Chapter Thirteen – Taran
Chapter Thirteen
Taran
As much as I wanted, I couldn’t kill this man. The MSA policy was to resort to extreme violence only in cases where it couldn’t be avoided.
I lifted him up as he was, in his enclosure, and propped him against a tree. I shrunk so I’d be at his level, and when our eyes met, he regarded me with defiance.
“What are you doing?” Thea asked.
“Interrogating him. Don’t you want to know who his Master is?”
She stepped closer. “I have a feeling I won’t like the answer.”
I addressed the man, “Well?”
“You know who the Master is,” the man said. “Soren Sinclair.”
“Why do you call him that?” Thea asked.
“Because that’s what he is.”
Thea moved to stand by my side. I was glad to notice that she wasn’t scared of me anymore. Maybe it helped that I’d adjusted my height.
“Soren Sinclair is a spiritual leader,” she said. “But he is no Master. He’s involved in the community, acts as a counselor. I’m not sure exactly what he does, but I’ve never heard anyone refer to him as Master.” She turned to me then, and I found myself mesmerized by her beautiful green eyes. “He’s friends with my father. Actually, it’s an inherited social relationship, as my father was friends with Soren’s father before he died, and Soren took over all the businesses. No one in my family has ever called him anything but Soren.”
The man started laughing.
That seemed to irritate Thea. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“My name is not important.”
“It is to me. What’s wrong, justice maker? You cover your face, you don’t want to tell me your name... These are the actions of a coward.”
“Fine.” With some difficulty because of the tight space he was in, he removed his mask. “My name is Markus.”
“Okay, Markus,” said Thea. “And your friend from last night is Kyla.”
“That’s right. We care about our Master. We won’t let him make the mistake of marrying you. You represent everything that’s wrong with the world.”
When he talked like that, I had to admit that I couldn’t completely disagree with him. Still, Thea hadn’t personally cut down any trees, and she didn’t work at her father’s company. For the most part, she’d been kept in the dark.
I liked her attitude, though. From a scared little thing, she’d turned into a true interrogator. She asked her questions with confidence, and when Markus refused to cooperate, she knew just how to push his buttons.
Every minute I spent with Thea, I learned something new about her. Instead of becoming bored, as it usually happened when I had to deal with humans, I was becoming more and more intrigued.
“You know,” she said, “This is starting to sound more and more like a cult. What do you think, Taran?”
“I... don’t know anything about cults.”
As far as I was concerned, all human rituals were strange. Over the top was another good way to describe them. What made a ritual like dyeing eggs red for a holiday named Easter be perfectly normal and acceptable, and a ritual like asking your bride-to-be to prove herself by walking on foot for three days a cult thing?
“It doesn’t matter,” said Thea. But her tone indicated that it clearly mattered to her. “Soren wants me. Who are you to decide I’m not right for him? All this pretext that I’m everything that’s wrong with the world, that my father is a tree killer, and that Soren loves nature and trees... My father has been friends with Soren for years. Not once did your ‘Master’ show he was against my family’s business.” She mimicked air quotes around the word “Master”. “This tells me he’s not against it. If he were, then he wouldn’t have wanted me so badly that he basically blackmailed my family to make me accept his proposal.”
I was impressed that Thea could be so straightforward about what was happening to her without her voice even wavering. She was aware of what she was walking into, of what her family had asked of her, and she was persisting on this path knowing she had nothing to gain personally. I was finally getting answers to many of my questions, but she still remained a mystery to me.
Markus pursed his lips. For a minute, he didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t seem to be the type who did well when faced with facts.
“I cannot know the mind of the Master,” he said. “Maybe he has a plan I cannot see. Maybe my quest for justice is misguided, but he will forgive me, because my intentions were pure.”
“I think Soren Sinclair just wants access to your part of the family fortune,” I said to Thea.
She rolled her eyes. “And what? Use it to save the forests? He’s never been interested in philanthropy, trust me. He has his own money, he doesn’t need mine.” She turned to Markus. “I think you don’t know your Master at all. He’s a businessman. And now that you practically told me he’s a cult leader, I bet he’s using devoted people like you to increase his businesses.”
“He would never,” Markus said.
“There’s no reasoning with you,” Thea said.
We were at a stalemate.
“What now?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I really don’t know.”
“Do you want me to kill him?”
That took her aback. “No! Why would you say that? Why would you suggest something like that? No!”
Had I had arms, I would’ve waved them in defense. She walked away from me, and I mentally cursed myself for upsetting her. I followed her, wanting to have a more private conversation.
“After all you found out, are you still going to marry Sinclair?” I asked.
Her shoulders dropped. “What else can I do? I made a promise.”
“To whom? No one is worth the sacrifice you’re making.”
“You don’t know anything about me or my family,” she said.
But she didn’t sound combative. Her words would’ve angered me if she hadn’t spoken them with such resignation. As if her family wasn’t something she could escape. The name Everhart was a prison.
“Nothing has changed,” she said.
She sounded convinced enough. At least for now, the message was that she was done with this argument. And who was I to question her decision? Her bodyguard. Once I delivered her to her husband-to-be, my job was done. I would never see her again, and her life and future were none of my business.
“Then we have a problem,” I said. “Because you were supposed to cross the woods on your own, and instead, you have me to protect you. Markus knows.”
Her eyes filled with worry. “What are you saying?”
“He knows, and he will tell Sinclair if we let him free. Do you think your cult leader will appreciate the fact that you cheated?”
She covered her face with her hands and groaned. She was still wearing gloves. I could see that she was hot, but for some reason, she insisted on wearing long sleeves and a turtleneck.
“Okay,” she said. “Yeah, okay, that makes sense. But we can’t kill him.”
“I would do it for you.”
“Taran!”
“He tried to kill you.”
“And failed. Epically.”
I wasn’t lying. I would’ve done it for her. I would’ve killed anyone who dared to look at her wrong, let alone a guy who was twice as big as her and had tried to slit her throat. Even if it was against the MSA policy, I would’ve found an excuse and gladly done all the paperwork.
“We’re not killing him,” she said. “Just... set him free...”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can. We’ll make him promise he won’t come after me again.”
I sighed. In my case, that sounded like a particular rustle of leaves.
I returned to Markus, who’d been straining to hear what we’d been talking about.
“If I let you go,” I said, “Will you mind your own business and leave Thea alone? As long as I’m her bodyguard, you can’t get to her. So, you might as well go do something productive. Maybe get a new hobby.”
He laughed. “I will not betray my beliefs.”
“So, that’s a no.”
I looked at Thea, and she shrugged. Great. We weren’t getting anywhere with this guy. I considered my options. Killing him was out of the question. The guy deserved it, but fine. Or maybe he didn’t deserve it. If he was in a cult, then he was brainwashed. I could just leave him like this. The box I’d built around him was made from my branches and vines, and they were strong. Not like branches from regular trees. He wouldn’t be able to escape on his own, not without help or a sharp knife, which meant that if Thea and I left him, he would die a slow, painful death. Maybe that Kyla woman would find him and help him out, but I couldn’t bet on it.
I looked around me, trying to come up with a solution. My gaze fell on the knife he’d tried to attack me with. I used one of my roots to push it closer to the box.
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” I said. “I will leave you here, and here’s your knife. It’s close enough that I’m sure you’ll find a way to get it and use it to cut your way out. It will take you a while, and by the time you manage to free yourself, we’ll be long gone.”
He chuckled darkly. “Such benevolence. I’m impressed.” The sarcasm wasn’t lost on me.
I turned to Thea. “What do you think?”
She nodded. “I think that’s reasonable. Thank you.”
Had I been covered in flesh and not bark, I would’ve blushed right now. It wasn’t the first time Thea thanked me, but it was the first time she was looking in my eyes while doing it.
“Just doing my job,” I mumbled.
She smiled, and I could swear I’d never seen something so pretty in my life.
“Shall we go now?” she asked.
“Lead the way.”
She started walking, and I would’ve followed her anywhere. Even to her doom.