Chapter 14
14
I should go with her. If I don’t, Ben will be pissed. And I don’t want him to reprimand me, least of all because I’m afraid I might enjoy it. I should trail after Darcie like a kicked dog and hope to God she forgives me. Because that attack was well below the belt, and I knew it. My mom is one thing, but the shit Darcie went through… it’s utterly another. I know what that asshole did to her. She’s not a murderer. She defended herself. The judge agreed.
But the way she looked at me was terrifying. For the first time, I was afraid of her.
I find myself wandering deeper into the forest.
It isn’t a conscious decision, but it feels like the right thing to do. Maybe it’s Darcie’s interrogation, but I feel close to my mother here. Like I can hear her voice in the faintly rustling leaves.
So I follow the memory of her, this woman who said she loved me so deeply but still couldn’t make me into a whole person. There has always been something missing in me. She never allowed me to know my father, whoever he was. She never opened up to me. And so, here I am, seeking whatever she might give me with her memory, in this distant place where her life fell apart.
There are boulders and jutting bits of rock and earth all around now, the forest is getting harder to navigate the deeper I traverse.
I hear it before I see it, a low roar in the distance. A waterfall. It has to be.
Blessed with this new destination, I pick up my pace. And when I come around a moss-coated outcropping, there it is. Water plunges over the lip of drenched dark stone, frothy white, into an ice-cold stream below. I imagine glaciers feeding this waterfall, just like the river in the plain.
It’s just a waterfall. It’s just a forest. But I can’t stop thinking about the fact that my mother was here once, standing right here, watching the same falls. It’s so lovely. It looks like the sort of thing I’d cut out of an old history book as a kid, pinning to my wall, a shrine to incandescent beauty long past.
I breathe deeply, inhaling the thick air. It’s different here than in the plain. The air is closer, almost palpable. There’s a sense of unreality. The rush of water the only sound.
I needed this — to be alone, away from the others. I don’t want to admit it to myself, but each of Darcie’s questions felt like a knife between the shoulder blades. My mother wouldn’t have hurt anyone. Couldn’t have. Especially not Andrews.
I puff out a frustrated breath.
I can’t let Darcie get to me. I’m just going to sit here and enjoy the waterfall, take some samples, and head back to camp. If I’m lucky, I’ll make it back in time for lunch.
I settle myself on a moss-covered rock and watch.
The fall cascades down from a stone outcropping, around which the forest climbs upward toward snowy peaks. Our camp is at the foot of the mountains, their slopes purple-pale against the sky, but I can’t see them now through the trees.
I think I could climb up there, to the top of the falls. There are uneven indentations, waterlogged ledges that might serve as makeshift steps. I see myself standing, moving to the rising land, the falling water. I see myself there, becoming part of the ragged landscape with every step, every press of skin against rock and water and moss, every footfall over lichen and slate.
A shiver runs up my spine.
The flutter of leaves catches my eye. I reach for a nearby fern, entranced by its beauty. Goosebumps rise on my skin, and warmth pools in my belly. I hold my palm out and upward, so the leaf lies gently flat for me to inspect. This isn’t a species of fern I’m familiar with — of course it isn’t — but it looks similar enough to Earth’s ancient ferns that I’m a little taken aback. Everything here is similar to Earth. It’s as if someone made a carbon copy of our planet and posted it up somewhere far away, with unnoticed differentiations.
I scan the fern with a critical eye and notice something strange. Strange, but exquisite. There are no imperfections here. No rips or holes from insects, no missing fronds, no pockmarks. It is exactly symmetrical. Every aspect of the fern is utterly pristine. I reach for another frond, delicately spreading it across my palm. It’s the same. This is a perfect, impossible thing.
As I run my finger along the leaf, the hairs on my arm rise. The warmth in my belly burns hot, clenching at my core. I gasp at the sudden pleasure.
Jesus, am I aroused by a flawless example of botanical excellence? No, it’s something else. Something more. I’m not thinking about sex. I didn’t mean to feel that way.
Standing, I leave the fern and move to the nearest tree. Its trunk is thick, strong, and silvery. Its leaves hang long and tangled, silver-green in the shady wood. Will this tree, too, be perfect?
Delicate, almost hesitant, I lay my palm on the cool bark. I can feel the tree’s life pulsing beneath my skin. The bark is smooth, but when I run a finger along it, I find that there are raised striations, and as I caress the tree so slowly… that latent pleasure unfurls inside me.
What does it mean?
I press my other hand to the tree. I study the bark closely. I don’t know trees as well as I do their smaller cousins, but I do know that this is another perfect specimen. The almost invisible grooves in its trunk are regular, repeated, as if built by some cosmic hand.
It’s stunning. I’m overwhelmed by it, this place. The grass must be the same. And the flowers that bloom in bursts throughout the plain. Biology doesn’t work like this, it simply doesn’t. At least, not on Earth.
I run my fingers down the tree’s silvery trunk.
God . I arch my back at the sudden rush of sensation. My nipples peak. My breath grows shallow.
A twig snaps behind me.
I imagine his breath, a warm shiver across my exposed neck. I imagine drawing him into me, letting him touch me like I caressed the tree, the fern. I know it’s him. I can hear him breathing. I feel his footfalls. The brush of his knuckles against the waving ferns.
I turn.
“Jones, what the hell are you doing out here alone?”
Ben’s exasperation is on full display, and just for me. His chest rises and falls, his breathing just as shallow as mine. He hurried to get here. Maybe even ran.
“Sorry.” I don’t mean it. Not really. I like him coming here to retrieve me. I like him angry with me.
“Sorry? That’s all?” He rubs a hand down his face. “Jones, learn to pick up your radio for once. I was worried.”
My heart threatens to crack open and spill. “You were?”
He takes a step toward me. “Yes, I was.”
The forest pulses through me, my skin tingling with its need. “Why?”
Ben comes up to me, crowds into my space, and reaches for my walkie. He makes a sound of deep disapproval, and there’s a crackle from the device. Glaring at me through a spray of lashes, he presses on his own radio. “You turned off your goddamn walkie,” he growls.
You turned off your goddamn walkie .
His voice, doubled, a split second delayed, rumbles from my own device.
He’s still incredibly close. Is he thinking about last night? I am.
“I forgot.” I haven’t thought about my walkie at all, frankly. I’ve been distracted.
“I know I’m not your superior officer,” he says, “but you can’t just disregard the rules I put in place for safety reasons.” He hasn’t made a move to create space between us, and neither will I. His voice is low, gruff. His gaze flickers down, infinitesimally, to my mouth.
I remember his fingers deftly unzipping my pants.
“You’re right, you’re not my superior officer.”
The forest wraps languid arms around me, the sensual rise of pollen from a jostled bloom, the delicate touch of a leaf against skin, the stolid trees throbbing with eager life. Breaths fill heavy lungs.
“But you are under my protection.” Ben angles toward me, almost imperceptibly, his body warming me with its proximity.
“Protection from what?” Can he feel it? The gasp of this place, the indrawn breath and sultry moan? The prickling skin and the heightened senses? Distantly, almost with a sense of disbelief, I realize I’ve never been so turned on. Last night was nothing compared to this. I’m a powder keg rigged to blow. If he so much as looks at me a certain way, I’ll—
“This place,” he answers. His eyes are on my lips again. “The Planet.”
I feel wholly detached from my body, and yet, every part of me is aflame, and I’m acutely aware of it. I’m not like this. I don’t come onto people when I’m sober, when I’m working. Let alone Ben, who agreed we should keep this professional.
I lift my chin. “I don’t need your protection.”
He eyes me hazily, like he’s drunk on this too. And he’s still so close to me, intimately so. He hasn’t moved away, hasn’t put a workplace-appropriate distance between us. His jaw muscle tenses. “I’m the one who decides that. Just… don’t be reckless.”
What if you need protecting from me? I think nonsensically. But he wouldn’t. He doesn’t. I want him in the purest way, all of him, given to me freely.
I realize I can sense a fern as it curves over his boot, caressing his ankle. I suck in a sharp breath. The fern’s leaves vibrate with want, asking him to explore the forest. Skin to skin. The forest is a quivering, desirous thing. I want him so badly.
He meets my gaze, disarmed, questioning but open. Trusting. Like he sees what I want, and he’ll let me have it. His boot scrapes against an exposed root as he shifts his weight. He’s warm and solid, and I want him, and the Planet wants him, and I’ve run out of reasons to say no.
Don’t be reckless .
Too late.
I grab him by the collar. I lift myself up to my toes. He was already there, inches away. Our noses brush. I sigh, a soft exhalation of relief, and brush my lips to his.
There is a frozen hush. As if every leaf and frond and branch, the waterfall, the wind itself, has inhaled and held their breath.
Ben is warm and solid and rough; his lightly stubbled jaw against my skin sends a fresh shock of desire to my core. I hold him here, suddenly desperate, knowing he might bolt, might push me away, might change his mind.
It’s not a kiss, it’s a question. A halting, eager plea. My eyes are shut tight, my fingers white-knuckling in his collar, our lips pressed together in a chaste softness.
The forest exhales.
And Ben comes to life.