On Demon Wings Part 29

"I don't, really. I barely remember them. I think I met them once. I wouldn't have remembered at all if Pippa hadn't said anything on the EVP recordings."

OH, G.o.d. I had forgotten about what else was said on the recordings. My eyes went wide.

"Don't worry," he said, noticing, "I don't care about the medication thing. You did me a favor, actually."

"Dex, I'm sorry. Look, that was low of me-"

"I don't care, Perry. I could never hate you for that. You were right to test it. You did it because you cared about me. You did care about me, didn't you?"

There was a rare s.h.i.+mmer of tenderness in his voice. I didn't let myself dwell on it.

"So why would Pippa mention my parents?"

He breathed out through his nose slowly and shook his head slightly. "I think that's something you need ask her."

I almost spazzed at him. I was so sick and tired of playing the vague game!

"I'm not trying to be a d.i.c.k," he explained hastily.

"No, that just happens naturally with you."

"I mean it. I don't want to be the one to tell you. This involves you more than you'd think."

"Oh, so that makes it easier to just ignore? I don't think I like that you know something that I don't, especially something that ties you and Pippa and my parents together!"

Ada stirred from beside me and I immediately regretted raising my voice. But I was mad. I was so mad.

"What's going on?" she asked sleepily. "She demonic again?"

"Yes," Dex said.

"No!" I yelled, and squirmed in my duct tape coc.o.o.n. "Ada, he's holding out on me. On us. On how he knows our parents."

"What?" she leaned forward and punched him hard in the shoulder. "You a.s.swipe! Spill the beans."

"Hey, Ali, I'm driving here," he said, shaking his shoulder.

She jabbed her index finger in his face. "Tell us. Why do you know our parents? They never lived in New York."

"I guess they were visiting," he said, eyeing her finger warily.

"Visiting who?" she demanded.

I wanted to ask that question too but I suddenly had this insane tickle in my throat, like the kind I've gotten from my kiwi fruit allergy. My throat felt like it was swelling, stretching, spreading. A buzzing filled my brain and my stomach churned angrily. It moved. Something was happening.

Dex sighed. "Visiting my nanny."

"Guys I-" I was interrupted by my own coughing fit. I felt like something terrible was crawling up my throat, as if I'd swallowed something still alive and it had to get it out. The duct tape didn't allow my lungs to expand; I couldn't get enough air to push.

"Phfff, as if you had a nanny," Ada said. "What was her name, Mary Poppins?"

I coughed louder, harder, unable to get their attention.

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

I shook my head, my face turning hot as I strained against the convulsions. I was going to throw up. I had to throw up.

"Are you gonna vom?" Ada backed away from me slightly.

I felt something makes its way past my tonsils and onto my tongue. A piece of food, maybe?

Nope. It started crawling slowly in my mouth, tiny pinp.r.i.c.ks brus.h.i.+ng my palate.

Revolted, I spit with all my might and a black ball shot out and onto the middle seat.

Ada and I peered down at it, disgusted but curious.

The black ball unfurled itself and I could see it wasn't black at all. Just black and yellow. And moving.

A wasp.

"What's going on?" Dex asked frantically, trying to drive straight and see behind him at the same time.

"Ewwwww," Ada said. The wasp buzzed its wings 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 among us. Then the sick feeling intensified, like an entire nest of wasps was crawling out of the recesses of my stomach and scurrying up my esophagus, blocking me from precious air. I was drowning in them.

I tensed and writhed in my constraints while Ada and Dex watched me with horrified eyes. My mouth flew open and I heaved up a ma.s.s of wriggling wasps that landed on my lap in a sickening heap.

Ada screamed. I heaved and heaved, unable to get them all out of me.

And Dex was deathly allergic to wasps. It was he who panicked first. I couldn't blame him. He yelled and flailed and tried to drive but it was too much.

In slow motion, like a scene from a movie, the car careened off the highway.

We bounced down an embankment, the sound of tires grinding asphalt, then gravel, then gra.s.s, and we coasted along flatness for a few seconds; time that slowed us down.

A tree appeared in the headlights, followed by a magnificent crunch.

There were screams.

Bodies flying forward.

Wasps.

Blood.

Then it was over.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

When I came to, I was as far away from a car accident as one could be. I gained consciousness while I was walking through a dark forest grove, punctuated by the blue-green glow of fireflies that darted in and out amongst the trees. It was just like my dream only it was real now. Or as close to real as anything could be.

I stopped by a tall, earthy-smelling pine and peered at myself, the moonlight peeking through the s.p.a.ced-out branches. The duct tape still clung to my arms and legs in places but had been torn down the middle, ripped apart. There was blood spattered across my pajama top and I didn't know who it belonged to, or how it got there.

Ada! I thought as everything s.h.i.+fted into shape. Dex!

The cloud in my head began to lift. Where was I? Where were they?

"Ada!" I yelled into the night. My voice was immediately swallowed up by the layers of bark and rock around me. "Can anyone hear me? Dex?!"

I paused, holding my breath, listening. The fireflies made little buzzing noises and the branches sc.r.a.ped against each other in the breeze. I heard nothing else except my own heartbeat and was met with my deepest fear yet.

What if something happened to them? What if they had died from the car crash? What if I had killed them?

I scanned the forest but saw nothing but dark shadows and mountainous boulders that reflected the light of the moon. It was deathly cold and I was still barefoot and only in my sleeping attire. I didn't care. I didn't feel anything but panic.

I started walking first, pus.h.i.+ng the rough branches past me, trying to find a path in the maze of trunks. Then, as my thoughts swarmed, I ran, not minding the scattered stones and twigs that dug into the soft undersides of my feet, not noticing the pine needles whipping my eyes.

The wasps! My G.o.d, 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, pus.h.i.+ng my body to the limit. I was weak from lack of food and water and my muscles ached with each stride, soft from being stretched and immobile for so long.

I ran and then...

Suddenly I was standing before a clearing where rough gra.s.s grew silver white in the moonlight. The moon that was on the wrong side of me. A moon that was a smidge lower in the sky.

I had gotten turned around. At some point, while I was running, the thing had taken over and directed me in the opposite direction. Now I was conscious and able but more lost than ever. It was hard to know where I was when I never knew where I started.

That was frightening. I never even felt it come in.

Somewhere in the forest, a baby cried.

I swallowed hard and tried to soothe my heart as it pulsed madly in my veins.

The baby cried again.

"No," I said out loud. There is no baby. That was a dream. This is real. You're remembering your dreams. You're remembering your dreams, you're remembering your dreams.

Somewhere in the forest, a few branches cracked.

I imagined tiny, flightless demons falling out of a nest and running toward me, thinking I was their mother.

I threw my head back at the sky and screamed.

I screamed and screamed, letting it all out, letting my cries carry through the clearing and above the trees, high into the mountains, whose shadows rose ominously in the distance. If anyone heard me, it would be all for the better. The madness was too much for one person to bear.

"Perry?"

It was Dex's voice. It cut my screams off at the source and I whipped around.

He was standing a few yards behind me. His s.h.i.+rt was torn and wet in places and he stood at such an angle that it was almost impossible to be upright. Half his face was covered with blood that pooled out of a dark wound at his widow's peak. His eyes regarded me like I was a stranger, someone he wasn't sure if he could trust. Maybe I looked like a ghost myself.

"Hi," I said softly. I tried not to smile. My arms and legs started tingling from finally feeling the cold. "You're alive."

He nodded, wincing. "Are you OK? Are you hurt?"

"I'm OK, considering I'm also very not OK."

He nodded, then gasped for breath and started to lean a bit to the side.

I scampered over and got him under his arm just before he keeled over.

"I'm fine," he said, grinding his jaw. Once a liar, always a liar.

"No, you're not; your head..." I tried to touch the wound but he yanked his head out of the way. That brought another grimace to his face and he fought through the pain, a pain that tensed all of his muscles into hard lines.

"It's fine, I'm fine."

"Where's Ada?" I asked, suddenly alarmed.

"She's fine. She's at the car."

He let out a deep breath and attempted to take a step. I went with him.

"What happened? Were you stung?"

He nodded, carefully this time. "More than once. But I had two Epi-Pens in the glove box. Your sister found some pretty creative places to stab me."

"We've got to take you to a hospital," I insisted as I helped him navigate over a fallen log.

"I'm fine."

"Dex, you're not," I said, and stopped, pressing my hand back into his chest.

He looked down at me and smiled painfully. "Kiddo, we're not going anywhere except straight to Roman's."

"But your head, and the stings, your allergy will-"

"Will be taken care of when I get a chance to take care of it. My wounds aren't vital. Yours are."

"But the car. We've got to call for help. Get a tow truck or Triple A or something."