Arach by C.M. Simpson (books to read for 12 year olds TXT) 📕

my head, out of her eyes, and back under the ravreshret, where six sets of hands were carefully disentangling me from the thorns.

“I thought you said I was free of the thorns,” I said, and she shrugged.

“You were easier to read than we dared to hope. We have returned earlier than I anticipated.”

Well, lucky me, I guess.

6—Allies

I won’t say getting out of the thorns was fun. Even with three of the wasps working as gently as they could, it was painful. I couldn’t move, and, if I did, it met with disapproval.

“Stay still.”

“Stop wriggling!”

“If you move again, I’m going to sting you.”

That last bit reminded me that wasps come with their own form of needle, and that knowledge sent me scooting backwards—or it would have, if the queen hadn’t reached in and pinned me in place. This time, the buzzing was not translated.

I stared at them, holding myself as still as possible as they worked, and resisting the urge to help them when they pulled me free. Once I was clear of the bushes, they flipped me onto my stomach, and examined my back more closely.

“This is not good,” was not what I wanted to hear.

“The poison has started to take hold,” was something else I wished I hadn’t heard. I didn’t want to know. Not really. Not now the fire that was creeping across my skin, was seeping into my muscles. Nope. The fire? And the numbness that followed it? Not something I wanted to know was bad. What I wanted to hear was that it was going to wear off.

“It’ll wear off,” the queen said. “Hold still.”

Hold still? I thought I was already…. oh.

I guess the good news was that I wasn’t going to be worrying about the pain and numbness, for a while, because the queen delivered a sting that hit like a hammer, and put me out cold. When I woke up, the two of us were going to talk about that.

We, sure as shit, were.

The darkness lasted for what felt like an eye blink. I surfaced to find I’d fallen into fire. It was weird because I couldn’t see any flames, but my skin burned, and a thousand miniscule threads burrowed through my flesh. I tried calling Mack, or Tens, or even Rohan, but got no answer. My implant felt like so much weight in my skull, and I didn’t know how I was still thinking.

Where the fuck was Mack?

And where was I?

It felt like I was swathed in cotton wool, and soaked in water, all at once. I couldn’t move a muscle, but I was shivery all over. And my head was pounding like a bitch. I wished it would stop.

Worse, I wished I knew that Mack and Tens were okay. I really did. But the ship was gone. Wasn’t that what the wasp man-lady had said? The ship was gone?

The mission was blown, and the ship was gone, and my day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

Okay, except for the arach. I tried to twist away from the thought, didn’t want to fall into a morass of biting, venom-filled hell. Except that that’s exactly what I did…

As the first of them sank its fangs into me, I figured it was better me than Mack or Tens. They were useful. Me? I was expendable, no matter how many times Mack told me otherwise.

For some reason that made me want to cry. The tears felt cool against my skin, and then they felt hot, which was stranger than it sounded. And then they stopped. This was the worst I’d felt in a very long time.

“The thorns are poisonous.”

Yeah? And which dipshit had thought adding wasp venom to the mix was a good idea?

“That is no way to refer to our queen.”

Who was answering me?

“Never you mind. You need some sleep.”

Oh no… that usually meant… Yup. Thanks, guys. ’Nother needle. Just what I always wanted.

Honestly, you’d think I’d have gotten over being afraid of those, amount of shots I’d had. Still, it was nice when the darkness came, and I didn’t have to worry about anything for a while. Not so nice when the darkness faded and I found myself still unable to get in touch with Mack, or Tens, although that might have been a problem on their end, rather than mine.

I found myself hooked into the ship’s security feeds, watching Mack as he faced down the arach commander for a second time.

“No!” Mack shouted. “No. No. No. No. No! Goddammit! I said NO!”

He’d been sitting on the edge of his bed, in what was clearly his cabin, but he’d risen to his feet as he’d shouted, and the arach had backed up a step. One step—and then it had set its feet shoulder-width apart and crossed its arms across its chest, cocking its head, and looking up at Mack’s face. When it spoke, its voice was soft with menace.

“Are you sure, Captain? Your little girl hasn’t tried to contact you yet?”

His little what?

“I’m sure, and she’s not anyone’s little girl.”

Those words made me feel inexplicably sad. The man was right; I was no-one’s little girl. Not my father’s, because he’d left me with my mother, and hadn’t looked back. And not my mother’s, either, for all that she’d tried to raise me. No, definitely not my mother’s. No mother turned a blind eye when their little girl said they were being threatened by her latest squeeze. None!

For her to have done nothing meant I was not, and had never been, her little girl. I don’t think I’d been anyone’s little girl, since I don’t know when—and I certainly wasn’t anyone’s girl in any sense of the word. Not their big girl, not their girl-friend, not even their Girl Friday. Nope, the arach had it wrong. I was on my own. I might have felt sorry for myself, but the arach was speaking, again, and I had to listen.

“We are running low on supplies.”

Mack was far from sympathetic.

“You can always go back to