Chapter Sixteen – Thea
Chapter Sixteen
Thea
Taran kept his word and took me to a stream. He set me down gently. I hurried to wash my hands and my face, rolling my sleeves up my arms. It wasn’t enough. I needed to wash all of myself. No matter how many times I told my brain that there was nothing on me, nothing crawling on my skin, it didn’t want to get the message.
“Can you give me some privacy?” I asked.
“Oh, of course. Sorry. So sorry.” He turned and looked around. “I will go over there and start working on your splint.”
“Okay. Keep your back turned.”
He promised, then left me alone. Not that I knew how he worked – if he had a back and a front. He seemed to have only one set of eyes, and his face stayed in one place as he changed his size. Which he seemed to do a lot. I’d noticed that when he walked, he would adapt to the terrain and the vegetation. He never bumped into anything, never tripped. He had a smooth way of moving through the forest. He was much more efficient at traveling than I was, that was for sure.
I removed my boots and pants with some difficulty, then sat down on a rock and removed my sweater. Because of my ankle, it was hard to wash, so I considered my options for a moment. In the end, I decided that I would just lower myself into the shallow stream. The water was cold and refreshing. Maybe a little too cold – close to freezing – but I got used to it quick. It was doing wonders for my ankle, which was starting to swell. I had another set of undergarments, so I wasn’t worried about getting my panties and bra wet.
I’d brought a second set of clothes with me, thinking that when I reached the resort after hiking for three days and sleeping in questionable conditions for two nights, I’d want to change, so no one would see me in a vulnerable state. Now, the problem was I’d already used my spare turtleneck sweater and gotten it ruined. It was crusty with mud, and I didn’t think giving it a wash in the stream would be enough. That meant I’d have to slip back into the first sweater, which had a few tears and blood stains from when Kyla had forced me to go through a broken window. At least it was black, so the stains weren’t visible.
I closed my eyes and relaxed, letting the cold water soothe me. My hair was dirty too, but I didn’t have the energy to wash it. I didn’t have any soap or shampoo. I hadn’t thought I’d stop to take a bath in the woods – a literal place of nightmare for me. I did have toothpaste and a toothbrush, and I hadn’t used them this morning. I reached for my backpack now and took them out. There was no excuse for ignoring my dental hygiene. Not even my biophobia, or the fact that I’d been attacked by two assassins in the span of twenty-four hours.
I washed my face next and used a bit of hydrating cream. Now I had energy for my hair. It felt so good to be clean. I scrubbed myself the best I could, getting all the mud and dirt out. When I was done, I dragged myself out of the stream and quickly changed my panties and bra, all the while covering myself and looking back at Taran to make sure he was keeping his promise. I slipped into the fresh pair of pants and the torn sweater, then put on a fresh pair of socks. The boots needed cleaning, though.
“You can look now,” I told Taran.
I heard him rustle and shuffle towards me. When I looked up, he was standing on the pebbled shore, holding a weird contraption in his branches.
“That’s the splint?”
“I made it from my own branches and vines,” he said. “Let’s see if it fits.”
He reached for my left ankle, and I let him cradle it in his spindly twigs. Interacting with him like this was so odd. Because he was doing all these things that people did, except he had no hands. It was a miracle, but he wasn’t clumsy at all.
The splint looked like a boot, but when he slipped my foot in it, I felt it tighten around my ankle. It held it fixed and straight, and after a minute, I had to admit it wasn’t too bad.
“How will I walk in it?”
“You won’t. I’ll carry you.”
“All the way to the resort?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s... a day and a half.”
“I don’t mind.”
He said it so simply, like I weighed nothing, and it wasn’t even worth the discussion. He grabbed my backpack, dug in it for a second, then pulled out my water bottle and a sandwich. I accepted them, dumbfounded. Of course he knew what I had in my backpack. He’d watched me all this time.
I blushed once more, remembering why I’d tried to run from him in the first place. My recklessness had landed me at the bottom of a ravine, with a sprained ankle, which in turn had landed me in his arms. Erm... branches. The good part was that I didn’t flinch anymore when he touched me, or when I touched him. My brain had registered that he was more human than tree.
I ate my sandwich as he made himself busy with my boots. He washed them in the stream, then left them to dry. He picked up my clothes next, and I was glad I’d hidden my wet undergarments in a baggie that I’d stuffed in a pocket of my backpack.
“Do you want me to wash these for you?”
“God, no!”
He folded them neatly and placed them next to my backpack. I finished my sandwich, but I didn’t feel like I was ready to get back on the road. I was tired. And confused. What the hell was I doing? Why?
I knew why. For Matthew. This was all so my brother wouldn’t have his reputation ruined. But when I’d agreed to marry Soren, I hadn’t known he’d built a legit cult around him. The people he’d brainwashed with God knew what ideas were so obsessed with him that they were willing to commit murder. I wondered what his cult was about. Markus had said Soren loved nature. He loved the trees. That was bullshit. Soren only loved himself and saw his own interests.
I pulled out Markus’s phone and opened the photo gallery app. First things first, I selected and deleted all the pictures he’d taken of me. Taran watched me do it. He didn’t say anything. He was looking over my shoulder, and I didn’t tell him to stop. Then I went through the rest of the gallery.
There were pictures of the forest, a few selfies, and pictures of the resort where I was going to get married tomorrow evening. If I got there in one piece. Markus seemed so young without the mask, wearing light colored clothes and a big smile on his face. He didn’t look like the man who’d tried to slit my throat a few hours ago.
“Do you think he got out?” I asked Taran.
“Even if he got the knife, it’s not easy to cut through my branches. They’re not like a regular tree’s.”
That made sense. Taran was a monster. It was important not to forget that.
I scrolled through more pictures, until I came across some that looked rather disturbing. They were pictures of naked people in the forest.
“What the...”
I felt Taran lean in closer.
Men and women, completely naked, were hugging trees and doing... a little more than that... Women were rubbing themselves against tree roots, and men were using branches to caress them and themselves. The more I scrolled through the photos, the more disturbing they got. One turned out to be a video. It took me by surprise, and my thumb hovered over the pause button, but I was too shocked to press it.
Sensual music played, and people were dancing and moaning. It was all happening in a clearing. They were rubbing themselves against trees, having sex with each other, men and women, rolling in the grass and dirt, riding dildos that were clearly made of wood. When the one who was filming – Markus, I supposed – moved to take a closeup of a woman impaled on a smooth branch, I freaked out and threw away the phone.
The video was still playing. Luckily, the phone had landed on the shore and not in the water. Taran grabbed it quickly and stopped the video.
We looked at each other in utter shock.
“What the hell did I just watch?” I asked.
“It looked like... tree lovers,” Taran said. “Maybe what they have is the opposite of your biophobia.”
“No. No-no-no. The opposite of biophobia is called biophilia, but it’s not that, trust me. That was an orgy, and it had nothing to do with tree loving. Cults do orgies. It’s their thing. I’ve read about it.”
Taran gave me back the phone.
“So, you think your future husband is involved?” he asked.
I covered my face with my hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. It’s like I’ve lived a lie.”
“Do you think your father knows?”
I wanted to answer him, but I couldn’t. I wanted to say no. Of course my dad didn’t know about Soren’s fucked up cult, with their fucked up orgies, or he wouldn’t have asked me to marry him. Hell, he would’ve ended the friendship years ago and cut all ties, business and money be damned. By dad wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t a pervert. He would’ve never pushed his daughter into something like this.
I rubbed my eyes, then looked up at Taran. God, he was tall! And God, he was inhuman! After what I’d just seen on Markus’s phone, the last thing I wanted to stare at was a tree. And I knew it was selfish of me, but I needed a break.
“I’ve noticed you change your shape sometimes,” I said. “Or your size.”
“Yes, it’s something that leshy can do easily.”
“Can you change shape completely?”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged, not knowing how to express what I wanted.
“Like, can I become something else?”
“I guess.”
He averted his gaze for a second, then looked back at me and gave me a smile.
“Not completely, no. But I can usually do a good job of looking similar to whatever I want.”
“That is fascinating.”
“Do you want me to show you?”
I sat up, filled with curiosity. “Yes, please.”
“Well, what do you want me to turn into, Thea?”
“Not turn into. Just... maybe become a little more... human?”