Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nine days had passed since Jax brought Macy to the cave.
Nine days of eating nothing but fish and Halorian lobsters.
She was grateful that he provided food, but she was beginning to feel the effects of an all-meat diet.
Her body needed variety, needed nutrients she could only get from plants, but she wasn’t sure how to explain it to him.
She needed to go to land.
Five days ago, their first trip into the ocean had marked the turning point in their relationship.
Conversation flowed between them easily, now; they enjoyed one another’s company.
Macy eagerly anticipated their trips, and her fear diminished with each one.
The two of them grew a little closer every day.
But they hadn’t kissed again.
In fact, Jax seemed very careful about physical contact between them.
He took her hand when she offered it, but whenever he took her through the tunnel, he’d release her immediately after emerging and put distance between them.
If she hadn’t caught him staring at her with open want on several occasions, she might have thought their moments of passion figments of her imagination.
She craved contact with him, and used any excuse to have it — the accidental brush of her hand against his, having him hold her as they passed through the tunnel, or sliding a little closer to him at night in the hope that one of his tentacles would settle over her as they slept.
Her mind returned to their kiss often; she wanted to relive it. What would have happened, had he not pulled away? How much further might they have gone?
Macy glanced down at the wadded shirt between her hands, still held beneath the waterfall. She might’ve scrubbed it twice without realizing while she’d been lost in thought; ever since Jax asked her about dreams, she’d caught herself daydreaming with increasing frequency.
Her daydreams usually involved Jax.
Pulling her arms back, she wrung the shirt out and spread it on the dry section of the ledge in the sunlight. None of the clothing would be truly clean without soap, but this was better than nothing.
She looked over her shoulder. Jax was stacking a fresh pile of driftwood beside her tent. They’d discovered, through trial and error, that a few of the containers were waterproof when sealed. He’d used them to gather more dry fuel for her fires.
Her eyes dipped to watch the play of muscles along his shoulders and back. She’d felt their movement beneath her palm, and longed to feel it again; all she could do now was look away and suffer through her yearning.
After cleaning the rest of the clothes and laying them to dry, she returned to the island.
“Jax?”
He turned, and his muscles shifted again, and she still couldn’t touch. “Yes?”
“I need to go onto land.” There. She’d said it.
“For what?” His tone and expression were free of the suspicion she’d expected.
She sat down on one of the overturned crates. “Do you remember when I told you that humans ate plants?”
“A difficult thing to forget.”
Macy smiled; they both ate things that disgusted the other. “Well, I haven’t had any, and I kind of need to.”
“Have I not been bringing enough food?” he asked, brow creased.
“You have, but I need more than meat. Humans need a variety of nutrients, and some of those nutrients come from plants.”
He removed the last piece of wood from the container, added it to the pile, and turned to face her fully. “If you say you need them, we will go and find what you require.”
Macy lifted her eyebrows. “You do realize we will have to go inland?”
Jax nodded and brushed his hands together, wiping away sand and debris. “You will be our guide.”
“I could go alone if you want to remain near the water.”
“I do not know the dangers on land, but I’m sure there are many. I cannot leave you alone. It will be…an adventure.” Despite his serious tone, his eyes lit up.
“Yeah,” she said, grinning, “it will be.”
Macy removed her mask as she walked up the beach. Her body felt heavy after leaving the water, turning the trip across the sand into a trudge. Was this what Jax experienced when he went onto land?
He followed her with an empty container in his arms, leaving wide, confused tracks in his wake. Had she not known their source, she might’ve guessed they’d been left by some massive sea serpent.
The beach continued for another nine or ten meters before giving way to rockier ground; to either side, those rocks grew into the seaside cliffs dominating most of the coastline, but here they were tame enough to cross.
The thick jungle vegetation was visible just beyond — dark green, violet, and crimson growth. Just like the woods around The Watch.
Tugging her hood down, Macy turned to Jax. “If we’re lucky, we won’t have to go too far inland.”
Out in the sunlight, the gray of his skin was muted, but he displayed no discomfort. “I’ll follow wherever you lead, Macy.”
They made their way over sand and stone until they reached the first vegetation — tendrils of crimson creeper and short stalks of capeweed with bowl-shaped, indigo leaves. She glanced back at Jax; he’d slowed amidst the plants, his expression drawn.
“This feels strange,” he said.
“Good strange or bad strange?” Macy brushed aside a red vine as she reached the taller vegetation.
“For now, just strange. And the taste… You do not eat these plants, do you?”
“No, I don’t. But the capeweed — the little blue ones — make good dyes.”
He was silent for a time; leaves rustled and crunched with their passage, and the waves sighed against the shore behind them.
“Do you have another meaning for that word?” he asked.
“Which word?”
“Dyes.”
“Dyes are mixtures that can be used to change the color of fabric or make paint. A lot of them can be extracted from plants.”
“What about the red plants?”
Macy wrinkled her nose. If she never had to tear up another crimson creeper, she could die happy. “No. Even though their pigment is bright, it changes to a muddy brown when you try to distill it, and it stinks.”
The shadows thickened as Jax and Macy ventured farther into the jungle, the thickening canopy blocking out more of the sunlight.
She quieted, splitting her attention between the search for edible plants and the search for safe passage.
She pointed out poisonous vegetation to Jax, warning him to keep away, and avoided the worst of the tangled roots and uneven ground as best she could.
Macy stopped when she spotted something familiar up ahead — a plant with huge, layered green leaves at its base.
The leaves narrowed toward their tops, and a two-meter-long stalk jutted from their center, with several smaller, thorn-like protrusions toward its tip.
Four tendrils hung from the end, glistening with some sort of nectar.
“Do you see that one? It’s a snatcher.”
“A snatcher?” Jax furrowed his brow.
“Watch.” Macy crouched and snapped a branch off a nearby bush. When she stood, she threw the branch as hard as she could. It landed in the undergrowth in front of the snatcher.
The stalk snapped down — almost matching the speed she’d seen from Jax underwater — and the thorns turned inward, catching the branch and piercing several fallen leaves.
The tendrils at the end of the stalk had retracted.
After a few moments, the thorns parted again, and the stalk straightened.
Slowly, the tendrils extended, dangling their beads of nectar.
“How much else is like that up here?” Jax swept his eyes over their surroundings warily.
“There are a few different species of carnivorous plant native to Halora. That one’s the most dangerous. If it doesn’t get enough sustenance, it can actually uproot and drag itself to a new hunting ground.”
Jax frowned and moved closer, positioning himself between Macy and the snatcher. One of his tentacles curled briefly around her calf. “I will remain watchful.”
They continued onward until Macy found thick shoots of naba growing around the base of a tree.
She drew her knife and cut them into small enough pieces to lay in the container.
Rather than store the last one, she split it down the middle and scooped out a chunk of its spongy center.
She stuck it in her mouth and moaned, squeezing her eyes shut at the sweet burst of juice.
“So good. Here,” she said, offering a piece to Jax. “Try it.”
“I have tried cooked meat. Let that be enough for now.”
“Please?”
His eyes lifted from the naba to meet her gaze, and he hesitated, frowning. “You need it, Macy, not me.”
“You’re not curious at all? Where’s that sense of adventure, Jax?”
“If I eat this…plant, and it makes me sick, what then?”
Macy lowered her hand. “I…didn’t think of that.”
“It is an experience I will survive without knowing,” he said gently, adjusting his hold on the container.
After eating the remainder of the open naba, she collected a few more stalks and led Jax onward. She found some bitterstock vegetables — which tasted exactly as the name implied — soon after. Though she didn’t want to eat them, they were nutritious, and she couldn’t afford pickiness.
“Oh, look!” Macy exclaimed, pointing up above their heads. The branches of a nearby tree were laden with bunches of winefruit — round, violet-skinned fruits with pulpy centers. “Could you pick those?”
He eyed her skeptically, set the container on the ground, and rose up on his tentacles. Reaching over his head, he tore down a cluster of fruit. “What are these?”
“Winefruit. You peel the skin and eat the inside.”
“The same way you remove the meat from inside a hard-shell?”
She smiled and plucked the individual fruits off the branch when he held them to her, stacking them in the container. “Yeah, kind of. They use them in The Watch to make wine, which is a strong, sweet drink that makes you…feel and act differently if you drink too much.”
“Different how?”