her gaze reached Owen, she shrieked and scuttled back in the dirt. Her face was drawn in terror, and she whimpered as if the sight of him caused her pain.
    “Daphne.” He kept his voice low and gentle, knowing she must be disoriented. “It’s okay. It’s me,