CHAPTER 66: CHAPTER 65 : DON’T HOLD BACK

The forest didn’t charge.

It **rolled.**

Roots thickened under the soil, cracking the dry ground in spreading rings. Vines slithered across the dirt like muscle. The air thrummed with something alive enough to have hunger and memory and fury.

Zza felt the network pushing through her shell — not controlling, not puppeteering — just **asking.**

*Are you coming?*

She squeezed her claws. "I’m coming. Don’t rush me."

The newborn Queen stepped forward until she stood nose-to-metal with the perimeter wall. Her wings unfurled — slow, deliberate — each blade-like plate catching the gray light until shadows warped around her. No roaring. No threats. She just existed in a way that made the world lean back.

Scarabs arranged themselves at her sides, six by six by six. Centipedes curled and layered like armor plating. Glowbeetles rose into the air in rotating spirals, lights flaring bright enough to blind. Drones lined behind Zza, some trembling, some steady, all present.

Zza drew one breath in and tasted **Buzz.**

Faint.

Hurting.

But *there*.

She didn’t dare speak his name. Speaking it felt like saying a prayer with your hands still in the fire.

The newborn Queen raised a claw and placed it against the metal.

The wall didn’t dent.

Didn’t melt.

Didn’t tremble.

It just... sat there.

Ugly. Unmoving. Unimpressed.

Zza hated it instantly.

The newborn whispered, almost humiliated, "It rejects me."

Zza blinked. "Well yeah. It’s steel. It doesn’t care if you’re a miracle or a nightmare. You can’t intimidate fabrication."

The Queen looked at her. "You sound like him when you say things like that."

Zza shrugged, silk trailing dust. "We rot together. That’s love."

Scarabs clicked in agreement — the grim kind.

But before anyone could try something reckless — the wall **spoke.**

A speaker clicked to life.

Static.

Then a voice.

**His.**

Buzz’s voice.

Broken.

Dragged.

Bent into something almost monotone.

"Zza. Stop. Go back. Don’t come closer."

Zza froze.

The coalition froze.

The newborn’s wings dropped half-open — defensive posture.

Zza stepped forward, claw to metal. "Buzz. Buzz, I’m here. I’m right here."

His voice played again — exactly the same phrasing, same pauses, same tone.

A recording.

A warning.

A trap.

Zza’s claws curled until the tips snapped.

"That’s not him. They’re **using** him."

The newborn leaned closer, voice cutting. "He is still alive. I feel the link. But the words... they’re hollow."

Zza nodded once, breath trembling. "So we break them."

The humans seemed to have been waiting for that exact sentence.

Panels in the wall **slid open.**

Turrets rose.

Not guns.

**Emitters.**

Zza’s stomach dropped.

Suppressor tones.

Buzz had told her once, in passing — half-laughing, half-shaking — that those were the only thing that ever made him truly afraid.

The humans didn’t shout warnings.

Didn’t threaten.

Didn’t justify.

They activated the emitters.

The world went inside-out.

---

Zza hit the ground so fast she didn’t realize she’d fallen. Her shell was screaming — no, *her nerves* were screaming — like every signal in her body had been reversed.

Glowbeetles dropped like stars raining down.

Scarabs clawed at their heads.

Centipedes writhed, segments locking.

The newborn staggered — but didn’t fall.

Her wings rattled like teeth.

Zza tried to speak — her mandibles clicked like misfiring gears.

She couldn’t think.

She couldn’t think.

She couldn’t think.

Then something cut through the tone — a pulse — like a heartbeat slammed against the inside of her skull.

Buzz.

Not words.

Just **impact.**

He was pushing against the frequency.

Trying to break it.

Trying to reach her.

Trying to **protect** them.

Zza lifted her head, body shaking.

She whispered: "Buzz. Please. Please. I’m here. I’m here."

The tone faltered.

Just for a fraction.

The coalition surged with it — gasping, crawling, rising.

The newborn regained her footing and screamed — not a roar — a **command** pitched straight into the network.

The forest answered.

Vines shot up and ripped the nearest emitter out of the wall.

Roots surged and *snapped* the second.

Glowbeetles recovered, forming a blinding spiral that fried the third’s optics.

The suppressor tone cut out entirely.

Silence crashed down like a dropped stone.

Zza’s breath came back hard and uneven.

But she was standing.

The coalition was standing.

The wall was exposed.

The newborn stepped back, looked at Zza, and said quietly:

"Lead."

Zza didn’t think.

She **ran.**

And the coalition ran behind her.

The humans panicked now — tripping, scrambling, fumbling for tranq guns and containment rods and emergency triggers.

They were scientists.

Researchers.

Observers.

They had never expected a war to run back at them.

The Scarabs hit first — claws slamming into armor, knocking bodies to the ground. Centipedes wrapped around legs and arms, dragging people down. Glowbeetles flared light into visors, blinding aim.

The newborn moved like inevitability — silent and unstoppable.

Zza didn’t look for glory.

She looked for **Buzz.**

Her claws tore into the wall’s seam. Silk reinforced the grip. Centipedes climbed over her, adding leverage. Scarabs braced behind them.

Together —

**they ripped the wall open.**

Cold air rushed out, stale and chemical.

White hallways.

Surgical brightness.

A smell like bleach and fear.

Zza ran.

Left turn.

Down corridor.

Past metal doors.

Her heart wasn’t beating fast — it was beating wrong — like it was trying to leap out of her chest.

She saw the room before her mind caught up with her eyes.

Glass.

Restraints.

Needles.

Monitors.

And him.

Buzz.

Barely conscious.

Eyes half-open.

Shell cracked.

Wires threaded through him like fishing line tugged through a caught fish.

Zza slammed against the glass, claws leaving streaks.

"Buzz. Buzz, look at me. Look at me. Please."

He didn’t open his eyes all the way — didn’t move —

—but his mandibles twitched.

Once.

That was enough.

Zza’s voice shattered.

"I’m here."

The newborn stood beside her. Quiet. Watching. Not intruding.

Then a voice came from behind them.

Calm.

Human.

"I wouldn’t break that glass if I were you."

They turned.

The tied-back-hair scientist stood in the doorway.

Holding something.

**A control harness.**

The kind used not to restrain bodies.

But **minds.**

His smile was gentle, professional — the kind people use right before doing something unforgivable.

"You made this so much easier, you know. We didn’t need to track the hive. We just had to take the one thing both Queens would die to protect."

Zza’s blood iced.

"You don’t understand him."

The man stepped closer, still smiling.

"I understand him better than you do. He isn’t your hero. He isn’t your soldier. He isn’t your love story."

He lifted the harness.

"He is the **key.**"

Zza lunged.

The man pressed the trigger.

Buzz’s eyes opened wide — and he **screamed.**

The forest screamed with him.

The newborn Queen dropped to her knees.

Zza didn’t fall.

She crawled toward him through the psychic roar like a creature ripping itself across broken glass.

Because love, when you’ve bled for it this long, stops being tender.

It becomes **devotion sharpened into violence.**

She reached the tank.

Her claw hit the glass.

It cracked.

The man’s smile finally broke.

"Don’t—"

The glass shattered.

Everything went white.

*************

White.

That was the first thing.

Not clean white.

Not peaceful white.

The kind of white that burns behind the eyes, that scrapes the nerves raw. The kind used in places where emotions were considered *contamination.*

Zza hit the floor on her side, air torn from her chest. Glass rained around her, glittering across the tiles like shattered stars. Her claws shook. Her silk clung to her, wet with ichor and adrenaline.

She was breathing too fast.

She didn’t slow it.

She didn’t have time.

Buzz was on the floor too.

Not restrained anymore.

Not held upright by wires.

Just there.

And that was somehow worse.

His limbs twitched in stutters — little spasms like the memory of movement, not movement itself. His shell glowed faintly along the cracks, a thin pulse of gold that refused to die out.

Zza crawled to him.

Her claws touched his face — gentle, terrified, reverent like prayer.

"Buzz," she whispered, voice shaking like it was trying to tear itself out of her throat. "Open your eyes. Please. Just once. Please—"

His mandibles moved.

Not words.

A breath.

A ghost of a sound.

But it was him.

She swallowed so hard it hurt.

The newborn Queen staggered up beside them, wings dragging the floor. She didn’t look victorious. She didn’t look threatening. She looked sick. Overwhelmed. Like the psychic scream had dug into her too — into the place where instincts became voice.

"He burned the link," she said, almost in awe. "He burned himself to do it."

Zza didn’t answer. Her world was three inches wide — the space between her claws and Buzz’s face.

Behind them, the coalition flooded the corridor, claws slipping on tiles, bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder.

Scarabs froze in reverent silence.

Glowbeetles dimmed their lights to a trembling shimmer.

Centipedes coiled in a wide protective ring.

Even the Elder’s silk hung motionless in the doorway.

No one made a sound.

Because this was not a battlefield anymore.

This was a **recovery site.**

A grave waiting to decide if it would stay a grave.

---

The scientist — the one with the tied-back hair — sat collapsed against the wall.

Blood trickled down his cheek. His eyes were wide, unfocused, like he was watching a movie only he could see.

His voice came cracked and thin:

"You don’t understand. We weren’t... hurting him. He was *changing.* He was becoming something more. Something we can’t afford to let roam free."

Zza didn’t look at him.

She didn’t need to.

The newborn did.

She stepped toward him — slow, quiet, almost tender.

Her shadow slid across the tiles like ink leaking into clean water.

The man tried to crawl backwards, but his hand slipped on broken glass.

The newborn crouched in front of him.

Her voice didn’t raise. It didn’t tremble. It didn’t threaten.

"You built cages because you were afraid of the world learning to speak back."

His breath hitched.

"You fear him because he is not one of you. But you fear us because we will not be controlled."

The scientist shook his head. Not denial. Despair.

"He was supposed to be the middle. The bridge. The translation. He could have made us understand each other."

Zza turned then.

Slow.

Her eyes were dull.

Her claws were steady.

"You strapped wires into his spine."

The man’s face crumpled.

"He would have saved everything."

Zza leaned close, voice low and cracked open:

"He still might. But not with you touching him."

She didn’t touch the man.

She didn’t have to.

Glowbeetles descended — a dozen of them — wings flickering in a silent rhythm. Light pulsed across his face. Something in him softened. His shoulders dropped. His jaw unclenched.

The scarabs escorted him away.

Not to kill.

To **leave him outside** the story.

He was done here.

---

Zza returned to Buzz.

She pulled him into her arms. Not to lift him. Just to hold him close enough that if his mind surfaced again, hers would be the first thing he felt.

His breath fluttered.

Then steadied.

Then fluttered again.

His voice came like a thread between teeth:

"...Zza."

She broke.

Not dramatically.

Not loudly.

Her forehead dropped to his.

Her claws held him like she was scared the world would try to take him again if she let go even a fraction.

"I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. I’m not leaving. I’m not—"

Buzz’s eyes opened.

Not fully.

Just enough.

Enough to see her.

Enough to recognize her.

Enough to choose.

He whispered — rough, strained, raw like bone exposed to the air:

"I thought I was gone."

She choked on a laugh that hurt like cracking ribs. "You tried."

His mandibles twitched.

"...You dragged me back?"

"No," she whispered. "You dragged *me* with you. We just decided to stop halfway."

Buzz closed his eyes again — but this time, not in collapse.

In relief.

His breath leveled.

The newborn Queen watched them.

Not jealous.

Not distant.

Something else.

Something like awe.

"His mind is fractured," she said quietly. "Piece by piece. If he sleeps now, he might not wake for a long time."

Zza didn’t hesitate.

"Then I sleep too."

The newborn nodded.

The coalition lowered around them — a living shield wall of shells and silk and readiness.

No victory was declared.

No cheer rose.

No speeches.

They just stayed.

Because sometimes survival itself was the climax.

---

But outside the facility — past the broken wall, past the ruined emitters, past the bodies and equipment left scattered like dropped toys —

**Something moved.**

Not forest.

Not insect.

Not human.

Something else.

Something that had been watching the experiment.

Recording it.

Waiting for *exactly this outcome.*

A drone.

Sleek.

Silent.

Unmarked.

It flew off.

Straight toward the nearest human city.

Carrying everything it had seen.

And more importantly—

**carrying Buzz’s name.**