The bees swarmed me. I was the new threat. They would kill me first and 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 off in the distance, but it was the screams that would haunt me for years toe. I thought it was the wolves at first, but then I realized whose screams ripped through the air.


    They were my screams.


    The buzzing from the bees had morphed into a windstorm, but it was my screams that shook the trees. My screams that darkened the sky. My screams that sounded like the humans idea of hell. My screams echoed around the forest, and bounced off the trees back to me, creating this 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. Tinyrva were falling 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 to be as long as my middle finger. Her wings looked too weak to hold her up, thank the goddess. She vibrated angrily at me as I took aim. I swung the stick, and I was stung ten times at once. I dropped to my knees. My blood had turned to 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. It ignited the surrounding air. My body, my magic, my life had whittled down to the white hot pain. My skin must have burned away, leaving the muscle open because every breeze felt like knives.


    The hive was swarming around me, pulling in tighter and tighter, trying to kill me. But they underestimated how much power I can take in. screamed again as a bee stung me in the eye. I had thought I knew pain, but that one made my brain shut down for a minute. The fire under m, y 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? A had was fire. I tried


    ???


    open my eyes, but only one opened. I could see a tired Nix, weltedand limping at the edge of the clearing through the gaps between the bees. Megan, I could only assume, 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 a bit of flesh to sting me. 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 could see her wince at every sting, but she was able to stand still, and I didn''t see how. She must have seen the confusion on my face, 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 in my system.


    "Burn Amy, burn it all." She called, and it was the switch.


    Between one breath and another, the fire that was under my skin exploded from my lips. The scream that had built behind my teeth turned into a column of fire that ignited the bees and the nest alike. Bodies fell, the nest ked away, and the queen caught on 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 that had somehow survived were still dive bombing me, but their stings barely registering anymore. Nix came over and she nudged herself under me. Once she was sure I was secure, she


    ran.