The air in the living room cracked.

  Daria didn’t cross the distance; she blinked out of the chair and reappeared in Frankie’s face.

  CRACK.

  Daria’s palm hit Frankie’s chest.

  Like a swinging steel beam, Frankie’s ribs compressed. The air left her lungs in a wheeze.

  She flew backward.

  She smashed through the drywall separating the living room from the kitchen. Dust exploded. Plaster rained down like chalky snow. Frankie tumbled across the linoleum, crashing into the refrigerator. The heavy appliance dented, sliding a foot backward with a screech of metal on tile.

  Frankie gasped, trying to inhale. Her chest felt like broken glass.

  Get up.

  She rolled to her knees.

  Daria stepped through the hole in the wall. She strode, boots crunching over the debris of the Rivera family photos.

  “Weak,” Daria’s voice vibrated in Frankie’s teeth, bypassing her ringing ears. “You have the durability, but not the mass.”

  Frankie grabbed the refrigerator. She shoved it.

  The heavy steel box tipped.

  Daria didn’t dodge. She raised a hand.

  CLANG.

  She caught the metal, stopping the crushing weight with one hand. She crumpled the steel door like tin foil and shoved the appliance aside.

  “You are strong,” Daria said. “But you are only meat.”

  Frankie roared. A guttural sound, deeper than her vocal cords should allow. Her eyes burned, the red ring consuming the green.

  She charged.

  She launched. She hit Daria low, tackling her around the waist.

  They crashed into the kitchen island. Granite shattered. Wood splintered.

  Frankie drove Daria backward, slamming her into the stove. The gas burners ignited with a whoosh of blue flame.

  Frankie punched.

  Left. Right. Left.

  Her fists were blurs. Each impact sounded like a hammer hitting wet clay. She felt Daria’s skin tear, felt the tissue underneath give way. Blue blood sprayed, smelling of copper and ammonia.

  Daria smiled. Her face was a ruin of blue blood and torn skin, but the smile didn’t fade.

  “Good,” Daria projected. “Feel the anger. That is the fuel.”

  Daria grabbed Frankie’s wrists.

  She didn’t squeeze. She pulsed.

  A shockwave of blue energy traveled up Frankie’s arms.

  Not electricity. Agony. Her marrow boiled.

  Frankie screamed.

  Daria threw her.

  Frankie sailed over the kitchen island, through the open doorway, and back into the living room. She hit the ceiling fan, shattering the blades, before crashing onto the coffee table.

  Splinters. Glass. Dust.

  Frankie lay there for a second, staring at the ceiling. The thrum was deafening.

  Get up. Mom is watching.

  She rolled over, spitting blood.

  Leilani was screaming.

  “Stop it! Stop it!”

  Frankie looked toward the wall.

  The gray resin cocoon was cracking. Leilani fought.

  She tore her left arm free. Then her right.

  Chunks of the hardened slime fell to the floor.

  “Run, Mom!” Frankie rasped. She pushed herself up. Her legs shook.

  Daria emerged from the kitchen. Her face was already knitting together. The skin smoothed over the damage Frankie had inflicted. The worms under her skin hissed as they stitched the flesh.

  “She cannot run,” Daria said. “The atmosphere outside is already 40% saturated. She would drown in the fog.”

  Daria looked at Leilani.

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  “Stay,” she commanded.

  She flicked a finger.

  A wave of telekinetic force hit Leilani, pinning her back against the wall just as she pulled her leg free.

  Daria turned back to Frankie.

  “Again,” Daria said.

  Frankie grabbed a shard of the coffee table—a jagged leg of oak.

  She didn’t wait.

  In a blur of flannel and fury, she streaked across the room.

  She swung the wood like a stake.

  Daria caught it. She snapped the oak in half.

  But Frankie didn’t stop. She used the momentum to spin, delivering a roundhouse kick to Daria’s head.

  WHAM.

  Daria stumbled. Just a step.

  Frankie pressed the advantage. She grabbed Daria’s white uniform. She headbutted her.

  CRACK.

  Blue light gathered.

  Frankie hit her again. And again.

  Leilani didn’t move. She stared at Frankie’s red eyes.

  “Frankie?” Leilani whispered.

  She drove Daria back against the fireplace. Bricks cracked.

  “Die!” Frankie screamed.

  She buried her fist in Daria’s stomach.

  Daria grunted.

  Then, Daria laughed.

  “Enough.”

  Daria grabbed Frankie by the throat.

  She lifted Frankie off the ground. One hand.

  “You fight like an offspring,” Daria said. The Hive voice was angry now. Sharper.

  Daria slammed Frankie into the wall.

  Plaster dusted down. The house groaned, the structural beams whining under the stress of the cosmic energy radiating from the Captain.

  Daria squeezed.

  Frankie clawed at the hand. Diamond-hard.

  “You have potential,” Daria said, bringing her face close. The blue eyes swirled like nebulas. “But you lack conviction. You fight to save one life. I fight to save a species.”

  Frankie gagged. Her vision grayed at the edges.

  She kicked out, her sneakers scrabbling against the wall, finding no purchase.

  Thrum… Thrum…

  The sound numbed her nerves, slowing her heart.

  Outside, a sound cut through the fog.

  SCREEECH.

  Tires locking up on pavement. An engine roaring.

  Then, a sickening metal-on-metal crunch.

  Frankie glanced at the window.

  The van.

  Ted’s van had arrived. She could see the headlights cutting through the mist.

  But it wasn’t in the driveway. It sat in the street.

  Blocked.

  Tasia’s silver convertible blocked the driveway, hazard lights blinking weakly.

  “Move it!” Damon screamed from the street.

  The van reversed. Then rammed the convertible.

  CRUNCH.

  The sports car slid a few feet, tires screeching, but it was heavy. It wedged against the stone pillar of the gate.

  “Stuck!” Ted’s voice. Panic-pitched.

  They were thirty yards away.

  Thirty yards. Five seconds.

  Frankie looked back at Daria.

  Daria ignored it.

  “Help is coming,” Daria said. “They can watch you die.”

  Daria raised her free hand. Her fingers curled into a claw. The blue energy gathered, forming a jagged blade of light.

  “Mom…” Frankie choked out.

  A shadow moved in the corner of Frankie’s vision.

  Leilani.

  Legs free. Off the wall.

  She ran for the umbrella stand.

  She grabbed the aluminum baseball bat Frankie kept there for “home security.”

  She screamed. A raw animal sound.

  She swung.

  THUD.

  The metal bat connected with the back of Daria’s head. A wet, sickening impact.

  Daria’s head snapped forward. The blade of light in her hand flickered and vanished.

  She dropped Frankie.

  Frankie hit the floor, gasping, massaging her bruised throat.

  “Mom!”

  Daria turned slowly.

  She looked at Leilani. She looked at the bat in Leilani’s hands.

  She reached up and touched the back of her head. Her fingers came away wet with blue ichor.

  “Annoying,” Daria said.

  Leilani raised the bat again. Despite her shaking hands, she set her jaw.

  “Get away from her,” Leilani snarled. “You get the hell away from my daughter.”

  Daria tilted her head.

  “You are the reason she fights,” Daria said.

  She backhanded the air.

  Leilani’s feet lifted off the floor. She flew backward across the ruined living room.

  She hit the far wall.

  CRACK.

  The sound of bone hitting plaster was final.

  She slid down, limp. The bat clattered to the floor.

  “No!” Frankie screamed.

  She scrambled to her feet. She lunged for her mother.

  Daria stepped in her path.

  She grabbed Frankie by the front of her slip. She slammed her back against the wall, pinning her there with physical strength this time.

  Frankie punched Daria’s face. Smack.

  Daria didn’t blink.

  She drove her knee into Frankie’s stomach.

  Frankie doubled over, spitting bile.

  Daria grabbed Frankie’s hair and slammed her head back against the plaster.

  Stars exploded in Frankie’s vision.

  “Look at her,” Daria commanded. She forced Frankie’s head to the side, toward Leilani’s unconscious form.

  “See how fragile they are? One hit. And she is broken.”

  Frankie struggled, kicking, clawing. But her strength was fading. The thrum was numbing her nerves, dampening the adrenaline.

  “Damon!” Frankie screamed. “Help!”

  Outside, footsteps pounded on the driveway.

  “Frankie!” Damon’s voice. Closer. On the porch.

  Daria smiled.

  “Too late,” she whispered.

  She shifted her grip to Frankie’s throat. She lifted her feet off the floor again.

  She leaned in close. Her blue eyes filled Frankie’s entire world.

  “Now,” Daria said. “We end the lineage.”

  She raised her other hand. No blade this time.

  Shard of oak.

  Jagged point.

  Right over the heart.

  Frankie stared at the wood.

  Daria pulled her arm back.

  “This is the end.”