His Woodland Maiden

by Michelle M. Pillow

  “Power. Power. Power,” a crowd chanted, each shout infused with rage.

  “Darkness. Dark. Dark,” an opposing group responded.

  Suddenly, a torch flew toward a building, breaking a window before setting it on fire. The act spurred an all-out brawl. The protestors turned on each other until it was impossible to reason who fought who or why. Regardless, it didn’t take long for the hostility to find them. A wild punch landed on Rick’s jaw and sent him sprawling. Someone jerked Harper by the arm, dragging her deeper into the throng. The rough movement jarred her already injured shoulder.

  “Harper,” Rick yelled, the sound faint beneath the rising voices.

  Harper used everything she had to fight the thick press of humanoid bodies surrounding her. There wasn’t enough room to maneuver properly, and her actions were limited by the mob of people.

  “Computer, stop the riot,” Harper yelled. “Stop the program. Show exit.”

  None of the commands worked.

  She lost her footing and began a bumpy descent toward trampling feet.

  “Harper!” Rick’s yell proceeded his shadowed form diving over the heads of the crowd. He spread his limbs as he tumbled several people into a pile. The pressure was taken from Harper’s body, and she was able to right herself. Rick struggled to his feet, only to grab her hand. He gave her a cocky grin. “Miss me?”

  “Not even a little,” she answered. She couldn’t help returning the smile. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, and she loved the rush. He pulled her behind him as they escaped.

  Rick used his shoulder to part the crowd, thrusting people aside. Harper tugged her hand free and punched a blond man wielding a brick. Together they ran along the edge of the throng toward the center building blocking the street.

  “I see it,” Rick said, altering their course. They hurried toward the glowing triangle. He pushed it and they leaped into the light. The angry shouts abruptly stopped when they passed through the door.

  Panting hard, she placed her hand against a wall and took several deep breaths.

  “Did they hurt you?” A soft, artificial green glow illuminated Ricks handsome features. She had to stop herself from grabbing hold of his face and kissing him. Harper remembered the arousing feel of his kiss, but he wouldn’t remember hers.

  “I’m fine,” she answered at length.

  “Try not to touch anything,” he said.

  “You try not to touch anything,” she countered.

  His eyes dipped to her bleeding shoulder.

  “It’s fine,” she dismissed.

  This VR world appeared to be an alien space station. A plastic-coated hallway gave them only one option for where to walk. The tube lights and rounded windows were fairly common.

  Rick stopped at a window and peeked in. She saw his mouth shift as he smiled. “I see a bed. Want to check it out?”

  Harper arched a brow and leaned to look. The bed he referred to was a stasis pod in the style that had been popular centuries before advancements had been made in long-distance space travel. It was currently occupied by a half-dressed human female.

  “I think they’ll kick you out of the conference for sullying the reputations of the VR characters,” Harper teased.

  “Nonsense,” Rick countered. “A night with me only enhances a reputation. You should try it and find out.”

  “Keep moving, lover boy,” she laughed.

  “I like you like this,” Rick said.

  “Compared to?”

  “When you’re tying me to a chair and threatening to kill me.” Rick grinned. “Though, now that I think about it, the tying part isn’t an issue.”

  “Keep walking.” Harper pushed his shoulder. She glanced through the windows they passed, finding a laboratory filled with specimen tubes with brightly colored liquids, and what appeared to be a surgical unit. The silent, abandoned corridor frightened her more than the monster zoo.

  A red light began to flash a warning, accompanied by a loud warning blast. One of the doors began to slide up.

  “Nope.” Rick pushed the triangle and they went through the next doorway.

  They emerged inside a thick forest near a stone cabin. Smoke curled from the rooftop and a small garden was fenced along the front. A dirt path led through the trees, the ruts revealing that it was well-traveled.

  “How long is this tunnel?” she grumbled. They had to be nearing the end.

  Suddenly, Rick stopped.

  “We need to keep moving,” Harper said. “We have to be near the end of this thing. Once we’re out, you should find your crew and get your ass into space. Bucky and his men will be looking for me. My wardrobe change won’t throw them off for long. I’ll make sure they don’t follow you.”

  “Come with us,” he said. “We can protect you.”

  “No.” Harper wouldn’t even consider it. That could never happen. “I’ll be fine. I have my own ride off-world.”

  Rick held up his hand to her lips as if to warn her to silence. His head tilted, and he appeared concerned.

  The warmth of his touch caused her to shiver. The memory of his kiss flooded her senses. There were things she wanted in her life that she could never have. She had made her choices and rarely regretted them. There was no future with Rick.

  She pulled his fingers away, needing the intimate contact to stop, and whispered, “What do you hear? Is it that Wolfman again? This looks like his enclosure.”

  The forest reminded her of that hairy monster’s display. She glanced at the cabin. The pieces of material covering the windows didn’t move to indicate someone watched them. Except for the sound of birds, the woods were quiet.

  Rick shook his head as he stared at her with a strange look on his face. His features had paled slightly and his lips moved, but no sound came out. She looked down to see if he was injured, unable to fathom what had spooked him.

  She pushed past him and looked around, trying to see what he’d seen to make him stop. The forest reminded her of her childhood, but it wasn’t anything special. There was an infinite number of such places scattered across the universes. She took a few steps, eyeing the treetops before leaning over to touch the leafy ground as she tried to see farther down the path. “What?”

  “I…” He took a shaky breath. The sound of his feet shuffling on the dirt path behind her indicated he moved closer to her. “I think I love you.”

  Harper frowned and closed her eyes. Not again.

  “We have a connection,” he continued, the words soft and a little stunted. He touched her head, stroking the locks. “I feel it. It’s tingling in my head. It’s in my hands. What happened on the way to the mines? I know something happened. I feel possession, eagerness, like I know what is at the end of our kisses. I taste your… I feel it.”

  Harper took a deep breath. She reached beneath the hem of her skirt and ran her hand along her inner thigh.

  “Can you feel…?” Rick appeared mystified by his own thoughts.

  Finding what she was looking for, Harper pulled her last injector of Swipe from its holster. She twisted to look up at him as she bumped the tip into this thigh. The sting caused him to jerk his leg away. She wasn’t prepared as his knee crashed into her back. She lost her balance and ended up squirting some of the medicine onto the ground. He quickly moved away from her.

  “Wh—?” His eyes found her hand with the injector. “What did you do?”

  “Don’t worry about it. With luck you won’t remember.” Harper straightened, ready to catch him. She hoped that was true. At best the medicine erased short-term memory, and he hadn’t received a full dose. It’s why he remembered going to the mines, just not critical parts of that journey. He’d probably remember most of this VR tunnel too, just not his declaration of love for her. Even if he did start to remember their history, it would only come to him in broken fragments.

  He blinked and took another step away from her. His foot tripped on a rut and he fell into a tree branch. A loud thud sounded as he knocked his head. The
force sent him jarring backward, and she lurched behind him to stop his fall.

  For all of her training, the inelegant transaction caused her to stumble more than catch. Rick’s body landed against her seconds before they slammed to the ground. The breath shot from her lungs. For a stunned moment, she let him lie on top of her, his back against her chest, his dead weight pressing her down. She managed a gasp to draw air.

  Harper pushed his arm and slid out from under him. Blood beaded his forehead where he’d struck the branch. She didn’t mean for him to be injured.

  “Blast it, Rick. You have to stop finding me. We can’t keep doing this.” She touched his cheek. If only he remembered their multiple times together like she did. He entered her thoughts more than she was willing to admit, especially late at night during those rare times she allowed herself to dream of what-ifs. Forgetting her was the best gift she could give him.

  Without knowing how long the bionic thugs would be delayed, she didn’t waste any time. She pulled Rick to sitting upright and then maneuvered him across the back of her shoulder to carry him. It wasn’t the easiest of tasks, but one she’d practiced many times in VR training sequences. She hurried to the cabin, hoping the structure’s programming allowed for a place to hide and wasn’t just a digitalized grid like the London building.

  4

  Rick opened his eyes, vaguely aware of a dull ache in his head. He stood in a forest surrounded by trees. Somehow he knew which way to go and his feet took him in that direction, deeper into the woods, each trunk much like the next. There were no road signs, no real paths to follow beyond a few shuffled leaves littering the ground.

  As if appearing out of nowhere, a small voice said, “They keep them imprisoned in stone.”

  Rick stopped and looked around. He heard a laugh, the kind of mischievous sound young girls made when they were playing. A ghost of movement caught the corner of his eye, and he thought he saw her for a second before she disappeared. More from memory than sight, he knew she wore tunic pants and a loose shirt, and her hair was pulled back with a yellow ribbon.

  “They keep them imprisoned in stone,” she repeated, the words so far away he could barely hear them.

  “I remember this place.” Rick walked faster—over an incline, past the thorns, under a gnarled branch, through twin bushes, and then finally…

  Rick stumbled as he came to a sharp drop-off. The cliff was practically obscured by trees, and it would have been easy to tumble over the side.

  A wide mountain range spread before him. The view both stunning and heartbreaking at the same time.

  This was home.

  Well, one of them anyway.

  “They keep them imprisoned in stone.”

  He knew that girl. She’d been a quirky little thing, but as tough as any kid he’d ever met. What was her name?

  A small hand touched his arm, and he felt like he was again twelve years old. The nails were short and jagged as if she’d bit at them in worry or clawed her way through a mine shaft. His gaze followed her arm, the image of her blurry as if a memory was trying to come into focus.

  “They keep them imprisoned in stone.”

  Sprout. He’d called her Sprout.

  “Do you mean in a stone prison?” That was his part of this script. Sprout always had strange stories. Her face became clearer. He expected a smile, but her eyes were so sad, so worried.

  “No. It said they turn them into stone.” She held out her hands in front of her as if blocking an invisible blow and froze in the defensive position. Her lips barely moved as she said, “Actual statues.”

  “Why would they do that?” Rick looked up at the tree branches. The sound of the leaves was so distinct as if each one crashed in the wind and then paused.

  “Someday I want to free them.” Her voice became distant once more. “You should come with me. We’ll free them together. Promise.”

  “It’s just a story they tell,” he dismissed. “There are no statue people.”

  Rick turned his attention back to her, but she was gone.

  Actually, she’d been right. There had been statue people. His crew had found them.

  “Sprout?” Rick called, still held firm in the virtual memory. How did the programmers know about this?

  He turned from the cliff, searching for her. A sick feeling filled him.

  “I found them, Sprout. I found the stone people. They were prisoners on Florencia’s Fifth Moon. We freed one—the only one there was to be freed,” he called. “We were too late for the others. A warden destroyed most of the statutes before we found them so there was no one else to rescue.

  Rick wanted her to know. She didn’t answer.

  He ran through the woods, but it only brought him back to the incline leading to the cliff. This world did not want him leaving this spot.

  “Rick?”

  He turned at the scared voice and froze. Sprout stood in the forest. Her eyes became the clearest yet, so dark and resigned.

  He opened his mouth to ask what was wrong when a shot from a blaster pistol rang out.

  Sprout’s eyes widened, and she clutched her neck. Blood pooled between her fingers before spilling over. He tried to run to her, but her body dissipated as she fell. He reached after her, trying to bring her back.

  A hard object struck his head, and he grunted. It took a moment for his eyesight to focus. The past was gone. He lay on his back under a wooden frame. Light came from both sides, partly obscured by a red woven blanket. What was he doing under a bed?

  “She said to let you sleep.”

  “Sprout?” Rick tried to sit up at the sound of the young girl’s voice, only to hit his head again.

  “You shouldn’t do that.”

  He looked for the source of the voice and found an upside-down face staring at him as if the girl hung over the side of the bed. Short red hair fanned from her face, framing the green of her reptilian eyes. A row of scales covered her forehead to her nose.

  “She said to watch you. She said to bite anyone who tried to wake you.” The child smiled, showing a hint of fangs in her mouth. “No one came.”

  “Move over, little starbeam,” he said, reaching for the side of the bed to pull himself out from underneath.

  The child sat on the bed in a silver leotard with a golden serpent embroidered up the side. The cabin home was tidy but sparse. A pungent smell came from the fireplace.

  “Where are your parents?” He started to feel concern for her, only to remember she wasn’t real. None of this was.

  The child gave him a half-smile and glanced at the pot over the fireplace.

  Her parents were in the…?

  “All right then, little demon spawn.” He patted her head. “I’ll be going now.”

  With unexpected speed, the girl grabbed his hand and bit down. Tiny fangs pierced his flesh. The girl giggled as Rick snatched his hand away and ran for the front door.

  “Ow, holy space balls, devil girl!” Rick swore as he cradled his injured hand. He glanced around for Harper, but she was nowhere to be found. If she’d stashed him in the cabin, she had most definitely headed on without him.

  Rick ran through the trees, over the rutted path, as he looked for the exit. This horrible VR adventure hall better be over soon. He glanced back to make sure the serpentine humanoid wasn’t running after him.

  He shook his hand as if to fling off the pain. Blast it all, that bite stung.

  His head ached. His back was sore. His stomach felt like it had been punched.

  What the hell had happened? How had he ended up under a bed?

  “She said to let you sleep.”

  Harper. Harper had left him with the girl.

  They were being chased by bionic men.

  They’d passed a monstrous zoo, a city riot, a forest. He looked around. Apparently, he’d never left the forest.

  The dream from his childhood tried to unfurl inside him, whispering its forgotten secrets. He ignored it. Now was not the time.

  A screec
h sounded, and he looked back. He heard the devil child but couldn’t see her.

  Though the woods looked vast, there wasn’t anywhere for Harper to go but toward the exit. He heard the steady crunch of leaves behind him as footfalls chased him. The screeching became louder. The triangle emerged, and he ran as fast as he could toward it.

  “Reeeee-ah-ah-ah,” came the child’s cry.

  Rick turned in time to see her lunging for him. He tried to leap toward the exit. His foot caught on something, and instead he fell through the door as the child reached for him.

  A light flashed, and he saw Dev stepping out of his path as Rick fell to the ground.

  Rick landed on concrete and slid. A crowd laughed. He jerked to a stop as Jackson grabbed his ankle only to instantly let go. It appeared as if his two friends had been waiting for him to emerge.

  People had gathered to watch the exit, entertained as terrified guests came out.

  Breathless and more than a little beat up, Rick grinned. “Thanks for the assist, fellas.”

  Dev arched a brow. “We haven’t been here a full day and you’re already causing mischief.”

  “No, I—” he tried to protest. “I found the woman.”

  Dev and Jackson both looked at the VR exit before sharing an amused look.

  “Figures that even virtual women want to hurt you.” Jackson offered a hand to help him up.

  Dev remained standing with his arms crossed.

  “No, I found the woman. Harper,” Rick insisted as he was hefted to his feet. They were in a conference room lined with chairs around the center stage where they now stood. Groups of people had assembled in clusters around the auditorium. Now that he stood in one place, he felt as if he floated in water. His vision blurred slightly, and he rubbed his eyes. “The woman.”

  “Yeah, we know.” Jackson released his hand only to grab him by the elbow to escort him off the stage into the aisle. A few aliens blocked their path.

  Rick searched for Harper in the crowd.

  “Security,” Jackson said in an authoritative tone. “Step aside. Coming through. Dangerous lunatic has been apprehended. Step aside. Clear a path.”