The Invasive Species

Two days later, the silence broke.

Hazel was in her kitchen, repotting a temperamental Maidenhair fern. It was her favorite—finicky, delicate, and prone to dying if she looked at it wrong. It was the only living thing she allowed herself to truly care about because it couldn't talk back.

* Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.*

Tires on gravel. Fast.

Hazel looked out the window. Three black SUVs were tearing up the single-lane dirt road that led to the cabins. They weren't delivering Amazon packages.

They skidded to a halt in front of Dante’s cabin. Doors flew open. Men in tactical gear poured out.

Gunfire erupted instantly.

It was loud—a jarring, mechanical *pop-pop-pop* that sent the birds screaming from the canopy. Hazel saw Dante dive behind his truck, returning fire. He was good, she had to give him that. He moved with a lethal economy, dropping one attacker with a double-tap to the chest.

But there were eight of them. And they had automatic rifles.

Bullets chewed up the siding of Dante’s cabin. He was pinned down, his ammunition running low.

"Not my problem," Hazel whispered, turning back to her fern. "Not my problem. He’s a criminal. This is nature taking its course."

* CRACK.*

The kitchen window exploded inward.

Hazel ducked, covering her face as glass sprayed across the counter.

She slowly lowered her arms. She looked at the counter.

The clay pot was shattered. The Maidenhair fern lay in a pile of potting soil, its delicate fronds severed by a 9mm round.

Hazel stared at the dead plant.

A heat started in her chest. It wasn't the warm, fuzzy heat of the hearth. It was the green, crushing heat of a jungle choking the life out of a city. It was the pressure of a tree root cracking a concrete foundation.

They killed her fern.

Hazel wiped a speck of blood from her cheek where a shard of glass had nicked her. She walked to the back door and kicked it open.

She stepped out onto the porch.

The hitmen were advancing on Dante’s truck. The leader, a man with a buzzcut, saw her. He laughed.

"Look at this," he shouted to his men. "The girlfriend came out to play. Get back inside, sweetheart, before you get hurt."

He aimed his rifle at her.

Dante looked up from behind the wheel well, his face streaked with dirt and blood. "Hazel! Get down!" he roared, genuine panic in his eyes.

Hazel didn't get down. She rolled up the sleeves of her oversized sweater.

"You are being," she said, her voice trembling with rage, "very loud."

She slammed her palms onto the wooden railing of the porch.