Chapter 21
21
The night is too kind as I enter the forest. Boughs bend to me; moss and ferns seem to follow my passage as I go deeper into shadow. If you’re going to do it, I think, just get it over with. Envelop me in leaves and roots, grow a garden in my lungs until they burst, until my ribcage springs open, and all over me are flowers.
Just do it then .
But the forest only seems to want to watch me and touch me, nothing more. The spray of flowers that engulfed Ben’s hand do not come for me. There is no torment of knotted vines to hold me captive, like Julian.
Because of that — or in spite of it — I’m enraged. I slam through the underbrush with a sense of vengeance, bitter and full of ire, hating these plants that want me and shun me, these green things that would consume my friends but not me. And my mother’s walkie, the hidden tape lying untouched, waiting for me. What is it? A sign? A curse? A daughter’s obligation?
Wherever the forest leads me, I almost don’t want to see it. I know I have to, that there’s no avoiding it. I can’t keep denying the fact that I came here for this. To answer the questions my mother never could. I always used to see a hole in the puzzle in her harrowed gaze, a missing piece. Before her death, even she didn’t know what became of her team. Maybe she did, once, but over the years, she’d cut it all out, never to be recovered.
Maybe she’d hoped, despite herself, that I’d come and fill in the gaps.
I’m getting close to the waterfall. I can hear its distant roar. Just a few more minutes, and I’ll be there. My boots fall heavy on dark soil, my fingers brushing lichen-crusted bark as I pass.
And when I finally reach it, the fall is just as I remember. Unbidden, lines from a poem unfurl in my memory, one my mother used to recite. I murmur it aloud. “Like a downward smoke, the slender stream…” I move toward the waterfall until I’m damp with it, “along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.”
I hook a hand on one of the mossy ledges, pulling myself up.
I follow the handholds alongside the waterfall, until they curve inward along the rock face, closer to the plunging water. And as I come up to the smoke-like falls, I see it: a dark space between the falling water and the outcropping, just large enough for someone to squeeze through.
“What did you put there?” I ask the night.
It’s only a moment’s work, a stretch of muscle and a grip of hands and fingers, before I’m ducking through the dark opening. My left arm and some of my hair get wet, but it’s not as cold as I’d expected.
I find myself on my hands and knees in a damp cave. I fucked up not bringing a light with me. I press a button on my watch, and the screen glows white, just bright enough to see shapes against the darkness. My chest is tight with anticipation and dread. Something’s here. Waiting for me.
I shuffle forward on my knees until I see something resolve before me: shapes on the ground.
My watch screen goes dark, and I’m plunged into blackness.
Holding my breath, as if the dark is toxic to inhale, I press the button. My watch lights up again, and I breathe in. I reach for the first item in the cave, a shapeless lump. My fingers close over soft fabric. Holding up my watch to the textile, I see that it’s a jacket, similar to my team’s utility uniform.
An unavoidable knowing clamors at my throat, threatening to choke me.
This is my mother’s jacket.
I turn it over with one hand, the other angling my watch like a sad little flashlight. And there they are — her identifying initials: V.J. She left this here deliberately. She climbed up those moss-wet rocks, shimmied into this space, and laid out these items. For me.
Who else?
A heavy inevitability settles in my gut. I put on the jacket. I zip it up and button the collar at my chin. I prod my watch, so the screen stays on, and reach for the other shape in the dark.
My fingers touch something smooth and angular. A box. I pry it open, and inside is a spiral notebook. I pull it out, glance at the front cover, and see that it’s blank. On the first page, barely legible in the low light, a scribble of a name: Virginia Jones.
“Is this her fucking diary?” I breathe, the realization hitting me like a brick. Is this what I’ve been craving for so long? What everyone on Earth wished they had but could never get, no matter how far they pushed her in interviews? The most private thoughts of a woman whose world was ending?
My watch screen flickers out. I can’t read this here; I have to get back to camp. I curse myself again for not bothering to bring a flashlight and shove the notebook into the pocket of my mother’s jacket. Methodically, slowly, I begin to back out of the tiny cave, back into the open air.
I’m halfway down the mossy outcropping when I hear someone crashing through the forest.
Do I hear him? Or do I feel him approach? His boots on scattered leaves and loam, his hands brushing ferns, his shoulder passing close to a tree. My breath hitches as he pauses, leaning a palm on a tree trunk.
No, don’t touch it. Don’t let it come for you. I need you here, with me.
He keeps going, leaving the tree bereft.
As I drop to the ground and turn, I see him enter the glade. He looks haunted, like there’s a world of weight on his shoulders. And when he sees me, it’s like he believes, somehow, that I might lighten that weight. I would do anything to make that true.
It’s then that I notice what he’s carrying under his arm. A bundle of clothes. Our gazes meet.
“Where did you get those?” I ask.
His jaw tightens. “What the fuck are you doing out here alone again?”
I falter, taking a step toward him. “Are those Darcie’s clothes?”
“It’s too dangerous to be out alone.”
“I should tell you the same! You went and looked for her, didn’t you?”
He hesitates, looks away. Then he nods. “I had her location, Jones. I had to. Didn’t think it would take long. I found these by the river. Her clothes, her walkie. All her stuff.” He takes a breath, meeting my gaze again, and I hold it, knowing he needs whatever strength I can give him right now. Just like I need his. “She’s gone,” he continues. “Missing. There’s no trace of her. I called for her for ages, searched all around, but I think… I think maybe she drowned.”
Bile rises in my throat, and I swallow it down, painful and sour. She didn’t . “We don’t know that.” It’s a platitude, almost worse than if I’d stayed silent. But I don’t know what else to say, how to comfort him, how to make this better when all I can see is the image of her under the water as I climaxed in the plain, of her sinking into the riverbed. Being swallowed up.
I choke on a dry sob.
“Come here,” Ben murmurs, striding over to me. He wraps me in his strong arms. His gentleness feels wrong now, a sweetness just for me that I don’t deserve. “It’s okay,” he says, his breath warming my neck. He kisses me there, burying his hand in my hair. I notice belatedly that he’s dropped Darcie’s clothes, letting them fall thoughtlessly to the forest floor.
I don’t have to look to know that his pupils are dilated again. He’s already intoxicated by the forest. I could stop him, before I, too, fall helpless to it. Darcie is gone. Julian is missing.
I should stop Ben.
But his mouth insists, pressing hungrily into my skin. His hands demand, pulling my hair and seeking lower. I’m not that strong. I, too, need comfort. I, too, need to be found.
I take his head in my hands and make him face me. He looks at me through heavy-lidded eyes, lips parted, soft, and malleable. Reverence radiates like heat from his body. I pull him in to kiss me and his eyes flutter closed.
His body may be reverent, but his mouth is sinful. As soon as I part my lips to deepen the kiss, he groans, hands at my hips, and slams me into him like he’s afraid I’ll disappear. His fingers dig grooves into my sides. I want him to kiss me until the forest grows over us and around us, absorbing and consuming.
He kneels before me, hands running down my sides, squeezing my ass, the backs of my thighs. His hands are burning. When he looks up at me, he’s worshipful. He’s overflowing with want. A feral glint flames in his darkened eyes.
“May I?” he asks, breathless.
I don’t know what he wants, but I grant it. I’d give him anything. He can take me however he likes. Because I know he’s mine.
I nod, and he groans a searing breath against my inner thigh.
Then, frantic, fumbling, he unzips my pants. Pulls them down just enough to gain purchase on my bare thighs, his thumbs digging in deep. I’m already wet for him, and I’m sure he knows it. He kisses me over my soaked panties and groans.
“Jones, you’re unbelievable…”
The telltale ache builds in my core. The sight of him there, kneeling before me, his knees in the black soil, his rough hands on my tender skin, drives me to the edge. Desire nearly drowns me.
“Ben, please .” I don’t even know what I’m begging for.
“Whatever you want,” he says, “I’ll give it to you.”
Then he presses the lightest, faintest kiss to my core. I almost combust, right then and there. He hooks two fingers over my panties and slides them down so slowly I could die in the time it takes him to get them out of the way. It should be awkward; we should be giggling, tripping over our half-shed clothes in the forest, unable to remove our boots. Instead, this feels holy, exquisite in its imperfection.
I close my eyes and breathe deep, wanting this moment with Ben to last forever. The trees, I imagine, bend down to watch. The vines begin to uncoil, to hesitantly reach for us with leafy tendrils.
Ben finally kisses me, an almost chaste press of his lips to my aching cunt. An overwhelming pleasure rolls through me, and I have to bite my lip to near-bleeding to stop the orgasm.
Not yet . I want to draw this out as long as I can. I want to beg him for it.
He kisses me again, slower this time, his tongue flicking out to taste me, and I sob at the perfect sensation. My hips jerk without my permission.
“Shh, be patient,” Ben murmurs, his deep voice vibrating to my core. I roll my hips slowly as he devours me with mouth and tongue. He knows just when to apply pressure, when to pull away. It’s like he can read my mind. Like we’re one organism, a flawless creature built for pleasure and desire.
“Good girl,” he rumbles. “I can feel you. You’re close.”
I moan, arching my back. Something soft and cool caresses my breast, tickling my nipple. Something else wraps around my waist, holding me upright. I gasp at the tender touches, my breath coming in shallow gasps. The ache grows heavy, heavy. I am coming undone. Ben’s mouth is relentless, both gentle and violent.
“Look at me, Jones.” He loves saying that.
But I almost don’t want to. I almost want to come apart at the seams and join with the wind, I want to sink and sink into the soil like Darcie, forever drenched in the endless pleasure of the Planet. But Ben gave an order.
Eyelids fluttering, I look down.
My breath catches. Vines wrap around my torso, gentle, slowly snaking, titillating in their passage. Leaves brush my nipples. The forest has me in its lush embrace. I should be terrified. I should break free, take Ben, and run, back to the shuttle, back to our ship, away from this place forever.
But—
Ben gazes up at me from his place of worship. There’s nothing but adoration in his eyes. He sees the vines and doesn’t care. He’s not afraid.
“There you are,” he murmurs. “You were somewhere else. Stay with me.”
And then he grips my thighs so hard I know he’ll leave bruises. Holding me firmly in place, his tongue undoes me. I’m at the brink, fingers buried in his hair, sobbing with need, when he clamps down on my clit, sucking, holding pressure there, and I am finally free. Waves of perfect ecstasy roll through me, and I close my eyes.
A vine tendril slides down my belly, curling against me, delving, until it joins Ben’s tongue between my thighs. The pressure is immense, the titillation a hundred times greater than in the plain. It’s like I can feel myself from within and without — I am both the vine and my tight wet cunt; I am Ben’s tongue, working me to oblivion.
I cry out, my orgasm crashing through me like a dark ocean wave. Like inevitability. Like the sweep of an infinite cosmos.
Waves of euphoria flow through me and finally ebb.
My eyes fly open, the aftershocks of my orgasm stifling and dying. My cheeks are wet with tears. I try to catch my breath, to look down at Ben, but something’s holding me. Something’s wrapped around my throat. My pleasure curdles to panic as I claw, frantic, at the cords across my neck. The vines that looped around my torso, squeezing my breasts, choking me so faintly it almost felt good .
“Ben?” I cry out, realizing he’s been quiet. I no longer feel his mouth on me, or his tongue inside me. There are only vines and leaves. I gasp, a choked sob, wrenching the plants from inside me. They’re wet with my cum, gleaming in the darkness. I fling them from me.
“Ben!” I shout again, my voice hoarse.
I rip the last of the vines from my body, violently, until I’m free.
But the fleeting relief dissipates the moment I look down at the form at my feet: A kneeling body, Ben’s body. But it’s only a shape, a form. He’s no longer visible beneath the thick, undulating greenery. There are vines, flowers, a knot of green and vibrant growth where he should be. It’s as if a small forest leapt up all around him. Squeezing him. Smothering him.