Frantic, I shove my shoe off with my free foot, leaving the scorpion on my shoelaces behind. I scramble up. The scorpions are a tide now, a crawling mass, a flood. I turn to run from it—but they’re spreading out in every direction, and I’m trapped between the dead trees.

The car. Its hood is crumpled against the massive, long-dead tree, its trunk crushed by the recently felled one. If I can get on top of it, I can run along the bigger trunk and get to the woods, get away.

I reach the car, plant my hands on the hood, vault up. The windshield cracks further under my weight. I clamber to the roof.

It’s only then I think to look for Elliott.

He hasn’t moved from where he was a moment ago: hands fisted, standing a few feet away from Braedan’s body, a deep purple-red bruise already spreading over his cheekbone like an inkblot. The rest of his face is as gray as the fog that surrounds us. He’s staring at the Beings. I remember his reaction to the normal scorpion earlier. If he was that terrified of a regular, harmless one, these must look like death itself.

I consider leaving him. After all, this is his fault. If he had kept concentrating on our safety, or if he hadn’t lied to me, I might never have seen the glasses and we wouldn’t be getting attacked now. And after what he’s said, what he’s done … I want to see him hurting. I wouldn’t care if he died. But I still need him in order to survive out here, so I take off my remaining shoe and throw it at him.

It hits him square in the side of the neck. His head snaps around, his gaze finding me, his eyes going from frozen back to furious. “Get up here if you want to live, douchebag!” I yell, and he finally jolts into motion just a few inches ahead of the scorpions.

The flood of Beings turns, spreads out across our slice of the road. They swarm the car. Elliott springs onto the hood and then follows me onto the roof. He pushes past—none too gently—and leaps onto the massive tree.

I eye the distance. The top of the trunk is several feet higher than the roof of the car, and I need to jump from this height to have any chance at sticking the landing, but the distance looks just a little farther than I’m comfortable with. Elliott is much more athletic than me—to no one’s surprise—and he’s hauled himself onto the top of the trunk already. He runs the length of the tree, disappearing into the soupy fog.