The bees swarmed me. I was the new threat. They would kill me first, then move on to Rick. Or so they thought. I kept swinging. The hive was still paper-thin, so each swing took out a section. But I was taking sting after sting. My body was on fire; I felt like my skin was melting from my bones. Each sting was a new ember on the pyre that was my broken, exhausted body. But still, I kept swinging. I heard howls in the distance, but it was the screams that would haunt me for years to come. I thought they were wolves at first, but then I realized whose screams ripped through the air.
They were my screams. The buzzing of the bees had morphed into a windstorm, but it was my screams that shook the trees, darkened the sky, and sounded like the human idea of hell. My screams echoed around the forest, bouncing off the trees, creating an echoing chamber of terror and desperation. I was being tortured, but I couldn't stop. If I stopped, Rick died. And I couldn't let down his little girl. Her face was the only thing that kept me swinging. Tiny larvae fell like acorns around me as I attacked the hive; their tiny bodies hitting the ground sounded like a soft rain. The bees kept stinging; I kept swinging until I saw her.
The queen. She was three times the size of her drones, and her stinger looked as long as my middle finger. Her wings looked too weak to hold her up, thank the goddess. She vibrated angrily as I took aim. I swung the stick, and was stung ten times at once. I dropped to my knees; my blood felt like molten metal in my veins.
I screamed so loud my jaw cracked. The burning pain was blinding, but the energy that came with it was like a match, igniting the surrounding air. My body, my magic, my life, had whittled down to white-hot pain. My skin must have burned away, leaving the muscle exposed, because every breeze felt like knives.
The hive swarmed around me, tightening its grip, trying to kill me. But they underestimated how much power I could absorb. I screamed again as a bee stung me in the eye. I thought I knew pain, but that one made my brain shut down for a minute. The fire under my skin was building, and I didn't know how I was going to release it.
“Amy!” I heard Nix call, but I was burning. I could only scream. “Release it!” Release it? Release what? All I had was fire. I tried to open my eyes, but only one opened. I could see a tired Nix, welted and limping at the edge of the clearing through the gaps between the bees. Megan, I assumed, was still running with Rick's wolf. I couldn't tell; their pain had faded as mine took over. That thought cleared my mind for a second: my wolves were in pain. Nix caught my gaze. “Release the fire,” she screamed at me.
“I can’t,” I screamed back. More bees found flesh to sting, but the pain was starting to dissipate. It was as if my body was stripped bare, nerves burned away.
“Yes, you can. You have the ability to do anything. You have two wolves, you have magic, and you are the strongest person I have ever met. You can do anything.” Nix called to me. I could see her wince at every sting, but she stood still—I didn't see how. She must have seen my confusion, because she called out, “You shut down our link. You are keeping most of the pain away from us. Just let it out.”
“I don’t know how,” I cried back, frustration and pain warring within me.
“Burn, Amy, burn it all,” she called, and it was the switch.
Between one breath and another, the fire under my skin exploded from my lips. The scream building behind my teeth turned into a column of fire that ignited the bees and the nest. Bodies fell, the nest flaked away, and the queen caught fire. Vince’s voice reached my ears past the burning.
“What do you mean you can’t reach Rick? How is this fucking possible?” There was a pause. “NO!” His voice faded as the nest burned away.
I dropped like a sack of potatoes. The remaining bees were still dive-bombing me, but their stings barely registered anymore. Nix came over, nudged herself under me, and once she was sure I was secure, she ran.