30. Calvin

CALVIN

I shield Polina with my body, preparing for the worst as the giant bee-foot comes flying down toward us. This is it. There's no way I can save my love, so the best I can do is hold her like this and stroke her hair.

"I love you, Po," I whisper in her ear. Tears fall freely down her cheeks as she looks into my eyes. She kisses me right then and there. It's a hot, frantic kiss. One rife with longing and regret. One that says this is probably the last time she's ever going to kiss me.

"I love you, too," she murmurs. A thick, blinding shadow covers us both as Florian's boot closes in on us, and I clench my eyes shut. I did my best. I did my best … I did my?—

A sizzling arc of blinding red hits us both, jolting us apart. Polina pulls away from my grasp as I scream her name.

"What's going on?" I cry out. When I look down at my hands, I notice they're … growing? Actually, come to think of it, all of me is growing. The world spins like I'm on a merry-go-round from Hell, until finally my vision clears and I can see … I can see Kyle behind the Shrinkatron, grinning at me like a madman. He shoots me a thumbs up.

I whirl around just in time to see Polina scrambling to her feet, now a few inches shorter than I am but still very much human-sized.

Oh my God. I'm big again. But so is Polina.

"Do you really think being bigger is going to save you?" Florian hisses. I whirl around to see he's still there, all four hands balled into fists at his sides, his double-breasted jacket is still in perfect condition despite everything we've all been through. "You were pathetic bee-sized, and you're just as pathetic now." His iridescent wings unfurl and beat behind him to create a high-pitched buzzing that makes us all clap our hands to our ears.

Polina loosens a snarl as she stomps forward, getting ready to fight him. I put myself between my beloved and her fake fiancé immediately and shoot her a dark look.

"No, Po. I thought I almost lost you just a moment ago, and I don't ever want to feel that way again," I murmur. Her eyebrows shoot up into her hairline, and her bottom lip trembles.

I turn back around and stalk forward, clenching my hands into fists. My steps are sluggish, like my body is instinctively trying to turn tail and run away like I did during company sports. Run away from the ball, don't get hurt. Don't do anything too dangerous. Keep your head down.

Well, fuck all of that. This asshole just tried to kill my woman.

Florian chuckles as I close the gap between us, but when I smash my fist against his thick, hard face, he stops laughing. Immediately. He stumbles back a few feet and rubs the part of his carapace I just hit. My fist is throbbing. I might've even broken a bone or two, but I don't care. He's going down.

Florian regains his composure and whirls on me, baring a pair of tiny, pearly incisors. Kyle yells something from behind the Shrinkatron, but Maurice's gruff voice calls out, "No! Let them fight!"

Florian grapples me with his four arms and overpowers me easily, sending me flying to the concrete. Pain lances through my body, and my glasses fall off. Florian slams his foot down onto them, crushing them. "How will you fare now that you cannot see, I wonder?" he growls into my ear as he presses me hard against the cold slab of ground. Blood trickles down my forehead and into my eyes. Fuck.

Polina screams my name, urging me to get up. I have to get up. I can't let our story end here. Can't let this bitchy bug get the best of me. I bring my knees up and push them into his stomach, but he doesn't move.

Florian brings another pair of hands up to my face and places his thumbs over my eyes. "Since they don't work anyway, allow me to relieve you of them," he says, then chuckles again.

No, no, no . I have to get free, I have to?—

A blast of cold water hits Florian right in the face, and he jumps to his feet, abandoning me on the ground. I scramble to my feet, now soaking wet, and whirl around. Everything is … pretty blurry, not going to lie. Polina is at my side immediately, pulling me away.

Another blast of water surges forward, and Florian chokes out another scream.

"Maurice is hitting him with the garden hose," Polina explains.

"Bad! Bad feckin' bug!" Maurice growls, his accent growing thicker with each word. "I was happy to let you two go at it, but you play dirty, and I can't allow it." Maurice stalks forward and hits Florian directly in the face with the garden hose. Ser Beatrix and Sylvie are sitting on his right shoulder, cheering him on as he beats Florian to a pulp.

"What happened to the other yellowjackets?" I ask Polina. "The ones that were chasing Maurice and Kyle?"

Sylvie waves her arms wildly in the air from where she's perched on Maurice's shoulder and yells, "Garden hose! Real handy, right? He found it by the shed and blasted them all to death with it while you two were almost getting smooshed under Florian's heel."

Maurice delivers a kick to Florian's gut, and he screams in agony. I've never heard a more satisfying sound.

"Yeah! Get him, Maurice!" Sylvie screams, pumping her tiny fist in the air. Ser Beatrix's arms are crossed in front of her chest, back to her usual stoicism.

"Feck you, fecking bug!" Maurice growls as he unleashes his thick work boots on Florian's ribcage. He's going to kill him. A squelching sound follows another kick to Florian's ribs, but just as Maurice is about to land another lethal blow, Florian grabs onto his ankle and twists it. There's a crunch, and Maurice howls before crashing on the ground. Sylvie and Ser Beatrix fly into the air and hover over him as he writhes in pain.

How Florian ended up being this dangerous, I'll never figure out. Back in the hive he always struck me as the sort of man who would turn tail and run rather than fight. Whatever. I'm sick of this. I turn to Polina, kiss her on the temple, and pull away to run over to Florian as he pushes himself to a staggering standing position. He's injured, which means I might have a fighting chance now. But instead of going straight for him like I did last time, I decide to use my greatest asset: my brain.

I skid to a halt in front of Florian as he sneers at me. "So eager to die, I see," he chokes out as blood trickles down the corner of his mouth.

My eyes widen, and I gasp as I point behind him. "Oh my God, it's Majordomo Elza! She's alive and—and … an entire cadre of yellowjackets are coming!"

Florian's brow slams together, and he whirls around. "What? Where? Are you sure? I don't see anything."

It worked on the yellowjackets earlier, and now it's working on Florian. Once upon a time, I read about fairies in a book I took out from the library. They were depicted as tricksters and pulled pranks on each other constantly, so I figured … why not see if that tidbit turned out to be true? Luckily for me, they probably weren't expecting a human to give them a taste of their own medicine. I rush forward and grab on to Florian's wings. And then, with every ounce of strength I have left in my body, which isn't much, I tear them off. Polina gasps from behind me. Kyle yells something incoherent while Maurice curses up a storm.

And Florian howls with the agony of a husky denied … well, anything.

I gather the wings into my arms and rush to the rooftop's ledge. "A shame," I say as I let one of the wings catch the wind and flutter away. "They were beautiful. Too beautiful for the likes of you, though. You didn't deserve them."

Florian's eyes flicker red with rage, and he runs forward, nearly tripping along the way. "M-My wings!" he cries.

He tries to snatch them from me, but I let the remaining pieces of his wings flutter down into the alleyway below by one of the dumpsters. "Oh, look. They fell into the trash. Whoops."

Tears streak Florian's once-pristine cheeks, and he clambers onto the ledge. "My wings! My wings! You took my wings!"

And then we all watch with a mixture of awe and horror as Florian throws himself off the ledge. Kyle rushes to my side and puts a comforting hand on my shoulder as he looks over the side. He winces and turns away. Polina runs forward, too, but Kyle stops her before she can have a chance to look over the ledge.

"You don't want to see this, Princess," he says, shaking his head.

"I will be the one to decide what I want and do not want to see," she says, lifting her chin high. "Stand aside, Kyle."

Kyle lifts his hands in surrender and steps aside. When Polina looks over the edge, my Sunshine's mouth curls into the most sinister and satisfied smile I've ever seen.