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Dex sighed "Visiting my nanny"

"Guys I-" I was interrupted byterrible was crawling upstil alive and it had to get it out The duct tape didn’t all ow h air to push

"Phfff, as if you had a nanny," Ada said "What was her nahed louder, harder, unable to get their attention

Final y, Dex brought his eyes up to the mirror and asked, "Perry, are you OK?"

I shook ainst the convulsions I was going to throw up I had to throw up

"Are you gonna vohtly

I felt soue A piece of food,slowly inht and a black bal shot out and onto the usted but curious

The black bal unfurled itself and I could see it wasn’t black at allJust black and yel ow Andon?" Dex asked frantical y, trying to drive straight and see behind him at the same tis in an attempt to fly but Ada was faster and she smashed it into the seat with one of her shoes she’d taken off

There was a hush of relief a intensified, like an entire nest of wasps was crawling out of the recesses ofin them

I tensed and writhed in my constraints while Ada and Dex watched me with horrified eyes Mywasps that landed onheap

Ada screaet theic to wasps It was he who panicked first I couldn’t blame him He yel ed and flailed and tried to drive but it was too much

In slow motion, like a scene frohway

We bounced down an eravel, then grass, and we coasted along flatness for a few seconds; time that slowed us down

A tree appeared in the headlights, fol owed by a nificent crunch

There were screa forward

Wasps

Blood

Then it was over

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When I came to, I was as far away froained consciousness while I alking through a dark forest grove, punctuated by the blue-green glow of fireflies that darted in and out ast the trees It was just likecould be

I stopped by a tal , earthy-s through the spaced-out branches The duct tape stil clung to s in places but had been torn down the middle, ripped apart

There was blood spattered across ed to, or how it got there

Ada! I thought as everything shifted into shape Dex!

The cloud in an to lift Where was I? Where were they?

"Ada!" I yel ed into the night My voice was immediately sed up by the layers of bark and rock around me

"Can anyone hearThe fireflies ainst each other in the breeze I heard nothing else except my own heartbeat and washappened to them? What if they had died from the car crash? What if I had kil ed the but dark shadows and ht of the moon It was deathly cold and I was stil barefoot and only inbut panic

I started walking first, pushing the rough branches pastto find a path in the hts swars that dug into the soft undersides ofmy eyes

The wasps! My God, the wasps If Dex had survived the crash, survived me, there’s no way he’d survive that

I ran and ran in an endless loop, pushing my body to the limit I eak from lack of food and water andstretched and i

I ran and then

Suddenly I was standing before a clearing where rough grass grew silver white in theside of e lower in the sky

I had gotten turned around At so had taken over and directed me in the opposite direction Noas conscious and able but more lost than ever It was hard to knohere I hen I never knehere I started

That was frightening I never even felt it come in

Somewhere in the forest, a baby cried

I sed hard and tried to soothe my heart as it pulsed ain

"No," I said out loud There is no baby That was a drea your drea your drea your dreams

Somewhere in the forest, a few branches cracked

I i out of a nest and running towardI was their mother

I threw my head back at the sky and screa it all out, letting h into the mountains, whose shadows rose ominously in the distance If anyone heard me, it would be all for the better