Chapter 5
Chapter five
Midnight.
The pain started small, a prickle in her wrist spreading pins and needles beneath the skin. Briar shifted in the lumpy motel bed, still half-asleep, and rubbed at the mark through her shirt.
The prickling became burning.
Her eyes snapped open. Wrongness permeated the room, darkness swallowing all light as though someone had snuffed out every source at once.
Even the parking lot lights that had bled through the thin curtains were gone.
And beneath the reek of must and old cigarettes, something else threaded through the stale air—pine sap and dark earth, the scent of green things growing where they shouldn't.
The mark flared hot without warning. She sat up, hand going to the bedside lamp.
Her fingers touched bark instead.
She jerked back. In the darkness, she could just make out the lamp's shape, but it had transformed into something wrong and twisted. The base had split open, rough wood emerging from plastic casing.
A soft sound made her freeze. Not quite breathing but more rhythmic, more organic—the sound of growing.
She fumbled for her phone, needing light.
The screen illuminated the ground. Gone was the stained, grimy carpet and in its place?
Moss. Thick, verdant moss spreading across the floor in real time, creeping forward with visible momentum.
Where it touched the walls, the dingy wallpaper bubbled and peeled, revealing wood beneath. Not motel walls, but tree bark.
"No."
A crack split the air. In the bathroom, tiles splintered as something forced through—a root thick as her arm, followed by another. They crawled across the ceiling with purpose, and where they touched, the motel room began to transform.
The mark burned hotter. She gasped, clutching her wrist, and felt wetness seeping through her fingers. Looking down she saw blood oozing from where thorns had finally broken skin from within.
She had to move, had to get out now.
She rolled off the bed as the mattress split open, vines erupting from its heart. The sheets tangled in her legs and she kicked free, scrambling for the door.
The armchair blocked her path. She forgot that she had barricaded herself in.
"No, no, no—" She grabbed the chair, tried to pull it aside. Vines had already found it, wrapping around the legs and binding it to the door. The wood groaned as she pulled, but held fast.
"Such panic." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, cultured and amused. "You can hear her heart from here. Like a rabbit caught in a snare."
Movement flickered in her peripheral vision. She spun to see a figure stepping from the shadows by the bathroom, not emerging from them but being born from them. Tall, whipcord lean, with sharp features that looked carved from pale wood. His clothes shifted between leather and bark and shadow.
"You're not him." Her voice came out steadier than she felt.
"How observant." His smile was perfect—too perfect, predator's teeth maintained with care.
"I'm Thaine. His Huntsman. And you..." He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring.
"You're the little runaway who thought she could hide.
" He tilted his head, considering. "Tell me, did you really think walls would stop him?
That distance measured in miles meant anything to something that exists between spaces? "
The window cracked behind her. Not breaking yet, but spiderwebbing as vines pressed against it from outside.
"Did you know," Thaine continued, his tone casual as he took a single step closer, "that he wanted to come himself?
Was quite insistent about it. The fury in his voice.
.." He shivered theatrically. "Delicious.
But I convinced him to let me handle the retrieval.
Professional courtesy, you understand. Hunter to hunter. "
"I completed the bargain. Three days. It's been three days."
"Three days to say goodbye." His expression shifted to mock sympathy. "Not three days to run. But please, tell me more about how you've outsmarted centuries of forest law with... a motel room?" He laughed, soft and genuinely delighted.
Before she could speak, the bathroom door exploded outward, wood and plastic becoming mulch as a tree trunk forced its way through. The toilet cracked and water sprayed everywhere, immediately absorbed by the spreading moss.
Briar leaped sideways as roots erupted where she'd been standing. She hit the window, still intact but barely, and spun to find another way out. The room was shrinking, walls bowing inward as the forest reclaimed the space.
"You could make this easier," Thaine suggested. He hadn't moved from his spot, just watched her scramble with infinite patience. "Come quietly. Let me deliver you with some dignity intact. He might even forgive the insult." His smile widened. "In a decade or two."
"Go to hell."
"Mmm, no. But I'll tell you what hell is going to feel like.
" He moved again, this time a single step that somehow crossed half the room.
"It's the mark growing deeper. Threading through muscle, wrapping around bone.
Your body becoming a garden for his fury.
Would you like to know what happened to the last person who ran? "
She grabbed the desk chair and swung it at the window.
"She made it three weeks," Thaine continued as if she hadn't moved. "Impressive, really. By the time I found her, the mark had grown through her entire left side. Vines under the skin, roots in her lungs. She begged me to cut them out." He paused. "I did. They grew back. Every time."
The glass exploded outward in a shower of diamonds. Cool night air rushed in, carrying salt and freedom and—
A hand caught her wrist as she tried to climb through. Not Thaine's, he was still behind her. This hand emerged from the vines outside, pale as bone and strong as ancient roots.
"Careful," Thaine said as she struggled.
"Can't have you cutting yourself on glass.
He was very particular about the condition he wants you in.
'Unmarked save for what's mine,'” he recited.
"Although..." His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Between us, I think a few cuts would improve the presentation.
Blood makes everything more dramatic, don't you think? "
Briar ignored him, pulling until she finally jerked free, scratches blooming across her forearm, and dove through the window. She hit the ground hard but forced herself to her feet. Behind her, the motel room erupted. The wall split, spilling green into the night.
She twisted around to find herself confronted by a parking lot transformed beyond recognition.
Trees sprouted between cars, ancient giants that had no business existing outside of the deep woods.
Her car had become a shell wrapped in moss and vines, windows choked with leaves.
She ran for the office hoping, praying, there was a phone.
The office door stood open and she burst through before skidding to a stop.
The clerk's chair had become a throne of roots, and wrapped within them, barely visible, was a human shape. He was still alive—she could see the rise and fall of his chest—and covered in tiny white flowers that pulsed with each breath.
"Sleeping Beauty," Thaine said from behind her.
She spun to find him in the doorway, not even winded.
"Don't worry. He'll wake when we're gone.
Won't remember a thing except strange dreams. Although the dreams..
." He smiled. "Those will be exquisite. I made sure of that.
He'll spend the rest of his life flinching at flowers. "
From the corner of her eye she spotted the phone. She lunged for it, but the forest had found it first. The receiver was draped in moss, flowers growing from the earpiece.
"No one to call," Thaine continued. "No cavalry coming to rescue you.
Although..." He tilted his head, listening to something she couldn't hear.
"He says you're welcome to try. He enjoys watching hope die.
It's the moment just after realization sets in, that's his favorite.
The shoulders drop, the eyes go flat. Utterly beautiful. Come now, enough of this."
He extended his hand and she took half a step back.
No, she had fought too hard to give up.
Through the office window, she could see the highway. Cars passed without slowing. A truck drove by close enough that she could see the driver's face, bored and tired, seeing nothing wrong.
"Useful thing, glamour," Thaine explained, as though reading her mind. "They see a closed motel. Nothing special. You could run out there screaming, covered in blood, begging for help. They'd see a drunk woman at best. Probably wouldn't even slow down. Would you like to try? I'll wait."
The mark burned hotter. She pressed her hand against it, tried to stop the bleeding, but the thorns were moving now, writhing beneath her skin where she could feel them foreign and alive.
"That's just the beginning," Thaine said softly.
He'd moved again, now standing by the counter, examining the guest registry.
"Every step away from him, they grow deeper. Every moment of defiance, they’ll spread wider.
Soon you'll feel them in your chest. They like to wrap around ribs first. Makes breathing. .. interesting."
Briar backed toward the rear exit.
The door opened before she touched it as vines pushed through, thick as her waist, blocking escape. The walls groaned. Through the cracks, she could see bark forcing its way in.
"You know what else he told me?" Thaine asked, now flipping through the registry with casual interest. "He said you were clever.
Said you might actually make this interesting.
But here you are, trapped in a box of your own design, bleeding on cheap carpet while the forest comes to collect. How disappointingly predictable."
"I'm not going back."