“No!” I yel ed, and squirmed in my duct tape cocoon.
“Ada, he’s holding out on me. On us. On how he knows our parents.”
“What?” she leaned forward and punched him hard in the shoulder. “You asswipe! Spil the beans.”
“Hey, Ali, I’m driving here,” he said, shaking his shoulder.
She jabbed her index finger in his face. “Tel us. Why do you know our parents? They never lived in New York.”
“I guess they were visiting,” he said, eyeing her finger warily.
“Visiting who?” she demanded.
I wanted to ask that question too but I suddenly had this insane tickle in my throat, like the kind I’ve gotten from my kiwi fruit al ergy. My throat felt like it was swel ing, stretching, spreading. A buzzing fil ed my brain and my stomach churned angrily. It moved. Something was happening.
Dex sighed. “Visiting my nanny.”
“Guys I-” I was interrupted by my own coughing fit. I felt like something terrible was crawling up my throat, as if I’d swal owed something stil alive and it had to get it out. The duct tape didn’t al ow my lungs to expand; I couldn’t get enough air to push.
“Phfff, as if you had a nanny,” Ada said. “What was her name, Mary Poppins?”
I coughed louder, harder, unable to get their attention.
Final y, Dex brought his eyes up to the mirror and asked, “Perry, are you OK?”
I shook my head, my face turning hot as I strained against the convulsions. I was going to throw up. I had to throw up.
“Are you gonna vom?” Ada backed away from me slightly.
I felt something makes its way past my tonsils and onto my tongue. A piece of food, maybe?
Nope. It started crawling slowly in my mouth, tiny pinpricks brushing my palate.
Revolted, I spit with al my might and a black bal shot out and onto the middle seat.
Ada and I peered down at it, disgusted but curious.
The black bal unfurled itself and I could see it wasn’t black at al . Just black and yel ow. And moving.
A wasp.
“What’s going on?” Dex asked frantical y, trying to drive straight and see behind him at the same time.
“Ewwwww,” Ada said. The wasp buzzed its wings in an attempt to fly but Ada was faster and she smashed it into the seat with one of her shoes she’d taken off.
There was a hush of relief among us. Then the sick feeling intensified, like an entire nest of wasps was crawling out of the recesses of my stomach and scurrying up my esophagus, blocking me from precious air. I was drowning in them.
I tensed and writhed in my constraints while Ada and Dex watched me with horrified eyes. My mouth flew open and I heaved up a mass of wriggling wasps that landed on my lap in a sickening heap.
Ada screamed. I heaved and heaved, unable to get them al out of me.
And Dex was deathly al ergic to wasps. It was he who panicked first. I couldn’t blame him. He yel ed and flailed and tried to drive but it was too much.
In slow motion, like a scene from a movie, the car careened off the highway.
We bounced down an embankment, the sound of tires grinding asphalt, then gravel, then grass, and we coasted along flatness for a few seconds; time that slowed us down.
A tree appeared in the headlights, fol owed by a magnificent crunch.
There were screams.
Bodies flying forward.
Wasps.
Blood.
Then it was over.