Chapter 40
“There’s a brothel the former mistresses of the leaders are sent to. I can get hired to pick up and deliver the laundry there. I get it now. These are the relationships you were talking about.” - Decoded message from ILF undercover operative Nightingale to ILF handler Hiro Tanaka
Briar
“Keep your eyes closed when you call out through the connection,” Pax says. “Then open them and focus on your target. They can see through you.”
He’s standing outside the cave with me and Marcus, walking me through fully connecting again. It’s hard for me to summon fury like I did before, because we aren’t in immediate danger and now I know Marcus is okay.
“Practice,” Pax says.
I give him a puzzled look. “On who?”
“It doesn’t have to be a person. Have the vines squeeze a tree or a rock, just to practice targeting.”
“I won’t practice on any living thing that doesn’t deserve it.”
He knits his brows together. “Trees and rocks have feelings now?”
“Yes. They aren’t like our feelings, but yes.”
“It’s hard to practice when your feelings aren’t there,” Marcus says. “Raw, strong emotions like fear and stress get sent through the connection. I don’t think faking it will work.”
Pax shakes his head. “It’s not faking. She has to learn to control it. Otherwise she’ll turn into you—destroying everything around her just because she’s in a bad mood.”
“You’re saying I could open up a hole in the ground under your feet and it wouldn’t be my fault because I can’t control it?”
Pax shifts, crossing his arms. “I’m on your side. I’m trying to help her.”
“Stop it, both of you,” I cut in.
They both brood and I use the silence to think about how we should approach the exiles.
“We don’t even know where they are,” I say, thinking out loud. “They could be in a place where the others don’t have anywhere to hide and cover us.”
“There’s no safe place on this island for them,” Pax says. “Between the two of us, we’ve got this. As long as we can see them, we’re close enough.” He furrows his brow with concern. “I can do this by myself if you want.”
Marcus shakes his head. “It’s too many at once. Seven of them. You can only control one snake at a time.”
“I can only set one target at a time. I can send ten snakes after one person, and as soon as they’re dead, target the next one and all ten snakes will go for them.”
“No,” I say. “Some of them would be able to reach you before you got to them all.”
“Not if they can’t see me.”
“I targeted all of those soldiers at the same time,” I say. “I’m doing this.”
Pax nods. “It won’t be hard to find them. Half this island was leveled by the volcano.”
“Flavius,” Marcus says, his voice so soft I can hardly hear him.
I put a hand on his arm. “You okay?”
He looks pained. “They’re starving. The volcano ...”
Pax’s expression turns grim. “It’s the same for the snakes. The volcano killed lots of them, and the ones who are left aren’t going to make it long-term. That’s why we need to get control of this island back while I can still help.”
“I need to help the wolves,” Marcus says.
“We will,” I assure him.
“How can you feel them without your aromium on?” Pax asks Marcus.
“I don’t know.”
“You guys ready?” Nova asks from nearby.
“Almost,” I say.
“Both of you start with Theron,” Marcus says. “I can handle any of the other six, and Nova and Amira will cover me.”
“Maybe Olin and Ellison should just stay in the cave,” Pax suggests.
Marcus shakes his head. “Ellison won’t.”
“Can Olin shoot a bow?”
“He’s getting better,” I say.
Pax grins. “So no.”
“No,” Marcus agrees.
“He’s had training,” I say. “But he’s rusty.”
“They’ll both stay out of sight,” Marcus says.
I take a deep breath. “Let’s just go. I’m getting nervous anticipation through my connection, and it’s making me jittery.”
“You mean the plants are nervous?” Pax asks, incredulous.
“They can feel what I feel. They know something’s up.”
“My connection isn’t that sophisticated,” he says.
“More like cavemen talking?” Marcus quips. “Me big mad. You kill fast.”
I give him a look and say, “Enough.”
“Like you and the rocks are having deep philosophical conversations?” Pax scoffs at Marcus.
“Let’s do this,” Nova grumbles, joining us. “You two are wasting time and energy with your pointless arguments.”
“Word,” Amira says, the backpack holding the switch securely fastened around her shoulders and waist. “Let’s get this done and find some food before a bitch gets hangry.”
Olin and Ellison are here, too. We all look as haggard and filthy as we feel.
“Anyone have any food?” Nova asks. “Briar could use the energy.”
“I have some nuts.” Olin digs into his pocket.
Amira shakes her head, locking eyes with me. “He has nuts.”
Finally Marcus and Pax can agree on something, even if it is a lame joke about nuts. Everyone’s grinning as Olin pulls out a few almonds and offers them to me.
“Oh, there’s some lint.” His cheeks turn pink as he picks something off an almond.
“Thanks,” I say. “But I’m okay. Who’s the best tracker here?”
“Me.”
Marcus and Pax say it at the same time. Of course.
The smell of cooking fish gives them away. I would have thought they’d be more careful than that, but then, they think they’re the apex predators on this island.
Theron and the exiles are on the beach, three of them swimming in the ocean. One of the men is cooking fish over a fire and a woman is preparing more fish. Theron and a woman are using knives to sharpen wood spears.
Crates of supplies are stacked on the sand nearby. I hope some of them contain food.
Amira climbed a tree, and she’s safely concealed there with her bow and arrows. Ellison and Olin are hiding in a formation of massive rocks nearby. Nova is at the jungle’s edge, ready to fire a gun when needed.
Marcus has a gun, too, but Pax and I are both empty-handed.
Pax looks at me, waiting for my nod. I hesitate because I’m scared. I don’t want to be. I’ve been trying to fight it the whole way here, but that white-hot coal of rage inside me has gone cold.
We need to do this. They’ll continue hunting us if we don’t. But I’m afraid they’ll hurt someone I care about.
I nod because I don’t have much choice.
Pax closes his eyes. I only hear crashing waves, the howl of a wolf, and birds singing to each other for nearly a minute, and then I hear and feel something new at the same time.
It’s a rumble, like an approaching freight train. Pax is shirtless, his hair tied back at the nape of his neck. He looks like he’s meditating, but then his eyes fly open right as snakes fly out of the jungle’s edge.
It’s terrifying, the way the aromium-enhanced snakes can propel themselves through the air like missiles, even though they’re thicker than a man’s calf.
They go for Theron. He only has a second to grab his axe before they strike. He swings it at one of them and hits, blood spraying from the snake.
One of the women screams and the others scramble to arm themselves. Three snakes are making quick work of Theron, one wrapping around his neck and squeezing.
Two Tiders are running toward the jungle, but not toward us.
Nova. They spotted her. She stands her ground as they approach, aiming her gun at one of them.
She squeezes the trigger, but nothing happens. Her eyes widen with alarm, but she quickly recovers and moves to inspect the gun’s primer.
There’s not enough time.
Marcus takes off, racing toward Nova. One of the Tiders who was in the ocean is back on the beach now, and he picks up a spear and runs.
He’s locked on Marcus. I close my eyes, turning off my fear. Emotional control is the only way I can save them both.
I lock my thoughts onto Lochlan, and all the ways he violated me. I couldn’t fight back then, but I can do something now. I scream through my connection with plants and summon them, picturing the three people I saw closing in on Nova and Marcus.
A man grunts with pain. I shut it out, feeling thick vines arriving to defend us. Someone screams.
Bones crunch and break. A neck snaps. I feel it all happening through the sense that’s not really my own. It’s the plants. My dad taught me to fight, but I’m far deadlier just standing here and controlling the vines with my mind.
“Briar.”
My eyes fly open and I inhale deeply, unsteady on my feet.
“It’s over.”
It’s Pax. I look to the place I last saw Marcus. He’s not there.
I find him supporting Nova, who’s hunched over. The bodies on the ground are ...
Human pulp.
This is what Amira meant. Thick, brown, ropelike vines are slithering back into the jungle, leaving a bloody scene behind. The three people I targeted were all sliced completely through their midsections by vines.
I go to Marcus, my heart racing.
“Is she okay?”
“I’m fine,” Nova says, not sounding fine. “It’s superficial.”
Her abs look like they took a spear poke, but it’s not gushing blood.
“She’ll be okay,” Marcus assures me. “I can stitch this up.”
I’m glad Ellison insisted on going back for her supplies.
I turn to survey the rest of the scene on the beach, Amira jogging up to me.
“Pax’s snakes make that one in the cave look like an earthworm,” she says. “That was intense.”
“He got the other four Tiders?” I ask.
“Yeah. And I don’t mean to scare you, but the vines saved Nova with less than a second to spare. The guy was spearing her when the vine chopped him in half.”
A knot tightens in my stomach. That was too close.
“Everyone okay?” Pax asks.
“Nova needs stitches,” Marcus says.
“You guys want to get her back to the cave and Amira and I can raid their supplies?”
Marcus flicks a gaze to me, then looks away quickly. He’s thinking the same thing I am.
Pax has kept his word to us so far. But knowing what he’s capable of, I’m not leaving him alone with Amira.
“I can get Nova back on my own,” Marcus says. “I’ll take Ellison and send Olin here to help you guys. You’ll be able to get a lot more back with four of you.”
“Sounds good,” Pax says. “Hang on.”
He goes over to the fire and takes several cooked fish from the grate, wrapping them in paper. When he returns, he passes the fish to Marcus.
“You guys eat those. We’ll bring more back.”
Marcus nods, then locks his gaze onto me and says, “Be safe.”
“We’re right behind you,” I say.
What I really want is to curl up on the sand and go to sleep. The attack didn’t deplete me as much as the one against Ingrid’s men did, but I’m still exhausted. Just picking up my feet to walk is an effort.
I don’t let it show, though. We need these supplies. This was a small win for us, but there’s a much bigger battle ahead.
Ingrid has too many soldiers at our camp for me and Pax to take out like we did here. There’s too much risk of collateral damage.
I can’t think about it now. It’s all I can do to stay upright. I need food, water, and rest.
And Marcus. I don’t even care that we have to sleep in a cold, damp, bat-shit-infested cave. Tonight, we get to sleep there together.