Kristy lay on the ground feeling a strange blend of shock and peace. Her blood felt warm on the outside, but her body was growing cold.

  “Mommy,” Jenny said through sobs.

  Colin and Jenny reached out to Kristy and she let them in to give them one last pulse of love and comfort.

  “Get inside of greenie,” Jenny said.

  She and Colin both felt so scared and desperate. What was she doing? She couldn’t give up like this. She couldn’t abandon her family when they needed her so desperately. It shook Kristy out of her daze. She blinked weakly and noticed the hypnosite resting on her chest. It was one of Jenny’s greenies.

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  “Hurry,” Colin urged as he generated a pulse to connect herself and the hypnosite.

  Kristy understood, but it terrified her. Her human body was dying, and if she didn’t do something drastic, she would be gone from this world. She would be leaving her family behind when they needed her so badly. She needed them too. She wanted to be there to see Jenny grow up and she wanted to be there to encourage Colin to hold onto his humanity.

  With a determined, ironclad will fueled by her family, Kristy shut out every ounce of fear and doubt and focused wholeheartedly on survival. She calmed her mind and focused entirely on connecting with the hypnosite in front of her.

  Kristy decided that long before she accepted abandoning her family, she would gladly become a monster.