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Man, he just really loves to disappear when I’m in the middle of a sentence.
HANNAH
Jolting under the cover of the sleeping bag, I wake with a start. I must’ve fallen asleep. Ellister has been gone for such a long time, and with nothing but a single candle flame and silence, I got bored and eventually dozed off.
Plus, Astrid was right—the electric spell she did made me really tired.
I don’t know how long I napped for, but the candlestick is completely spent, so there’s no light.
Now I’m boredandI can’t see.
And I’m agitated and restless. Ellister has been away for hours in previous excursions, but that was before I knew who he is. Before I knew what it’s like to miss him.
Fluffing one of the blankets I’ve folded into a makeshift pillow, I close my eyes so I don’t have to stare into the darkness.
But as I lie here, I hear a gruff, throaty noise. It’s hard to tell if it came from the other room because sound echoes in the cave.
“Ellister?” I call, sitting up.
There’s no answer, so I say his name again, louder this time.
Still nothing.
Maybe I imagined it, but I’m freaked out anyway.
Just as I’m about to burrow under the blankets like a kid after a nightmare, there’s a groan and a husky, “Hannah.”
And it’s close.
“Ellister? Are you hurt?” Groping around, I pat the rock floor to try to find him as I inch forward. “I can’t see you. I need you to tell me where you are.”
“Here,” he replies, forced and weak. “Right here.”
I quickly go that way on my hands and knees.
“Did you fall too hard? I told you, it looks painful when you bite the dust.” After some crawling around, my fingers find the rough fabric on his legs. The first thing I notice is it’s soaked. “Why are you all wet?”
He doesn’t respond.
He’s lying on his back, and I take the liberty of reaching into the breast pocket of his shirt to find the matches he always has on hand. At least the cardboard isn’t too damp.
Once I’ve gotten a match between my fingers, I scrape it so it lights.
When I get a good look at Ellister, I gasp.
Raised welts decorate his face, forehead, neck, and arms. Each one has what looks like a needle sticking out of it.
“What happened?” My heart starts pounding. I reach out to touch one of the bumps but think better of it because I don’t want to hurt him worse. “Are these thorns?”
“Stingers,” he rumbles, his fingers flexing as he squirms from the extreme pain.
“Stingers?”
“Not regular bees. Valora bees.”
“Valora bees,” I repeat, horrified, then I remember something he told me in my almost-memories the morning of the tour.
He’d said something about the stings being paralytic where he’s from. I didn’t understand his reaction to a little honeybee, then. Now, I get it.
