by Fox, Logan
Chapter Thirty-Six
Hunter
I shouldn’t be making this much noise, but it’s that or I lose sight of her. Clover is heading straight into danger—something I’m particularly aware of, but she doesn’t have a clue.
This river is so far off her course, I never even thought she’d reach it. Thus, I’d never considered the fact that she might actually drown during her trial.
For some reason, I’m more concerned with the fact that Clover might die than with the fact that my research will be rendered null and void if my subject were to perish during the trial.
What the hell has she done to me?
When I did I start to care?
Water rages ahead. Clover has never seen the rapids, but I have.
I’ve been in them, spitting and coughing and fighting for my life.
And I can’t help but wonder at the serendipity of this moment. I am a man of science, but don’t think for one fucking second I haven’t noticed how Clover’s experiences mirror my own.
Even now, as I’m crashing through the underbrush, déjà vu slams into me.
It derails my mind, my sense, all reason.
This test is hers, and yet ours.
I passed…but will she?
* * *
Eight years earlier
The forest shifts around me as I race for the only thing I recognize in this vast wilderness—running water.
To say I am entitled does little to explain just how wealthy and fortunate I am.
But I was never a happy child.
My sister, Holly? She’s the happy one. She’s the one that builds rainbows from storm clouds with no effort. I just bring hail, and lightning, and floods.
Her spirit never seems dampened by mine—although it should. I’m a serious child. Devoted to my studies. Earnest in proving to my father that I deserve the luxury he bestows on me.
But still, I’m aimless. In a world that has so very much to offer, how could I possibly choose a single direction? A single area to focus my studies? I want to cherry pick from every vocation the world has to offer. I want to know about ancient relics, and plants, and industry. I want to follow mankind through the ages, making assumptions about their thinking based on the manuscripts they themselves penned while knowing to an inarguable degree exactly which elements constitute the perfect compound.
And why can’t I?
If my lust for knowledge is this deep, this voracious, why must I substitute my love for the entire world by choosing but one of its many children as a favorite.?
I can’t.
I couldn’t.
My father saw this as a weakness. The man with iron focus can’t understand that his first-born son was a dreamer—if an intellectual one.
In his eyes, I had to excel. I could never be a jack of all trades—with him it was always master of one.
I chose botany. If only because of the vast knowledge the plant kingdom had to bestow on me. But even that wasn’t enough for Father. He wanted letters behind my name. A doctorate, a Ph.D—something concrete for him to hang his legacy on.
I had no interest in grades. I wanted to know everything, but I didn’t feel the need to prove that to anyone.
Over the years, I realized it was one or the other.
He would pay for my studies, but only if I excelled. Else, I would be deprived of the only thing that drove me from sleep every morning—knowledge.
They say, when you have enough money, you want power.
What they don’t tell you is that knowledge—higher knowledge—can only be attained through power.
Money buys power. Without money, the knowledge I so sorely sought would have been denied.
A rushing noise fills my ear.
I’m getting close to the source.
Suspended in the air, water particles condense on my face as I crash through the forest’s tangled embrace.
Too close.
I’m going too fast.
The moss floor is treacherous. When I see the drop ahead, water misting like fog in an attempt to partially obscure it, I already know I won’t be able to stop in time.
Momentum, you see?
My body battles the inevitable.
I grab hold of a passing branch, willing it to root me.
Instead, it snaps in two, and I thump down onto my ass.
I’m not prone to fear. Horror. Terror.
But speed? I don’t fancy it.
Free falling? For idiots.
I’m not dissuaded by the fact that I’m compelled to remain Earth borne by gravity.
Gravity is my friend. It’s kept me grounded all these years, after all. So I have no intention of fighting it. Flaunting it. Or disrespecting it.
The last few feet go by in a blur, and then I’m free falling.
But not for long.
The churning white waters of the river claim me less than a second later.
Ice water closes over me. It’s just deep enough for my head to bob under the surface before my bare feet strike the slimy river bed.
Spluttering and coughing, I surface. I spend desperate minutes fighting my way to the bank. Several times, I think I’m not going to make it. In fact, I almost resign myself to the fact that this may be my last few moments on Earth.
Any normal person might consider the after life. Religion. If this is it and if so, what a waste.
All I kept thinking was how much I still had to learn. And how pissed off I was at myself for doing something as foolish as this.
I drag myself out of the water, wet and spent. Rolling onto my back, I stare up at the sky. Purple twilight glows and fades in time with my pounding heart, and I wonder if that means I’m close to death.
But no…it just means I’ve finally reached the starting point of my journey.
The thought terrifies me more than anything in the world. I let out a wild howl, scramble up, and dart into the woods.
Please, protect me.
Please, don’t let me loose myself.
But Shadow Fox Grove would show me no mercy. This journey was meant to test me, and test me it did.
They say Ayahuasca is the mother plant. Maternal, yet strict. Her loving embrace can swiftly turn to punishment if you don’t heed her words.
That was one of several lessons I learned during my journey through the forest.
Lessons Clover must learn if she’s to survive this.
If she’s to break free from her addiction.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Clover
There’s so much noise surrounding me that I feel like I’m having a goddamn panic attack. Water ahead. Green things snapping and breaking around me. And from behind the sound of furious pursuit.
I’ve pissed him off by directly disobeying his arrows.
What’ll my punishment be?
Death? Something worse?
The sinister thought spurs me on.
Moist air flows over my legs. The forest floor becomes spongy underfoot with moss. It flourishes here, turning bark and rocks an emerald green.
Too late, I see the path ahead is suddenly clear. No more trees. No more branches.
Just a precipitous drop where a fine mist hangs in the air.
I try to stop. My feet slip. I throw out a desperate arm—fingers grasping—with a scream trapped in a throat too tight to let it escape.
Someone grabs my hand.
But it’s not enough.
My legs slide over the edge. My hips are next. The hoody hikes up my back, and a jutting stone scrapes over my spine and shoulder blades.
A shock jars my body. I dangle an inch above a churning river that starts licking at my toes.
I twist, tipping back my head.
Hunter is halfway over the side of the small cliff, teeth gritted in a face painted with stripes of brown and dark green.
I’ve never noticed before, but his eyes are almost the color of tree bark.
“Don’t let go!” he yells.
But I’m not the
one letting go. Gravity’s doing all the work. Our hands are both damp, slippery with sweat and this mist.
I throw my other arm up, trying to grab hold of his wrist.
Then I realize he’s slipping too. I get a hold of his wrist, but he slides nearly a foot over the lip of the river bank.
I was going to pull him in.
And he doesn’t have enough leverage to pull me out.
Both conclusions slammed into my brain at the same time.
Hunter’s eyes widen.
“No!” The word is desperate and commanding at the same time.
Doesn’t he get it by now? I hate being bossed around.
We were holding onto each other, fingers locked around each other’s wrists. But when I release my grip on him, I slide out of his hand like a wet fish.
Look, we can’t both die out here. That’s just fucking stupid. But if his plan was for me to make it out of this thing alive, then he can always come rescue me, right?
See, I’m not a vindictive bitch. I should be, but things start clarifying moments before your death.
It’s quite an enlightening experience.
You should try it sometime.
* * *
Fragments of a violent dream force me awake. I’m on my stomach, my body an ice effigy covered in hair-line fractures. I squirm, and even that small movement sends a contraction through me like I’m giving birth—I assume, okay?
I spew out a lake’s worth of briny water and bile.
When my head stops spinning, I open my eyes. I’m on a strip of river bank populated by rough, dark stones and various bits of slimy, damp, forest debris. The smell is absolutely wonderful—part swamp, part seven-day-old fish.
I get my arms under me and push back onto my heels. My brain does a quick scramble to gather some context to this strange new world I’ve found myself in, and I must say I’m disappointed by the results.
At least I’m not dead.
But, if I was dead, this would all be over.
Right now, I’m not sure which of those things are a blessing or a curse.
The river is quiet here. Judging from the slant of the light, I must have washed up here a few minutes ago. I remember fighting invisible hands that kept trying to crack my skull against rocks. Growing tired. Water going down my throat.
And then this.
At least I don’t have a dead rabbit in my lap.
Where is Hunter? Did he lose sight of me?
What if he jumped in after me and wasn’t lucky enough to survive?
I want to cry out hallelujah, but I know instinctively that he’s my only shot of getting out of this godforsaken wilderness alive. I mean, I know I won’t survive a single night in this place. I’ll become bear fodder or die of hypothermia or some shit.
And, judging from the light, I have maybe an hour before dark.
I crush my palms over my eyes, and then whip away my hands.
“You win, okay?” I yell. Fuck, that hurt. I grab my throat, swallow hard, and try again. “You win, I lose. Now can we stop this? Whatever you want, you have it. But I’m done playing.”
To cement my statement, I sit on my ass and draw my legs up. Resting my chin in my knees, I stare around at the deepening shadows between the trees. From the way my voice echoed up and down the river bank if Hunter was in a mile radius I’m sure he would have heard me.
I’m good at the waiting game.
A shiver tears through me, and I grip myself a little harder.
But I’m no good at the dying game.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hunter
My feet drag under me, and I’m having a difficult time getting them to stop. I know this isn’t physical strain—I keep fit as a rule—but rather a mental drain.
The experiment is a failure.
I revealed myself to her.
Even if she suspected I’ve been following her, she didn’t have concrete evidence. But I’ve just changed the scope of this trial, and I’m still trying to calculate how that will affect the grander scheme of things.
My intention had always been to replicate my own experience in these woods. For a hypothesis to be ratified, you must first duplicate the results. Of course, she’s not me—but at least if I made sure that her experiences were just like my own, then I could have begun the arduous process of cross-testing for variables.
I must start again. A new subject, a new trial. A new, confined environment.
That was my mistake. Attempting a clinical trial in an environment that in its very nature is constantly changing. Day and night, spring and fall. Nature doesn’t lie, but it’s not exactly a constant, either. It’s a fickle thing, and that’s something I should have considered before initiating this trial.
Now I’ve lost her. For a while, I was tracking her through the trees, along the river bank.
Then she went under, and I couldn’t find her again.
I’m still searching—I would prefer not to leave her body out here for someone to find. Although I made certain no one saw us leaving the graduation party last night, she could still be linked to the Institute.
I can’t have anyone investigating the Institute or my private affairs.
I also refuse to believe she’s dead until I’ve found her corpse.
It’s been almost an hour since I lost sight of her. The day is slipping away as is any chance of me redeeming this study.
A distant voice. Cursing.
Cursing me.
I allow myself a grim smile and change direction.
I’m glad you’re not dead, Clover, but you’ve certainly fucked up my plans, haven’t you?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Clover
Well, I managed to wait a whole ten minutes—I’m guessing here—and it felt like hours. If Hunter was close enough to hear me, then he’d have made his presence known. After all—what could he possibly gain in hiding from me?
My shivers are getting worse, and I have a sneaking suspicion that if I don’t dry and warm myself, I’ll be dead come morning.
Right. Nothing to it, Clover. You got to start yourself a fire.
I think back on Hunter’s fireplace—how perfectly he positioned the logs, that dark stone he used to light the tinder, right? That’s what he called it.
Wood. Tinder. Something to make a spark.
If a fucking Neanderthal can figure this shit out, then so can I.
They just had more time to practice, of course.
* * *
I have wood. I have tinder. I found two really dark rocks. I piled everything into the same shape Hunter had in his luxury fucking wood cabin, and I’m ready to go.
Let’s make fire, human!
I sit cross legged, trying my best to get my shivering body under control as I hit the rocks against each other.
I won’t lie—I’m disappointed. Not only do said rocks make an incredibly sad thwack sound every time I hit them against each other, I keep hitting myself on the knuckles.
Me thinks stones damp with my own blood aren’t going to make good fire starters.
Fuck it.
I pause, shake out arms lame from hitting two stones together, and try again.
There’s a breeze picking up—honestly, I’m not even surprised at this point anymore—and I huddle over myself in an effort to ward off the cold. Maybe I should move deeper into the woods.
No.
Fuck no.
Deeper forest means deep shadows.
I may have lost Hunter, but I sure as fuck haven’t lost the dark. That shit’s everywhere.
Am I losing my mind?
Ha.
Would I even know?
No, I can’t think like that.
Fire. Sparks. Embers. That’s what I should be thinking about now. I’m willing these two rocks to produce a spark. That, or a random lightning strike.
Shivers wrack my body.
Question—would I be warmer if I took off my wet clothes?
Bear in mind—there’s only
one right answer, and the wrong one’s gonna get me fucking killed.
I have to stop laughing. I need to conserve energy.
Oh, fuck…a spark!
In my shock, I stop hitting the two rocks together.
Was it my imagination?
I start hitting the rocks together with—if not renewed vigor then at least with some extra enthusiasm—but it seems that was just a fluke.
I’m destined to die, cold and alone, in this horrible forest.
Maybe I should have gone to church.
At least I would have had someone to pray to in my final hours.
Chapter Forty
Hunter
She’s using the wrong type of stone, of course, and I doubt her kindling is dry enough to catch flame from a flame thrower.
But she keeps trying.
It’s pitiful, watching her.
And yet, somehow, inspiring.
Was this how prehistoric man felt? How long did they spend trying to recreate the fire they’d witnessed?
Clover slumps.
Has she given up already? She’s barely been going for ten minutes.
How long was I at work trying to breathe life into a heap of the driest tinder I could find? An hour, two?
I guess Clover and I aren’t that similar after all. For one, I don’t give up after the first—
She made a spark.
If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d have called bullshit. But I saw it.
And so did she.
But it’s not enough, Clover. One spark is never enough. You have to keep trying, you have to keep—
She throws her stones away from her with an outraged scream and then falls into a bundle.
I sink onto my heels, watching her through the descending darkness.
Maybe it’s a mercy that she’ll be asleep before full dark—she seems to have an aversion to it.
But she’ll never live to morning. She’s wet, shivering. From where I’m crouching, I can see a blue tinge around her lips.
