“They raided my butterfly room,” Solon said. “What next?” He thought of something, then froze. A look of panic washed over his face. “Ovid.” He shoved a raider aside and hurried down the spiral staircase to the lower level of his cave.
“Who’s Ovid?” Eureka asked, ducking under a cloud of wings.
“Don’t be a fool!” Filiz called after Solon. “No one cares about that.”
At the far end of the room, as hummingbirds whizzed and butterflies bumped against the ceiling, Dad snapped a sharp stalactite from the ceiling and followed a man carrying Solon’s last jugs of water toward the cave entrance.
Someone shouted a warning, and as the man with the water spun around, he knocked the stalactite from Dad’s hand. Eureka saw another raider pick it up.
She was old, with bushy white eyebrows and a dirty apron. She held the stalactite like a dart and faced Eureka’s dad. She swatted a moth from her face and bared a mouthful of small, crooked teeth.
What happened next happened quickly. The woman plunged the sharp rock into Dad’s stomach. He sputtered in shock and doubled over.
Eureka screamed as the woman kicked Dad onto his back, withdrew the stalactite, and raised it over Dad’s chest. Eureka ran toward them, batting wings out of her way. They could have the food and water, but they could not take her father.
She was too late. The stalactite plunged deeply into her father’s chest. Blood spread over his rib cage. Dad lifted his hand toward Eureka, but it stilled in the air, an interrupted wave. She fell upon her father.
“No,” she whispered as blood soaked her fingers and her shirt. “No, no.”
“Reka,” Dad’s voice strained.
“Dad.”
He fell silent. She laid her good ear against his chest. The maelstrom of the raid grew distant. She imagined the twins wailing, the cacophony of beating wings, the shattering of more glass, but she couldn’t hear anything.
Her eyes fixed on the dirty apron hem of the woman who’d stabbed her father. She looked up and saw her face. The woman muttered something at Eureka, then shouted something at Filiz, who drew closer. After a moment, she repeated her words to Filiz.
“My grandmother says you are the world’s worst dream come true,” Filiz whispered.
Eureka rose from Dad’s bloody chest. Something inside her snapped. She leapt onto the old woman. Her fingers clenched white hair and yanked. Her fists rained down on the woman. Eureka kept her thumbs outside her fists, like Dad had taught her, so she wouldn’t hit like a girl.
Filiz screamed and tried to drag her off, but Eureka kicked Filiz away. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but nothing was going to stop her from doing it. She felt the old woman buckle underneath her. Wings clouded her vision. The image of Dad’s still hand waving goodbye flooded her mind. She had stopped thinking; she had stopped feeling. She had become her rage.
Blood spurted from someplace on the woman’s face, splattered across Eureka’s chest, into her mouth. She spat, and hit harder, shattering the brittle bone that formed the woman’s temple. She felt the squish of an eye socket caving in.
“She begs for mercy!” she heard Filiz shout behind her, but Eureka didn’t know how to stop. She didn’t know how she’d gotten there. Her knee was against the woman’s windpipe. Her bloody fist was in the air. She had not even thought to use the spear.
“Eureka, stop!” Cat’s voice was horrified.
Eureka stopped. She was panting. She studied her bloody hands and the body beneath her. What had she done?
A crowd of raiders drew near, some horrified, some with murderous expressions on their faces. They shouted words she didn’t understand.