Early that morning, I joined the drive-thru line at Whataburger before work, a way of making sure that my meals weren’t dependent on the crew. Right after I’d left with a piping hot bag in hand, my phone started vibrating on my dashboard. No need to check caller ID, so I put it on speakerphone straight away.

  “Yo,” I greeted, propping my phone on my dashboard. “Before you ask me anything, I’m about to go to work, so if this is about your sink again, it’s gonna have to wait unless you can get an actual plumber out there.”

  “Wh— hey!” Mercy let out a little huff. “What makes you think I was going to ask you for a favor? You think that’s all I ever do? Can’t I just call to say hello?”

  As I dug around the bag for my burger, I gnced up to the rearview mirror and shared a knowing look with myself. “I’m just teasin’ you, girl, damn. What’s up? It’s been a while.”

  “Well, right now I’m just waiting for Cleo to finish getting ready before I take her to school, so… thought I’d reach out and see how you were doing while I had a minute.” It sounded like she was drinking something - at this hour, probably coffee. “Haven’t really had the chance to talk much what with work and Mamá and all of that…”

  Mid-bite, I fttened my mouth. Since it was a challenge to catch Mercy for more than a few strained minutes at a time, I’d stopped trying as much; part of me was afraid of scaring her more than I already had, but the other part, as immature as it was, was just tired of feeling like a pest. If she wanted me, she could come get me - that’s what I told myself. Unfortunately, that only helped to make her growing absence sting worse.

  “Yeah, no, it’s cool, I understand,” I replied, after I swallowed. “Work’s been fucking killing me tely, so… you know, I’m not exactly a social butterfly right now, either.”

  “Oh, Manu…” Mercy’s softened voice brought more comfort than it should’ve. “I’ve been seeing stuff about that on the news! I can’t remember the st time there’s been so many fires. You’d think we lived in California! Do you know what’s causing them yet?”

  For a split second, when I looked into the rearview mirror, I was afraid that I might see Garrett’s green eyes watching back. Even when I shut them, my stomach lurched uncomfortably. It made finishing my burger a lot less appetizing.

  “Not really,” I lied. “I mean, there’s a million reasons, but by the time we get there, we’re more focused on putting it out rather than figuring out why it happened.”

  “I hope it settles down for you soon,” she said. “How’s everything else going? Are things going better with your therapist now? I know you said you didn’t really like her, but… you gave her another chance, didn’t you?”

  “I think I’ve got an appointment coming up— haven’t seen her in a while ‘cause I’ve been busy, so it’ll mostly just be pying catch-up.” I crumpled the burger’s wrapper with one hand and tossed it to the floor. “Anyway, I’ve been meaning to ask: is it cool with you if I take Cleo out one of these weekends? She seems sort of… I don’t know, sad tely. Thought it might cheer her up a little to have a day out.”

  “Absolutely not! I’m at the end of my rope with her!” Mercy spat, unusually hostile. “You know what that little mocosa did the other day? She came home at seven o’clock - when she’s supposed to be home at four - and she had a nose ring!”

  I blinked. “… Benz, you have a nose ring. What’s the problem?”

  “First of all, I got mine at eighteen, and it wasn’t behind Mamá’s back,” she replied hotly. “Second of all— I told her no piercings ‘til she’s at least sixteen, so I know it was those creepy little friends of hers that did it for her! I swear, every time I put my foot down, they make her worse!”

  As I listened, I chewed the tip of my straw, staring ahead. I wasn’t sure if Cleo’s friends were actually the reason for her sudden behavioral problems, but it seemed best to stay in my own ne. “That sucks. How’s she getting on with Jo these days? Are they still at it?”

  “Oh my God, Manny, I swear I’m going to start losing my hair over the two of them! It’s just nonstop!” She groaned. “Like— listen to this— Joey told me that a few days ago, when they were fighting, Cleo called her the c-word. Can you believe that? Where did my kid learn that kind of nguage? And to use it at her own tía!”

  Thank God I’d stopped at a red light - I almost shot soda right out of my nose. Secretly, I was quite proud of Cleo for having the balls to talk back to her given that Joanna could practically curdle milk with her gre alone. I tried my best to suppress my ughter.

  “She’s thirteen, it’s not that weird,” I said. “I knew what it meant when I was, like, five.”

  Mercy hummed in disapproval. “Well, I expect more from her— she wasn’t raised in a broken home like you were.”

  “Ay, c’mon.” I frowned. “That’s ice cold.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true!” She said, like that made it less insulting. “And I know Cleo’s having a hard time with everything, but it’s hard on all of us right now, and if she…”

  When I rolled up to the parking lot of the fire station, whatever Mercy was saying had been tuned out completely. Not because I was ignoring her purposefully, but because when I’d gotten there, I noticed a small, blue Mazda parked near the entrance… and right on its hood sat Dahlia, checking her phone like she was waiting for something - or someone. I cursed internally.

  “Uh, Benz, I hate to interrupt, but I really gotta go,” I said suddenly. “We’ll talk more ter, alright?”

  “… Oh. Sure, okay,” Mercy replied, tone clipped. “Cleo’s about ready anyway, so… talk to you soon.”

  Shutting off my phone, I swerved smoothly into a parking space, but it took me a moment before I was ready to get out. There was no way that Dahlia hadn’t seen me pull into the parking lot, so with a concentrated breath, I steeled myself over.

  Just as I got out of my truck, Dahlia zipped over to my truck with lightning speed, blocking me from the door to the station by putting herself right in my way. Already, I was irritated.

  “Look, I don’t even want to know how you figured out my schedule well enough to ambush me,” I said sharply. “Seems like you and your ex ain’t so different after all, are you?”

  “Very funny,” Dahlia replied with a matching edge to her voice. “You’re a difficult man to catch when you want to be— if you’d just answered my calls, I wouldn’t be here. You have only yourself to bme.”

  “For the love of…” I pinched the bridge of my nose, my other hand on my hip. “You really think it’s a good time to talk when I’m right about to go in to work? What if someone saw you out here? What if it was Garrett?”

  “Don’t change the subject, Manny.” She was more stern than I’d ever seen her. “Be honest, were you ever going to be upfront about this? Because I get the impression you were intending to keep this a secret from me forever, and I don’t like that.”

  Dahlia was awfully good at reading me, which only pissed me off further. “If you know I don’t want to talk about it, why are you cornering me in public? You think that makes me want to talk about it more?”

  “You want some privacy?” She moved back and motioned to her car, her keys dangling from her wrist on a little rhinestone hoop. “Hop in, let’s chat.”

  “The fuck?” I gnced over to it, that cramped and tiny little thing, then back to her. “If you’re going to interrogate me, why do we have to do it in your little clown car?”

  Finally, a smile, though Dahlia’s eyes remained icy and fixed. She unlocked her car with a fluid gesture, and after it let out a chirp, she looked back at me. “As if you wouldn’t just drive off like you did st time. I’m a little bit smarter than that, thank you.”

  Despite the chill in her voice, there was something in Dahlia’s expression that seemed genuinely hurt. Bullshit, I thought bitterly in spite of my guilt; she wanted to satisfy her own curiosity, eager for one more performance from the freakshow before she washed her hands of me, nothing more. Why would I ever let myself think anything else?

  But she had a look on her face that told me that she wasn’t going to leave without making a scene, so I didn’t waste my time arguing with her. Instead, I climbed into the passenger’s side of her car and waited for her to join me. When she sensed that I wasn’t a flight risk, Dahlia climbed in after, immediately locking the doors once we were both inside. I couldn’t help but be a little surprised.

  “You feel safe being locked in a car with me?” I raised an eyebrow. “Pretty brave of you.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about me, I came prepared.” Fshing a smile, Dahlia raised her keyring, where a little bck canister dangled. “Pretty sure mace works on insects— and if it doesn’t, I already know it works on men.”

  I gave her a tired smirk, but I didn’t feel like smiling at all. Really, it felt less like I was sitting in a car and more like I was strapped to a table, and Dahlia had her scalpel ready to split me open.

  In my uneasy silence, Dahlia’s gaze had stayed on me. When I had the courage to gnce over her, I was taken aback by the look in her eyes. I expected fear, caution, any sensible feeling after what she saw, but they were completely unreadable. It made me feel even weirder than I already felt, so I looked away, though I still felt her stare.

  “So, I’m going to start with the obvious question,” Dahlia began. “What happened back there?”

  My throat was already tight. “What do you think you saw?”

  “What I know I saw was dozens of bugs coming out of you,” she replied, her tone stiffening. “Are you telling me you’re full of bugs?”

  I paused. Something about saying yes - about confirming, once and for all, that this was happening - was too final, like an oath I couldn’t take back. It was such a superstitious feeling, and though it made no sense, I couldn’t shake it. But there was no more running away from it any longer.

  “I mean, it’s more complicated than that, but like…” I ran a hand through my hair. “To be real with you, I— I have no idea what’s happening to me. Something’s going on, I just don’t know what.”

  “Okay, well, when did… this start happening?” She gestured into the air at me. “Is this new for you? Have you always been like this? Were you born this way?”

  “What the fuck? No, I wasn’t born full of wasps. Jesus.” Just saying it made me feel stupid. “Seriously, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s not like I’m— I don’t know, a doctor or something. All I can tell you is that…”

  Again, I paused. Memories of the chemical fire started to seep in, flooding my senses: the kaleidoscopic visions, the nausea, the smell.

  “It all started after the chemical fire at Kingske,” I said quietly. “I… I was there on the front lines, and there was some kind of problem with my mask, so I ended up breathing in whatever the fuck they were making there. I don’t remember a lot of what happened after I passed out— but the doctors were shocked I didn’t die. Then they were even more shocked when everything they ran on me came back fine. It was like I never even got sick.”

  Dahlia’s stare was steady, but she stayed quiet. Any second now, revulsion would slip in and dethrone the sympathy in her features, and that would be it. As much as I wanted to quit while I was ahead, there was no turning back now.

  “After that, I started getting these… these headaches,” I continued, “Like migraines, except it felt like something was trying to get out of my head. And there was this constant buzzing in my ears— like tinnitus, but not quite— and I didn’t think anything of it, but one day…”

  Without even thinking, I touched my arm right where the lump once sat. Even now, I could still pinpoint exactly where it had been - though it had left nothing behind but the ghost of its sensation.

  “One day, there was a lump on my arm…” I shut my eyes. “And there was a wasp inside of it.”

  Silently, Dahlia adjusted herself to face me fully, her back against the door. Her arms were crossed against her chest, which was when I noticed she’d put her keyring off to the side like she had no intention of actually using the bear mace. That she’d made no move to reach for it made me wonder just how much she trusted me, and how much I actually deserved it.

  “I don’t know how to expin it, but it’s like… inside of me there’s this swarm, watching and waiting. And then, when something sets me off, that’s when they want out.” I clutched my arm tightly. “That’s when they break free.”

  Looking at Dahlia hurt too much, so I had to turn away. In my p, my hands became fists, but there was no tingling; just the pain of straining my muscles.

  "So… I guess to answer your question, that’s what’s ‘up’ with me,” I finished, hanging my head in shame. “And to answer anything else you might want to know: no, I can’t control them, yes, I know it’s disgusting, and…”

  My knuckles turned white. Then, as I let them go, the color returned, though they ached all the same. This had to have been a form of torture, to watch in someone’s eyes the exact moment they stop trusting you and start fearing you.

  “If that’s too much for you… then I get it. If this is where you draw the line, and you call it quits, I get it,” I said. “I can catch Garrett without you. I don’t want to put you in danger.”

  Finally, I dared to look over at Dahlia. My breath caught in my throat.

  In pce of any terror was something that I didn’t think she had: sympathy. Somehow, in spite of the truth, Dahlia was unafraid. She reached over and put a hand on my arm right where the lump had been, like she didn’t care what might be lurking underneath my skin.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” she said firmly. “I know you never wanted to talk about it, but I always had a hunch something happened to you at Kingske, and this is exactly the kind of stuff I was afraid of! You’re basically a human experiment! How horrible is that?”

  Those two words hit me like a truck: human experiment. Just a more polite way of saying that whatever I was now, it wasn’t on the records. Between that and the A/C bsting in my face, I felt like I’d frozen over.

  “This just makes me even more determined to go after Kingske once we’ve got Garrett pinned. To hell with the consequences— they need to go down, and hard,” she added. “Who knows how many people might be just like you, all screwed up from their experiments? We owe it to them to do something— and we owe it to you, too. You didn’t deserve this.”

  Despite how badly I wanted to let Dahlia get closer, I still felt a duty to push her back, to keep her away from the edges of myself where everything grew dark.

  “Dahlia… you’ve seen what I am. What I can do.” I looked at her grimly. “Doesn’t it scare you?”

  Something behind Dahlia’s eyes shifted. It was only a brief moment between my question and her answer, but it was just long enough to make my heart stop in my chest.

  “I had a lot of time to process what happened when you so kindly ignored every attempt I made to reach out over the past— however many days,” she replied, waving her hand dismissively. “Now I’ll admit it was deeply disturbing, especially without any kind of heads up, so perhaps you should consider coming with a warning bel—”

  “Cut the jokes, I ain’t pying, okay?” I interrupted. “This isn’t something I really got a hold on. I don’t know if I’m gonna get worse, or— or maybe I’ll turn into that guy from The Fly, all fuckin’ gooey and nasty and shit. I just don’t know.”

  “And if that happens, we’ll just figure out how to un-Fly you!” She countered. “Honestly, as long as you don’t spew your bugs at me, I’m fine. Other people, however…”

  I blinked at her, baffled. “Wait— are you telling me you’re cool with me siccing wasps on people? Even your ex? Am I getting this right?”

  “When you put it like that, yes. Especially given that he’s been telling everyone I left him to be some deranged biker concubine.” Her nose wrinkled. “My family has so much blind faith in him, they’re taking him completely at face value! Well, except for the bug thing… but you can imagine the tortured phone calls I’ve been having tely!”

  I looked away. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Thanks, but what’s done is done.” She shrugged. “Anyway, according to him, he got stung thirteen times before he made it to his car. Thirteen! Surely your bugs can do better than that. If you take requests, tell them to aim for his face next time.”

  She spoke so casually, it was a little unsettling. I stared at her like she’d grown two heads. “What, you think I’m just some kind of fuckin’ attack dog? That you can just call me up and I’ll send out a swarm for you? Seriously?”

  “Well, isn’t that what being Superman is all about?” She returned. “Saving me from trouble whenever I need you?”

  In my chest, I felt a fluttering, blossoming from the bottom of my ribs and rising up to my neck, warm like the lingering burn of a drink. Swallowing thickly, my eyes flickered over to hers.

  “What if I’m the trouble?” I asked.

  At first, Dahlia said nothing. Then, a slow, confident smile crept across her face.

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she replied.

  Judging by the look in her eyes, she was telling the truth. I didn’t know what to make of that.

  From the corner of her eye, Dahlia gnced over to the clock on the dashboard before gncing back to me. The doors around us unlocked, and she motioned with her head toward the station ahead.

  “I’ve gotta get going, so I’m letting you go… for now,” she said. “Don’t make me come get you again, though— this was a giant pain in the ass, and now I’m going to be half an hour te for work.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t make you do anything, but whatever.”

  As I climbed out of the car and passed by the driver’s side, Dahlia rolled down the window. Resting her hands on the steering wheel, she looked up at me sternly.

  “Before you go,” she began, “I just wanted to say something.”

  I leaned against the door of the car, watching her carefully. I expected her to spout off something sassy, something sharp, words that would disarm the mounting tension between us - instead, she made a face like she was sending me off to war.

  “Stay safe,” she said quietly. “It sounds like it could get dangerous in there.”

  The sincerity in her words caught me off guard. Nervously, I ughed. “That’s kind of my whole job, Dolly— I’m the guy that goes into danger.”

  “Well, just so you know, whenever possible, I’ll go with you.” Dahlia’s eyes darted quickly across me, determined. “We’re in this together, Manny.”

  Matching her sudden seriousness, I nodded. Then, I stood up straight to let her close the window, and only a few moments ter, her little blue Mazda zipped out of the parking lot and left me standing there all by myself.

  I was now the st of the crew to go into the station, and though I felt I was wandering into the lion’s den, I didn’t feel alone.