Page 60 of Invasive Species
“To the road. She turned left and I was heading that way, and she must have gone half a mile before she ducked into a hedgerow. She made a huge tear in it with her claws.”
He chased Mae half a mile down the road. Can she find her way back? My chest tightens, and my vision blurs with tears. I’ve failed. Again.
I have to find Old Mae. Before a fox gets her—or she wanders onto the road—or someone steals her or she just vanishes forever and it’ll be my fault.
I launch across the fields, legs burning, brain sparking off in a thousand directions. Where’s half a mile from the barn? Is that near the lower paddock? Or past the old stile? Crap. Think. Focus. Why is everything in my head so loud and slippery?
I hit the swimming lake at a run, breath sawing in and out, already soaked from the knees down. My trainers squish, every step sticking like the ground wants to swallow me whole. I should’ve worn boots. I should’ve brought a torch. I should’ve made a list, or—no—no time. No time.
Mae. Find Mae.
And keep the farm going. And fix the mess with the planning app. And Gara—Gara.
Gara said we’re done. “It's done. And so are we,” he said. Flat. Final. Like it cost him nothing.
It wasn’t nothing to me.
My thoughts spiral so fast I can’t catch a single one. Just broken shards: his voice, the way he flinched when I touched him, the barn model, the guilt, Ellen’s quiet faith in me, even Mae’s terrifying glares. I have to go back and fix it all. I have to. I have to.
I'm not useless.
The sky presses in, dark descending fast. My feet slide, ankles twisting in the mud, but I keep moving, chasing shapes that might be a sheep or might be shadows or might be nothing. That hedgerow—is that the edge of Ellen’s land? Or the neighbor’s? I should know this. I used to know this. Why can’t I remember anything useful when I need it?
My brain keeps firing off. Jacket, forgot a jacket. Forgot to leave a note. What happens if I do find her? Do I carry her? Herd her? What if she runs again? What if I can’t?—
There's a small outcropping of rocks ahead. Ellen and I used to pretend they were a dragon’s cave. My heart lurches. I want that safety again, that escape. But I don’t even know the way anymore. I always let Ellen lead. She was good at that. I was just the noisy, chaotic sidekick with big dreams and no follow-through.
Rain slices sideways now, needles across my cheeks. My teeth chatter. My chest tightens like there’s a band cinching tighter and tighter around my ribs. I can’t breathe right. I can’t stop thinking, can’t stop feeling.
Mae’s lost. The farm’s a mess. Ellen trusted me. Gara—Gara gave me his first and I wrecked it. He opened up to me and I shoved chaos in his face. Of course he ended it.
The world keeps spinning and I can’t catch up. My handsgrab at my hair, twisting hard, trying to yank the noise out of my head.
I don’t know how normal people do this. I don’t know how to hold onto anything good. I shouldn't keep trying, it's all useless. My endurance is pure delusion, I'll never change. I will always mess things up.
“Why can’t I just—why can’t I—why am I like this?” I scream into the storm, hot tears sliding down my frozen cheeks.
Only rain answers me, surrounding me in my own island.
And then—a hiss.
Low. Sinister. Among the rocks.
My pulse hammering so hard I feel it to my fingertips. I blink the rain from my eyes and edge closer to the rocks.
The hissing intensifies, echoing around me. My mind flashes to Mae—her beady little velociraptor eyes, her talons that seem a little too sharp. Is she about to go full prehistoric on me?
My heart lurches in my chest. I turn, shoes sliding on slick stone, and my foot slips out from under me. Cold, hard rock rushes toward me.
I’m falling, and I can’t stop it.
TWENTY
GARA
No lights shinefrom the farmhouse. I stare up at Arra-bellah's window as if I can will them to turn on, cold rain running down my shoulders. The house is dark and forbidding without those cheery yellow lights.
“Where is she?” Arture asks.
