“You can’t go.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have no weapons. You’re human.” Her voice is both urgent and apologetic.
And for a second, I think she’s right, that I can’t go, that being human makes me weak, and it does compared to being pixie, but what really makes me weak is not being brave. Sure, I don’t have a weapon, but I can still do something, somehow, right? I shrug Issie off. “I can’t not help.”
“Sometimes not helping is helping,” she pleads.
“Not this time.” I’m out the door before she can make me doubt myself anymore. It’s freezing. The wind makes part of the car’s back bumper rattle against the ground and whips up snow. Close to me, Amelie is fighting off two pixies. Nick has taken another one down. I look away from that because it’s gross and violent and bloody, and even with all the fighting I’ve done, I still don’t like it. Farther down the road, close to the back of the second car, Astley’s battling two more. He’s doing a good job too. His fist connects to a stomach. He back-kicks the other behind the knee, dropping him.
The one still standing sees me and yells, “She’s out of the car.”
Oops. Maybe I was the target.
My knees bend and I grab at the bumper. It’s not too hard to rip off because it’s already damaged. One of the pixies leaps at me, springing like a cat, claws outstretched. Wielding the bumper like a baseball bat, I smash it across his head. Flesh burns.
“Nasty,” I mumble. He twitches and stays still, sprawled out, eyes closed. I adjust my hold on the bumper, plant my feet. “Who is next? Huh?”
One that Amelie had been fighting raises his eyebrows and takes a step forward. My heart beats faster.
“I said, ‘Who is next?’ If there’s no takers then y’all need to leave,” I announce, and I have to admit I’m pretty proud of how brave my voice sounds. You can even hear it over the sound of fighting wolf and cursing Amelie.
The pixie that Astley had dropped starts to get back up. I rush toward him, bumper ready, but something knocks me down from behind. My face smashes into snow. I turn it sideways just in time to keep from breaking my nose. Claws wrap around my head.
“Damn it, queen!” Amelie roars, yanking the pixie off of me.
“I’m not a queen anymore.” I hustle back up and belt the pixie over the head with the bumper as Astley dispatches another one. Nick’s taken care of Amelie’s second enemy. For a second all is calm, and groaning or dead pixies lie around us. It’s horrible and disgusting, all this loss of life. Something sobs inside of me.
Astley notices.
“Come on. Let’s get home.” He drapes an arm around my shoulders, and even though he’s gross and bloody, it feels good.
“It looks as if someone doesn’t want us to get back,” Amelie says as she gets in the driver’s seat. We all have rushed back into the car, which seems safer than outside.
“Or wants us dead. Or just wants us.” I grab a bag, throw Nick some clothes, and then dig into my own bag for the first-aid kit we brought with us. I start working on everyone’s wounds, crawling over everyone because it is awkward and crowded.
While I’m cleaning a cut on Astley’s hairline, he touches the inside of my wrist gently. His eyes meet mine, and I feel almost as connected to him as I did when I was his queen. He pulls his lips in like he’s wetting them and then whispers, “You did well with that bumper.”
“Assorted car parts. Weapons of choice,” I quip, taping a gauze pad down.
Before he can answer, I move toward the back of the car and the now-dressed Nick, checking for any wounds that his were blood hasn’t already healed. He shakes his head, telling me he’s okay, and I start toward Amelie.
“Driving!” she says. “No patching up while I am driving.”
I sit next to Issie and grab her hand. She squeezes. We move on toward the airport, silent.
PROBABLY NOT SANE BLOG
Latest Post:
Dude. They are outing themselves—these crazy-ass blue things with shark teeth. I freaking swear. Some are good. Some are evil. It’s très confusing, but they say there’s some sort of apocalypse coming and the only way to stop it is to fight it. Pixies. Human sized. Ka-bing. Some are hot too. I don’t know. I don’t know. But they don’t want us to blab about it, which is why I am, you know, blabbing about it. Color me a rebel.
For the next two days, we don’t stop moving. We use locked groups on social-networking sites, plan on chat rooms, do everything we can to get everyone in Bedford on the same page. Issie and I are in charge of this part of the effort. At first, older people don’t quite believe, but Betty handles those. Because of all the lives she’s saved, and legs she’s splinted, and spaghetti suppers she’s volunteered at, she’s respected by the people of Bedford. Plus, she doesn’t give the impression of being crazy. And for those who still doubt, we have Amelie or Becca change in front of them. When people see attractive women morph into blue-skinned, razor-toothed pixies, it tends to convince them.
We worry about it going viral, about someone telling the rest of the world, but the stakes are too high to get obsessed over it, and the one guy who narks on all of us via his blog is quickly berated by the rest of the blog-i-verse, or the equivalent, which is like thirteen anonymous users.
Nick finds it amusing. At night he reads the blog comments to Betty and me before Betty falls asleep in the armchair. We’re hanging on the couch in a very happy and very non-boyfriend/girlfriend way. He’s got a laptop perched on his knees. Betty’s snoring and I’ve thrown a blanket over her. She snarls and snaps at you if you try to wake her up and get her to go to bed. Believe me, I know. So we leave her there.
“Listen to this one.” Nick laughs and then puts on this fake surfer voice. “‘Dude, if they are hot and the end is coming just bang one.’”
I roll my eyes and he laughs some more. I swear, it’s nice being friends with him again. Then he turns and looks at me, closing the laptop.
“We can do this, Zara,” he says. “Try not to worry too much.”
I swallow hard. “People will die, Nick.”
I want to say, like you did. But I don’t.
He nods, puts the laptop on the coffee table, and says, “It will not be your fault if they do.”