Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

 The mist drifted in just as the bus came close to its stop, and Connie watched as it thickened, blocking off the road and reflecting the bus's headlights back into her eyes. The bus driver cursed, then glanced up at Connie and looked a little guilty.

"Is this close enough to get out?" Connie asked, and the driver furrowed his brow.

"Might be. You sure you should be coming out here alone?" 

"It's only a day trip," Connie assured him, and he opened the doors. "Thanks," she told him, and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

The town she was in was the hometown of one of her favorite authors, a horror writer who'd written such classics as THAT and Vampire's Lot , and when her parents had gone to a wedding in the south of the state she'd begged to be allowed up here by herself. Roderick Queen was such a prolific writer, and his stories were always so bone-chilling! If she was lucky, she'd be able to swing by the museum dedicated to him, and the movie set for THAT , and maybe get some cool souvenirs to show Steven when she got back...

The bus disappeared completely from view as Connie went farther down the sidewalk, and mist crowded her from all sides. She shouldered her backpack more firmly and decided to get into a building to wait until it passed; she wasn't going to get any sightseeing done at this rate. There weren't any other people around, anyway, so everyone else must have had the same idea.

A post office materialized out of the gloom, and Connie made a beeline toward it, pushing in the door with a little ding. She frowned when the door didn't open all the way. "Hello?" she called, trying to squeeze into the crack between the door and the frame. "Is this place closed?" She shrugged off her backpack and squirmed through, losing her balance a little as she overshot.

Oh.

For a long moment she processed only flashes: long dripping stingers, a poster on package requirements, movement against the walls, glassy eyes staring in her direction with a gaping mouth below them--

A face with a swollen cheek, and a body attached to it, and a mangled hand flopping over the side of the desk. Connie choked back a gasp and stumbled into the door, making the bell jingle damningly behind her-- and the hundreds of little stinger-creatures in the room shifted and turned in her direction, humming low and ominous in the tiny room.

Connie inched to the side, feeling for the crack between the door and the frame, and pushed the door open just a little more so she could slip through. The bell rang again-- stupid !-- and the bugs' humming shifted to a terrible growl. A few of them lifted off and shot in Connie's direction.

She slammed the door shut just as they reached her, and the glass cracked between them. Then, gasping as adrenaline flooded her system, she grabbed her backpack and ran.

*

Connie found an alleyway between two little shops, half-covered by the lid of a dumpster and a thrown-out sofa, and crouched between them, hoping it was enough to hide from whatever was out there.

There had been blood splattered against the door of one of the souvenir shops, accompanied by something she recognized from her books as viscera. There had been a severed hand in the middle of the street, being eaten by something that looked like a hybrid of a bat and a pterodactyl. There had been cars with smashed-in windows in the middle of the street, and an abandoned, empty stroller, and a dropped cell phone... A bad taste welled up in her throat. She had to struggle to control her breathing, and when she pulled out her phone she nearly dropped it herself, her hands were shaking so hard. She could call the Gems, and they could be here fast-- could protect anyone else here, could maybe protect her parents-- could maybe (shamefully) protect her-- but was this a Gem monster? She'd never heard of one that outright killed people, not like this--

It didn't matter, she told herself. The Gems had superior firepower. They could deal with this, once they came, and no one else would die.

But then her phone's screen lit up, no signal screaming in red text in the center of the screen, and Connie's blood ran cold. There went that idea.

Something moved in the corner of her vision, and she ducked down behind the couch, breathing hard and fast. She heard scraping against the ground, the wet sound of tearing meat, a gurgling-- and then silence. No screaming. That was good, right? That meant whatever the thing had been eating had already been dead. It wouldn't have felt any pain.

Connie forced herself to relax, pressing against the sofa like it might swallow her up completely and take her out of this situation. She had to think. She was in a combat scenario. Most of the people in this town probably weren't trained for battle or experienced in it at all. There was a military base nearby, so maybe some of them would be soldiers, but most of them wouldn't be able to keep their heads in a crisis. Connie would have to do that for them, because she was a Crystal Gem, and people getting hurt was her problem.

Deep breaths. So what did she know? She was in a small town that she wasn't familiar with, near the Eastern seaboard, and it was being besieged by a mist that brought monsters, or at least by a mist that correlated with the appearance of monsters. Visibility was almost non-existent. She didn't have any weapons, any allies, or any way to call for help-- to call for backup. Nothing had happened to the bus before they'd gone into the mist, so it was probable that the monsters didn't go outside of it.

She hoped they didn’t go outside of it. She didn't want to think of what might have happened to the bus after she'd left, if they did.

Her parents wouldn't realize something was wrong unless they tried to call her or saw something on the news. They might realize there was a problem when she didn't come back tonight, but that would probably be too late. They might be in trouble themselves, in a way that a flashlight and some authoritative words couldn’t fix. They might be dead.

Connie felt like crying. Without the Gems, without her sword and Lion by her side, what was she? A squishy little human, not big enough to be a real threat and nowhere near strong enough to matter. The mist hung so low to the ground that it wisped around her legs where she curled up, whiting out everything more than a couple of feet from her. There could be one of those bug things about to fly right at her face and she'd never know. There could be someone else right there and she'd never know-- and they might never know that she was there, either.

She could just stay here for as long as she could, maybe, cowering like a prey animal until the mist cleared. That might give her a better chance of survival. But she couldn't imagine going back to face her friends and saying, I hid until the monsters went away. Saying I let people die and did nothing like she hadn't been trained to protect Earth and everything on it, like she hadn't decided over a year ago to fight whenever she could, like she hadn't faced off against a Diamond--

If she were Stevonnie right now, she'd already be out there.

Connie closed her eyes and tried not to hyperventilate. The survival manual said that in disaster situations it was best to get shelter. Crystal Gem training said that she should always protect those weaker than herself. She could do one, and then she could figure out how to do the other. 

She pulled her feet back under her, rubbing her legs until the pins and needles went away, and stood up as steadily as she could. Slow breathing, heart beating so fast she could feel it in her throat, on edge and listening for the slightest movement, the slightest change that would make her dash for cover-- 

There were headlights somewhere in the mist, faint enough that Connie thought they might be on the other side of the street. If they were on the other side of the street, they might be in a parking lot, and they might be near a building. Buildings were shelter. 

Connie looked around, hands shaking without her permission, and wrangled her nerves. Then she ran.

Her shoes smacked against the pavement, so loud they kicked her panic up a notch-- too loud, they'd attract something, they had to-- She skidded past the car with its headlights on and almost ran into a giant spider. The spider hissed and clicked low in its throat, raising its front legs, and Connie barely dodged before it sent a thin strand of web past her head. The strand hit the pavement steaming and ate through it like it was nothing.

Oh, god, what would that do to human flesh--

More and more of the arachnids crawled out from under cars and around shopping carts, and Connie fled from them without thinking, moving sideways from her goal and choking on her fear, stumbling over a pothole in the road and scraping her knees bloody-- 

There was something huge in front of her, long-tailed like a scorpion and move, skirt close so it can't hit itself and duck behind a wall as it comes at you-- The tail slammed into the wall and cracked it down to its foundations, and Connie forced herself not to cry out. The monster was coming closer.

Another, larger creature screamed something from farther away, and the scorpion-thing paused to screech back, giving Connie the chance to flee. She had to be at least a few blocks from that parking lot. The thing hadn't noticed she was gone yet, was still investigating the wall like it thought she had hidden there...

Her hand hit glass as she backed up farther, and she choked back a sob and clawed for a handle. Please let there be an opening. Please don't let the thing notice where she'd gone.

Connie didn't have time to react. "There's something at the door!" a voice hissed, and then a gunshot rang out, shooting a hole through the glass right next to her, and Connie slammed her hands over her ears too late. Pain made the world white out for a second, so sharp that she almost thought she'd been shot, and she couldn't tell if she'd screamed. But she could see the creature turning, lifting its tail over its head, and it was coming her way... "Please let me in," she gasped out past the ringing in her ears, trying to think of another way through-- what if it would just kill them all? Should she run, could she cover these people, she didn't want to die-- "I'm not a monster, I promise!"

The door opened, and Connie was yanked into the building. "Oh, God, it's just a kid, you shot at a kid," someone was babbling. Connie twisted out of her rescuer's grip on reflex and moved away from the door, glancing at the ceilings, the vents, the walls-- no bugs. Just people. She wasn't the only one.

Her whole body was shaking. Through the half-covered glass she saw the creature move away and nearly sobbed with relief.

"I thought it was a monster--" 

"And now there's a hole in the fucking glass, Harvey, you idiot--"

There were six other people in the gas station with her: an old man, a woman and a little kid, two teens who looked like employees, and an older man who looked like a manager. He was the one they'd called Harvey. The old man was bloody-handed, wild-eyed like a panicked racehorse, and the teen who wasn't yelling, short like Sadie, was hugging herself and whispering what sounded like a prayer.

"Are you all right?" the woman with the little kid asked, looking at Connie with wide-eyed concern. Her child was sniffling and clinging to her pants and couldn't have been older than Onion.

Connie made herself nod and tried to still her shaking. She couldn't look like she was scared. A Crystal Gem wasn't supposed to be scared, and she'd already messed that up, but now there were other people she had to help. "I-I'm fine. Just a little scraped up." She pulled herself together, trying to think past the stabbing pain in her ears, and added, "I'm Connie-- Connie Maheswaran. I came in on a bus."

Harvey and the other teen had stopped yelling, now, and were patching up the windows-- moving drink crates in front of them, mostly, and taping up the rest. The woman glanced over at them like she was worried and said, "I'm sorry you had such bad luck, then. I'm Sophia, and this is Jamal." The little child curled closer to his mother. "We've been stuck here since the mist arrived." She leaned closer and asked, softer, "What's it like out there? There was a police officer in here who went out to investigate, but he never came back. We heard screaming."

"The monsters killed at least a few people," Connie said, casting a worried (not terrified) glance at the door. It seemed so flimsy now. "I saw a body, and then I think there were others, caught in webs-- there are spiders that spit acid, and that giant scorpion thing, and these giant flies with wicked stingers." Her head really hurt. "Other things, too, probably." 

"Fuck," the teen from the door said emphatically. He growled something else and punched over a display of cheese puffs, sending them clashing to the ground-- "Fuck! Acid spiders? How are we supposed to fight these things?"

"We don't fight them," the old man growled. "We stay in here until the military comes or the mist goes away." 

"Until we die, you mean," the other teen said tearfully. "Those things are gonna come in here next and tear us apart, and I can't even call my mom!"

"I didn't have any service, either," Connie said, because it was a choice between helpfulness and a panic attack and she could only afford one of those. "I think the mist is disrupting a lot of things."

"Well, good for you, brainiac," Harvey snapped. "How's knowing that supposed to help us? Who are you, anyway? Not a local kid, or I'd know you like I know these two morons." The boy glared at him and rolled his eyes, while the girl only started sobbing even more quietly. Sophia sent Harvey a quelling glance and went over to talk to her in a low voice.

"My name is Connie," Connie repeated. Her legs were starting to seriously sting, and she thought she might have scraped them up more than she'd thought. She touched her still-ringing ears, and her finger came away bloody. That wasn't a good sign. That was the actual opposite of a good sign. "I came in on a bus. My parents are south of here, and I'm supposed to be back to our hotel room to meet them by the end of the day." If they weren't dead, that was. If they hadn't been dissolved in acid or eaten whole or stung until their throats swelled, if their corpses weren't webbed to the hotel ceiling--

"Uh-huh," Harvey said. He crossed his arms. "How do we know you're not just trying to trick us?"

"Harvey!" the boy snapped.

Harvey snarled at him, "Do you know this kid? Who even lets their daughter wander around all alone at this age, huh? How do we know the mist can't bring up human monsters, too, to trick us and get inside our defenses--"

"Shut up," the old man said. Harvey shut up, and the old man turned towards Connie. "You. Connie. Where're you from?"

 "Delmarva," Connie said, and her voice wasn't as steady as she would've liked. "I live near a town called Beach City."

"Beach City?" The crying girl looked up. "Like, Keep Beach City Weird, that Beach City?"

Connie's panic derailed into confusion for a moment. "You read Ronaldo's blog?"

The girl leaned forward. "I've been following it for years, I--" She teared up again. "I thought it'd be cool, if monsters existed. I didn't think it'd be like this."

"So it's in some blog," Harvey snarled. "So what? It doesn't mean she's real."

"I'm pretty sure it does, actually," Sophia told him with a glare. "And I think we should focus on the problems we have outside of this station instead of making new ones inside it. Connie, sweetheart, are you hurt?"

Connie shook her head and told herself it wasn't lying, then said, "Just a few scrapes. I need a first aid kit."

It turned out there was a first aid kit behind the counter. Connie settled in and talked with Jamal, uncomfortably conscious that she was being placed in the kids' section while the adults talked, and washed pebbles out of her scrapes. She dabbed the blood out of her ear, too, but she didn't know how to treat a ruptured eardrum. Her right ear rang and rang.

"We need to be prepared to be in this for the long haul. Rationing food, keeping watch, all that good stuff," Harvey was saying to the others. 

"I'll keep first watch," the boy said immediately. "Lana, there's a mop in the back still, right? And we sell knives."

Make a spear, Connie realized, just as the boy said the same thing. She coaxed Jamal back to his mother and got to her feet. If they could get prepared-- she could help with that, she could be useful-- "How many knives do you have? Or-- anything flammable, or cleaning supplies, I'm really good at Chemistry." 

"We've got a broom somewhere," Lana said, staring at her. "And-- a ton of knives, and lighters--"

"That girl I fired last week left her hairspray in the back room," Harvey volunteered. "We could make a flamethrower?"

Connie's courage started to come back to her. This was something she could do. "If you have beer and cleaning rags we can make bombs, and we can use the knives to sharpen other things," she said, "and we could have two sentries, since just one means if they're attacked they might not raise an alarm--"

"Makes sense," the old man grudgingly agreed, cutting her off. "We've got that gun, too, even if we've only got two bullets left." 

Sophia's eyes flicked from Connie to Jamal. "Might wanna save those," she said, and Connie was barely starting to register the implications when she added, "In case something worse comes along."

"It won't come to that," Connie promised, and Sophia startled guiltily. "Everyone's going to get through this. We've got a base of operations, and food, and weapons. We can survive."

Harvey growled, "This ain't a video game, kid. These are real monsters we're fighting. Real fucking threats. They aren't gonna go down easy."

A cold trickle of fear ran down Connie's spine, but she pushed it back. Don't panic, her mother had told her once. If a surgeon panics, so does everyone else, and then nothing gets done. And maybe Connie wasn't a surgeon, but a six-thousand-year-old alien made of light had taught her how to fight, and that was more than any of these people could say. She had to keep her head. "That's okay," she said, forcing herself to smile, to look the older man in the eye. "I've fought monsters before."

Chapter Text

The world outside started to get darker as the hours wore on, but the mist showed no signs of letting up. Harvey gave managerial permission for them to eat what they liked, and Connie ate a few protein bars without really thinking about it as she looked out past the taped-up windows. One of the windows was only partially blocked by Budweisers, showing thick fog and not much else. The boy- Tommy, she'd learned- placed a lit flashlight close to the glass. "In case anyone's looking for shelter," he explained.

"You honestly think anyone's still alive out there?" Sophia asked incredulously. 

"If a little girl managed it, I'm sure someone else could," the old man grunted.

Connie wasn't so sure, but she didn't contradict him. She just set up near the candy aisle, examining their escape routes in case they had to get out fast and trying to keep tabs on Jamal. He was the littlest; if she had to, she might be able to grab him and run, if she couldn't help everyone else. The thought made her queasy. 

Lana settled down next to Connie, a welcome distraction, and unwrapped a moon pie with a hesitant smile. "I never get to eat these things at home," she confided. "My mom says they're full of trans fats."

"Completely filled with them," Connie confirmed, smiling back. "Don't worry, though, I won't tell." She took a little piece of the moon pie when Lana offered it, and offered a pack of Skittles in return. Outside, something that sounded like a large moth smacked against the glass.

They both startled, staring at the windows, but nothing happened; after a moment, they all settled down. "Connie," she started, almost nervously, "You said you're from Beach City?"

"Yeah, I am." Connie fidgeted, picking up her broom handle and checking the vicious bowie knife strapped to its end with duct tape. The makeshift spear had a good heft and a solid balance. Pearl would have made a face at it, but she wouldn't have dismissed it as unusable. That was the best that Connie could hope for. "And you're from here?"

"Yeah," Lana said with a breathy laugh. "I'm- nothing ever happens here. Especially nothing like this. Is it different, where you're from?"

Connie paused, suddenly aware of a weight to this conversation that she should have noticed from the beginning. "You're asking about monsters," she said carefully. "Right? Like, if there's actually monsters."

"Yeah." Lana hugged her knees. "Stupid question, I know."

"It's not stupid," Connie said firmly. "Ronaldo's not right about everything-- like, I don't think snake people are a thing-- but all that stuff about the gems, and the gem monsters? That's all true. I've fought them myself."

Lana stared. "So, you mean... all that stuff with the red thing that appeared the sky, and the giant alien ships that crashed on the beach, and the secret alien moon base... that's all true? A bunch of people actually got alien-abducted? There's actually shrapnel from different battles running around? People got attacked by drill creatures during a party?"

"I... don't think I was there for some of that, but yeah, it's true," Connie promised. "I even went to Siberia one time to track a couple of gem monsters! They were really big, and covered with fur, and they couldn't see, but they could really smell..."

She told stories for a while-- how Aquamarine and Topaz had almost abducted half the town, how she'd met her best friend when he saved her from falling rocks and they'd gotten stuck in a bubble running from a glowing worm, how Amethyst had eaten a whole restaurant out of business one time-- and Jamal started listening in, too, laying his head on his mother's lap as Connie talked. Lana looked more settled as they spoke.

When Jamal had gone to sleep and Lana had gone to help Tommy and the old man with the fortifications, Sophia said, "Thank you for telling them those stories. Even if it isn't real, it really helps."

Connie didn't contest the point. "It's nothing," she said instead with a smile, trying to copy what Steven would do in this situation. "It's, um, the least I can do."

Sophia opened her mouth to say something else, then jerked to her feet, grabbing Jamal, as something hit the window with a rattling thump. Connie jumped to her feet, too, holding her makeshift spear and trying to get used to the unfamiliar weight. Another heavy impact cracked the glass in front of the flashlight. "The light," she breathed. "Tommy, get the light away from the window!"

Tommy lunged, but a third impact sent the already-damaged glass flying, and he ducked away. One of the bugs that Connie had seen before crawled through the opening, raising its tail ominously, and behind it-- what was that?

The new creature shrieked and snapped up the fly, pterodactyl-beak clacking as it choked it down, and took to the air. The glass started to creak and groan, more of the flies and their predators breaking in, and Connie tightened her grip on the spear. "Get to the back room!" she ordered, pushing Lana behind her; she saw Sophia grab Jamal and run, and slashed a bug out of the air before it could follow them. It careened toward the ground, buzzing furiously, and Connie crushed it with the butt of the broom. 

For every bug they killed, however, more crashed in, and the pterodactyl-things followed them. Connie, Tommy, and Harvey were driven back, Harvey trying to shove Connie back towards the others where they hid, but Connie only ducked under his arm and speared one of the predators, yanking her blade through its neck as it shrieked and spluttered blood. She sank into the same mindset as Corrupted gem battles: avoid, use the terrain against them, don't get hit. It made her wish even more fervently for Steven at her side.

Tommy charged and slashed at a predator that was swooping down on Connie, and the creature turned on him, shrieking loud enough to hurt. It lunged and bit a deep gouge into his shoulder, too fast to dodge, and Tommy screamed. Connie covered Tommy on the ground as a gunshot rang out and sent the predator twitching to the floor. "Turn off the lights," she called out again, shaking. "It attracts them, turn them all off!"

The gas station finally went dark, but it was too late; under her hands Tommy was twitching and gargling, choking on his own blood. Connie tore off her jacket and pressed it into his wound, trying to staunch the bleeding, but the predator had torn partway through his neck, and his jugular vein was spewing blood. Harvey lit one of the bugs on fire, slamming it into the ground beside him, and Connie screamed at him, "My bag, get my bag!" She'd read that whole wilderness survival book twenty times, she was prepared, please let it be enough-

The old man kicked her bag toward her, and Connie took pressure off of Tommy's neck for a precious second to dig around and pray. Change of clothes, hotel room key, water bottle- there, a little vial of glimmering water, bright even in the dim flames from the dying bug. Connie wrestled it open and poured it over Tommy's gaping neck and shoulder, then started dragging him backwards, away from the window and the swarming creatures.

The old man helped her and Harvey covered her as they retreated into the employee room. Sophia slammed the door, breathing hard, and Connie collapsed next to Tommy. "Please be okay, please be okay," she begged. It had been such a tiny amount of water, just a whim, just in case...

Tommy met her eyes and sat up suddenly, choking and coughing up blood, then gasped once-- twice-- and seemed to catch his breath. "Oh my god," he choked out. "Oh my god, oh god, oh god. I was dead. I thought I was dead."

"Lucky that thing didn't get anything important," Harvey said gruffly, passing over a bandage. There was still a wound there, half-healed and drastically smaller, so Tommy could wrap it up with impunity. Connie could have drowned in the relief.

They passed the night uneasily, in that back room, and not one of them suggested going back out for their weapons.

In the morning the mist was still there, but the creatures were gone.

*

They took as much duct tape as they could find and patched up the windows in a riot of leopard print and metallic gray. The weird pterodactyl things were gone, but the scorpion-creature that had attacked Connie the night before still paced in front of the station. It didn’t come any closer as they hurriedly taped up the windows, but sometimes Connie thought it was looking in their direction. It made her skin crawl.

“Do you think it knows we’re here?” Lana whispered to Tommy.

Her coworker shrugged with his uninjured shoulder. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just bored.”

Sophia passed out water bottles and Powerade to each of them; the power had gone out during the night, so the refrigerated things had to be consumed first. Connie tore open a pack of Twizzlers and tried to savor the taste. They didn’t go very well with blue raspberry.

Time dragged on. Occasional shrieks and whistles came from the mist, and little wisps of it pushed through the tape barrier like living things and curled along the floor. Connie tried again and again to get signal and was unsuccessful; the old man dragged a radio out of a back room and received only static.

“We just have to wait for the military to come,” he told everyone again and again. “They’ll come, soon enough. You’ll see.”

Connie closed her eyes and tried to mentally contact Steven, but all she could see was the back of her eyelids.

“That’s it,” Harvey snapped after a few hours, jerking to his feet. “I’m not spending another day in here doing nothing while that monster creeps around outside. There’s a back way out of this station; I suggest we take it, and get to my car, and get the hell outta town. This mist can’t go on forever.”

“And if it does?” Sophia demanded. “I’m not about to take my child out into the middle of a swarm of things!”

“What choice do we have? We can’t stay put too long, or it’ll come through that tape.” Harvey wheeled around and glared at Connie. “And if she hadn’t led it right to us-”

“Don’t you start putting blame on her-”

"We don't have to leave," Lana begged. "We have enough food in here to last a few more days! Why risk it?"

"Don't talk to me about risk when you're the one who told Tom to put the light up!" Harvey screamed, and the scorpion monster's shadow stilled outside the windows. Lana choked back a gasp and covered her mouth. "If you hadn't come up with that fucking stupid idea, we wouldn't be in this mess! We would still be in a secure location! But no, you had to go all bleeding heart, nearly get all of us killed with your namby-pamby feel-good shit-"

"Harvey, shut up!" Sophia snapped, but it was too late. The monster came closer, shadow blocking out the misty light completely, and one of its claws pushed experimentally against the Budweiser crates. It made a deep screech and pushed harder, tilting them onto the floor with a slam and sending hundreds of glass shards across the ground. Sophia shrank backwards, pushing Jamal behind her, but he was already crying; the creature shrilled at the noise and slammed against the crates even harder, knocking them over like building blocks. 

"Fuck," Tommy breathed. "We can't fight that thing."

"G-get to the back room," Harvey stammered, stepping back. Sophie, Lana, and the old man took his advice and fled with Jamal, but Connie stood fast, spear at the ready. The manager glared at her. "Kid, what did I just sa-"

She didn't have time to warn him before one of the claws caught his leg and yanked him against the crates. He screamed in pain and tried to wrestle loose, but it tightened around him, making his leg spurt blood- Connie dove forward and pulled out a knife, trying to saw through the carapace, but the blade just glanced off the surface. Harvey's  screaming got louder. The creature pulled harder- Tommy came up to grab at Harvey's arms and pulled in the other direction, feet sliding on the linoleum, but it was a losing fight. The creature was going to take Harvey and rip him apart, and then it was going to come after the rest of them, and none of them knew how to fight, this wasn't their job-

Connie made the decision before she could think about it. 

She had a spear, and there was a flashlight clipped to her belt. That would have to be enough. She grabbed a couple power bars from the register and shoved them in her pockets, then darted toward the door and out. Tommy couldn't stop her without letting go of Harvey. She was counting on that.

"Wait, kid, don't-"

The door slammed shut behind her, and she was surrounded by mist.

On the outside, she still couldn't see the entire monster, but what she could see was easily bigger than two cars. Not the largest she'd ever faced. She'd faced bigger in Siberia, with Steven at her side, and that had been when she'd barely started training. She was better now. She had to be.

Connie screamed a war cry and charged the creature from behind. It reared and turned on her with a face out of an entomologist's nightmares, but she was already close, already under its guard; her blade slashed across its mandibles, drawing dark blood, and then she was out of range before it could catch her. Its claws were empty now, so it had let go of Harvey- but it was blocking the door, and it would surely go right back to attacking if she went inside. She'd already provoked it. The least she could do was lead it away.

Connie felt cold determination course through her veins. She kept attacking until the thing lumbered toward her, scorpion-tail swinging over its head, and when it was close enough, she took her heart in her throat and ran.

The mist swallowed her and the monster both.