The World in Flower

32. Home Safe?

Adam's phone bleeped. Without thinking, he answered it.

Sami blinked at him. "Um. Hi. What happened to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You've got two black eyes and it looks like your nose is bleeding."

"Oh. We had a car accident. I kinda hit the dashboard."

"And you were worried about us!" she exclaimed. "But seriously, why haven't you had that seen to?"

"Everyone's been kind of busy with Austin, who was sitting beside me."

"Oh no! Is he okay? Are the babies okay?"

"I don't know, but not all the babies are okay."

"What happened with them?"

"I think because the sac the larva were in wasn't a natural organ, it was more susceptible to damage. And so when his lap belt impacted his abdomen, the sac tore."

"Oh, God!"

"And then some of the larva decided to... emerge early."

"Oh, no. Do I want to know?"

"I guess when they're mature they work together to make that as painless and of limited extent as possible, but this was just every bug for himself, and, um. Well, I don't actually know how bad it was because I passed out at the first one."

"Oh. I'd tease you about that, but just thinking about it is making me queasy."

"How far away are you? You should only have an hour or so to go, right?"

"It's going to be longer than that. We lost track of one of the kids and spent what felt like forever finding him. When we did, he'd somehow managed to get himself adopted by the mother of all bears. This thing was massive."

"Sounds like you guys needed Austin with you."

"Yeah. We needed both of you. But anyhow, Adam -- my Adam, obviously -- managed to lure him out of the den and then block the entrance to keep the momma bear from chasing him. Only the bear broke through or got around or something. I'm not sure."

"Is he okay?"

"He managed to get to the RV with a little help, but had a really bad asthma-ish attack--"

"His post-COVID stuff?"

"Yeah. So he's sleeping off the healing one of the Narrez we're rescuing did."

"We're such a healthy lot." Adam shook his head. "Oh, hey, there's Rob and Tim. I'll let you talk to Tim."

He sat listening to his partner fill Sami in on Austin's condition, trying not to shudder, while Rob examined his nose and ran him through a concussion check.

"Okay, I'm going to do a little healing, stop all the bleeding and bruising," Rob explained. "Be prepared to feel a little sleepy for a while."

"Yup. I know the drill."

"Okay."

"All right. Bye, Sami," Tim said, then handed Adam his phone back.

Rob began Singing. It wasn't a deep healing, but it still filled Adam with colorful sounds, scratchy flavors, and aromatic sights.

As Rob sat back, inspecting his work, Tim exclaimed, "Well, fuck."

"What's up?" Rob asked.

"I just realized we're going to have to find another vehicle to steal."

Adam started laughing, though he couldn't explain even to himself why he found that so funny.

***

"Shouldn't... everybody be... back by now?" Lexi asked Tim as he helped her into the van he'd commandeered. All the really nice ones had been taken by the refugee transport group, but this one wasn't too bad.