She was going to ask what was on her again, but she didn’t. She realized she didn’t want to know until it was off her.

Jack returned with the saw. It was old, the hard-toothed blade rusted.

“Careful,” Nitro told him. “Just slip it beneath it.”

Elizaveta felt the saw blade press against her back, near her left shoulder.

“Slip it under.”

“I’m trying!”

“Ow!” A white hot pain seared her back.

“It stung her!” Pita exclaimed.

“Get it!” Jesus said.

In a blind panic now, Elizaveta leapt to her feet, tearing her shirt off her back, tossing it away, so she stood there in nothing but her bra. Pita was yelling, but so was she.

“Is it off?” she cried. “Is it off?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack said.

Jesus and Nitro hurried to her shirt. Nitro toed it, trying to startle whatever was hiding within it into the open.

“What is it?” Elizaveta said. “It bit me!”

“It didn’t bite you,” Jack said.

“I felt—”

“It stung you.”

Stung her? Was it a wasp?

“There it is!” Jesus cried.

“Kill it!” Pita shrieked.

Elizaveta felt sick. On the floor, scurrying away from her shirt, was a great fat scorpion. It was black, its segmented tail carried over its body. Its pincers alone must have been a couple of inches long.

And it had been on her back.

It had stung her.

Nitro tried stomping it beneath his flip-flop, but it escaped under the table.

“Fuck!” he said.

“Get it!” Pita said.

Jack, still holding the saw, went to the table. He ducked down and swung the saw, using the flat of the blade to squash the awful thing.

“Did you get it?” Jesus asked.

“It’s still moving.”

Jack swung the saw again, then again. He stood a moment later, holding the saw before him. The scorpion rested on the blade, its pugnacious body twisted and broken.

“It’s dead,” he said.

8

“It stung me,” Elizaveta said, folding her arms across her breasts. She didn’t care she was half naked; she wasn’t being modest. She was shaking with fright, her flesh covered in goosebumps. “Scorpions are venomous, and it stung me.”

“Most are harmless,” Nitro said.

“Most? What about that?” She pointed to the big fat horror that still rested on the saw blade, which Jack had set down on the table.

“Turn around,” Jesus said. “Let me see the sting.”

Elizaveta turned.

“It’s red,” he said. “But it doesn’t look too bad. How do you feel?”

“Are you a doctor? Have you been stung by scorpion before?” She was acting a bit hysterical, but she had every right to. Most scorpions might be harmless to humans, but some had venom that could be fatal. And that one—God, it was so big.

“How do you feel?” Jesus repeated.

“It hurts. Like bee sting.”

“But you can still breathe fine, talk? That’s good.”